Dirty Little Secret #76 & #77

#76) In 2007, we haven’t changed a bit.

When asked, “how are you?” I’m often faced with the stunning realization that we’re riding on an even keel. There’s school and work and sewing. There’s a lawn to be mowed and a dog to be walked. So we’re well, I say. We’re just fine.

And we are.

This is our first full year riding out the status quo. In the past five years we’ve experienced births, deaths, job changes, and two cross-country moves. But this year, we stayed put. Our family was healthy, happy, and blissfully boring.

That’s not to say that nothing at all has changed. Lizzy started kindergarten, which she loves more than anything. She often tells me that weekends are boring because she can’t go to school. Teddy went to pre-school for the first time. He seems to like it, but he does tell us that the work is too hard. Dirk likes to tell me that he, too, found finger-painting difficult when he was three.

That’s a good illustration of how Lizzy and Teddy are different. They continue to thwart my liberal feminist pacifist tendencies while Lizzy dresses up as a cheerleader and Teddy pretends to shoot “laser blasters” at the dog. In 2007, the score is 1 for nature, 0 for nurture.

Of course, Liz and Ted assembled a whole new list of firsts: Liz lost three teeth and Ted learned to pedal a bike. We celebrated Teddy’s third birthday in June and Lizzy is just about to turn six. In fact, she informed us that next year she’ll turn seven. Then my head exploded.

This year, I decided to drop the pretense that Dirk has anything to do with the annual holiday letter. He’d like you all to know that he thinks that the 2007 version is boring. But that’s the point, I told him.

Hoping that your year has a little bit a boring in it,
Karen, Dirk, Lizzy & Teddy

#77) I send an annual holiday letter with my Christmas card.

Enough said.