Hope Springs Internal

Julia never complains about physical ailments unless they’re pretty severe, so I was surprised when, during her bath tonight, she rubbed her legs and said, “Daddy, my legs hurt last night, when I was sleeping.” I quizzed her a bit to see if she had fallen during the day or had slept on her leg or something, but she just repeated that her legs “just hurt” – even to the point of waking her up.

I finally shrugged and told her that she might have been having growing pains. “What’s that?” she asked. “They’re pains that some kids get when their muscles and bones are growing, and their arms and legs might start to hurt.” She looked off into the distance, thinking, then looked back at me: “Well, maybe that’s what it was. I did get older over night. Do I look taller to you?”

Putting the “Din” in Dinner

A partial list of the girls’ activities at dinner tonight:

  • Praising the entree, sweet-potato chili
  • Saying “please” and “thank you” (both did this, but it’s new for Vivi)
  • Singing “Silent Night” and parts of “Most Wonderful Time” and “Frosty the Snowman”
  • Debating whether it would be okay for Vivi to have “tree raisins” for dessert (it was not)
  • Pretending that Jesus was with us for dinner
  • Accidentally burping, and genuinely exclaiming, “Koos ME!” (Vivi only)
  • Discussing breakfast options
  • Counting the number of days (2) until the next day at nursery school
  • Making barnyard-animal sounds, including alpaca and llama
  • Analyzing the fact that it’s already “niddime” outside when we eat, and wondering when it will again be light at dinnertime
  • Pretending to go to sleep (Vivi only)
  • Struggling to hold up the right number of fingers (Vivi) for various numbers being called out by her sister
  • Entertaining their father, and to a lesser degree, their mother

Ski Season

Today was my first ski of the season in the Arb, a nice session tooling around the only good snow in the Upper Arb. I was happy that my arms didn’t fall off, since this suggests that I might have a chance to get in decent skiing shape for the the City of Lakes Loppet. Having my arms fall off would have definitely impeded my ability to ski in the race.

Just as exciting is that tomorrow will see the culmination of the third Tour de Ski, a multi-stage cross-country ski race that is one of the two high points of the World Cup. I’ve blogged embarrassingly extensively on the Tour in previous years on my previous blogs and this year on the “Nordic Commentary Project” that I share with another ski fan. Suffice to say here that tomorow’s last event is the hardest one in skiing, a race up a steep ski hill, the Alpe Cermis, in northern Italy.

Here’s the overall stage, 9k for women and 10k for men:

Final Climb Profile
Final Climb Stage Profile

Here’s the big climb itself:

Final Climb up Alpe Cermis
Final Climb up Alpe Cermis

The first man and the first woman to the top of the Alpe Cermis are the respective winners of the Tour de Ski. Last year’s race was good, but not as good as this year promises to be: for the first time, both the men’s and the women’s titles are up for grabs. I can’t wait to see what happens. (And I can actually see it this year: NBC’s “Universal Sports” service is webcasting the men’s and women’s Final Climbs shortly after the races end.)

Hydrophobia

All kids are weird about something (or many things, more like), but some of Julia’s more puzzling idiosyncrasies involve water. One aspect of her hydrophobia is her dislike of swimming in any form. Just mentioning her upcoming swim classes is enough to nearly reduce her to tears – and this is after she had excellent one-on-one swim lessons last summer, which she claimed to enjoy.

But so lots of kids don’t like swimming and pools and things natatorial. But do all kids abhor having their chins wet? Before she even gets into her bath, Julia sets a hand towel or a dry washcloth on the edge of the tub, and then uses it periodically during the bath to dry her chin. Not her cheeks, eyes, or forehead, which also get pretty wet while she splashes with her sister – just her chin. Very strange.

Sparky

When, tonight, I moved Julia from the guest room bed, where she’s supposed to fall asleep while her sister wails, to her own bed, she whispered to me, “Daddy, while I was in the guest room, my knees were lighting up!” I thought for a second, wondering what she could mean, and then realized she’d seen static-electric sparks generated by the wool blanket. I told her it was static, just like when we accidentally shock each other after walking on the carpet, and that it wasn’t anything to worry about. She whisperered back, “Ohhhhhh,” as if a secret had been revealed. Now that I’m writing about it, I wonder if she was hoping it was fairies or something. Sorry, honey.

Running Wild

Here’s a few minutes of an average evening at our house.

(Warning: Includes toddler nakedness and sisterly thumbs-on-lens. No sugary treats were involved in the making of this motion picture.)


Vivi Runs Wild from Christopher Tassava on Vimeo.

No points are awarded for the correct deduction, based on the visual evidence presented here, that not five minutes after this video, the subject dissolved into a colossal crying fit.

CoLLing Me

City of Lakes Loppet

Today, there is exactly one month until the City of Lakes Loppet ski race in Minneapolis. I skied – and enjoyed – the CoLL last year, enough that I asked for the entry fee (and some discretionary time for training) as my Christmas gift last week.

My goal for the 2009 race is simple: go faster than last year, when I finished in 1:48. If I can cut ten minutes off my time, I’ll be pleased. Doing that should be good enough to move into places that will be the high 200s overall (last year, I finished in 322nd place overally, 297th among men) and maybe high teens in my age group (where I was 26th).

Compared to last year, I’m substantially more fit, though I’ve had much less time on snow. I hope to fix the latter problem in the next month by skiing on anything this side of crushed ice.

Also in my favor is that last year’s time will move me up to a earlier, faster wave – perhaps the fourth or even the third, up from the final, sixth wave last year. Being moved up a few waves will put me alongside faster skiers from whom I hope I can “get a tow,” as they say. We’ll see in 30 days…

Resolutionary Road

Last year’s resolutions were few but good. Exactly one year later, I can say that I achieved each of them, though I abandoned number 1 – “Eat no potato chips” – on July 1 after proving to myself that I could live without chips but chose not to. (I can quit at any time.)

2008 was a good year in every respect. Genevieve, Julia, Shannon, and I are happy and healthy (excepting a lingering sniffle or cough right now) and as prosperous as we can be, given our chosen living arrangements and the dismal American economy. Moreover, we are all pleased with the way our lives are proceeding: through a busy toddlerhood for Vivi, toward the challenges of kindergarten for Julia, to a new avocation as a freelance writer for Shannon, and through a nice set of responsibilities and activities for me. And while local, state, national, and world affairs are even less settled on 12/31/08 than they were on 12/31/07, at least we can look forward to the inauguration on January 20 to commence a literally and figuratively new phase in American history.

So, in a vein of not fixing what’s not broken, my incrementalist resolutions for 2009:

  • Strive to be more “zen” as a father, letting the girls get to me less (or rather, letting myself get to me less about the girls) and trying to just roll with their kid-ness, good and bad.
  • Do more to help at home, creating more time for Shannon to write.
  • Write a journal article based on my dissertation for publication later in the year (culminating a long process that started in 2006 when I was solicited to write this piece).
  • Try and do at least one drawing – pencil, pen-and-ink, digital – every day.
  • Train more seriously as a cross-country skier, doing at least a couple ski races in this and next winter and doing at least one long running race. More on all that as warranted.
  • Get more sleep!
  • Pare down non-required obligations and duties to the bare minimum, saving physical and mental energy for family, friends, and work.

Happy new year to all!