Thought I'd try to get you all caught up before I sent out this year's Christmas letter so here are all the Manry Miscellany beginning when Jack was one year old.
Some of you won't recognize the attached photos as the ones that came with your letter, but this is because they are the "real" Christmas photos. The thinking was if we didn't know you very well, you got the "nice" photo. But if you knew us even remotely, you got the "real" photo.
And now I should go write this year's letter. Bahahahaha! Or should I say Bohohoho!?
********
2001
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| This photo will set the pattern for all following photos, even when Jim and I aren't in them. Can you see the pattern? |
We love
the most!
********
2002
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| Jack looks so happy. This is before he realizes what being "the big brother" entails. |
There was no Christmas letter for this year: something about having a baby a week before Christmas threw my groove off. But here's what the kids looked like sometime around then.
2003
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| And even then, Woody distrusted photographers. |
I can't find my 2003 letter; have no idea what happened to it, or what happened that year.
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| The children were nestled all snug in their beds ... |
Martha’s
Internal Memorandum
Date:
December 2004
To:
Self
RE:
End of Year Business
As I
already know, the boys are growing up quickly (as evidenced by Jack’s ability
to repeat with unerring accuracy in the most inopportune moments, all my most
heartfelt expletives), so now is the time to slow down, savor time with the
boys, and stop saying, “Crap!”
Approaching
tax season should remind me to be a better money manager. This is best accomplished by saying “No” to
excess demands in order to provide for imperative expenditures. Begin with telling the boys “No” frequently,
but gently, and use this opportunity to introduce them to complex concepts such
as prioritizing. For example: “No,
dears, we can’t buy you those toys because if we bought you a [Matchbox car,
ball, stick of gum] every time you
asked, how on earth would we be able to afford that GORGEOUS leather jacket
Mommy wants?”
In
other news, upper management (James) has announced a probable relocation of the
family in July 2005. This could be to
Texas, Arkansas, or Missouri, and I would advise myself, once the location has
been learned, not to be hasty and simply set the garage on fire in lieu of
sorting and packing four years’ worth of accumulated junk there. This does not rule out setting fire to the
garage after I sort, pack, and acknowledge I don’t want to haul it all to the
new place. Note to self: move the cars
first.
Finally,
do try to get all the Christmas cards out on time – or at all – this year. With Amanda here to help out (although I
really do need to remind myself more often that she’s here working on that
accounting degree, and not to wash dishes, read to the boys, or give me
pedicures), I have no good excuse for not sending something out.
Keep
up the good work, and as Aloise Buckley Heath might say (if she were me), “Hooray
for Mrs. Manry!”
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| Aren't you glad they don't send out homemade Christmas cookies? |
We’ll
be brief. Here are our major
accomplishments and defining moments for the year:
Jim
– graduated residency, became an official gas-passer, accepted anesthesia
position at Mid-Continent Anesthesia, Chtd., now works two minutes from the
house, but still drives.
Martha
– slept six hours straight one night in October.
Amanda
– graduated college, and is working two jobs, trying to decide what she wants
to do when she grows up.
Jack
– is learning to read, insists real school requires going somewhere on a school
bus, therefore, home schooling is NOT real school. He generally is disdainful of Woody, and says
Woody is “renoring” (annoying?) him.
Woody
– started speaking in complete and/or run-on sentences in May, usually involving
dragons, detailed descriptions of automatic weapons, fire and knights. He walks along six-foot-high fences, leaps
over couches in a single bound, and tried to set fire to the house today using
just a roll of Christmas wrapping paper and our ventless gas fireplace.
May
your own Holidays and New Year be … peaceful!
 |
| Have a Merry Christmas … OR ELSE! |
Dear
Family and Friends,
Here
it is the end of another year and I find I am asking that age-old question:
“Where in the world did I put my car keys?”
This
is followed by, “How does one make it look like a tragic accident if one burns
the whole lot of Thomas the Tank Engine, Ninja Turtle and Power Ranger DVDs?”
But I digress.
Jack
is six years old now. He started piano
lessons this past September and after I tried to give him a few too many
pointers, he gravely informed me that his teacher told him NOT to worry about
timing, a directive which he took seriously, as evidenced by yesterday’s
Christmas performance at the College Hill Nursing Home. If you weren’t hard of hearing or napping
(but most of the audience was), you could sing along to Jack’s rendition of Jingle Bells and Away in a Manger, if you didn’t mind skipping a few words here and
there, and slurring several others together.
The real challenge was predicting which words those would be.
Woody
will be four years old when you receive this letter. He is the child who causes us to scratch our
heads and wonder, “Where did that kid come from?” For all his wild and wooly
ways, he’s very predictable. For
example, he is ALWAYS going to wear his underwear (and sometimes his pants)
inside out and backwards. His shoes will
ALWAYS be on the wrong foot, even after he verifies which is the correct foot. When you can’t find him, it usually means
he’s found a stash of Amanda’s candy and is hiding behind the couch or in a
closet with mountains of empty candy wrappers around him. And the only surefire way to get his
attention is to show him a ball, any ball, which includes Christmas tree
ornaments. Thank goodness for the genius
who came up with plastic Christmas tree decorations.
My
sister Amanda continues to live with us, and has become such a part of our
family that Woody asked, “What do people do who don’t have an Aunt
Amanda?” Amanda started working
full-time in the accounting department of Advanced Industries here in Wichita
back in May. It’s been a solid job for
her, but I know she’s been considering pursuing a degree in education.
Jim
still works for Mid-Continent Anesthesia, Chtd., in Wichita, but sometimes I think
his real job is here, at our “new” old house in Benton (just Northeast of
Wichita), where there is always a bathroom to demolish, a kitchen to remodel, a
ceiling to replace, a lousy goat to terrorize … oh wait, that’s my job. His current project is gutting and remodeling
the master bathroom, which previously featured not just a leaky shower, but
also a floor-to-ceiling window right in
front of the toilet. We will be
moving the toilet.
My
only project of any importance (which I have to admit I’m putting very little
effort into) is a new baby, which is due in June. The family regards this upcoming event with
general disbelief (Jim and Jack), to hand-rubbing anticipation (Amanda), to a
good deal of suspicion (Woody).
That
is all. We miss Mom still, but I like to
think that if we have had such a good year, how much better her day in Heaven
must be.
We
think of you all often, and pray you have a wonderful year in 2007.
God bless you!
********
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| And Betsy never pulled Woody's finger again. |
Well,
another year over, another year closer to the funny farm. The good news is that we won’t have to move
anywhere when they finally commit us.
2007
has brought several new additions to our family, including four miniature
horses, three miniature donkeys, two perpetually starving goats, and one
perpetually displeased diva … I mean baby girl.
Jim
still works at Mid-Continent Anesthesia, Chtd.
Amanda still works at Advanced Industries. Jack and Woody still have the same disgruntled
schoolteacher. I’ve had talks with her
about her habit of substituting daily TV sessions for physical education, but
so far, no improvement. She had the
nerve to consider that changing the boys into their pajamas FOR school (they
wore the previous day’s tee shirts and skivvies to bed) was a big step forward,
if not for mankind, then at least for home schoolers everywhere.
Jack
is seven this year, has lost three teeth, and most of his baby fat. He continues to make progress in piano and
first grade, but considers impressing the new neighbor girls up front vastly
more important than education. Still, he
isn’t growing up too fast. He asked me
the other day if Rudolph was real. I
said that Rudolph was as real as Santa and that settled it: Rudolph is real.
Woody
is five, still wears his clothes inside out and backwards, and to date has made
dozens of Christmas wish lists, which involves cutting all the toy
advertisements out of the Target and Toys R Us ads and pasting them to another
piece of paper; all done with a total lack of cutting and pasting skill, but
gobs of enthusiasm and glue.
Betsy
is six months old and tough to impress. Her greatest challenge is avoiding
Woody and his sticky kisses whenever I put her down, so it would be in her best interest to be an early crawler.
Amanda
was recently informed by her employer that she would be getting her own office
at work. She was informed by its former
occupant to invest in long underwear.
Hmmm.
Jim
has gotten quite good at sneaking new large animals into the barn at every
opportunity. He zeroes in on the hard-up
cases (the goats were being sold as meat, one horse was free because nobody
else wanted a biting horse, the other three came with a price tag, but as a
bonus, one of them kicks the biting horse), and whittles down my
resistance. For example, I was leaning
more toward, “NO! Absolutely NOT!” to the three horses until he said, “I’ll
take the boys for the afternoon and you can go do whatever you want to do.”
As
far as work at the house goes, we have installed an old farmhouse sink in one
bathroom and claw foot tubs in almost all the others. To boost heating throughout the house, we
also installed a wood-burning stove in the living room. At the rate we are reintroducing last
century’s engineering, I predict we will be using chamber pots and oil lamps by
March.
Guess
that’s it for the Manrys (and Amanda) this year. God bless you all and Happy Holidays!
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| Doesn't this just scream "Happy Holidays!"? |
2008
has been a year of FINALLY for the Manrys.
At
eight, Jack FINALLY graduated from a booster car seat. As a result, he now sits a full head shorter
than anybody else in the car except for me, the driver. Current interests include Star Wars, Star Trek,
Legos, and a much-longed-for Wii gaming system.
At
six, Woody FINALLY wears his clothes right side out and frontward, although
shoes (which apparently are optional outdoors in the dead of winter) can go on
either foot … or as a decoration on Betsy’s head. Current interests are Power Rangers, the
Target and Toys R Us weekly toy catalogs (he sleeps with them under his
pillow), and Betsy.
Betsy,
at one-and-a-half, is FINALLY walking and FINALLY has a full head of hair that
can best be described as Bridget Bardot in a wind tunnel. Betsy’s current interests include crying
whenever Jim leaves the room, and discovering where the Tootsie Roll Pops stash
is hidden.
