Nov. 26: I can’t write this letter because I’m reading Michael Sullivan’s latest, and I am not putting it down.

Nov. 29: National Swearing Day dictates that the family finds the tree, cuts the tree, sets up the tree, decorates the tree, and then collapses by the tree. It’s tradition.

Dec 3: I’m finishing The Art of Racing in the Rain and I need to cry all the tears.

Dec. 4-10: I am making poor decisions about Christmas rom-coms on Kindle Unlimited.

Dec. 6-16: I’ve been working with a real estate lawyer and I’ve temporarily lost my humanity… and writing style.

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Dearest Friends and Family,

I am running out of both excuses and time, as I self-inflict my annual reframing of the past year to my own satisfaction.

Beloveds, my maternity leave had her 18^th birthday this year! I tried to celebrate that I now have two kids and a grown up, but Kyla’s look of horror of not being a kid anymore stopped me quickly. We celebrated her adult responsibilities with an RV trip to Silverwood Theme Park. She was officially diagnosed with mild autism last winter, which stopped her not at all in continuing to straddle both high school and community college, working the same job for four years, and generally adulting. She still loves metal design and is figuring out how to balance that with earning a living wage someday. (Believe you me, Kyla’s mother has been very annoying about that.) I breathlessly anticipate next year’s newsletter so I know what she’s doing after graduation.  

When Piper turned 16, she got her driver’s license, was nearly eaten by a camel, and kissed an alpaca. These are mostly unrelated, but for someone who sleeps like (and with) a cat, she leads a fairly interesting life. Piper gave all of us a rough spring and summer with numerous and inconvenient medical therapies. Once we got back to school, the appointments became even more onerous. After one that was book-ended by Seattle rush hour traffic, I told her that if she was cured, we could stop all the appointments. Before I even finished, she threw her hands in the air, and declared in her most chipper voice, “I’m CURED!”. And honestly, it’s been easy since then. We have finally found the payoff of raising a very stubborn and determined changeling.

Wes is almost 15!! That is not a “can you believe my baby is almost in driver’s ed?” wonderment. That is Dwayne and me happy-dancing that he is nearly not 14. For those who followed us in 2022, Piper was 14 on our Big World Adventure. This household is almost done with fourteen-year-olds.[1] In addition to virtual-reality-video-game-life, Wes continues building an incredible machine body that lifts weights, rock climbs like it’s a horizontal surface, and my proudest moment, learned to front flip, which is probably not surprising for a kid who learned to walk on a trampoline. (After he first learned to trampoline on my bladder.) It was hilarious when he grew taller than his sisters, not so funny when he shot past me, mildly amusing when he started looking down on his beloved Papa, and terrifying when he could outlift him.

This is my Golden Year. Not only did I turn 50 last month, but all three kids (ahem, both kids and my grown child) are in high school together. I love having only one PTSA in my life, and it’s always fun to sub at their school. My goal was to read 180 books this year, so unless I can read twenty more books in the next two weeks, I’ll maintain my perfect not-meeting-goals streak. I regularly horrify myself by hunting down cat pee in the dark with a blacklight and opening Piper’s bedroom door. Also, I got to remodel the kids’ bathroom this year. Twice.[2]

Dwayne looks back on this year and can’t remember doing any big projects. That could be his turning 50 this year[3] or he’s still in the computer modeling stage of the projects he wants to do. Last April, he and a friend flew to Tennessee to see the eclipse. I tagged along because I love new city adventures astrophysics, and I was pleased when I was able to spend the afternoon reading in the sun watching the moon. He is a month away from his 28^th Microsoft anniversary, and will soon have three kids in college, or jail, so he’s not retiring yet.

I think of this year as another year of not traveling, but pictures prove otherwise. Dwayne and I celebrated a friend’s birthday in Victoria, BC, traveled separately to family in CA and OR, camped in the different corners of WA and ID, embraced the Parthenon replica in Nashville, and tramped all over San Juan Island. In August, Dwayne and I took the kids to NYC for our Big Apple adventure. Piper and I saw lots of shows and only a fraction of what we wanted. Kyla joined us for all the museums, and Wes walked for miles to earn gaming time back at the flat. New York is surreal. We found ourselves getting gelato in Times Square at 11pm on a Saturday night after seeing The Lion King, and none of the introverts were freaking out, in spite of being surrounded by the biggest crowds of our life.

Less fun, we broke our 12-year 4^th of July at the cabin streak and changed plans for others when all five of us got COVID for the first time this summer. It was like watching a tidal wave come for me in slo-mo while I scurried to get groceries, medicines, and tests before I succumbed last.

We have not done well with small, adorable animals in the past (Exhibit A: Hamsters 1-3, and all cats before Timmy and Rosie), so it gives my family sincere pleasure that Nugget the Bearded Dragon still lives. Piper’s emotional support reptile enjoys his pampered lifestyle and is such a blank slate that, like a good crush, thinks and says everything we wish him to, and he objects not to wearing hats as dictated by fashion and season. We wish you fun hats, too, this holiday.

Merry, Merry Everything!

Denise, with no blame to Dwayne,

Kyla (18), Piper (16) or Wes (14)

PS Damn it, I’ve finished the letter and didn’t swear or mention penises. I’ll do better in 2025.

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[1] Read that any way you want to.

[2] Query: Is breaking a wall-sized mirror seven years of regular bad luck or extra bad luck? Asking for a friend. Regardless, it was Timmy Cat’s fault.

[3] My even-keeled, easy-going, wonderful husband was a tiny bit whiny about this birthday. He is still very, very cute.

WARNING: Immature Content. Not advised for those with manners or sense.

Dear Friends and Family, 

Each year, I am overwhelmed by the enormity of distilling our year to its elements. 2023 meant that Dwayne and I now parent three teens (good), traveled only the west coast (sad), and have a new pet (mixed—we didn’t lose any of the previous ones).

A year ago, Wes was taller than only the cats. Now he looks down on both of his sisters, and I wear my poofball hair high to keep my height advantage a little longer. Wes also was our first child to break a bone in an unlucky fall at parkour[1]. However, as the child who would roller blade on my kitchen counters before he was 3 years old, the only surprise is that it took him so long. This year, he has mastered both making the ultimate grilled cheese sandwich (oh, I’m hungry just thinking of it) and sneaking in extra screen time whenever my guard is down. We alternate between butting heads and affectionate hugs. He loves his CAD classes and printing 3D models…which also involves copious amounts of screen time. And yet, somehow, our almost-14-year-old has muscles and a six-pack.

