Wayne and Rebecca Madsen

I'm trying to raise awareness in TMS, or Toddler Mullet Syndrome. While it generally afflicts little girls with straight hair, our Paela was beginning to show the early symptoms. In order to strike at TMS before it claimed our wavy-haired child, we resolutely decided that giving her a haircut was the appropriate action. She was complacent about the idea to begin with and properly sat in her high chair, ready for the new experience. It wasn't until the very moment after the first hair was cut that she panicked. My favorite image is of her holding a lost lock of hair and soulfully mourning the detachment. Oh, silly toddler. But now her hair looks better. Our fear was that she would revert to her 'pre-girl' look, but her hair has fashionably decided to maintain a feminine touch. At least people haven't been calling her a boy again. [yet...]

I'm in the Christmas spirit. Rebecca and Aderyn came to church today and there was a great talk on gifts; it was hardly a spiritual assessment of gifts, but allowed me to reminisce on the good, the bad and the not-so-bad of Christmas pasts. Instead of teaching a well prepared lesson in class, I asked what traditions people were willing to share. This is the first year that Rebecca and I are in a position to determine our future traditions. We have no idea how to make such decisions. 

It snowed. Not a light Western snow, but a full New England blizzard with overturned oil tankers close by. I happened to be -- in a moment of zombie-like braindeadedness -- out trying to get new tires for the car. It took a long time to get home because every road I tried was closed due to accidents. But Paela and I got dressed and played in the snow. She didn't like sledding, but enjoyed snowball fights.

The massive dump of snow was a result of a large storm front. By the evening, it had turned to a huge thunder and rain storm which, quite literally, rained on the Christmas lights parade. We all went because our local story-time lady was going to be doing some Christmas readings and Paela likes her songs and stories. As a result of that night, Paela now requests us to sing 'rudolf reindeer' for every car ride. Santa also visited that night. Paela didn't want to touch him with a ten foot pole. [but she gladly sampled the candy cane one of his helpers handed me for Paela. -bec]

And Camilla's birthday was nice. Paela mostly ate candy all night. She's taken to waking up in the morning and demanding 'I need some candy' or 'I need some chocolate' or 'I need the calendar' (where there is chocolate to be found). Note that these are needs, not wants.

I only teach one more class this semester. Things turned out fairly well overall. We nearly made it through all the material, but more outside classwork could have expedited some of the units. In the future, I will require attendance, taken first thing as the class begins. It is pathetic that I have to do that, but when in Rome...