Amanda
FINALLY got that Harlequin Great Dane that we never realized we wanted. Harli stands just tall enough to prop her
head on the kitchen counter and lick the butter dish, but is too short to hitch
up to a wagon and pull her own weight around here.
I
FINALLY gave up anticipating the day Betsy will stop screaming every time we
get in the car, and instead am considering the possibility of expanding my
current partial hearing loss.
Jim
FINALLY got that baby grand piano that I know
we never wanted. On our recent trip to
Seattle, my brother-in-law’s client offered it first to my brother-in-law (his
wife, my sister, said, “No”); then it was offered to my brother-in-law’s
employee (his wife, an old family friend, said, “No”); and then it was offered
to Jim, who has a wife, but said, “Hey, I’ve got a truck!” Since we’ve brought
it home, a quick internet search revealed that Brambach pianos are quite
possibly the worst pianos ever made
in the history of piano making. But I
think that the Manrys are living proof that you can never have too many free
pianos …
In
other news, we FINALLY got the depot moved, Jim FINALLY got a pond dug, and
FINALLY got two barns and a fence built, we FINALLY repaired our driveway (the
UPS delivery man conceded it was not entirely
impassible, as he first thought), and THE CHICKENS ARE FINALLY LAYING EGGS!
P.S.
The donkeys, horses, goats, cats, and even the coyotes, are fine, in spite of
the fact that I now have a shotgun. Stay
tuned for news on pigs, ducks, and cows, which may be sneaking into the barn
soon.
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| Poor Betsy. What is a princess to do with family members like these? |
Dear
Santa,
I
don’t usually interfere with your business but it occurred to me that a recent
incident may have come to your attention, which needs to be cleared up before
your much-anticipated stop at the Manry house.
Contrary to what he may have said to a charmingly gullible visitor last
week, nine-year-old Jack does NOT “just want for everyone to be happy at
Christmas.” As his father graciously
clarified, “I’ve seen his list. That
ain’t on it.” You know that Jack is in
the third grade this year, and so his interests tend more to Transformers, Wii,
Nintendo, how tall he is, and how thick and coiffed his hair is. He continues in piano lessons, and has
announced his interest in drums and violin.
Please don’t bring either.
Since
I have your ear, please disregard seven-year-old Woody’s request for a life-time
membership with weekly visits to Chuck E. Cheese. I have serious doubts whether such a thing
exists, but even if it does. I think that I
have been sufficiently good this year and deserve fewer visits to Chuck E. Cheese.
First grade has proven to be a challenge to Woody, mainly because it
requires copious amounts (15 minutes) of daily reading. On the other hand, history has opened up a
new world of death, dirtiness and destruction (medieval Europe), and then
there’s always using candy to learn to count by 5s, 10s, and 100s. Incidentally, he no longer wears his clothes
inside out and backwards. Now he alternates between two pairs of shorts, day in
and day out, regardless of weather. He
completes the ensemble with a winter coat, and black cowboy boots.
You
may have noticed an alarming amount of board games and other age-inappropriate
toys that were cut and pasted onto Betsy’s Christmas wish list. You may also have noticed there are four pages
of Woody’s list to Betsy’s one. The
reason for this is that Woody prepared both lists, and Bets got whatever was
left of the toy catalogue once Woody finished his selections. I can say with certainty that Betsy would
rather have a dozen pair of new shoes (size does not matter), a new wardrobe
(heavy on the pajamas), rubber ducks, and bubble bath. Speaking intelligibly is not her strong suit,
but she gets her point across with grunts, pats, pokes, and when all else
fails, throwing herself on her bed and howling.
While this isn’t really effective, it is highly entertaining, and the
boys watch gleefully to see if she will get spanked. Please don’t hold these “episodes” against
her. Or me.
Amanda’s
greatest wish came true when she quit her job at Ametek Advanced Industries in
November, and enrolled in cosmetology starting in January. She’s gotten some looks when she explained
that she wants to do nails, but, really, have you seen her pedicures and
manicures? Besides, MY greatest wish has
come true and the depot is almost finished, so she should be moving out there
next month, and she can open up her own business!
Jim
has been good and would really like for his saltwater fish to live longer than
two months. He hasn’t said this. But I
can tell because I can still see through the algae on the front of the tank, which
means he hasn’t given up feeding the fish and cleaning the tank.
It
has been a good year here on the farm, if you judge success by how few animals
have died; really, only Ruby the goat (and you know she was old) and all the
fish in the last saltwater tank. We
added five Mammoth Stock donkeys; Bill, Christina, Grace, Scooter, and Uncle
Joe. They are…big. And still alive!
Your
cookies will be waiting in the usual place.
Don’t mind Shaggy, the new mutt.
He only attacks baby rabbits.
Sincerely,
Martha
Manry
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| And now Lucy is shell-shocked to be in the family. |
Well,
even though it’s clearly marked on the calendar, December 25 railroaded us
again this year. One week Jim and I were
shopping at leisure, perusing the kids’ (massive, unadulterated) Christmas
lists with much eye rolling, the next moment it was the night before Christmas
and in a panic over having hidden the kids’ gifts so well even we couldn’t find
them, we were rushing back out to plunk down money for stuff we knew we had
hidden in plain sight.
Jack
is ten now, in the fourth grade. He
continues in piano, and after a brief stint on the drums, still says he wants to
try the violin. So Santa, ever the
attentive listener, brought him a mini bike, minus a helmet. It has a top speed (the bike, not the helmet)
of 15 miles per hour. I doubt Jack will
ever reach that since our driveway is so thick with potholes that the FedEx
drivers can’t reach that anymore. Jack
is an avid Lego builder and Nintendo gamer, devoted dog owner, and
sometimes-ladies man.
Woody
is eight, in the second grade, and has joined the ranks of shotgun riders in the
car. He is very conscious of the
responsibilities that come with this new position, and monitors the volume and
stereo-tuning dials diligently. But he’s
not all grown up yet. He asked me the
other day how the Duraflame Firestart bricks work, and as you know, I value
honesty between a parent and child so highly that I promptly and gravely said,
“It’s magic.” To which he mumbled in a long-suffering voice as he walked away,
“Magic is NOT a very good answer.” Woody is an action-hero devotee (any will
do), chocolate milk addict, and is ALWAYS a ladies man, so long as the lady in
question is one of his sisters, who can’t escape his noogies and sloppy kisses.
At three, Betsy is our diva-in-residence. She
must do everything herself, by herself, which includes putting on her clothes
(I finally had to put those out of her reach to keep her from wearing her
entire wardrobe every day), labeling Christmas gifts in questionable cursive,
cutting her own hair with child-safe scissors … oh, just everything. It’s easier to let her take her knocks than
to try to talk her out of her brilliant ideas.
Like this one: I walked by the living room to see her hopping up and down
on her hobby horse … on top of her
skateboard, which was perched on top
of Woody’s trampoline, next to the
glass cabinet.
Lucy
is four months old now, and resigned to living with us, although sometimes I’ve
caught her staring wistfully over her pacifier at other families in the grocery
store. Clearly she wishes she belonged
to them. But I’m determined that we are
going to have someone in this family
with class, and we’re down to the last Manry.
Jim
is in his sixth year with Mid-Continent Anesthesia. His hobby this year was Disney World. Twice.
Which is fine when you live in Florida, but a little trickier when you
live in Kansas and refuse to fly with four kids and all their junk. All I have to say is that if the travel
industry doesn’t post a profit for 2010, it’s not because we didn’t try.
Amanda
graduated from nail technician school last spring in a ceremony so full of pomp
and circumstance that Jim and I checked the program to make sure she hadn’t
just received the Nobel Peace Prize. She
works at Beau Monde Day Spa in Wichita and looks quite chic in her all-black
uniform – sprinkled liberally with Harli’s white dog hair.
I
handle my job as mom to four with the usual aplomb. I have even cut down on the number of times I
creep out to Amanda’s depot and bolt the door to watch BBC productions and eat
Klondike bars in peace and quiet. No
snide remarks, thank you. You know you’d
do it too, if you had a depot.
I am
sad to report we lost four donkeys this year.
Two Mammoth Stock donkeys, a foal and its mother, died in
childbirth. Then this fall, our two
original donkeys, Dixie and Daisy, passed away within weeks of each other. Daisy had an abscess tooth gone terribly
awry. Dixie, it seems, died of a broken
heart once her lifelong friend was gone.
In addition, we managed to wipe out a motley crew of ducks and geese,
simply by offering them a home on our pond.
Apparently, owls, snapping turtles and coyotes threw them a Welcome To
the Neighborhood Party, complete with a sit-down dinner: them. I am upset about the loss of the fowl. They were our friends. One lonely duck remains, who has taken up
residence on our front porch, and Jim has optimistically named her “Next.”
And
so life on the farm continues. We hope
2011 is a wonderful year for you and your families!
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| Lucy has accepted her fate. |
I
was trying to sum up what we’ve learned these past five years about living in an
old house with numerous acres and outbuildings, but it’s hard to narrow it down
to one sentence. For example, “Whenever
possible, you should have one toilet plunger for every kid,” requires too much
explaining, or “If you are in a hurry, a nervous skunk will pop up and dart erratically back and forth in front of your
car the entire ¼ mile, trying to shake you, right to the garage door,” is too
particular. Perhaps Jim said it best:
“It’s Always Something,” which has proven so true that it is also what he wants
carved on his headstone.
Woody
has learned his own lessons here. He
announced that when he grows up, he will have a three-story house, but not a
barn. Because, he explained earnestly,
he doesn’t want for his kids to have
to work. He refers to carrying a
one-gallon bucket of scraps out to the goat every day, since Jack feeds and
waters the donkeys, chases the horse back into the corral, sweeps the barn
floor and locks up tight, in half the time, with fewer complaints. At nine, Woody excels at oversleeping and the
laundry-putt (where you heave clean and dirty clothes into the same pile that
gradually spreads out over the bedroom floor, lending a lush, carpet-like
quality to what I vaguely recall being hard wood floors).