Since this letter is all about bragging rights, my teen driver has caused far more damage than your teen driver…and all while hitting stationary objects. Last summer, she fatally maimed my third longest love affair—the minivan. Kyla loves being in Running Start for her junior year, taking morning classes at community college and afternoon classes at the high school. As a calculus student, she has officially surpassed my ability to help her with math. Kyla did an outdoor adventure this summer that including hiking part of the Pacific Crest Trail and kayaking through the San Juan islands, loving everything that her siblings would hate. But her favorite thing this year was learning that the bouncing thing that she does is called stimming[2]; she now has a term to understand herself. She’s undergoing assessment to understand her neuro-diversity better, but regardless of results, she’s still going to be someone who needs multiple lifetimes to explore all her interests. This kid can do anything… except park in a small space.

The middle child, after upping her meds a bit, is actually doing really well. Piper still thinks people are generally unnecessary, but she is excellent with littles, and now babysits at the church during the week while she continues to work with the 3-year-olds on Sundays. She’s adding ceramics to her artistic skillset, and she loves doing set work for the high school theater. Piper imagines her future in a bright yellow car… to go with her sunny disposition? Putting her and Kyla’s brains together make them the duo you want to be in an escape-room with.  

Piper brought changes to the household this year when she, through clever manipulation, slide presentations, and likely out-and-out lies, convinced us to let her get a bearded dragon. And, full confession, I ♥ him! Nugget (Nugs, Nuggie) is like the grandson I’ve never had. I buy him cute outfits, I snuggle with him, I bring him treats of arugula and crickets, and he rides around on my shoulder. He’s been an emotional-support pet for Piper. In contrast, she also has Timmy, who’s my mortal enemy, or at least his penis is. Timmy cat was supposed to die earlier this year of a urethra blockage, and I have the grave marker to prove it, but he pulled through again. He’s on his 8 ½ life, and I can’t find a vet who will chop off the offending part, because his editorial peeing is just a behavior thing. I would not countenance anyone I know putting up with a cat peeing all over their house, yet, here I am with my all my cleaning supplies. Future Adult Piper, know how much I loved you by dealing with your cat…but honestly, it’s getting to be a close call.

My parents celebrated their 50^th anniversary (!) this year by renting a house for all of us in Whistler this last July. There’s 15 of us with spouses and grandchildren, and I loved our time exploring and playing together. We also got down to California to see family, and Dwayne was down more often to see his parents after his father’s health scare, and we are so grateful Dick is ending the year in far better shape than he began it.

Dwayne and my marriage turned old enough to drink this year, so we toasted it over pie. We keep trying to travel but are stymied by the extortion of the younger two to ruin any adventure for us.[3] Kyla always wants to join us but she has the busiest schedule of all. I can’t speak for Dwayne, but I am cheering on their aging progress so they can stop confounding My Plans. It will be easier to leave them when Piper gets her license and masters an alarm clock. One will happen this Valentine’s Day. The other will… well, I don’t know how to finish that sentence.

We were fortunate when Dwayne survived last winter’s rounds of tech layoffs and another re-org or two. He connects with the kids by talking STEM with Kyla, watching scary shows with Piper, and playing video games with Wes, sacrificing himself so I don’t have to.

I wasted 18 solid reading weeks to, ironically, take 3 intensive library science courses this year, mostly to keep my teaching certificate active. I can cut-and-paste my activities each year: school substitute and AirBnB host, tutor and volunteer, eye-rolling mother and smoochy wife, but I can now add that I am in the middle of the absolute fuckery of perimenopause[4], leveling up my delightful personality without, so far, decreasing my energy. I just turned 49 and have taken up something I never thought would be on the 2023 Bingo card: jogging, with the strict rule that I never have to run uphill or deny myself chocolate.

Sending this with love and hopes that 2024 brings you only good surprises and that next year’s letter doesn’t need to come with a PG-13 rating.

Happy Christmas and Merry Everything

Denise, with no blame to Dwayne, Kyla, Piper or Wes

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[1] Truthfully, an unlucky fall would have been on his head or neck. He actually did the smart thing and sacrificed his wrist. I wanted to add the x-ray to the photocard, but the “X” the bones make is a little nauseating.

[2] “Stimming” means self-stimulation, usually associated with autism. Kyla describes it as a way of venting her biggest emotions. The rest of us describe it as an earthquake. 😉

[3]Seriously, I was trying to talk them into at least a Disneyland or Universal Studies trip this Christmas and both Piper and Wes replied, “Thanks, I’d rather stay home.” I am currently unsure who birthed these children. Oh. Oh. I just realized that my younger children are basically my homebody parents. Huh.

[4] I recently met up with a friend who was on her second period of the month. I couldn’t relate, as I was on Day 17 of mine. And periods are the easy part. Fuckery, indeed, she write at 2:15am, on another night of insomnia.

Dear Family and Friends,

I am thrilled to celebrate this season where we set out a colossal kitty water bowl and then stick a tree in the middle of it. This year, after uninstalling Twitter and Instagram and still refusing to touch Facebook, I saved all my [ahem, smug] social vomiting for this annual letter, which you have full permission to toss without me ever knowing.

2022 was a big year for us! In addition to finally getting to do our Big Adventure, Dwayne celebrated 25 years at Microsoft and 20 years of marriage (to me, I think), we paid off our home of 19 years, and we haven’t misplaced any children, gladly. Or cats. Sadly.  

It was while we were in Ecuador last December that it started seeming possible, even likely, that our Try It Again Trip would happen. Even in the excitement of Quito, Dwayne and I would sometimes look at each other and mouth “six weeks”—the subtext being “we’ll need to panic soon”. And, to understate the amount of work this involved, we packed suitcases, withdrew the kids from school, and in February, flew from Seattle to shiny Dubai, where we began a 4-month journey through Africa and Europe.

