Aidan spent another year amazing us at every
turn. He is now five and in September he
began a Readiness Kindergarten class designed for kids with late summer/early
fall birthdays who don’t quite make the cutoff to start kindergarten. Aidan began the school year already reading
at a first grade level, and has progressed leaps and bounds since then. Math appears to be another one of his strong
suits, and he has become quite adept at adding and subtracting. However, his
penchant for removing his socks and shoes in the event that he doesn’t quite
have enough fingers to solve a particular problem is definitely not a trait
gleaned from the Teodoro side of the family!
Aidan loves playing outside, and had his first experience with
“organized” sports when he joined a T-ball league this summer. Sadly, the players appeared to be less
interested in the games than the parents, and most of his teammates spent their
time wandering in circles and drawing pictures in the dirt. Oh well.
There’s always next year.
Princess Isabella began her reign of terror this
year by learning to walk at 8 months, and the whirling dervish hasn’t slowed
down since. Our beautiful angel with the
big blue eyes and cherubic smile has become what polite society refers to as a
‘busy’ child. She sprints from cupboards
to shelves, closets to dressers, frantically flinging their contents in her
wake. Her gleeful fleeing giggles mock
her parents’ futile attempts to simultaneously catch her and undo the chaos she
has created. She adores her big brother
Aidan, but tends to demonstrate her feelings by beating him mercilessly at
every opportunity. Despite these
tendencies, she manages to wrap nearly everyone around her little finger, with
that irresistible smile and her habit of blinking her eyes and sweetly begging
“peeeese” whenever she wants something.
Although her vocabulary is steadily progressing, she still does most of
her communicating through grunting and streams of gibberish. We are often left to decipher, in a
Lassie-esque manner, what she needs when she runs into the room, arms waving
wildly, squealing and pointing in the direction she just came. “What’s that Bella? Aidan’s in the well? Good girl!”
As
we sat down to write edition six of the Teodoro Family Christmas Letter, we
began to reflect on our time spent writing previous letters. We scoffed at our perceived stresses in the
year 2000, where we wondered how we would ever find the time to write an entire
page, what with 2 year old Aidan constantly underfoot. Our laughter continues as we reflect on 2002,
when we were sure that even a couple of paragraphs were beyond our reach, with
8 month old Isabella adding to the commotion in our home. We know now that those episodes only hinted
of the chaos to come, as 4 month old Owen has turned our life upside down. As we strive for complete sentences and
coherent thoughts, we hope you will enjoy this brief glimpse into our past
year.
Bella
now attends pre-school twice a week and enjoys her time there very much. From painting and snack time to her new best
friend Wendy, her class has everything a little girl could want. This includes her wonderful teacher Mrs.
Hauck, who immediately endeared herself to Bella by referring to her as
‘sweetcakes’ from the first day.
Isabella’s awareness of her universe is rapidly expanding, and she often
comes home ready to expound her newfound knowledge upon us. One of our favorites came one day after
class, when she gleefully exclaimed “Guess what Mrs. Hauck has at home? A Mr. Hauck!”
Truly fantastic stuff indeed.
Finally,
in a continuing effort to supply reliable and timely updates on the story first
reported in last year’s Christmas Letter, we bring you this: after a full year
of investigation by Tacoma
Aidan
applied and was accepted into the Davidson Institute’s Young Scholars program,
a national nonprofit devoted to serving the needs of gifted children. For all his brains, however, Jacques Cous-Aidan,
while trying out his new snorkeling gear in the bathtub, somehow failed to notice
the cordless phone thrown in by his little brother. All those familiar with the whirlwind of
destruction we call Owen, though, know Aidan was just lucky it wasn’t a toaster.
It isn't a Teodoro Christmas letter without sharing some kidism. In this paragraph my husband is describing our four year old daughters interesting choice of words:
Although we’re sure that some learning must go
on at her school, they apparently have yet to study parts of speech, as
evidenced by her creative use of adverbs.
One of our favorites came one day when she decided to strip down to her
skivvies after racing around the house because she was “soaking hot!”.
Our
little Owen turned one in August, and has become - and there’s no polite way to
say this - a walking disaster. It has
since become a full time job to ensure that Owen does not: a) injure himself,
b) destroy something, or c) - and most likely - injure himself in the process
of destroying something. Every day seems
to bring a new bruise or scrape, and bloody noses and bonked heads have become
commonplace in our house. This child,
responsible for much of Rachel’s current mental state, simply has a motor that
doesn’t quit, an underdeveloped sense of self-preservation, and enough
curiosity to end the lives of a dozen cats.
He taught himself that access to the kitchen cupboards is as simple as
opening the dishwasher, climbing inside, and then clawing his way onto the
countertop. He found that he could terrorize
the fish in its bowl near the bathroom sink by climbing into a drawer, hoisting
himself onto the counter, and plunging in up to his elbows. He also learned that the toilet flushes when he
pulls on the lever, but not quite as well with his shoes stuffed inside. Here’s hoping we all survive long enough to
see his boundless energy and charming personality put to better use!
In other family news, the
kids finally have a local cousin now that Mike’s older brother and his wife had
their first baby in July. However, a
previously excited Isabella frowned dejectedly upon meeting Sofia for the first
time, lamenting “Aww, that baby’s cuter than us!”.
Mike had quite a year,
(turning thirty for the first time ever!) and although he still struggles on
occasion to see the brighter side of aging (the top of his head) he has
adjusted to midlife admirably. He celebrated
his milestone birthday in clichéd crisis fashion, by buying himself a shiny new
vehicle. Although not your stereotypical
convertible, Mike had a great time riding his new mountain bike and getting actual
exercise, instead of just watching it on TV.
To add insult to his newfound geriatric state, a few weeks ago Mike received
his first AARP application in the mail, complete with a temporary membership
card. (Seriously? Come on.
Who’s in charge over there, a bunch of old people?) In other news, he has managed to stay
gainfully employed with XXXXXXX for the seventh consecutive year (a
personal best!) and has very much enjoyed the recent opportunity to collaborate
with his father’s company on a machine design project.
This past May, Rachel found
time to escape (a term we don’t use lightly) to California for a few days,
where she met up in Los Angeles with some fellow fugitive moms from
Purdue. They enjoyed their temporary
parole from child rearing immensely, spending their time at the beach, a hotel
pool (where they weren’t, in the strictest sense, technically guests) and even
Disneyland. Alas, Rachel’s figurative
fifteen minutes of fame has been reduced by about thirty seconds, following her
national television debut on American Idol.
Fortunately, Rachel’s time in the spotlight wasn’t spent belting out a
warbled rendition of “Back Home Again in Indiana” but rather as an
on-the-street interviewee of dreamy host Ryan Seacrest, her new BFF. She has also found a knack for making baby
gifts, and now has them for sale online.
Those of you pining for a free sample need simply to produce a child,
and we’re sure you’ll soon find one in the mail.
And rounding out the letter Mike added a new segment:
Owen turned two this August,
and our smiling, happy goofball is as random as they come. To illustrate this, we’ll try out a new
segment we’d like to call “Actual Conversations with Owen”. “Owen, do you have to go potty?” “Uh, no.”
“Owen, are you sure?” “Go pee-pee
Aidan’s room.” “You what?” Cue the screaming from Aidan – “Aaahhh, why
is my floor all wet!?!” Or this exchange,
after having returned him to bed for the twelfth time that night – “Owen, you
need to stay in bed.” “Uh, ok.” “Owen, are you going to get out of bed?” “Ummm, yeah.” At least he’s honest. While no longer the destructive force he once
was, our little Owen is alternately a joy and an exasperation, and we love him
just the same.
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