<p>NMN – I think you’d be wise to wait the day as it looks pretty gruesome out there with a really heavy wet snow. Pretty awesome to make snowmen though! D’s BF is a fine arts major and he made the coolest snowman I have ever seen. Picked pine needles for hair! Too cute.</p>
<p>Just popping online to see how long to cook a turkey then I am sticking that in the oven and going back to bed to enjoy a christmas nap! S is out in the front yard building a fort in the shoveled snow. He also built a throne on the top of it to which eldest said, well, THAT’s almost too appropriate! Christmas and sarcasm — not sure what family psychologists would say, but it’s us! :-)</p>
<p>Merry Day after Christmas everybody! H gave me a new macBook and was busy transferring all my files yesterday. It’s very cool. Hope everyone can enjoy a relaxing day with friends and family!</p>
<p>We stayed hoem and my biggest fear that i would not feel up to it. did not happen. we enjoyed the day and each other. I ihave my Uggs, H cooked dinner, and we played the ‘’'wii (we are behind the times) Hope everyone is safe my aunt lives in Mn and described the snow.</p>
<p>Great day playing Bananagrams with the family. Nice to know that the expensive college educations are turning out to be so useful–“bezoar” anyone?</p>
<p>D left today for a week of snowboarding with her aunt and uncle. She will come back the night before we are driving her back to school. She looked so happy in her new gear. I tried not to let her see my hurt feelings. The look on H’s face was like “man up, dude”. I might speak to him tomorrow or the next day.</p>
<p>Wow, you can’t stay off these pages for 3 days or you totally lose track! </p>
<p>Missypie - I am really sorry about the work issues. Hoping 2010 is better</p>
<p>All else who are ill - hoping you recover quickly.</p>
<p>Snowbound midwesterners - hope you are safe and shoveled out. Don’t even THINK of going near that snowblower!!!</p>
<p>H is improved in terms of pain. One horrible night (the postop night) but hey, once oxycodone starts to build up in your body it really is a good thing…</p>
<p>This is one of my favorite days of the year…The work of Christmas and H’s birthday is over. Everyone is sleeping in and I’m quietly cleaning up, freezing some of the baked goods that I know we’ll enjoy more later. We bought four more Christmas trees on sale yesterday, but don’t worry, they are to replace existing ratty/too small trees, not to add to (except next year we’re doing a Mother Goose tree.)</p>
<p>Poor D (the 11th grader) has so much homework to do over break, I guess I’m going to have to start nagging her about that soon. Junior year really is intense, isn’t it?</p>
<p>Bananagrams is pretty fun! I usually hate games (I’m always the one who offers to make snacks while everyone else plays a game) but Bananagrams is something I can tolerate.</p>
<p>Have a great rest of the weekend, dear friends!</p>
<p>We also played Wii - mario kart. If it’s behind the times, fine by me. DTE - so glad you had a great day with the family. And H cooking? Hard to complain about that since I cooked for what seems like three days straight and ended up with aching joints. And a fridge FULL of leftovers.</p>
<p>I couldn’t find bananagrams at Target, but cleaned out a little local toy store’s supply by buying four of them. Gave one to brother, one to D’s BF, one to S and one to D16. My brain was pretty much fried by Christmas Eve and so I was having trouble with words larger than three letters, which had me losing consistently. Had huge snows and then some rain, which means it will probably be spring before S’s snow cave collapses and snowman melts as they are both iced into permanence. Yesterday I hit a wall and did absolutely nothing… and I mean nothing. Looking around, it is painfully obvious to the naked eye and to even the most slovenly. H took all the kids (is the 30 yr old bf still called a Kid) to a basketball game last night. Made for a really quiet house for me and I fell asleep around 9 not to wake up until 7 am! Yep, I was tired. Seems like I just finished decorating the house and it’s time to take it all down. Oh Missy – how do you do it? Will wait a week.</p>
<p>D25 just left for her 11 hour drive back to Ohio. BF has to work tomorrow. It was great to have her here, but wish it was longer. As always.</p>
<p>Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and the kids were helpful and happy to be home!!</p>
<p>Question for you: did your kids grades come with any comments from professors? While I really felt the absence of the Parent/Teacher conferences, I assumed it was always the job of the kids to get feedback during the course of the semester, but was just wondering whether other schools gave comments.</p>