Dubai is too good to be true and was a great kick off to 3 weeks in Kenya, a country with almost no Venn overlap with the UAE. We spent most of our time in Kenya safari-ing. In Nairobi, the girls adopted a baby elephant without their cats’ permission and we all took our first swim in the Indian Ocean. Then we checked off our Egypt and Jordan bucket list items, while the youngers had nearly fatal ennui at the Giza pyramids. Between Ecuador and Kenya, we straddled the equator twice—and were amused by identical scams at each.

From Jordan, Cyprus was the entrance to our exploration of the Mediterranean, which in addition to our northern African travels, gave us a touchpoint into most of the Roman Empire, through France, Spain, and Italy (with Vatican bonus). Dwayne, Kyla and I hiked the Italian Cinque Terre, where we came across the moniker “expert excursionist” that I want to adopt as a life motto. Leaving the Boot, I changed into sandals, because Slovenia, Croatia and Greece charmed my socks off! We ended by straddling Europe and Asia in Istanbul before flying home.

I am incredibly grateful that English is the most popular 2^nd language in the world; our monolingual selves were able to navigate 14 non-English speaking countries because so many others bothered to learn another language or four. This was particularly useful when Piper and Wes stopped going out with us on anything I had to label “I will enjoy this enough for the both of you”. That twinge of guilt was quickly drowned out by the realization that everyone was happier this way. Piper and Wes called a full truce when left on their own, and Piper would decide where to go and carry the money, and Wes would do all the peopley stuff.

Our Big Trip only took up one third of the year, so we’ve embarked on other adventures back home, which mostly involved regular life and avoiding positive Covid tests.

Seemingly overnight, Wes matured from an infuriating imp whose motto could have been, and I quote, “I don’t like anything” to a pleasant-ish almost-13-year-old who we love hanging out with. Before we left last winter, he enjoyed “sipsies” of Dwayne’s morning coffee. By Sicily, he was ordering his own afternoon cappuccinos. He also has turned a corner with school, as he gets himself to the bus before the rest of us are out of bed and enjoys all his classes, even recommending a book for me that he read in English. (It may, ahem, have been the first book he’s read in years. I’m glad he liked it!) He is particularly engaged in his CAD class and wants to take as many tech and parkour classes as he can. I definitely enjoy a creative Wes over a destructive one!

Piper engaged in the trip through animals and cooking classes—which still left her plenty of time while traveling for developing abject misery. She never, ever, never wants to travel again, with a tiny possible exception of another safari. Wholly unrelated, she’s 14 this year. When she gets to do what she wants, she is absurdly delightful. Fortunately for me, one of the things she wants to do is take over the cooking and baking—I stepped out of the way so quickly, a hurricane brewed in the Carolinas. She’s a freshman in high school this year and wishes homework didn’t take so much time away from crocheting riveting hats for our gargoyle, Ernie. In addition to cooking and crafting, Piper has found a calling for volunteering in the 3’s Sunday school class at church.

If Piper is the one we broke on the trip, Kyla is the one who thrived. She joined Dwayne and me on almost all the tours and explorations, and thanks to paying attention in all her classes, could actually tell me the what and why of what we saw. She’s also the one who will always jump into any blue lagoon with me. As Kyla points out, you won’t remember tomorrow how cold you were today. She is my favorite let’s-do-something-stupid adventure buddy. From berry picking to advanced math, and metal design to Middle Eastern desserts, Kyla is like Dwayne in that she will need several lifetimes to explore all the things that interest her. One of her (and everyone else’s!) favorite things about this year was having Cousin Esther stay with us for the summer. 

If Dwayne ever leaves me, it will be for an older model, made of marble, mortar, and generous arches. This summer, he did a drone survey of our property that sounds expensive for our future. He was inspired by Greek temples, Roman arches and fountain extravaganzas. I’m crossing fingers that the project stays in the drafting phase indefinitely, but it was a known risk when we traveled to witness what scheming men with slave labor could accomplish architecturally. 

Wes called me “Momstrosity” this year and of all the labels I have—substitute, small business owner, tutor, volunteer—this one is my favorite. Not because I love my kids that much, but because it’s a particularly clever wordplay. Ah, Wes gets me, he really gets me. More than reading (and apparently my family), I love adventuring. Dwayne and I could have lived out of our luggage for many more months. So it was quite the wake-up call to return home and have two properties and an RV with 4 months of backlogged maintenance needing me–and a minivan that promptly fell apart when I washed it for the first time in 3 years, proving my hypothesis that it is held together with love and dirt. I embrace it all for this age and stage, but someday I will own so little that I can live large. In the meantime, I adorably spreadsheet all the books I read (see blog for my ’22 favorites), play, and work, and dearly love all the peopley parts of my life, of which you, dear reader, are one.   

Happy Christmas and Merry Everything!

Denise, for Dwayne, Kyla, Piper, Wes

Ornaments broken, books overdue,
Me: “But did you mean NOT to?”
Salads uneaten, you get the gist.
Oops! We’re all on the naughty list.

December 4-12, 2018 seriously

Dear Friends and Family,

I spent an embarrassing amount of time and creative effort on that poem, and I’m afraid I have nothing left but unjustified optimism that that I can pull off the annual epistle.

This year has been especially enjoyable for me, though I should hesitate to speak for the (oh, crap—Kyla just got lost on the ferry, and I had to engage the crew to find her. Back safely now). Restart. You know, “enjoyable” is probably inversely proportional—for me—on how many brains I need to be the motherboard for at a time. I can picture the faces of those nodding in agreement.

Wesley, being youngest, is the one most plugged into the motherboard. The youngers often must get themselves to school, and he’s the one most likely to cheerfully ride his bike to school, helmet on, sometimes even with a backpack and lunch! He has much freedom to make mistakes, and we’re waiting for the “and learn from them” to kick in. To be fair, he only blew up one coin in a light socket this year so maybe learning is happening. Or maybe the key to learning is administering electrical shocks. It’s difficult to discern the correct lesson here. One of my best moments this year was comfortably reading in my garden hammock chair when I was startled by a noise—Wesley wearing roller blades and a look of pure elation, zooming by riding the gas-powered leaf blower like a quidditch broomstick.

