Zac is now at the wonderful stage where he will happily sit on the potty for as long as someone is willing to read to him. Then he will go stand in the corner and fill his shorts. He refers to his underwear as “Bob”, thanks to Bob-the-Builder smiling on the opening in front. These are the same “panties” which his sister wore during her potty training. We are confident that Zac will have mastered using the toilet before he leaves for college.
To unwind after a long day of toilet training, Mariah and Brian spend time at work, training the intellectual elite in the ways of higher mathematics. This year Mariah was “promoted” to become the chair of the Scholars Program at Wartburg. Someone else had the job of designing the new honors program, but Mariah had to try to fill it. In the change of leadership, the publicity campaign was somehow forgotten. This Spring Mariah spent many hours talking to prospective students reassuring them that there were “still a few spots available”. Now she has the top students in the first year scholars’ seminar where the students do much of the work planning the course and all Mariah has to do is grade assignments and keep the discussions from being too political.
In case our friend’s from out of state didn’t notice, this was an election year. In most presidential campaigns Iowa is overlooked as a state with few electoral votes. However, this year we were targeted as a swing state and inundated with political advertisements. It became apparent when Jeri asked why all the people were at Church in the middle of the afternoon.
“It must be a funeral.”
“Whose funeral?”
“I don’t know.”
“I think it’s George Bush’s funeral.”
We frequently listen to the NPR station in the morning. Jeri informed us one morning that she “didn’t want to go to Baghdad.” We told her that we didn’t want to go there either.
One place Jeri did get to go this Summer was Disneyland. For the last few years Mariah and Brian have attended a Science Education Workshop in San Jose in early August. This has served the dual purpose of giving Grandma Judy some personalized grandchildren time while giving Mariah and Brian some child-free relaxation. After this year’s meeting the whole family traveled down to Southern California to experience a little Disneyland magic, courtesy of Grandma and Grandpa Birgen. In honor of their 50th wedding anniversary, they treated the entire Birgen clan to three days of Disneyland. Jeri got to meet Snow White, Cinderella, and various other princesses. We went on “It’s a Small World” five times in three days. Jeri and Zac got to play with their cousins, too.
We spent a little time with Torrey and his fiancée Anj, who now live in Redondo Beach. We even got to spend a morning at the beach, where we ran into our cousins again. On a beach filled with a thousand people by chance we managed to set down fifty feet away from the Birgen girls. Weird! Torrey told us that they were depending on Jeri to come through as flower girl at their upcoming wedding. Anj’s cousin, the other scheduled flower girl, had frozen and been unable to fulfill her duties. Torrey said that he had told everyone that Jeri was “a rock” and could be depended on. In October, we got to see how well Jeri would do.
Torrey and Anj got married in Massachusetts in October. Radcliffes came from all over the country to witness the joyous event. After living in Iowa for so long, Mariah and Brian had to relearn how to navigate roads that didn’t run North-South or East-West. Apparently we you have mountains, you can’t just drive straight. Massachusetts is the place that originated the phrase “You can’t get there from here” as we learned trying to get to the airport.
But there was no reason to worry about Jeri’s flower girl duties. She did a very thorough job of delivering rose petals. She placed exactly one flower petal at the end of each aisle. The other flower girl, Sidney, started to get a little nervous, but when Jeri didn’t slow down she just had to keep up. Jeri had a job to do and people were depending on her. After all, she had “the most important job at the wedding”; the bride and groom just needed to “show up and look good”, but she had flower petals to spread.
Jeri has a new best friend (to go with all her other best friends). Jeri met Madison at swimming lessons this Summer, and now they go to Day Care together. We are very proud of her ability to make friends quickly and easily in new settings. Jeri says her best friends are Madison, Emma, Lauren, Cassidy, Sarina and Lauren. Jeri goes to school three mornings each week. She does quite well (as you would expect the child of two college professors to do). She knows her full name, address and phone number. She can even sing the alphabet backwards.
Zac is a very good boy, even if he wants to be just like his big sister. A lesser man would be worried about his son playing with dolls, but Brian has heard his son making “vroom vroom” sounds as he drags the doll round in circles. Zac gives lots of hugs and kisses and likes to cuddle. He likes to sleep in Mariah’s bed, but he has a hard time keeping still when he’s there. He takes after his father in that way. Like the rest of the family, Zac likes to read books. Hop on Pop and But not the Hippopotamus are his current favorites.
May you find happiness and peace in the coming year. We are blessed to have found a safe and friendly community in which to raise our family. We have jobs which we enjoy and where we are valued. Our children are healthy and pleasant. And even though we have to occasionally shovel snow off our sidewalk or drive 100 miles to catch a plane, we are very lucky in the life we have found. We wish you all the best and hope to hear from you. Merry Christmas and a happy new year!