What I look like

As previously stated, Nea (age 7) has limb apraxia as well as apraxia of speech. She has worked very hard on her handwriting, which is pretty good now, although still larger than it should be. Work in progress, like much of her life. But she can zip up her jacket. We have no intention of teaching her how to tie her shoelaces any time soon. Hey, if Daniel Radcliff is still struggling with it at his advanced age, why tortune her?

Anyway, here's a picture she drew on her iPad yesterday. It's me. Her people have had a robotesque look for quite awhile. I like them. Check out my biceps! Whooo! I do wonder whether I should have my ears pinned back, though.

Rule one of book club

Rule 1: Do not post information about the new book until members of book club had a chance to get a copy.

We are reading The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. I'm enjoying it, but the German is odd. Must be a dialect. Or something. He translated Zufriedenheit as happiness. That's just wrong. It's satisfaction.

I need to pick out my book for December. You'd think I'd have a bunch of ideas, but I dunno. I've been reading all these crazy books lately. I liked Little Bee by Chris Cleave so much, and then I read another one of his books, Incendiary. Loved that even more. Then I read Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart. Apparently I've got a terrorism/end of the world theme going.

And they took away my Visual Bookshelf (It was free! It was online!) and didn't even warn me, so there went a giant list of books I loved. GRRRR.

Maybe I'll pick The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. Or The Arrival by Shaun Tan. Or Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk. Thoughts?

Ugly Christmas Ornament Party: A Retrospective

A long time ago, we used to be fun. That was before we had kids. Back in those idyllic days, we would host amusing parties. I would say the most popular themed party we had was the Ugly Christmas Ornament Party. Which was a nice break from all the serious holiday parties. It started out fairly casual and became pretty competitive by the end, with rules and stuff. Actually, a lot of my parties seem to have rules. It's because I'm German. I can't help it.

The rules were:

• One entry per person.
• Enter into one of the categories: store-bought or homemade/altered.
• One vote per person. Yadda yadda, can't quite remember all the voting rules for having two categories.
• You must be willing to give up your entry. Everyone will go home with a different ornament.
• The winning ornament stays with us.

Luckily we are organized (snort!) and have all the winners still carefully stored all together in a box. I present them to you for your enjoyment.

1998 Red D*ldo -- Joanne Harrison

1999 Paschke -- Perrigo family

2000 Santabird -- Darin and Olga

2001 It Just Screams Christmas -- N

2002 Holiday Time in Afghanistan -- Tish

2003 Cowpie Snowman -- Kris Ward

And this little bonus item that was robbed of winning. I think John brought it the first year we had the party. His grandma made it or something. I'm pretty sure I voted for it. It's top-notch.

And this. This monstrosity.

This started it all. N and I found it in an antique store in Hebron, IL. It was $7. I took off the little plaques N made with the winners' names on them. And ain't she a beaut.