Being 70% cat, Piper should be practicing much better hygiene; though to give her credit, she doesn’t randomly vomit on the stairs. Drat—as soon as I read that line to her, she quacked. Pick a species, Pipes! She has a small menagerie that, surprise, she cares for more than she takes care of (said parents of any child, ever). Piper had a breakthrough this year with sibling relationships when, after another tedious tantrum, I dropped her off at Dwayne’s work while I took her siblings to the cabin for a few days. Piper is not one to show weakness, and she gave no indication that going to management meetings was anything but her preferred choice, but we’ve had a significantly more peaceful household since that episode. She still helps my dad bottle wine whenever she can, and it was on her birthday that we all saw Hamilton in Seattle. One of her recent highlights is that she entered a Scholastic name-the-5^th-grade-reading-buddy contest and won! Both Piper and her teacher got their own book box and each classmate got a gecko stuffy as long as your arm. Piper is shy, and most people don’t get to know her well, but if you’ll believe her mother, she’s sugar and spice and with a shot of rum, like her favorite Christmas cookies.

When I grow up, I need to be more like Kyla is at twelve, who really may not need her mother very much, other than ferry finding. I’m still drooling into my pillow when she wakes herself up and gets ready for the school day, packing herself a healthy lunch and gathering her homework, then reminds me to take her to the bus on time. Things that have come out of her mouth this year: “Sorry, Mom, I’m still working on my homework and I don’t want to leave for the cabin until it’s all done so I can enjoy my weekend.” “I’ll clean the kitchen tonight. Dad did the cooking, and Mom already worked enough today.” “Wesley can come snuggle with me when I’m done reading.” Creepy, huh? If the Stepfords had children, this one landed in my nest. She does have plenty of faults—now that she’s grown almost to my height, we can share clothes, and while she’s not really into fashion, she does love socks and my favorites usually end up in her drawer (if they aren’t strewn over the house like stinky breadcrumbs). She rocked a week-long survival camp this summer, and then took a weekend to makeover her bedroom into her own teenage taste, which for her is bold colors and minimalism. This is where Kyla inspires me—she really owns only the things she loves and finds necessary. Her room is relaxing in its simplicity and when I’m ready to declutter, I bring her in to consult.

Dwayne is significantly less the man that he was last year. In the last few months, he has made a full effort to lose weight through healthy eating and exercise, and is on track to soon be the thinnest I have ever known him. Before he lost the weight, he must have lost some brain cells, because he thought it was a good idea for us to spend two July weeks at the cabin building another huge retaining wall—something we last did ten years ago. If he does this to me in our fifties, we’re skipping divorce and going straight to husbandcide. Of course, as all his bright ideas do, it turned out even better than he envisioned, and we’ve since built a whole garden/pergola area within it. We’re still a synergetic team, but I’m calling dibs on the next project.

Dwayne and I both drastically changed our diets this fall, and to those who think I was already slender probably also think I am still blonde and clever. Past tense, my friends, past tense. My biggest brag this year, besides getting down to the weight on my driver’s license, is that when our washing machine broke, I dragged out the tool box and, with YouTube’s assistance, fixed the blasted thing myself. It now makes a terrible racket that it never made before, but it cleans the clothes, so I’ll call it a victory. When I’m not fix-breaking things, I work 4 jobs—substituting, tutoring, librarying (yay!), and keeping Heartsease Properties, LLC out of bankruptcy. Probably the most fun I have in a week is coaching the 5^th grade Math Team (which Piper is loudly and proudly NOT a part of) and collapsing on the couch while Dwayne puts the kids to bed.

As a family, we’re catching the traveling bug. We spent Spring Break running around Idaho in a rented motor home, enjoying both the spring snowfall and natural hot springs. In August, we toured the Olympic Peninsula, tromping through wet beaches and dry rain forests. Weekend trips now mean leaving kids at the hotel with pizza and Netflix while Dwayne and I go bistro hunting, which means we now all enjoy ourselves. We’re trying our first international trip this February when we fly to Costa Rica, and we can’t wait to do some ecotourism! We’ll see if Piper Doolittle can actually talk to animals, if Kyla can avoid getting seriously lost, and if Wesley will survive a week without Minecraft.

We wish you blessings of every kind, the heart to recognize them, and the hands to pass them on.

Lovingly,

Denise for Dwayne, Kyla, Piper, & Wesley

He ate the last rum ball She swears at the ?#$#@$ tax overhaul. Not one kid will flush the potty. Yeah, we’ve all been a little bit naughty.

Dear Loved Ones,

I should not have announced my intention to start my annual letter, because almost immediately, 1) the toilet overflowed, 2) the TV stopped working, and 3) the toaster set off the smoke alarm. Daily, I question my life choices.

The kids continue to age exponentially faster than Dwayne and me. Kyla received her acceptance to Hogwarts on her 11^th birthday. Thinking I was writing a letter to Santa, she advocated that she had been really good this year. I started to scoff, but realized that she was speaking truth. She works hard to love Piper and initiates compliments to everyone. She does her chores quickly so she can get back to her audiobooks, and is the estate’s head gardener. She’s prepping for middle school next year and wants to take lots of math and chemistry, and last summer, attended a living history camp to experience 1880.

Wesley is ridiculously cheerful and charming, and even when he was stung by ten yellow jackets (he wanted to make sure you knew that), he was brave and even somewhat philosophical. Contrarily, his grip on reality is a bit tenuous, as at last count, he’s had over a hundred “worst day of my life” whines, usually as he’s served something he doesn’t love for dinner. A casual observer would note that this almost-8-year-old is an inventor—of course, the casual observer is not usually getting her stuff broken. My favorite retractable hose became his personal bungee cable for daring stunts, and no rubber band, cardboard box, or even innocent coat hanger is safe from Wesley’s, ahem, creativity.

Piper is finding a niche for herself in the family through music—she’s started piano and violin this year. Not quite ten, she hasn’t fully tilted toward “human” yet, and has been caught in pouncing stance on the stairs, ready to hiss and growl at any passerby. After months of saving, she is now the proud mama of a leopard gecko and declares him “cuddly”. When that girl decides something, she’s all in. She taught herself to type this year and really took to snowboarding in a few lessons. She conquered the bunny slope, on a day that ended with me snapping, “Everyone stop crying. Get in the car and start eating cookies. Eat lots of cookies NOW.” That may have been my parenting apex.

