2004 Highlights

The ultimate highlight of 2004 was Mrs. Bickerson's brush with brain damage. Hands down! Not only was she able to avoid five solid days of wiping dirty bottoms and doing dishes, she enjoyed three nights of peaceful morphine sleep at North Memorial and an easy, 10-pound weight loss. The two-week prescription of pain medicine allowed her to forgive Mr. Bickerson more quickly for accusing her of having a nervous breakdown instead of viral encephalitis.

Christmas exclamations by Spidey: "I'm RICH!! I'm RICH for Power Rangers!!"

The living room makeover. "A dull living room is transformed." Yeah. Our house is a celebrity. Email me if you would like an 8x10 glossy.

Happy New Year

This is a New Year's Eve post from my favorite blogger.

Spidey, Tikka, Gdogg and I went to the Science Museum this morning to see the Chinasaur exhibit. I don't think G and I have ever seen dinosaurs up close. You know what? They were big. Very, very big. Spidey was apprehensive because one of the exhibits was a motorized model in the lobby that growled every few seconds. I wasn't sure we would make it past the ticket office but Spidey found courage from somewhere and decided to go in. I wonder if he noticed that his two year old sister was completely blase' about the gigantic skeletons.

We have sausage sandwiches in the oven, two growlers of beer from Town Hall, cocktail shrimp, and s'mores for dessert. I told Tikka and Spidey that we would toast marshmallows and then make a toast: Happy New Year! and down the hatch with the treats.

Happy New Year, family. Here's to 2005. I love you.

Toxic waste

Note to self: Do not allow toddler to overindulge in pickled herring ever, ever again.

Toy comparison

Christmas with the cousins would not be complete without a thorough comparison of toys.



We made a fast trip to visit relatives and everyone (especially the Bickersons) seemed to have a nice time. We are always amazed by how thoroughly two fairly well-behaved children can demolish the interior of a minivan in four hours.

Now that we're home we are hoping to get a little snow to go with the lights.

Scrooged?

Spidey is disappointed that Santa did not bring him the Batman toy he requested, so he's wearing his Halloween costume to make up for it. He announced to us around noon today that he was feeling "a little bit bored" with his new toys.

Sticky

She's covered in maple syrup and singing Away in a Manger next to our Christmas tree. She wore her jammies all damn day. That's a sure sign you're having a great Christmas.

Why are these kids smiling?

Are they perhaps excited about Christmas? Who knows. These guys smile all the time anyway.

Technology is making me cranky

I wanted to put up a Christmas video for family to see but my mac.com site is giving me fits. You can see the old stuff here though. If anybody can solve my error -36 problem, please educate me.

UPDATE: Well, a month later and after a trip to the Apple store the Apple Genius said I would have to ask Mac to wipe my iDisk clean and reset it. It's been done and they gave me 100MB more on my account to make me happy. I'll get around to putting the website back up soon.

Christmas

We're having fun but I'm already exhausted. Santa presents were opened at 6:15 a.m. Power Rangers, Batman walkie-talkies, electric train, My Little Pony Celebration Castle, glue sticks and scissors (for Tikka). XM Radio for the grown-ups. But Tikka and Spidey seem to enjoy this most of all. Thanks, Deeker!

Sweet tooth

Christmas Eve has gotten off to a good start. The kids are eating their gingerbread houses for breakfast. This is the before picture:

Happy Festivus

Gdogg is celebrating Festivus with his coworkers today.

Pot and kettle

Tikka just said, "Goggy, YOU need to CALM DOWN!"

Riiight.

Kid talk

Miscellaneous things said in 2004:

Spidey: If Tikka doesn't give me back my Batman I'm gonna boost her and then I'm gonna put some stink on her!
Tikka: Boops (for oops).
Tikka: 'Cuse me shoe, I dizzy.
Spidey: Yesternight.
Tikka: I want to do it mysels.
Tikka: I need to ask Spidey a question. Spidey, you help me go potty?
Tikka was pretending to talk on the phone:

Julia? I not ready talk on the phone. Spidey? All day long, Spidey. Well, I don't know (giggle). Well, Spidey, I don't know, Spidey. I have my hair back so you can get it. Well goodbye Spidey. See ya next time. Spidey? Mama? Spidey, yeah. I dunno Spidey. Now you have you jacket. William? Well, I don't know. Spidey have a sword. BE QUIET BECAUSE I'M ON THE PHONE!!!

We're dogsitting

Having been up close and personal with my brother's large and rowdy labs, Spidey has developed an intense fear of dogs. However the dog we are watching doesn't qualify as an official dog. He's more of a nervous dustmop. But Spidey is warming up to him, especially since Tikka is exhibiting no fear at all of our canine visitor. It would be embarrassing for a superhero to be so afraid of a fuzzball.

But I've heard this twice this morning:

"Mom, can't we put him in his kennel now because I'm getting really dizzy thinking about dogs so much!"

Euphemism

Gdogg taught Tikka to ask, "Hey, who stepped on a duck?" Nice going, G.

Nee nees

That's Tikka's name for nursing. Before I became Mom to Spidey, I had certain notions about when a child should no longer be needing that. I joked with Gdogg that if a child can say it and ask for it, you need to be wrapping things up.

Well, Tikka is over two and Spidey taught her how to do The Name Game. So there she was in her crib yesterday morning singing:

Nee nees, nee nees, bo bee nees
Banana fana fo fee nees
Fee fi mo mee nees --
Nee nees!

I'm thinking it's quitting time.

The basics

Tikka is working on the power of persuasive speech. This morning she greeted me at 5:45 a.m. with, "You gonna make pancakes for bekfast, okay? Okay? Okay? Okay? (Nodding her head the whole time.) Yesterday she wanted to know if her favorite friend was going to be at the gym. "Kelly will be there? Yeah? Yeah? Yeah? Yeah?" Nodding, nodding, nodding. If I don't give her the answer that she wants to hear there is a 90% chance that there will be gnashing of teeth, wailing, drooling, flinging self to floor, etc.

Spidey helped me fold laundry today. He made several neat piles of dishtowels, rags, and underwear and put them all away. Most of the time he's wearing a superhero costume and so I like to pay Batman or Spiderman (occasionally Superman) a quarter for doing such mundane work around the house. I'm sure he has more important things to do. :-)

My pumpkin listening

This is Tikka on Halloween listening to a not-so-scary story in our church pumpkin patch. It's just one of my favorite pictures.

The Bickersons

The origin of our nom de blog.