<p>Happy to hear that everyone had pleasant holidays. Ours was a two day event. I prepared a nice dinner for my parents, one sister and her family on, and of course my own family on Christmas Day. Yesterday another sister and brother came into town so we had another round of gift giving and eating too much. I would really like a giant salad right now. My youngest nephew is about 18 months old. He is a delight to be around. At one point he was a bit angry about something so threw himself on the floor. In theory that’s not cute, but his practice of a temper tantrum was cute. He just kind of plopped himself on the floor. No tears or screaming, just sitting on the floor, looking sad and mad. It took me back to when my kids were that age. </p>
<p>I thought DD and I might drive to the nearest larger city today for some post holiday bargains, but there is snow on the way. I’m just not willing to battle it, maybe tomorrow. I think today will be declared a pajama day. There are plenty of leftovers to whip up into something new and no need to go out unless I want to hit some local stores for wrapping paper for next year. </p>
<p>modadunn–I don’t think D’s grades come via mail at all. She looks for them online and didn’t mention comments. She did get a real letter from one of her profs encouraging her to consider a major in his discipline and congratulating her on grade/effort in the class. It was kind of a form letter, but I thought it was a nice touch for a department in a large university.</p>
<p>Ha! Every day has been pajama day here since Christmas morning except for an hour where we all dressed for dinner Christmas night!</p>
<p>Son’s grades were posted to his registration page. And same here that nothing comes to the parents here…and is why it seems to ironic that the school sends S a 25K bill (who then sheepishly hands it to his father). When D started college in 2003, the rule about no parental involvement was strict beyond belief (and then lightened up considerably with students signing agreements with the school etc after the girl committed suicide at MIT and the school knew she was deeply depressed. Parents sued). Anyway…</p>
<p>Some kids on a blog were saying they wished professors made comments and it was my feeling that if anyone needs comments it’s parents. Kids usually know why they got a C+, don’t they? I had a brief thought that this says something as a reflection of our society with kids today being too accustomed to having their egos stroked. After all, they’ve been getting participation trophies since practically birth! Then again, my parents barely attended parent teacher conferences by the time I came along, third in the line of four.</p>
<p>No comments. I do wish S’s school gave out pluses and minuses. S2 and H are leaving on Thursday for a bowl game in Florida so I will have a nice quiet house over New Year’s. </p>
<p>A friend of our older son stopped by to tell us about his visit to Rio. Apparently, they went hang gliding off a cliff, among other things. He assumed we had heard all about it because apparently it was somewhat harrowing, but our son didn’t consider that worthy of mentioning in an email so no we hadn’t heard. I wish he shared more but he is just having too much fun living his life to bother writing us about it.</p>
<p>I’m thinking a Kindle would be a good college graduation gift for him. I sent him Fortune’s Formula for Christmas which he is enjoying and I am reading a library copy at the same time.</p>
<p>Santa put Bananagrams in Fang Jr’s stocking. Players who know the two letter words are at a considerable competitive advantage in that game. I now have to agree not to use any two letter words when I play.</p>
<p>Thanks to all for the Banangrams suggestion. It came at just the right moment and my kids do still love to get something that is a “toy” and not a gift card so I dashed out and found it…Mine seem genuinely glad to be home and just to be home sometimes–even if they are in their rooms I like hearing them about the house. The oldest (now a senior) was reflecting that he is actually glad the “seeing high school friends” frenzy of holiday visits has dropped away. I am trying to keep on the duct tape so I don’t ask too many questions about thesis and post-grad plans. I know he will put it all together but I’d love to be hearing more details…Sigh.</p>
<p>Younger one has to have wisdom teeth out right after New Years. Guess I’ll look up threads on that. I seem to remember some advice once posted on good vitamins or herbs to take in advance to speed healing?</p>