Dwayne, who has been faithful to one phone for 6 years, managed to hilariously go through 4 phones in 2 weeks.[1] If I die first, I grin to think what would happen to women when he starts dating. His work building is being gutted and so his whole team is working in Bellevue now, adding a lot of time to his commute. Dwayne has failed National Swearing Day—the day we get our Christmas tree—for a few years now. He’s thinking he needs a new challenge, something that actually makes him swear. I’m encouraging him to try parenting more than a few hours at a time.

I work as a substitute teacher just a day or two a week—enough to justify a cleaning lady and premade dinners. Denise-ing includes PTA-ing, volunteering, and serving in a few capacities at the district level, both as part of our schools’ foundation and a special education advocate. I haven’t run Heartsease Properties into the ground yet; in fact, we may have made too much money on the cabin this year. But since I do a lousy job of bookkeeping until Dec. 31, I can’t be sure.

Our biggest excitement this year was a brand-new kitchen. In a nutshell, we went from 1975 cheap bid to 2017 mid-grade, which is practically a new universe. The kitchen was only out of commission for a little over two weeks, but I will confess that with a fridge and microwave, my family didn’t eat much differently than usual. Basically what I’m saying is that when you call me “goddess”, you shouldn’t prefix it with “domestic”. And if I didn’t make it clear, the contractor did 100% of the work, which is why it was done early and mostly on budget. Dwayne and I can’t fathom that sort of professionalism.

The star of 2017 may be the dented, filthy, crusted minivan, that took us to San Diego and back this summer to spend time with family on both sides of the tree. We did our first amusement park together as we spent a spectacular day at Lego Land, and loved playing on SoCal’s beaches with family. Besides many adventures with loved ones, our best takeaway on this vacation was the invention of “ice cream o’clock”—a summer hit no matter where we were.

Fun family news: I’ll be an auntie again when Brian and Sandi’s second daughter is born late winter. The anticipation of that birth, as well as the Christ, is hard to ignore and my children’s excitement is more contagious than their colds.

May your traditions, family, and friends bring you both joy and peace this season!

With heaps of love,

Denise for Dwayne, Kyla, Piper, & Wesley

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[1] Wesley pipes up that after all that, Wes himself got Daddy’s original phone to work again.

Dear Loved Ones,

Merry Christmas, friends! It’s taken me 5 days to write this annual letter, and I’ve hidden clues throughout as to why. [You’ll figure it out.]

I was trying to come up with a unifying theme for 2016 and “pestilence” is the only thing that came to mind. Sure, we had lice, flea, and pantry moth infestations this year—and I’ll take lice any day over the other two—but it seemed an unkind implication of my youngers.

Kyla finished 3^rd grade as a homeschooler and returned to 4^th grade at the local school, reading at grade level! That kid is willing to work hard. All the kids did a rock climbing camp during the summer, and Kyla turned that into weekly lessons [Mama, um, Mama] until it became too much to get her homework done and go to climbing–seriously, she’s ridiculously responsible. Kyla spent hours building and playing at the stream at the bottom of our ravine, and even without being familiar with Thoreau, longs to go “to the woods because I wish to live deliberately.” However, she can’t go too long without her audiobooks, so I’m always sure she’ll be back by bedtime. Next year [Mama!], she hopes to receive her acceptance letter to Hogwarts when she turns eleven. I could make an argument for her to be sorted into any of the houses, but I probably won’t send her to boarding school, for Wesley would be heartsick (and have to sleep by himself).

Wesley, aka “I’m why we can’t have nice things”, spent 2016 honing his ability to destroy, usually beginning with my sanity and then quickly moving to furniture, though this year he advanced to larger structures when he used scissors to tunnel a way to Kyla’s room. He has lots of curiosity and no concept of consequences, and has actively ruined the kitchen table 3 different times and my wall repairs a handful of times. I have gotten to the point of sending him to Dwayne after an “incident”, as after almost 7 years of this, I am the parent [Mama, Mama, Mama] more likely to wring his neck. Earlier today, we had a conversation that engraving “I love you” on the furniture conversely relays the opposite message. Wesley does have other talents beside destruction. He can get from one level of our split story home to another without using any stairs. In related news, he’s now in weekly parkour class and he likes to play baby dragons at recess.

Some people want gender reassignment, but I think we can safely start saving for Piper’s species reassignment surgery. In Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, every human has an animal daemon, and children’s daemons pop and transform into many different animals until maturity [Mama, um, Mama?], when they settle into one. Likewise, Piper is still continually transfiguring between species, though dragons, dogs, cats, and chinchillas are the most common. However, instead of a separate entity, she is her own daemon…and you can take that anyway you like. This year, Piper turned down all sports opportunities to take more art classes, and Cartooniversity struck a sweet chord for her. All of us WA Needs are unrepentant snugglers, but Piper is the only one who rejects humans, finds a cat, hugs it under her chin, and buries them both in blankets for the night. This year, Piper also became Grandpa’s Chief Assistant. My dad has made wine and beer for decades now, and he has finally found an 8-year old who shares his interest. He and Piper have Saturday bottling dates—she gets to truly be useful, and, temporarily, be an only child. Her true obsession is Hamilton, and the lyrics have expanded her vocabulary; not only “revelation” and “intransigent” but several 4-letter words as well. I’m oddly pleased that she learned them at home.

Dwayne won husband of the year award this year again when he surprised me with tickets to Hamilton for our 14^th anniversary. We left the kids with my parents, and madly sauntered around Manhattan for a week. Hamilton was the trip’s highlight, but we loved the museums and parks almost as much. I don’t think a year goes by without him [Mama?] impressing me with some new structure. This year, it was his remodel of the cabin bathroom and a new trellis in the front yard, eventually to be the home of the best grapes grown on our street. Currently, no one else is growing grapes, so I’m entering the contest quite confidently. In January, Dwayne will celebrate twenty years at Microsoft. That is, he would be, but last year, Microsoft did away with 20 year bashes. Stock is doing well, so I’m sure we’ll get over it.