Four-year-old
Betsy has outgrown her frustration associated with not having the vocabulary to
express herself and has moved on to frustration on account of all of us being
ignorant. By that I mean we don’t always
agree with her conclusions 100 percent.
We’d like to put her in art class, but are fairly certain that would
lead to (her) extended debates with the instructor over what is a triangle or
square, if it’s pink or green, whether or not the “A” says “aaaaa,” if it’s 4
o’clock or Tuesday … you get the idea.
She started dance classes last fall and while I wouldn’t call her
“graceful,” she certainly is pushy, er, dynamic. She told Jim there is a mean girl in her
class and when he asked her who it was, she said with a sigh, “It’s me.”
Betsy’s big accomplishment this year is not cutting off anymore of her, or
anyone else’s, hair.
Even
though her first word was, “NO,” one-year-old Lucy continues to be the easiest
baby ever. She’s never met a food group
she didn’t like, so keeping her content just involves a fully-stocked pantry
and a can opener. In a pinch, she will
accept dog food, but only if it’s in a bowl on the floor. The dogs love her, especially at dinner. It’s one bite for her, one for the dogs; in
return, the dogs see to it that she’s clean, if somewhat slobber wet, by the
end of the meal. Since Lucy learned to
walk and climb, we can usually find her teetering at the top of the stairs, or
jumping on (and falling off) the bed.
She loves anything plush, and will kiss it (MMMM-WAH), be it stuffed
animal, or her own arm in long-sleeve pajamas.
As
he is now 11, I think this will be my last year to write anything about
Jack. Next year he will probably be
bigger than us, and might not appreciate comments about … anything. But for this year, he is still shorter, and
let’s face it, still wants an allowance, so here goes: he has graduated from
driving the golf cart to grading the driveway with the tractor, and has earned
the undying gratitude of the poor-put-upon UPS delivery guy. Jack’s interest in drums has been amplified
by the presence of Miss Holly, his very nice, most definitely pretty,
college-age drum instructor. Also, he
recently discovered the shower, although it’s been in the bathroom since we
moved in, and has done his share contributing to our already ghastly water
bills.
Now
that the depot is finished, Jim has more time for hobbies and is back to work
on a ginormous fish tank downstairs, which will be home mostly to corals since
if they die, can anyone really tell the difference?
Amanda
enrolled in massage therapy school in the fall and started working at a local
Starbuck’s to get her through until Spring.
So she now has a bachelor of business administration, experience in
accounting, is a skilled nail technician, certified barista, and soon-to-be
massage school graduate, which makes her either over or under qualified for
everything except opening her own business.
Meanwhile, she rolls her eyes over the fact that her courses include
instructions on talking to her massage rocks.
I am
too disheartened to give you any specifics about animals and their demise on
the farm, but rest assured, I’m not responsible for anything that did die this
year. Except maybe those possums that
got into the trash and startled me so I threw the bag of trash I was holding on
top of them, followed by the trash can lid, and another full trash can on top
of that. Jim was not happy when he had
to take the trash out a week later.
So
(most) life continues in spite of us.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the Manry Family!
 |
| Whose are these moderately well-behaved kids? Surely not ours! |
Well,
tis the season for huddling in front of the fireplace, jockeying for the best
position with our ungrateful dogs, who grunt or snarl, occasionally bare teeth,
and generally behave as if they didn’t have any fur to keep them warm.
It
has been a busy year for us.
Jack
is now 12, and interested in all things mechanical and/or electrical, so it’s
not unusual to come across dismembered flashlights and walkie-talkies hooked up
to helicopter blades or wheels and attached – mostly via bare wires – to batteries. So far his interest has not extended to
reassembling anything, although if he could find the stash of 4th of
July fireworks in the garage, I’m sure he could be persuaded to start blowing
things up. Jack still plays drums and
piano, and has taken up an interest in board games (to our horror) such as
Monopoly, Life, and Chess.
Woody
is ten. His favorite school subject is
literature because he currently is reading aloud from Aesop’s Fables, where the majority of the stories contain some
reference to an ass, thereby legitimizing multiple opportunities to say an
otherwise forbidden word. He reads with
such gusto, and with a look of such gleeful anticipation, I’m loathe to make
any crushing comment, such as, “Yes, but what’s the moral of the story?” This isn’t to say he does not practice logic
and deduction. While watching a TV show
where the mom admonishes her son to eat his dinner because there are starving
children in China, Woody frowned in disgust and said, “Well, how is his eating
all his dinner going to help them?”
He is still very much into Wii and Nintendo, Garfield comics, doting on Lucy, and sleeping in.
Five-year-old
Betsy started kindergarten this fall and spends much of the morning badgering
me to start her school, but then once I do, she heaves great sighs and
inquires, “Awwww, how much longer is this going to TAKE?” She recently came to
me with the observation that when she fanned her face with a DVD, it “breathed”
on her, followed with, “You should teach about that in school.” Clearly, learning her alphabet and numbers is
not nearly so fulfilling as Mommy winging it in physical science. Betsy and Lucy are best friends or mortal
enemies (sometimes simultaneously) depending on the time of day and which toy
one has that the other one wants. Ever
the helpful one, Betsy now sends herself to her room when she’s been naughty,
but argues furiously with herself the entire time.
Lucy
turned two in August, and along with becoming potty trained and learning to
sleep in a big bed without falling out, she also is working on her vocabulary,
which includes “Bankit” (blanket), “Yunch!” (lunch), “I Yike it!” (I like it),
and “MINE!” (The only way you’re getting this is if you pry it from my cold,
lifeless fingers). As with Betsy, no day
is complete without wearing her entire wardrobe at some point, complete with a
hair bow and any of my makeup I forgot to put away. She still eats anything, but prefers whatever
is on her neighbor’s plate.
In
addition to work, Jim spent the year repairing flood damage in the basement and
renovating the downstairs bathroom, restoring a 1958 Cadillac, maintaining a
300-gallon fish tank, visiting Disney World, acting as a travel guide for
friends visiting Disney World, and Christmas shopping every day since
Thanksgiving. He is sad that Jack no
longer believes in Santa (Jack got suspicious a few years back when I answered
a little too enthusiastically that “Santa is as real as Rudolph!” … or was it the other way around?). But he tries to see the bright side. No longer burdened with pretending, Jim told
Jack, “I know you went to Target with Mom.
Why don’t you just tell me what you got me?” to which Jack responded, “I
didn’t get you anything. Woody did.” And
Jim said, “Well, I’m paying for it anyway, so you might as well tell me.” And
Jack grinned and said, “Well, I’ll tell you how much it cost then.”
Amanda
will be offering massage therapy as one of her services at Beau Monde Day Spa
later this month. We don’t see her a
whole lot since she is also still working at Starbucks (it’s her “fun” job). But we see an awful lot of Harli, her dog,
who is a permanent fixture in front of the fireplace. And just so you know, it isn’t easy moving a
125-pound Great Dane when she doesn’t want to move. The boys give up and just use her as a
pillow.
You’ll
be relieved to hear that most of the animals are in their usual condition:
alive. If you hear any differently, you
didn’t hear it from me! God bless you
all and have a wonderful New Year!
********
2013
Dear Family and Friends,
I briefly considered letting this year’s Christmas photo speak for itself, but I wouldn’t want for any of you to get the right idea about us. Oh, who am I kidding?
Three-year old Lucy has discovered her voice. “I’m VERY tired: I hold you.” she’ll say. Or, “I’m VERY hungry: I hold you.” Sometimes she announces, “I’m the Mommy; you be Lucy!” Right. Which would be more damaging? Me stripping to my underwear and running around eating everything in sight, or Lucy massaging her temples and mumbling, “Everyone, please stop talking!”? Lucy did stop thanking God for Tylenol long ago, but now thanks him for “Mommy-Daddy’s bedroom, Jack-Woody’s bedroom, my bedroom …” ad infinitum until a weary, terribly unspiritual Betsy or I break in with a hopeful, “AMEN?!”
Betsy – or Miss Responsibility 2013 -- never has to be told to care for the ducks, even when it’s a blustery four degrees outside. She dresses herself, brushes tangles into her hair, plows through her first grade schoolwork and piano practice, and then gets down to the serious business of being six years old: pitching all her toys into a pile in the middle of her room; scattering all the Playskool dishes on the living room floor where an adult will step on them while carrying an armload of firewood; peeling and breaking all her crayons; or cutting, pasting and stapling construction paper together … also sometimes to herself.
I’ve been shuffling through 11-year-old Woody’s latest Christmas wish lists. He’s had six so far, mostly the same items, just in increasing numbers of each. I appreciate the clarity when he writes “2DS Nintendo,” but have to question what he’s going to do with “a chair,” “rope,” “a big mug,” and “a Venus fly trap pot.” Now in fifth grade, Woody got braces this year, still takes piano and voice lessons, but prefers bouncing around on an exercise ball, training for his future as a stuntman. One of his two original turtles is still alive, which is roughly a 50 percent greater survival rate than I expected.
At 13 and in the seventh grade, Jack has surpassed me in electrical/mechanical knowledge (which isn’t saying much since if it doesn’t turn on when I flip a switch, I give up). But even Jim had to struggle to recall what a capacitor does, and we still don’t know why Jack needed to know this while he was fiddling with his latest gem from RadioShack. Jack got glasses this year, is taller than me (although it’s mostly because of his hair), and tinkers on drums and piano. Sadly, his dog, (Rooger) frolicked right off our property, probably chasing a rabbit, which is about what I expected, but not what I hoped, no matter what you all think.
Amanda updated her resume with another entry when she accepted a position at Reusser 2 Dentistry, as front desk coordinator. It has regular office hours and vacation and she still works at Beau Monde Day Spa on Saturdays. She seems to like changing jobs so much that for Christmas, thoughtful Jack wanted to get her an internship at another job. Ha ha ha.
Whether due to age, maturity, or lack of imagination, we actually have NO on-going projects right now: in the epic battle of The Farm versus The People, we are at a draw.
And that’s enough of the Manrys. God bless you all, and Merry Christmas!
I know some of you only open these letters to see the animal body count, so let
me put you at ease: the net figure is zero.
Of course, that’s because the four who died were offset by the four gained
who haven’t died yet. This year old Bill the donkey and Smokey, the
biting horse, passed on. We also lost
one rooster to a possum, and one rabbit to an owl. Always one to put a positive spin on the
macabre, Jim said of the rabbit, “I like to think his last thought was, ‘Hey,
I’m flying!’” We gained three garage
cats (They wanted to be in the house, and we wanted them to be in the barn. We compromised.), and 17 chickens, who among
them are only producing one egg total
each day, so they only count as one.
At
14, Jack has accepted his chances of being an only child are rapidly
diminishing. He is interested in peace
and quiet (which I find ironic in one who plays drums), and sensibly based his
Christmas gifts for the girls on whether the gifts made any noise, and if so,
whether or not they had an off switch. In 8th grade, he loves history and
politics, tolerates math and science, and curses writing. He may have a future in international
relations: at Thanksgiving, while conversing with a relative who chews tobacco,
the gentleman paused to shoot a stream of juice on the ground. After a startled moment, Jack, who had never
seen this practice up close, but was fairly certain he would be discouraged
from taking it up, said diplomatically (and maybe with a trace of envy),
“You’re a good spitter!”
Twelve-year-old
Woody discovered to his dismay that if you insist on violin lessons, you will
be expected to perform like a trained monkey.
When he learned at the Christmas recital he would be playing Jingle
Bells solo, he mourned, “I wish we were playing at the nursing home! Nobody
listens there.” He’d practiced diligently, but this did not keep Lucy from plugging
her ears and cowering against Aunt Amanda and me, who blinked back tears and smiled
brightly through clenched teeth to keep from laughing. The exquisitely pained
expression on his face as he drew the bow across the strings for the last
spine-chilling note convinced me he should at least get a citation for uncommon
valor. Jim mused afterwards, “Huh. Maybe we don’t
have cats.” Woody is now caretaker to
one of his original turtles and a tortoise.
In 6th grade economics, he was outraged to discover U.S.
coins are technically worthless, as their value has been so debased. Wait until he finds out about the dollar …
Betsy
continues to make progress in second grade, in piano, and in video games. She’s mellowed out a great deal since the
days when trying to put her own socks on resulted in full-scale tantrums, and
her greatest frustration these days is persuading Lucy to show her some respect. After all, Betsy is seven and can read … sort of.
We’ve invested a small fortune in crafting supplies for her, but have
gotten every penny’s worth out of it in terribly
original art. She’s never happier than when surrounded by
mountains of construction paper, scissors, glue bottles, staplers and tape,
paints, googly eyes and markers. Betsy’s
going to have to be a hedge fund manager, or else work at Hobby Lobby for the
discount, to support her frivolous lifestyle.
Four-year-old
Lucy spreads her “joy” wherever she goes, and by that I mean she leaves a trail
of blankets, stuffed animals, virtually all the toys from her toy box, orange
peels, apple cores, candy wrappers, and (lately) tinsel from the Christmas tree,
wherever she has been. If irreverent,
she is affectionate (“Will you hold me?
It’s funner!”), and bursting with self-confidence. Once she floated airily into my room, wearing
a dazzling yellow tutu and batting her eyelashes and asked, “Mommy, isn’t
everything beautiful when I’m here?”
In
addition to regular work, Jim has started renovating the kitchen. Progress is slow, yet … slow since all his
tools are in the garage: dropped where he last used them, covered in sawdust
and camouflaged beneath random cats. The
floors are done, the custom kitchen island is almost finished, and new cabinets
and insulation in the exterior kitchen walls (hallelujah!) are next. But first, of course, Disney World.
Amanda
bit the bullet this year and gave up a couple of jobs in order to have some
time to enjoy not working six and a
half days a week. We see a lot more of her now, and a lot less of Harli, her dog, who gets to see
a lot more of Amanda at the depot; so everybody wins (except Amanda).
My
year has been filled with lots of little epiphanies, like the day Jim came home
with a prescription for bifocals, and I realized not only are we getting older,
but I’m aging better than he is. Or when
Woody remembered for a whole week to turn the light off at night in the
tortoise tank and it occurred to me for one heart-stopping moment we might
actually get the kids out of the house when they’re 18. But the most touching was the day we walked
out from voting, and Jim, grinning suspiciously and clearly pleased with
himself, said, “I’m just wondering when you’re going to realize I’ve been
filling your name in on all the write-in ballots.” It’s nice to know, after all these years, I’m
always on his mind.
That’s
our year. We hope you have a Merry
Christmas and Happy New Year!
********
2015
It’s been a stellar year here at the Manrys! I just wanted to see if I could type that
with a straight face. But really, 2015
has been good.
For starters, 15-year-old Jack got his own bedroom in
the dungeon. Each night I find all the
lights switched on, from the basement stairs all the way back to his room. There, dirty clothes hang from the drum set,
the bed is never made, and one of Betsy’s old stuffed animals – a White Russian
Tiger – is tossed on the floor, along with all of Jack’s clean clothes. “Do you ever get lonely down here?” I once
asked my big, brave, elder son. “Nah.”
Jack said with a casual shrug. “I’ve got the tiger.” Jack is in ninth grade now, and along with
history, politics, and computer programming, will discuss the finer points of
World War II tanks (both Allied and Axis), their commanders, armament, crew
capacity and nicknames (the tanks’, not the crews’) until your eyes glaze over.
At least once a week 13-year-old Woody completely
rearranges his new bedroom with a keen eye to what furniture arrangement causes
the most banged toes and barked shins in the dark (and it’s always dark since
Woody never replaces burnt out light bulbs).
But at least he’s loud. Now in
the seventh grade, Woody has his own trials in school: his Aunt Amanda keeps
trying to help him. With sighs and
groans he grudgingly tolerates her hints, but her generosity does not produce a
lick of appreciation. His grammar
assignment was to write a “friendly letter” of one or two sentences to
somebody, making sure to insert commas in the correct places. “Dear Amanda,” wrote Woody. “Quit telling me where to put commas.” I had to count off points because he didn’t
include a closing such as “Love, Woody”.
Always one to appreciate the little luxuries in life, Woody requested a
butler for his birthday.
Although the girls did not get rooms of their own,
they did get a new bunk bed. The logic
was that they would enjoy a little bit of personal space, but instead they’ve
taken to sleeping crammed together into Betsy’s upper bunk, where it’s more
convenient for Betsy to tell Lucy stories before
they go to sleep, and for Lucy to knee Betsy in the back after they go to sleep.
School can be difficult in the third grade because it
doesn’t begin to answer the truly important questions. For example, Betsy asked for help on a math
problem. “Claire and James played ‘I
Spy’ in the car,” I read aloud. “Claire
won 46 times and James won 7. How many
more times than James did Claire win?”
And Betsy, frowning in concentration, asked, “Who’s Claire?” Betsy continues to develop her remarkable
talent for destroying a clean room in mere minutes via “art projects”. She finally lost her two front teeth (and she’s
only 8 ½ years old!) and could honestly say all she wants for Christmas is her,
well, you know. I hope she does: boy,
that would save us some time.
Lucy remains blissfully unburdened by
responsibilities, no matter how many I try to lay on her. You know those critical life skills we try to
instill in children? The ones preceded
by gentle prods like: “Clean up your room now
or I’m donating all your stuff”? Once,
when it seemed every other sentence out of my mouth was, “Put your toys away!”
Lucy snatched up a wooden dowel that was wrapped in iridescent ribbon and
trailing yards of dried hot glue strands, and danced around the room tapping
errant toys and singing, “Magic Wand, do your thing!” And she sprinkled glitter
all around, but didn’t pick up a thing, until Mommy finally threated to break
Lucy’s Magic Wand over Mommy’s Magic Knee.
Instead of finishing the kitchen this year, Jim
helped to finish off the two bedrooms downstairs (we had windows cut through
the basement walls, and he had to frame and finish the new walls); replaced
several flood-damaged walls in the basement; laid new tile floors; and framed,
roofed, and finished the walls for a new barn/pool house/weight room. By far his favorite project, though, was
rescuing abandoned tractor tires a the dump (“Can you believe somebody was just
throwing these away?!” he’d say as he and the boys heaved them off the truck
bed). He turned them into sea serpents
and volcano slides with just some nuts, bolts, and a few gallons of oil-based
paint. Jim felt compelled to let Lucy
apply the paint … to the tires, herself, the grass, the car, the brick in the
entry, the bathroom sink, etc. I’m
praying the front yard never catches fire: between the rubber and the paint, it
would burn for days.
You can imagine our poorly concealed snorts when a
financial advisor, running down his checklist, asked us if we wanted to list
any of our animals as assets. Anyway,
after nine years, we seem to have lost our touch as only one animal died this
year. One of the garage cats (the only
one we named and there we see the horrifying pattern: if we name it, it dies),
Hay Jumper, met his tragic end when he tried to make it under the garage door
before it closed all the way. He would have been fine, had we not just had him
neutered the day before, so he was a little slow out of the starting gate. Jim’s only comment was, “He couldn’t have
died before we had him fixed?” The ingrate.
But to make up for it, Amanda adopted two house cats
not long after she discovered a baby mouse bedding down on her pillow. I don’t think she’s named the cats yet,
perhaps keeping in mind our previous discover about names, and the rest of us
have only seen them fleetingly, since they are timid and bolt whenever the
front door opens. They adore Amanda,
though. Each morning begins with a
rousing game of tag up and down the stairs and which eventually ends when one
of them leaps onto Amanda. She tried
hiding under the blankets, but this only resulted in a slightly muffled version
of the game which ended with cat paws tentatively pat-pat-patting their way
under the blankets in search of her face.
The cats tolerate Harli, so long as she stays on her bed in a
non-threatening manner, and they have the run of the depot, creeping across
counter tops and falling into bath water with unfeline gracelessness, and
getting their heads stuck in drinking glasses while trying to get a drink.
So time marches on and drags us along for the
ride. These days, Jim and I measure how
good a vacation was, not by the size of the photo album we filled, but by the
size of the Advil bottle we used during it.
And our comfort level has become increasingly important. On our last family trip, Jim announced that
he wished the toilet paper at the hotel were quilted rather than college
rule. I can’t wait to see what the next
year brings! May you all have a Merry
Christmas and a Happy New Year!
********
2016
If ever your husband
assures you that once you get rid of the baby grand piano, he’s only going to
replace it with a small train table,
don’t believe it. At least, don’t
believe it if your husband’s O-scale engine collection has already edged out superfluous
items (like the children’s art projects) from every available display shelf,
and he’s on a first-name basis with a hobby-store owner in Pennsylvania.
That’s how 2016 started,
and now we not only do not have room for the Christmas tree, we can’t even open
the doors to the patio when there isn’t a tree in the living room. Still, the baby grand is gone.
Jack turned 16 in November
but as his careless parents didn’t check Kansas law, he won’t be eligible to get
his license until March next year.
Consequently, Jim and I still take turns driving with Jack alone (also state
law), and swap horror stories of near-death experiences. Funny: it wasn’t until this year I believed
Mom when she told me all those times she gasped out, “Dear God!” through clenched
teeth, she really was praying, and not trying to hurt my feelings.
A sophomore, Jack has
found ways to make World Literature assignments sufferable, like watching Little Women while simultaneously
playing World of Tanks. Speaking of that,
even though we have limited him to a measly half hour a day, and he’s playing
against some former real-life tank drivers, Jack won “Play of the Year,” which
is voted on by all the other online gamers in World of Tanks. And he is a contender for Driver of the Year on
the Ferdinand, a World War II German tier 8 tank destroyer. Hmm. This may
explain his real-life driving methods.
Fourteen-year-old Woody is
an eternal optimist. One morning last
week he discovered a $5 bill in a hand-me-down coat from Jack. Later, in one of his own coats, he found a $10
bill. “Hey, Mom, I’m gonna be rich!” he
exulted. And then, thoughtfully as he
walked away, “I just need more coats!” Woody and Guv are especial buddies, and share
a deep emotional and physical attachment (literally, at times, in Guv’s case)
to Woody’s clothing. I know this because
1) Woody never changes his clothes, and 2) the chew holes in his sleeves and
pants legs are getting bigger.
You know how every family
has one child who clearly doesn’t quite fit in?
The one who has champagne and caviar taste while everyone else is trying
to figure out how to pour milk into the cereal bowl? That’s Betsy.
She’s our self-starter: the independent, reliable, resourceful visionary,
and that’s just when she’s choosing clothes in the morning. She’s finally found her stride in 4th
grade, and enjoys reading, history, astronomy, and writing. Math is a different story, but she perseveres. After one particularly hard day she asked me,
“Why does your throat get sore?” I said maybe it was germs that make you
sick. “No,” she said. “Like when you’re frustrated. Why does your throat get sore then?” If anyone has a good answer, I’ll take it
now.
Lucy is no longer a baby
wrapped up in her own little world. Last
year, about this time, we had this conversation:
Lucy:
“Is it almost today?”
Me:
“What?”
Lucy:
“How many days til Santa?”
Me:
“A little over a week.”
Lucy:
“Four?”
Me:
“Yes.”
Now, at six, she is acutely
aware of social decorum, fashion, personal grooming, and more importantly, feels
it’s her job to point out when the rest of us are beyond the pale. As I sat with her reviewing counting by tens
and congratulating myself on how intently she was looking up at me, eagerly
absorbing this information (I thought), she suddenly reached up and smoothed my
eyebrow with her finger. “Sorry,” she
told me matter-of-factly. “You had boy
brows.”
Amanda and Harli are alone
in the depot. At different times her
cats wandered off, never to be seen again, and the kids don’t believe us
anymore when we optimistically (and even
truthfully) suggest animals get tired of us and run away. Maybe it’s the fresh coyote scat all along
the driveway. Amanda is still at Beau Monde Spa, and volunteers on alternate
Fridays, painting nails for the elderly residents at a nursing home on the west
side of town. On the other Fridays, I volunteer her to watch the underage
residents of this home. It’s probably
hard for her to tell which residents are more cranky and demanding, but my
money’s on the kids. And she can’t pack
up and leave after an hour with them.
In spite of the fact Jim
completely renovated the laundry room in one week last month, including ripping
out old cabinets, installing new ones, building a platform for the new washer
and dryer, replacing the old linoleum floor, and replacing all the old lights
with recessed lighting, I am no more inspired to keep the house tidy than I was
the previous 20 years. Perhaps it is the
nagging hunch Jim put into words: “Do you ever get the feeling we should be
cleaning house with a leaf blower?”
So the year ends as it
began: with lots of good intentions, followed by more than a little chaos, and
the comforting conclusion that whatever we ended up with is better than what we
hoped for in the beginning. We hope your
holidays and new year are equally blessed!
********
2017
Alright, you all have seen enough of these to know that while they’re summaries, they’re hardly brief … or concise. Can you imagine how long they’d be if we did something noteworthy? Just one more thing you can be grateful for as the year closes. Manry Mediocrity: the gift that keeps on giving! So let’s get to it:
Jack turned 17 and has tucked a number of milestones under his belt, like getting a driver’s license and his first job (as a farmhand on a U-pick blackberry farm). But most importantly, he is finally remembering to put his name on all his schoolwork. Don’t laugh. This is a big deal for homeschoolers — like getting in a line or raising a hand instead of blurting out the answer. It takes only a few weeks of socialization by your peers if you start at age three, but slightly longer if you start at 13 and the enforcers are your parents, whose effusive praise smacks of sarcasm. Maybe the entire package of gold stars I stuck around the header on his Algebra assignment was too much? Jack’s doing most of his junior year online and at Wichita Area Technical College, and experiments with welding and blacksmithing on his own. I think he may be the only kid who actually wants a stocking full of coal for Christmas. So far he’s made knives from wrenches and a karambit (a wicked blade of Asian origin) from a saw blade. I never know if the next time I see him he’ll have singed his shirt or burned down the barn, but I feel the kitchen fire extinguisher I insisted he take with him is woefully inadequate, especially when he only half-jokingly complained to me that the 1875-watt hairdryer he used as a bellows died on him and he just had to resort to the 225-mph leaf blower. He is fascinated with chemistry, so if Plan A of forging archaic weapons doesn’t pan out, he can initiate Plan B — to manufacture chemical weapons. He still plays drums and piano, both with the same attention to speedy handwork (to the dickens with the timing!) and heavy foot pedaling.
After struggling with very little progress throughout the past few years of school, we had Woody and Betsy tested. It turns out they both have dyslexia and ADHD.
We were able to enroll them in educational therapy through the National Institute for Learning Development (NILD) at a nearby private school. The program pairs them with a therapist for two one-and-a-half-hour sessions a week, including summers, during which time the kids are subject to intense one-on-one training designed to stretch their attention span and information processing skills, improve right-and left-brain hemisphere interaction, and thereby increase their ability to focus on and filter data — a skill they need for everything — and one you probably needed just to get through that sentence.
One of the greatest benefits is that 15-year-old Woody (a freshman) sees daily positive results, and so is able to relax in school and be more of himself (which is to say, Just Like His Father). “Hey, Mom,” he crowed once, “I got 160 words per minute in typing!” Then, before I could congratulate him: “And ZERO percent accuracy!” Sometime later he refused to accept what I’d promised him for helping with extra chores. “That’s OK, Mom,” he said. “I don’t need any money.” I had scarcely teared up at this unexpected sign of maturity when he grinned and said, “Money is for poor people.” Woody and our dog, Guvnah, are still thick as thieves, though that didn't stop Woody from throwing Guv under the bus when I caught Woody scraping his vegetables from dinner into the sink. “Did you just put your vegetables into the disposal?” I demanded, outraged. “Well,” he said reasonably, “Guvvie’s not going to eat them!” Woody continues to play piano and violin, although I’ve only determined the latter by pressing my ear to his door. He got his own room downstairs this year and shares a bathroom — and cleaning duties — with Jack. So I rarely go to the basement now. Jim was not so wise and one day came upstairs with a look of horror on his face. “I just used the boys’ bathroom,” he shuddered. “And now I’m going to need a shot of something.”
Betsy is ten and in the fifth grade. Unlike Woody, she’s always loved reading and doesn’t care how long it takes her. Knowledge is power, even if its usefulness is debatable. Betsy: “Is silly string poison?” Me: “No, but I wouldn’t eat it.” Betsy: “Why not?” Me: “Some things aren’t meant to be eaten.” Betsy: “Like a horse?” Me: “Uhhh ….” Or this one, too. Betsy: “Are you cold?” Me: “Yes, I’m anemic, so I get cold and tired pretty fast.” Betsy: “And that’s why you’re crabby? … Mom?” Her greatest challenge is learning to work through her frustration when she encounters a problem she doesn’t understand, which occurs most often in math. Betsy started guitar lessons this past fall and also still takes piano. She can usually be found armed with a glue gun and popsicle sticks and her projects are becoming more complicated, like a two-story dog house for her stuffed animals; a diorama of a fish tank (complete with floating seahorses, 3-D fish and seaweed); and a miniature maze for the rabbits that would rival the Minotaur’s labyrinth.
Lucy is seven and in the second grade. So when do kids actually take what they’ve learned in school and apply it? She wrote a story and spelled every word phonetically, even sight words that have been the bulk of her spelling tests this year. She was proudly reading it aloud to me until she reached a word she couldn’t pronounce and after several failed attempts, demanded accusingly (as if I had written the story), “Mom, what does this word say?” She is a homebody in the making and a regular sous chef in our kitchen. She insists, though, she will never marry, and plans to live with Aunt Amanda and take care of Betsy’s children.
Speaking of Amanda, she and Harli continue to live at the depot, and it’s becoming clear Harli is determined to outlive not only the average lifespan of a great dane, but also the average lifespan of an Amanda. She (Amanda) still works at Beau Monde, chauffeurs the kids around to various lessons, cooks with the girls, pays Woody outrageous sums of money to do piddly chores, takes care of our fluctuating number of animals, makes me an iced coffee every morning, good-naturedly endures Jim’s detailed and daily-growing dissertation of why the Hallmark Channel’s Christmas movie lineup is better than Lifetime’s, and as a result has made herself indispensable to all of us.
Jim had a period of unemployment this fall, which was spent studying medical texts in the pool barn, trying to stay out of the way while we did school and out of Lucy’s sight once she was done with hers. He wasn’t too successful and usually emerged around lunch time with his fingernails painted in every color of nail polish the girls possessed (sometimes up to the first knuckle) and in full face paint, which Lucy had received as a birthday gift. She was disappointed when Jim started working for US Anesthesia Partners in November. He works at Surgicare of Wichita, and is the Medical Director at the facility. So far the biggest changes have been that he’s at home every night and doesn’t work weekends. We weren’t quite sure what to make of a regular schedule, but Jim rallied and decided to pursue his dream of banjo picking, which he plans to use to get a job at Disney World when he grows up or retires, whichever happens first.
We still have the donkey, a goat, 13 chickens, two garage cats, an ever-changing number of rabbits, three ducks who were sailors in a previous life — at least they cuss like they were — and the two dogs. Guv keeps getting himself into medical trouble, but hopefully, he’ll recover from his most recent illness (a fungal infection) and get back to harassing the rabbits.
As for me, it has been a year of constant reminders that God is answering prayers in our lives, whether they are prayers from years ago that I’d forgotten about, or from yesterday (that I’d also forgotten about), or prayers I am absolutely certain I never considered … mostly because I knew I wouldn’t like the answer. Even at the pinnacle of uncertainty, when we were looking at the possibility of leaving Kansas behind (but NOT, I told Jim, the custom kitchen island he’d just finished for me), it appears there was always a plan. I still don’t know exactly what it is, but I am grateful for that plan. And so is Jim. Because it means he won’t have to take the door jamb off to get my island out of the front door.
We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Wonderful New Year!
********
2018
When did I go from being the person who knows everything important to being the person who knows where everything important is? “Mom, where are my keys?” “Mom, have you seen my earbuds?” “Mom, where’s my phone charger?” “Where are my socks, Mom?” “Well, where are ANY socks?” The answer to all those questions is, “In the couch cushions,” which is also the answer to why the couch looks, feels, and smells the way it does.
How will we remember 2018? Will it be the trip to Gettysburg, Penn., so Jim could see where his ancestors fought and so the kids could buy giant mustaches and army surplus gas masks from the souvenir shops? The enormous tomato garden? Jim planted 20 varieties whose production was outstripped only by the number of Japanese beetles they attracted. And Guvvy, who passed away; he was followed by Brunhilde, the unfortunate red English Labrador retriever. Like Enoch, who walked with God and was no more, Hilde ran with cars, and was no more. That Hilde died and Enoch didn’t is beside the point. I won’t say anything more except that I don’t know how I can run over so many of our own animals in so many different cars, at such low speeds. Tender-hearted Jack said, “Man, I was afraid it was going to be me who did it!”
Now we have Professor Higgins, or “Higgy” for short, who is a Goldendoodle — part golden retriever, part poodle and part Sasquatch. I laugh at all those people who say Goldendoodles don’t shed. Maybe not hair, but they do shed everything brought in from the great outdoors: burrs, twigs, feathers, rotten leaves, clods of dirt and entire hay bales, one straw at a time.
Yet another stray cat has adopted us. He’s “Mittens” (if you ask Lucy) or “Elvis” (if you ask Jim), but he responds best to “Get Out of the House!” bellowed preemptively by me every time I have to open the back door, regardless of whether or not he’s anywhere near the door.
Jack is 18 now. It’s hard to believe, but I know it’s true since he got his Selective Service registration two days after his birthday. Although a senior, Jack won’t be graduating this spring: he is enrolled in the welding program at the Wichita Area Technical College (WATC). It runs for 6 hours a day, for a year and a half, and at the end of it (because he also has been taking dual credit general education courses) he’ll graduate with an associate’s degree in welding. For Christmas, Jack welded me a mitten and boot drying rack from a car wheel (as a base), and steel rods. Then, because it lacked polish, he spray painted it silver — apparently in a 60 mph straight wind — because the coverage is a tad one-sided. “He’s got mad painting skills.” Jim said, as I admired it. “And by that I mean he got really mad when he was painting it.”
After completing the first semester of his second freshman year online, 16-year old Woody is getting ready to finish the year at Central Christian Academy. Attention to detail is still not his forte, but it’s fascinating to follow his ADHD-influenced cross-tabulation of facts. On our trip to Pennsylvania, he identified correctly that Gettysburg was a battlefield. It was, he said, where the Battle of the Bulge took place. “Or was it the Battle of the Little Bighorn?” he mused. “What?” asked Jim in disbelief. “You know, where Colonel Mustard was,” Woody clarified. After a moment, Jim asked, “You mean Colonel Mustard, in the living room, with a candlestick?” I imagine General Custer is rolling in his grave. As with Guvvy, Woody and Higgins are buddies. I once walked in to find them both sprawled on the floor. Gently stroking Higgy’s dirty head, Woody remarked thoughtfully, “Dogs would be the perfect pet … if you didn’t have a nose.”
Betsy is 11 and in the 6th grade. As she gets older, she only gets more curious about the world around her. It’s hard to get onto your child for being on the internet without permission when you realize she’s watching History Channel documentaries on peat bog mummies, the Renaissance or cellular mitosis. And it takes the wind out of your sails when you’re winding up to remind her for the umpteenth time to pick up her dirty clothes, and you find her curled up with a book in the chair by the Christmas tree, a rapt expression lighting her face. Actually, I’ve caught Jack with the same look, but that was just last week, and he was reading Harold and the Purple Crayon. In addition to her curiosity, Betsy has mastered the art of brevity. On a history assignment, she was supposed to summarize what she had learned about the Chinese communist government under Mao Zedong and she wrote 1) “all powerful”, and 2) “mean”.
Lucy is 8 and in the 3rd grade. She reminds me of the boys in her laissez-faire approach to education. Every time I look up she’s dashed off a handful of answers to questions (occasionally correct, usually misspelled) and then run off to play. Sometimes she pays attention, like during a Bible lesson featuring a character called Asahel. She frowned at me and asked, “Why does he have two bad words in his name?” And once she asked me, “Does ‘homely’ mean you’re ugly and you want to go home?” “Exactly,” I said. She loves to cook and play with Barbies, and I would think she was girly, except for the holes in the knees of all her pants where she’s fallen on rocks, or out of trees or been dragged across the floor by Higgy.
Amanda and Harli are locked in an epic low-energy battle to see which one can outlast the other. I can almost hear their thoughts as they go back to their depot each night: “I just have to wake up tomorrow morning … that’s all I have to do.” Of course, during the day, it’s different: Amanda still has to go to work, volunteer, chauffeur the kids around, make croissants from scratch for Jim, watch awful Hallmark Christmas romances so she can discuss the terribly deep and original plots with us, and watch I Love Lucy with Lucy. Harli just has to wake up from her day nap and she’s still in the game.
In the spirit of Christmas giving, Jim decided to perform maintenance on Amanda’s 11-year old car. After assembling most of the parts and some of the tools, he and the boys convened to the barn with the car and promptly reappeared, having come to the democratic decision it was too cold to do anything that early in the morning. Anyway, the shocks hadn’t arrived in the mail. This led to driving to Walmart to have new tires put on and then to a carwash - a small blip that took two hours. Then to Burger King for breakfast, a decision they immediately regretted (“I didn’t know you could ruin eggs like that,” said Jack), and it was back to the house to review on YouTube how to remove the struts. After countless treks between the barn and the house, and several calls to a very nice gentleman from church who knows how to fix cars, and (hopefully) didn’t laugh too hard at our expense, Jim finally got the new struts installed. And it had only taken all day. Then Amanda came home from work and callously said, “But I got those replaced this last summer!” “I thought they looked pretty good for 10-year-old struts,” Jim complained.
He had better success with other projects this year. He had a concrete floor poured in the big barn and moved the ’58 Cadillac out there so he can restore it before the Kansas breeze erodes it completely away. He also set up a welding/wood workshop. And he planted 500 blackberry bushes, 200 peach trees, 10 pear trees and 20 pine trees, all in the coldest days of the year, except for the pine trees. Those were the wettest days of the year. Then, on some of the hottest, most humid days, he ripped out and redid our shower. And he got the Christmas lights up before Halloween. And somewhere in all that, he still is an anesthesiologist.
I think my year can be summed up by a recent conversation. “How old is this thing?” Lucy asked, referring to the battered vinyl Christmas record I had just dusted off and put on the record player. “As old as me,” I said, as the staticky strains of the Harry Simeone Chorale’s Little Drummer Boy swelled through the living room. “And it still works!” she marveled, but she was eyeing me. Yep, I thought, only a little tartly. “It” still works!
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2020
Oops! I missed a year! Something about three of the kids getting the flu around Christmas last year, and me making the magnanimous decision not to send you all germs in an envelope. It went against the grain, since we love to share everything …
I don’t know how it happened but Lucy is 10 years old and in the 5th grade. One day I was sweeping stuffed animals, dolls and dirty socks out from under her bed, and the next, I was picking up lip gloss, sherpa-lined boots, and, well, still dirty socks. She’s a cheerful student, if somewhat indifferent to details (why be right when you can be done?) who loves art, to read, write, bake and play Dungeons & Dragons with her siblings. She’s our talker. Sometimes, when Jim gets home, she follows him from room to room, catching him up on her day, and he’ll catch my eye and ask, “Doesn’t anybody ever let her talk?” And I say, “huh?” Because deafness is my only defense.
Betsy is 13 and in the 8th grade. Apparently, I’m supposed to ask thought-provoking questions in school now, the ones that are so open-ended, you don’t even know if there’s an answer. “What do you think we should do about atomic bombs?” was one gem. Fortunately, Jack happened to be passing through the kitchen when that question came up and promptly said, “Nuclear proliferation.” I rolled my eyes. “What?” he asked. “Give everyone a bomb and nobody will use them. It’s worked for years.” But I doubt that’s an answer the authors of the curriculum favored. And it would never satisfy Betsy; she’s the academic who wants to build bombs. She wants to understand how and why things are, from engineering to politics, and she doesn’t care how many books or online articles she has to read to find out.
Woody turned 18 last week. He’s back to homeschooling for his junior year: history and physics online, math with me (heaven help him), English through the home school co-op, and he works part time at Chick-Fil-A. Figuring out his learning style hasn’t been easy for him (when I was quizzing him for a test he said, “Wait! Let me think!” And then almost immediately, “No, that doesn’t help …”), but he perseveres. And there’s more than an ounce of wisdom in his impulsive responses. Me, hammering on the proper use of parentheses from some silly passage: “Look, what you put inside the parentheses is unnecessary information …” And Woody, in exasperation: “It’s ALL unnecessary!” Santa may be a little put out with him this year since Woody took an opportunity to rearrange the letters in a box of decorated petit fours that originally said, “Merry Christmas” to say, “Merry A**” and then closed the box so the next person to open it could not help but notice the altered yuletide felicitations.
Jack is 20 now, and somewhere between his sophomore and junior year in college. His first semester at Oklahoma Christian was a rocky experience which taught him the key to academic (and social) success was to look for the girl in class with all the highlighters and notecards and sit next to her. He’s so well-adjusted now, though, that he informed me blandly, “If it’s due in an hour, it only takes an hour to do.” Although his major is still chemistry, he likes to update me on this and that regarding Elon Musk’s Space-X program, and weapons and aircraft development, etc., sprinkled liberally with descriptions like, “the air passes over the wing, creating a vacuum, and there’s lots of physics happening …” which is touchingly reminiscent of me attributing everything to magic when either a) I didn’t understand what he was asking, or b) I didn’t understand what I was talking about.
Amanda’s dog, Harli, finally passed away this year, and Jim keeps threatening to give her another dog, which is unkind since she already walks and grooms ours. So instead, I gave her a piano, which (it turns out) is also unkind since the girls are forever at her place now, under the pretext of practicing piano, but which is followed in short order by an hour of TV, fingernail painting, and raiding her cabinets for popcorn, and cheese and crackers. Amanda is still at Beau Monde Boutique, although it’s been a sobering year of semi-employment with Covid and lockdowns. Don’t tell her, but we’re secretly glad she’s spent more time at home with us. As Woody asked years ago, “What do people do who don’t have an Aunt Amanda?”
Jim continues his work at Surgicare, and dozens of projects at home. Most recently, he and Woody built a half-pipe (a long ramp with vertical curves at either end) for skateboarding, which sounds dangerous, I know. But wait! It gets better! They built it in the loft of the big red barn, which is 10 feet above the concrete floor, and the edge of the loft is completely lacking any rails. Jim did nail planks into two load-bearing posts, creating a semi-wall on one side of the half-pipe, which (if Woody steers his crashes judiciously) should prevent him from shooting off the edge of the loft into the pile of rusty junk — and the certainty of broken bones and tetanus — below.
For the first time since we’ve had kids, Jim had nothing to assemble the night before Christmas. But Woody gave him a fire pit Christmas morning which did require assembly — and that by five disgruntled workers, all arguing over the proper way to put it together. This was according to Jack, and since he works where Woody purchased the fire pit, I’m going to guess he was one of the disgruntled workers. Jim did a little better, assembling it in less than an hour with Lucy’s undisgruntled help.
As I’m typing this, I’m peering over the top of my glasses because my eye doctor still insists I don’t need reading glasses, although she finally caved and gave me a prescription for contacs with such hugely different magnification powers, I can see distance with my right eye, read a book close up with my left eye, and should never be allowed to drive or do anything that requires depth perception again.
And you’ll all want to know the animal death count. If not for Higgins, who is most definitely in the land of the living, it would have been 100% this year. To be fair, that only included eight chickens. Eight, because I told Jim I wanted two (a total lie, but I’ll write about the things you do to stay married for 25 years in another letter), and Jim figured in the extra six as collateral damage. But a raccoon discovered it could lift the top to the enclosed chicken yard, and you can see where this story is going: Yes, everybody (except the chickens) got what they wanted: Jim got eight chickens, plus the raccoon got eight chickens, and that equals zero for me. And that is what we call nature’s math!
That’s it for us. We pray 2021 brings you peace and joy.
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2021
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| Newcomers to the Manry Christmas photo are cousin Jacob (tall, white guy, back row) and Fitz (short, hairy guy, front row). |
I don’t know about all of you, but the years keep going by faster and faster, while I seem to be moving slower, and it would be so much easier to get Christmas cards out by my usual late goal of January 1 if Christmas were back in October.
I’ve lost track of when 21-year-old Jack will graduate since he added a minor in political science to his chemistry major. It’s a nod to those career aptitude tests that claimed (based on his love for persuasion - i.e. arguing), he should be a lawyer or preacher. Noteworthy events this year include causing flames to roar out of his kitchen stove while making dinner (even though his range is electric, not gas); purchasing a broken-down Crown Victoria police cruiser (complete with rodent-chewed wiring and flood-water level marks on the interior), which he parked in front of our garage and instantly announced, “I already regret this decision”; and most importantly, convincing a darling and otherwise clever girl to date him, in spite of the fact that she’s musically inclined and he belts out sea chanties in spectacular monotone whenever the mood takes him.
Woody is 19 and finishing up his senior year with one class, and it’s hard to say who’s more relieved that the end is in sight: Woody or Liberty University Online Academy. Last year, in explaining why he wasn’t finished yet with his report on Vladimir Lenin, he sighed in exasperation. “ If he’d DIED sooner, I’d be DONE by now!” He’s enjoying his tech college course in alternative fuel auto mechanics far more, although it has its drawbacks. When I asked him how his first day went he said, “Great!” Then regretfully, “But there aren’t any hot chicks in car class.” So to remedy that situation, he’s still working at Chick-Fil-A, where the chicks are plentiful … and there are even some girls.
14-year-old Betsy is a freshman this year and is in the process of building her own audio speakers from scratch with Jim. Much to our amazement, she continues to be an incredibly good student – a veritable sponge soaking up knowledge. I should clarify we’re not amazed that she excels, but that she does so in spite of our lackadaisical encouragement (schooling two boys who chaffed at due dates, research papers, grammar, getting out of bed every morning, etc., will do that to you).
For 11-year-old Lucy, who is in the 6th grade, school is more interesting than in the past, but remains an item to cross off the to-do list so she can get to her true passions: reading non-school books, writing stories and cooking. In her spare time she constructs magnificent nature-scene dioramas with Styrofoam, plaster of Paris, acrylic paints and other modeling odds and ends.
Both girls have discovered a kindred spirit in Rowen, the daughter of Betsy’s former NILD therapist. They share a love of Laura Ingalls Wilder books; chasing the chickens; bouncing on the trampoline in any weather; board games; tying Barbies and Kens to the ceiling fan and running it full speed; and dressing up in my old dresses and high heels and acting out tea parties or wedding rehearsals. Following a sleepover, the girls enthusiastically clomped out to the kitchen dressed to the nines, and hearing them coming long before they arrived, Jim raised his eyebrows and said, “The horses are up.”
We just knew something was missing from Amanda’s life, so on her behalf we adopted a three-year-old goldendoodle named Fitzgerald, whose charm and good humor are marred only by his complete indifference to anybody’s personal space. This is why you will find yourself eye-to-eye with a 70-pound dog if you are extremely foolish and say, sit down … ever. But Amanda doesn’t worry about that because she likes to be on her feet all day (I tell myself) training, grooming and caring for the dogs and the rest of us.
As for Higgins, he snarls and bares his teeth at Fitz at least once a day, which usually devolves into an all-out, fur-flying fight. We’d take this more to heart if they didn’t spend the rest of the day exuberantly chasing each other around the couch or sacked out next to each other in sleep.
With only two students at home, I have more spare time, so I’m a teacher at the home school co-op the girls attend. By that I mean I referee a bunch of kindergarten-age kids once a week and try to teach them a little Spanish I picked up on Duolingo. I’m fairly certain they don’t listen because rather than calling me Seńora Manry (as I’ve introduced myself since August), they still call me “Umm, Spanish Teacher?” or else just “Mommy.” During Covid it preserved my sanity though, because the kids were too young to be required to wear masks, and there was such an exhilarating sense of normalcy in having children constantly grabbing my hands, or crawling trustingly into my lap and talking with wide-eyed earnestness mere inches from my face.
After four years with United States Anesthesia Partners (USAP), Jim started working for Wichita Anesthesia Chartered (WAC) in October. It’s a change in the type of anesthesia he does (trauma) and in his schedule, which neither of us have quite figured out yet.
To ease the stress, and because one good pond deserves another … and another, Jim decided to tear out our in-ground swimming pool and convert it to a koi pond. So far he’s managed the first half of his plan. Did you know when they build an in-ground pool, they pour the concrete pad over a good six inches of sand, which acts as a stabilizer? The cats were delighted when we uncovered this vast litter box. Add this to their other endearing habits (such as waiting until the garage door is almost closed before sauntering nonchalantly out; or sharpening their claws on the door weather stripping I just replaced) and it’s no surprise Jim wonders aloud if there is a manufacturer who designs a garage door to drop faster when it detects a cat right under it, or that I’ve considered concealing high-voltage electrical wire behind the weather stripping.
And last but not least, Jim tried again to get us chickens. This time he brought home six chicks. Looking at them somewhat doubtfully a few weeks later, he mused, “I know I said I wasn’t very good at determining if the chicks were hens or roosters … but I’m pretty sure those big ones are turkeys.” He was wrong. All but one turned out to be roosters.
And that’s it for us. We hope you have a wonderful 2022!
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2022
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| Art by Betsy Manry |
We kicked off the 2022 Holidays with our annual tradition of Jim and I agreeing to not buy each other any gifts since 1) we don’t need anything money can buy and 2) that’s not true, but how do you wrap titanium shoulder and knee replacements? This was followed by our second annual tradition, which is Jim running out and buying me gifts. I know because Jim has spent hours out at the big barn, returning with frozen fingertips and covered in sawdust. And he keeps asking me to help him find tools. Also, I helped the delivery truck driver unload the exotic wood Jim ordered for no reason (but most definitely NOT to make a gift).
This year for 7th-grade science, 12- year-old Lucy is taking a home economics course where we read Nutrition 101: Choose Life. It introduces all the body systems and how to nurture them with organic whole foods. Lucy soaked it all in, nodding thoughtfully over recipes like “Green Apple Bean Salad” or “Brain Power Smoothie.” Then she tripped into the kitchen and whipped up a batch of chocolate chip pancakes, chased down with a cup of heavy whipping cream and honey with just a hint of black tea. Somewhere out there is the lucky young man who gets to marry Lucy. I hope he can survive on a diet of her specialties: molasses cookies and musubi (rice and spam doused in sweet soy sauce and wrapped in seaweed).
At 15 and a high school sophomore, Betsy walks that fine line between no-longer-a-child and nowhere-near-an-adult -- tensely navigating the car through mid-afternoon traffic one moment, then absent-mindedly vacuuming the top of the dining room table the next. I decided this was her last year hiding Easter Eggs after watching her bury an egg by the fire pit (to make it harder for Lucy to find), tamping it down into the gravel with her toe for good measure. Seeing the quiet pleasure she takes in school and other responsibilities, it’s hard to imagine this is the same girl who pitched daily fits when she couldn’t tie her shoelaces BY HERSELF … when she was two. Apparently, all she needed was the skill to accomplish what her will was already geared to achieve. Now if I could just convince Bets that it’s her idea to clean out the garage.
Woody has been busy this year, graduating high school, attending Butler Community College and now preparing to start at Oklahoma Christian next month. He left Chick-Fil-A back in the spring but debated it for a while before committing.
“I gotta quit Chick-Fil-A,” he announced one evening.
“Get a job in the auto department at Walmart,” I suggested.
“There’re no girls working there,” he objected.
“The girls will bring you their cars to be fixed,” I pointed out.
Sighing, he explained patiently, “I can’t be dating girls I’m scamming!”
Although he would never admit it, Woody worked hard in school this year while accepting setbacks more-or-less gracefully. “I may fail business calculus,” he told me after finals, “but at least I didn’t cheat like everyone else did.” Then, when I just looked at him: “I wasn’t going to fail and cheat!” I considered suggesting another option – not failing AND not cheating – but hey, baby steps …
Jack has completed his slow-motion transformation from a chemistry major with a political science minor to a political science major with a social life. The workload has changed significantly, with more writing, research, and practicing his debate skills, all of which he honed with marathon Dungeons & Dragons campaigns. He was a little disappointed in his grades this past semester, but his cheerful optimism about life remains reassuringly intact. “It was a GREAT day!” he crowed one afternoon when I called him. “I got rear-ended. But for once, it wasn’t my fault!”
Amanda discovered a new “store” here in Wichita – the ICT Bookstore. And by “bookstore” I mean an uninsulated, rusty metal building in the sketchy part of town that offers acres of books, CD’s, records, and audio tapes for $1 each, provided you are willing to dig through the enormous appliance-size cardboard boxes full of media. I don’t go, because I get that kind of helter-skelter at home for free. Jim comes back once a week with a grocery bag full of The Great Courses CD’s (usually missing two or three CD’s in the set) or record sleeves bearing the wrong records (or none at all), but even he has his limit. One day the girls burst in after a visit to ICT, breathless with the news that it had been broken into. “Was the glass inside or outside?” Jim asked. “Are you sure it wasn’t somebody trying to get out?”
Higgins continues to tolerate Fitz with unflappable ill will. We never know what Fitz is going to try to eat, although Hottie’s hand warmers made the cut, as well as socks and dental floss (or anything else in the bathroom trashcan). We abide him because, secretly, it’s hilarious to watch him barrel head-first into a door you just closed a minute before in front of him. And then there’s his neat trick of snatching the unsuspecting male cat up in his jaws and flinging him gleefully across the yard. Actually, this only happened once, and the cat learned to avoid Fitz, but hope springs eternal in the rest of us that it could happen again. Meanwhile, we settle for watching Amanda drag him by the leash from her house to ours to get him inside before he single-mindedly licks up all the ice melt salt when it snows.
When he’s not at work, Jim has taken to binge-watching old TV serials on Pluto (one of those channels on antenna TV) while he works out. This year it was nine seasons of JAG, some Dr. Who, and Wonder Woman – the 1970’s version with Lynda Carter in her go-go boots and blue plastic diaper pants. The latter was his favorite and he would update me on the most recent show, including an in-depth critique of the plot holes and character development, which I think is a lot more than its creators anticipated from viewers. “The problem with watching Wonder Woman,” he concluded gravely one day, “is some of these episodes are unbelievable.”
So another year on the Manry Farm is done and Jack and Woody are almost out the proverbial door. And boy, they did a lot of un-proverbial damage to the doorposts … and the baseboards … and walls. Electrical and plumbing need work, the back yard is a disaster, the driveway is a series of potholes too big to launch a car over, even at high speed. On bleak winter days when it’s 20 degrees below zero and the wind shakes the house, Jim, the guy from sunny Florida, looks at me, the girl from mild-weathered Washington, and asks, “What are we doing in Kansas?”
Then Lucy tears by with a dog treat, the dogs howling in hot pursuit; Jack saunters in from the barn forge waving some glowing hot, beaten shard of metal clutched in tongs -- usually a blade; Betsy drifts through the room, trailing snips of paper cut outs and strands of hot glue; Woody appears framed for a brief moment by the living room window as he leaps from boulder to boulder in the garden – still his preferred method of “thinking”.
And we remember that this is what they know, where everything important -- and unimportant -- happened. We’re here because Kansas is home. Darn it.
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2023
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No Christmas letter this year. No good excuse, either.
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2024
Now where was I? Oh yes, just pretend I didn’t skip last year’s Christmas letter …
Jack graduated in April of 2024 with a degree in Political Science, taking a job with Ragnar Research (a political analysis firm in Oklahoma City). I wondered if he might get a big head about everything coming up roses until he called me shortly before graduation and proved this likely will never be an issue. “Hey, Mom,” he said, “I just found out I’m on the Dean’s List!” “That’s great!” I said. After a slight pause, he asked, “What’s that?” But we don’t have to worry about either his naivety or an overblown ego since his wife does that now; Jack and Sarah got married in May. They live outside of Moore, Okla., where Sarah (with her degree in Math) works at Hobby Lobby Corporate HQ doing some kind of software magic. In October, Jack was accepted to the University of Oklahoma Law School in Norman. Meanwhile, Sarah has been trying out sourdough and pastry recipes and Jack has been making improvements around their rental. He sent me a picture of a squeaking gate he fixed, which I assumed he welded shut, since that’s what he did to a barn door that kept blowing open here. But no, he replaced old wood panels using what limited tools he had on hand -- a drill/driver and the stiff 40 mph Oklahoma breeze to help hold up the new boards as he screwed them in. Jim was delighted and gave him more power tools for his birthday; Jack was delighted to own anything that shoots nails or slices through lumber like butter; and I was the one who said, “You’d better have the same number of fingers when we see you again.” To which Jack replied, “I might have a few more.”
Woody, 21, is a somewhere between his sophomore and junior years at Oklahoma Christian where he’s majoring in Exercise Science and as of this semester, is a cheerleader. He tells me that he hasn’t dropped anybody on her face in public. Yet. He has even enrolled in classes for next semester, although if my calculations are correct, next semester hasn’t started yet. It’s nice to know that even with such marked transformation, he is, at core, the same Woody. On a visit home one Sunday, he watched Amanda slip a dollar to each of the girls to put in the collection plate at church (they either can’t remember to bring their allowance, or else do remember that Amanda is made of cash), and when she started to hand him a dollar, too, he leaned over and whispered loudly, “Amanda, I’m feeling generous today; gimme a twenty.” He spent last summer working in landscaping at Tabor College, a small Mennonite school an hour north of us, where he was the only new hire who’d ever operated a zero-turn lawn mower, so he got the cushiest job. