heartland holidays

We've been hanging out with Yeye and Nainai in Rockford. And, here are a few snapshots of our activities.

Binbin has taken to helping Nainai with baking. He has so far "helped" her with pancakes, rolls, crumpets, and shortbread cookies. Tonight we're going to have pizza for dinner, and Binbin and Nainai are making pizza dough.



All day today (Friday), it's been snowing. In the mid-morning, we put on our boots, snowsuit, gloves, hat, and sunglasses, of course, to go outside to play. We finished one snowman and started another. No paparazzi, please. (Binbin shuts the screen door on Yeye)



Yeye has all kinds of fun stuff in the basement. Some of it is his regular stuff, like this ergometer, which can be transformed into a toy...



Other stuff is meant to be played with, like Yeye's own Lionel train from his boyhood. Binbin has learned how to disconnect and reconnect all the cars.



After opening presents, Binbin lends a hand in a Kline family tradition: burning the wrapping paper in the fireplace. Yeye crumples pieces into balls, and Binbin lobs them into the fireplace. (yes, he'd rather do this than put his pants on)



Binbin made it his job to dole out presents on Christmas morning (and he of course helped everyone open every present). Here, he tosses a present to Baba, who makes a mid-air catch on film.



A "before" picture of the Christmas tree replete with presents, carefully arranged by Yeye after Binbin had gone to bed.



Before Christmas, we played with toys stored in the Klines' basement, and some that we brought from Maine. We used legos to make several robots, whose friendly presence at meals was a welcome encouragement to eat with the family.

winter fun

Some winter activities to share with you:

Weekend breakfast at the Kopper Kettle. Binbin always has the same thing: yogurt with fruit, OJ, a side of bacon cooked in the microwave. Yummy.



All aboard the special Candy Cane train, which runs from Bath to Wiscasset, raising funds for literacy. Interior view:



Picturesqe Wiscasset:



Binbin keeping busy (and fashionable) during the journey.





More recent domestic activities include helping Nainai vacuum in the eating area.



And just this morning, a momentous event: Binbin posed for a picture! He's perched atop a kiddie climbing thing in the Cherryvale indoor children's play area.

before christmas

We're spending our Christmas with the Klines in Rockford, Illinois. We landed at O'Hare airport right about the stroke of midnight Saturday night...after a long and delirious journey that included about 7 hours' of waiting at the Portland jetport, delays on the tarmac, delay over Lake Michigan, an ad hoc deboarding through normally secure areas reserved for airport workers in pelting snow and fierce winds, nearly two hours at the baggage area waiting for 2 of 3 bags to show up, a nearly two-hour drive through snow (top speed probably not quite 50 mph) from O'Hare to Rockford. I think we were all in bed by 4 am, about 22 hours after we had woken up Saturday morning. The silver lining is that Binbin was extraordinarily well behaved, playing goofy games in the airport that included pretended he had transformed into a "waffle" monster and scaring mama who pretended to sleep at the end of a row of airport seating. The plate-gold lining is that none of us has a caught a cold.

And, of course, what really matters is that we all made it safely to Rockford. Such are the travails of travel in wintry times.

Binbin has been acclimating to his new environment...and it certainly helped that Yeye decided to set up the electric train set in the basement. That heroic feat required the opening, organizing, and jettisoning of much basement stuff. Binbin has also been gleefully rummaging through boxes of old toys: a Peanuts drum; tinker toys that can be fashioned in to drumsticks; Tonka trucks of different types, sizes, and colors; a knock hockey table that Jack made long ago; plastic gizmos that fire ping pong balls; baby toys made of soft plastic; wooden puzzles; and the list goes on.

You'd think that we could never leave such playstuff behind, but we have also gotten outdoors to knock icicles off the roof, shovel snow on the deck, and build a snowman. The highlight of outdoor play has definitely been getting pulled around the yard while seated in a bright, red plastic saucer. Binbin shouts his commands to his human servants: "faster, Baba, faster!" "now it's Mama's turn. Fast, Mama!" This is one way to help keep trim before holiday feasting.

Binbin has also delighted in helping Nainai in the kitchen, whether it's making pancakes on the grill or shortbread in the form of snowmen, holly, Santa, and Christmas trees. He especially likes to sprinkle all of the above with liberal amounts of bright green, staining, sugar. Yummy!

We promise that photos will be added when we gather the energy to shoot some.

Birthday, part II

Now, for the "real" birthday, the one with presents. One present came in a bag...what's in there?




While Mama worked on setting up the first present, a Thomas the Tank Engine tent from Uncle Randall, Binbin moved onto opening the next presents, including a ladybug umbrella from Debbie, Kevin, and Ronan.



Once the tent was up and functioning, Binbin immediately threw remaining presents inside, and cimbed in to open more presents...





Wrapped inside these packages were soft flannel sheets printed with elephants, a handknit wool hat, a wooden puzzle in the form of a train engine (from Yeye and Nainai); and a barrel of monkeys (from Ah-po-and Ah-gong). Thank you one and all for the many gifts. (I should note that we decided to save up some gifts for opening in Rockford before Christmas.)

And, after all the excitement of presents, Binbin happily slurped up "long life" noodles, as part of his birthday dinner.