Last year, I wrote “[If all goes] well, I can finally have my well-deserved year of reading banned books, eating bonbons, and finding new places to hide dust bunnies in between spa treatments. I have a few more schemes up my sleeve, none of which involve housework.” 41-year-old Denise is kind of an idiot [Mama!], though she was certainly right about the housework. Generally, my life is interesting only to me; honestly, I’m pretty excited when the hamburger buns I have out for dinner aren’t moldy. I sub a few days a week, rule a few kingdoms nobody else wants, and, uncharacteristically, do something I’m lousy at. Dwayne and I are now business partners, after creating Heartsease Properties, LLC, which is just a fancy way of saying we started renting our cabin on Airbnb and put it into an LLC. My job is to dot every legal “I” and cross every “t”, which must stand for “taxes”. If it wasn’t for the lawyer and accounting fees this year, the cabin may have paid for its operating costs. Anyway, owning a small business [um, Mama?] pretty much exploits my every weakness. I’ve also turned down some amazing (to me) opportunities this year, simply because I have genuinely accepted that I cannot do it all…and for free, as Dwayne points out. Personal growth, indeed!

The sad news in our family this year is that my Aunt Janet, Mom’s twin, had a stroke in September. Her recovery has been excruciatingly slow, especially for Janet herself, but there is hope for recovery next year. It has put a bit of a pall over the holidays, though the anticipation of Advent is hard to ignore and my children’s excitement is more contagious than their colds.

May your traditions, family, and friends bring you both joy and peace this season!

With love,

Denise [Mama!], for Dwayne, Kyla, Piper, & Wesley, 2 cats, fish, and (-2) hamsters

December 6-8, 2015

Dear Friends,

I keep waiting for just the right moment—a quiet household, a burst of creativity, and flash of inspiration—to write our annual Christmas letter. And this is why I will never actually get around to writing anything publishable. But I should have thought of that before I decided to homeschool. Or have Wesley. Or get out of bed. However, I do have some ready material so let’s see what that and a glass of limoncello will do as a stand in for the muse.

It’s lucky I can write this at all. Last spring, the cats brought their first snake into the house. The fortunate part was that I ran to the neighbor who disposed of it for me instead of the neighbor (ahem, Kelsey), who would have advised me to burn down the house and start again. And I probably would have done it. So, thanks, Mark, you saved Christmas.

2015 was memorable, as we did one of our first family vacations together, which was not a disaster (at least, not after the first bit). We rented a motorhome and meandered around Oregon for two weeks. A few notes about RV rentals. Cons: the previous renters may be days late returning the vehicle, leading to a chaos and loss of beach reservations. Pros: the 16 things that stopped working on the RV while we had it are not our problem. But if motorhomes weren’t so expensive and inconvenient to store, I could totally go for a moving tent with indoor plumping, microwave and a lockable door between adults and children. We liked going down the road, reading books aloud and dumping out toys everywhere, just like at home.

Dwayne spent his first summer as a homeowner not building any stone walls. Instead, he managed to aggravate[1] me much more efficiently than his usual brick building spree. We had some alders taken down at the cabin, and rather than pay $700 to grind down the stumps, Dwayne was determined to dig them out himself. After weekends that turned into months, and an amount of money > $700, those stumps found themselves at the dump. A pyrrhic victory, and lesson learned. He’s on year 18 at Microsoft, and has made me happy for about 13.1 years of our 13.4 years of marriage. Yep, should have ground down those stumps, Babe.

After spending the last few years trying to tutor Kyla after school, this year I decided to tutor Kyla instead of school. It’s working out much better than most of my schemes. We had a breakthrough a few weeks ago when Kyla asked to keep her light on so she could read more Harry Potter. (The chance I’d say no is similar to me refusing to buy overpriced kale at the farmer’s market when the kids beg for some.) At nine, she’s old enough to leave at home with some work while I volunteer in the other kids’ classrooms, and her worst crime is to play hooky and listen to another book. Well, her worst crime is more destructive than that. She’s probably not the sole responsible party for breaking furniture, ripping cushions, scratching floors, bending curtain rods, and hiding contraband where I’d like to store the dust bunnies, but she’s the first I ask. Kyla is the kid Dwayne and I will probably have fitted with a GPS microchip as our little explorer doesn’t even realize when she’s wandered a mile away from us at the beach, and loses track of the time when she’s playing out in the woods down by the stream—the same backyard where we have had our first bear and bobcat sightings this year. But she’s also the kid I can take to art lectures and science talks and she can wax pedantically all the way home…if she doesn’t get lost on the way back to the car.

Piper must be trying to impress Santa, because I’ve never witnessed her so cooperative, responsible, and helpful as these last few weeks. This last summer, I read aloud the nonfiction How to Scratch a Wombat. It became an instant guide to understanding Piper. If, instead of regarding her as human, you think of her as an Australian marsupial in mismatched children’s clothes, she’s much easier to figure out. She recently described to our babysitter that wombats are like angry tanks. In fact, when she’s rampaging we give out the Mad Wombat! alert, and it not only gives fair warning to innocent bystanders, it cheers her up considerably. Piper still loves Mama, animals, and art (not necessarily in that order) and she has begun the tradition of making me omelets on Saturday mornings. And they are good—with no amendment needed “for a seven-year old”. She’s also the one local Need who is a morning person, a concept Dwayne and I can recognize but not grasp. She uses this unusual power to cheerfully and quietly do her morning chores, so it’s possible early risers are not spawns of Satan.

 

I was never going to put Wesley in school full-day until 1^st grade, just like his sisters. But you know by now what happens to the best laid plans of mice and moms. So this year, he’s in full-day kindergarten and is doing much better than I ever imagined. Statistically, he has even odds of being dyslexic, and it’s difficult to pull him away from playing Power Ranger-Robot-Castle-Storming-Lightsabor-Duelist-Puppy to figure out if he has all his pre-reading ducks in a row, but I think he’s going to be fine, and perhaps even a wonderfully average kid. He has lost two teeth from unnatural causes, refuses to sleep alone (which is why Kyla and Piper have an extra bed in their rooms), still sucks his fingers, and is my one child who loves to play board games with me. He also was the full instigator of the worst day our household had in the last 365 days, just before he turned 5, but I blogged that out of my system ages ago.

I hesitate to put it in writing, but if homeschooling continues to go well, Kyla will return to school for 4^th grade, so I can finally have my well-deserved year of reading fantasy novels, eating bonbons, and finding new places to hide dust bunnies in between spa treatments. I have a few schemes up my sleeve, none of which involve housework. The overarching goal is to not let everything I’ve learned about literacy and struggling learners only be useful to Kyla. I’d like to start a charter school for dyslexic learners someday, but currently I’m struggling with the motivation to start dinner, so I’ll settle for helping other families navigate learning challenges.

Finally, for those who found the font on the photo card a bit small, I will do my first 2^nd edition:

Pine needles scattered, presents all shred,

Feral children not nestled in bed.

All through the house, not one inch undamaged,

As we all sigh at last, “Mischief Managed!”

We wish you a very Happy Christmas and a tolerable election year.

Love, love, love,

Denise & Dwayne, Kyla, Piper, and Wesley

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[1] This was edited for language in the final draft.

December 13-15, 2014

Dear Loved Ones*,

2014 has been fantastic—I haven’t been personally responsible for a $4000 water leak this year, and I’ve increased my “winning” streak of buying non-working appliance to 5 in a row. I’m calling Guinness when I get to six. Dwayne and I both celebrated fortieth birthdays this year–a good excuse for the gray we both sport. My cellulite has hungrily attacked all my “give-a-damn” cells, which is an especially fine trade off. The kids make good case studies and writing material, and the place in my head is a diverting spot to be.

Do you remember the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip where Calvin and Susie get into a terrorist-level snowball fight, and the last panel leaves Calvin soggy, groggy, and convinced that Santa “is going to skip this block for years”? He was also in his element and seemingly content with his lot in life. I’m pretty sure at least half the Need household is getting coal this year, but maybe on the whole, it was worth it.

Kyla could be one of those rigorously scheduled kids with practices and clubs every day. Except substitute extracurricular activities for vision therapy and reading tutoring and that pretty much fills up her days. Kyla’s school career has added far more to my résumé than all my post-grad work combined. I didn’t know a kid with 20/20 eyesight wouldn’t have the visual acuity to read. But vision screening just measures how well you can see something 20 feet away, not if you can focus on the page 12 inches from you…as she and I have learned. She’s still quite dyslexic, but her eyes are getting strong enough to sustain a reading lesson. With her persistence and confidence, she’s the right kid to have such learning disabilities, even when my heart aches for her struggles. She’s been fortunate to have a teacher who not only reads kid writing and spelling, but can actually read Kyla writing and spelling. It is a true super power!

Of course, Kyla is far more than a kid with dyslexia. She sounds like a book when she speaks. Correction, she sounds like a long book when she speaks. Most recently, she’s started to refer to herself in the third person. I’m always hearing what a sweet girl she is. I often think so, but with Piper and Wesley as her foils, it’s hard to be objective. But her wheat-free diet really seems to have helped and she’s back to being a darling who wants to do her part to contribute to her family and the world. I love that she (ear-) reads more than I do and that she fiercely loves her ragdoll, her little brother and even Piper, against Piper’s objections.

Thanks to BBC’s Sherlock, we all know the difference between a psychopath and a sociopath. Fortunately, Piper is merely the latter. Piper desperately wants to be an only child. Instead of spending her nearly 7 years on Earth acclimating to being a second-born, she seems to be actively maladjusting. She draws family pictures that “don’t have enough room on the paper” for Kyla and Wesley. She’s plenty bright, and occasionally uses her literacy skills to write hate mail to her siblings, which thankfully they can’t yet read. But I have spies and she has been caught holding Kyla’s hand as they walk home from school together and she sometimes reads Marvel comics to Wesley instead of hitting him. When a cat goes streaking from a forbidden part of the house wearing a pink doll skirt, I know to shout “PIIIIIIIIII-PER”. But I can’t fully write off a child who stays up way too late reading books after lights-out, much like her own mother used to do and still does. Her fierce streak of independence suits my style of parenting. I don’t waste too much time banging my head against the brick wall she likes to climb, and we’re both happier for it.

As threatened, I enrolled Wesley in as many preschools as I could schedule. The promised land is still a year and a half away, when Wesley is in school full time. I often forget that he’s a good looking kid, which may have to be his future meal ticket, since he has no brains to speak of. This year’s acronym, NOB, was inspired by our son, who usually wins the daily “Not Our Brightest” award. When Kyla began vision therapy last spring, we gave Wesley some of the same exercises, and he immediately covered his eyes and hid. Now he, too, is in therapy. The good news is that he will complete the program before he starts Kindergarten. Last year, he rocked the two wheel bike. This year, as a 4 year old, he taught himself to roller blade, ice skate, skate board and pogo stick, sometimes simultaneously. I’m just waiting for him to add knife-throwing to the mix. He wears shorts every day that is technically above freezing (Mama’s rule) and is becoming a fairly innovative superhero. He found 6 long sticks, changed into a long-sleeve shirt (on purpose!) and stuck 3 into each sleeve for Wolverine claws. The kid makes me wheeze from laughter, but not always in the moment.

Dwayne’s exciting news is that he has been granted an 8 week sabbatical at work. Stay tuned in about five years for when we actually take advantage of it. Dwayne also handily wins Lover of the Year award for surprising me with a river cruise on the Danube from Germany through Austria to Hungary this summer. (The inspiration for a year abroad…it’s for the children, I swear!) The kids stayed with my parents while we ran around palaces and cathedrals. There were several times I wished Kyla had been there knowing she would love the history and artifacts as much as I did, but I did spent more time writing that one week than I have all autumn.

I continue my usual recommended therapy of dark chocolate and projects. The day before school started, Dwayne and I took a sledge hammer to Kyla’s room and began a quick remodel that lasted into October. I caught my breath and then started converting part of the garage into a mudroom, which ironically, is now one of the nicer rooms in the house. Then a quick master bedroom update. But my stay-at-home status should be updated to stay-at-school since that’s where I spend most of the school days doing everything I can to be on staff without the paycheck…or the responsibilities.

The cookies are calling, so I’m going to break a personal rule and conclude in the same way I did last year.

We have a Bethlehem Star on our back porch, brightening the dark street below us. I don’t want to imply in any way that the Christ Child lives here, per se, but our prayer is that you, too, find what you seek.

With heaps of love,

Denise, for Dwayne, Kyla, Piper, and Wes

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*I told myself I can eat all the rum balls I want as soon as I finish our Christmas letter. To make this fair, perhaps you should read this with a plateful of cookies. Or a shot of rum. [Dwayne: Why it is always either/or for you? “And” is a conjunction, too!]

I love writing my Christmas letter, and clearly do it for my, myself, and I, as well as my children’s future enjoyment.  But I like to force others to read it as well. 

 

*  *  *  *  *

December 14-19, 2013

Dear Loved Ones,

If you are looking forward to a cheerful Christmas letter chockfull of darling children and heart-warming family moments, well, my friend, start a fire with this and move on to the next on your pile.  It’s not anything particular about 2013; it’s more that it’s Year Seven of being a stay-at-home, which is probably two years longer than I should have signed up for.  However, with the help of a voodoo doctor, a few revelations, and a little Peace & Quiet, this year has shaped up just fine. 

My mother says that I’ll forget about all the trouble Wesley causes someday. I reply, “Blog.” And then we both laugh, because his antics made good copy but lousy daily life. Perhaps you remember my failed attempts to sell Wesley when he was two. He was off the market for most of his third year, but recently I’ve considered putting him back up.  In a physically affectionate family, he is the most snuggly and huggly; he can also throw the biggest, loudest, longest, and least provoked tantrums (and this is with Piper as his competition!).  As I scratch my head to find something nice to write about the kid who has given me lots of writing material, I can at least brag that he learned to ride a two-wheeled bike last spring, totally rocked a Mohawk this summer (like Daddy!), and he is excited to learn to read (I think he wants to learn bomb-making on the internet).  He turns four in a month and will spend next year in as many preschools as I can schedule. 

Piper added to her childhood legend by choosing to spend her first day of kindergarten sitting in the office instead of cooperating in class. (Day 2 was much better.)  She still doesn’t really care what anyone thinks of her, and if she wants something, she figures out pretty ingenious ways of accomplishing her objective.  Piper is not so much manipulative as she simply doesn’t recognize obstacles.  “Obstacle? What obstacle?  I don’t see any obstacles,” she says as she trods all over them. She is going to make an awesome and effective adult, I keep reminding myself as I try to help us both survive her childhood.  Her passion is animals and babies, and she loves being the keeper of our two new kittens.  She spent much of her 5th year watching babies—of all species—being born through the wonders of youtube.com.  I can’t even predict what she’ll pursue as a six-year-old.

Kyla, now seven, has been through the biggest changes this year.  She had some really challenging behaviors that, coming from Kyla and not her siblings, raised some red flags.  We ended up at a nutritionist (aka voodoo doctor) and found she had a sensitivity to wheat, corn, and nightshade vegetables—basically all the common GMO foods. (And just as I perfected my bread recipe!) Then she went from acing Kindergarten to really struggling by the end of the year.  Turns out she is dyslexic, something I didn’t know very much about even though I have a BA in Education/English, a MA in Special Education, and have mostly finished my Reading Specialist endorsement.  Kyla has been my best course work yet and I provide her private tutoring in addition to her regular schooling. 

Dyslexia does some odd things.  Primarily, it means that the super-highway Piper and I (and most likely you, dear reader) have between the parts in our brain that connect letters to sounds and sounds to words is, for Kyla, more like a bunch of back country roads she has to build herself.  This lack of a super-highway actually has some compensations. The right hemisphere of a dyslexic is about 10% bigger than a non-dyslexic and they are often unconventional thinkers.   For me, bibliophile that I am, it has meant embracing “ear-reading” as just as valid as “eye-reading”.  The books that Kyla can eye-read are pretty tedious, so she spends hours a day devouring audio books that I didn’t read until I was much, much older.  So now she’s this odd mix of being a really well-read 1st grader who can barely read; her vocabulary is off the charts and her spelling is atrocious. After weeks of daily practice, she still often misspells “of”, but she can rattle off the causes and effects of the Great Stock Market Crash (thank you, American Girl books!).   School is going to be quite the adventure for many, many years.

Dwayne is continually and inexplicably charmed by all of our children.  A much more generous person would see that as a positive sign of parental love; I prefer to think that he doesn’t spend enough time with them.  (Seven years, my friends!)   While he wants them to stay this age forever, he can see advantages of them all being big enough to help him build The Great Walls of N.  Every pharaoh needs a slave force, but I suspect that since every block he uses weighs more than any of our children, he may have a long wait.  I am still understandably charmed by my husband, and his conversation and cooking abilities are only part of his appeal. Oh, yes, Dwayne is still happily at Microsoft and is looking forward to Santa bringing him an XBOX One.  I’m hoping Santa brings him one as well, because the stores are sold out. 

Me?  Once I got over the shock that my child—my child—has a reading disability, I became zealous about learning everything I could about, well, everything related to literacy. We’ll see if I open up my own charter school someday.  I’m realizing that my theme this year has been turning from frustration into fascination.  Kyla’s issues were very, very frustrating to me until we got a better grasp on them, and since, I’ve been fascinated with dyslexia and now desire to be an agent of change up to the state legislative level.  I’ve become awed by Piper’s capabilities and potential, and I have some hope that even Wesley may become less aggravating.  Eventually.

The kittens?  Well, this house already has enough “cute” in it that I certainly didn’t need any more.  But, as we’ve already established, Dwayne seems to be enchanted by Cute Things That Poop. So we have two kittens now that are going to be tossed out on their adorable, stinky bottoms as soon as they are big enough to outrun raccoons.

My happy place this year, besides anywhere Quiet, is the cabin, christened “Heartsease”. The kids are old enough to not drown when we play for hours at the beach, so I can read between uttering, “But we just had lunch” to each kid. I am taking a few more graduate courses, volunteering heaps, and will begin tutoring again in the new year. I’ve read more than fifty books this year, most surprisingly intellectual (someone recommend some good smut, STAT!). I actually clean the kitchen far more often than I read, but I don’t like to dwell on that.

We have a Bethlehem Star on our back porch, brightening the dark street below us. I don’t want to imply in any way that the Christ Child lives here, per se, but our prayer is that you, too, find what you seek.

Love,

Denise, for Dwayne, Kyla, Piper, and Wes