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.