Jeri started kindergarten this year; she attends St. Paul’s Lutheran School where she went to pre-school last year. It is no surprise that the oldest daughter of two college professors is a focused hard-working student. We are pleased that she is capable of trying her best without being an uptight perfectionist. Jeri is turning into quite the reader and is starting to prefer reading by herself over being read to. She is friendly and social and has been invited to more birthday parties than her parents can keep track of. When she was asked what her favorite thing about kindergarten was, she replied with a twinkle in her eye, “Less time with Dad!” That’s okay, because Dad is preparing a photo album of naked baby pictures for someone’s senior prom night.
Brian and Mariah have learned another benefit of living in a small town. One of our students reported having dinner at the Kenealy family and our name was mentioned. “Thomas”, the mother asked her 5-year old son, “isn’t Jeri Birgen the girl at school you kissed?” Thomas apparently rolled his eyes and informed his mother that it was Jeri’s idea. When the topic came up at our dinner table that evening Jeri defended her honor by saying “only the first one” was her idea. Brian and Mariah are trying to teach Jeri that no matter what kind of mischief she tries, her Mom and Dad will find out about it.
In Jeri’s kindergarten class, there was a competition in which the students were encouraged to go out and find long words to share with the class. So when Jeri was looking through the book “G is for Googol, a math alphabet book” she was very excited to find the page labeled “R is for Rhombicosidodecahedron”. We encouraged her to bring the book with her to school, rather than just write the word down on a piece of paper. I now feel extra sorry for any teacher of professors’ children. Of course, less than a week later Zac had added the word Rhombicosidodecahedron to his vocabulary as well.
Zac turned three in September and started Wednesday afternoon pre-school at St. Paul’s. He seems to enjoy it a great deal, but we don’t hear many details from him. Toilet training has proceeded slowly for Zac (Brian can hear the guffaws from his older siblings) but at least he is trying now. Actually the threat of not being allowed to go to St. Paul’s where is big sister goes to school has been the best motivation we’ve found. We hear from his teachers that Zac is polite and well-mannered and gentle . . . for a boy. Mariah has numerous bruises where Zac has pounded his forehead into her in an affectionate sort of way. Zac has started going to dance class with Jeri. He enjoys the music and the running around in an “organized” sort of way. Lately he has found a new favorite toy to sleep with at night, his flashlight. However, he is still learning that if you fall asleep with your flashlight on, it stops working.
Mariah is in her second year as the director of the Scholars Program at Wartburg College. She accompanied a group of her honor students to Chicago in March to visit the museums and symphony and see all that a city has and Waverly doesn’t. Next year she is planning to make a similar trip with her students to St. Louis. Plus, there is this other little trip to London and Paris for the students to verify all the fallacies they have discovered in the Da Vinci Code. The program is growing well, so Mariah is not as worried about finding students, but now she has to figure out what to do with them. Mariah is advising all of the exploring students and can report a surprising large number of math majors in the program, but that doesn’t work on everyone.
Brian is still on his quest for tenure. He has been working with student “training” for annual math competitions. He is also busy planning a three week course next May in which he will take a dozen students to Germany to investigate the history of math and physics. It is a nice opportunity to travel and use the German he studied in college. The opportunity to travel around Germany for a few weeks with someone else paying expenses sounds like a nice vacation, but you need to include the task keeping a dozen college students focused on the history of science and not merely on the high quality of lager. Brian did spend a week this summer visiting Germany, learning how to navigate the train system and the youth hostels, before leading a group of people through the process. Meanwhile, Brian has been working on painting a number of replacement windows for our house. Rather than spend a ton of money heating the neighborhood, we decided to send a ton of money to Pella Windows Co. Unfortunately, we were not able to arrange an employee discount from one of the many Wartburg Alumni who work there. Much like the attached garage we built a few years ago, this is money we enjoy spending because it makes our life noticeably more comfortable.
Our family had an enjoyable trip this summer. It started with a trip out to South Dakota for the Birgen family reunion which happens every five years. We met up with some of Brian’s siblings as well as too many cousins to count. After that weekend we caravanned back to Waverly with Brian’s brother Bob and his family, occasionally shuffling passengers. Bob’s four daughters, “The Birgen Girls”, enjoyed adding some variety to the usual family dynamics. We had a fun time showing off Waverly and Wartburg College for a few days before the Birgen Tour set off in the Ohio direction for the Kill family reunion. There we visited with more of Brian’s cousins and played in the local ‘swimming hole’. By the end of the trip Jeri (and Zac) had become official “Birgen Girls” and had very little desire to return home with us.
Jeri and Zac are the wonderful age where the memories they create now will be the stories they tell to their children. We hope that all of you have some treasured memories from the past year and that the coming year is full of pleasant surprises. We continue to be blest by a healthy and happy family, and we value all the generous gifts we have been given. May you treasure the world we share and count all our blessings during this Christmas season.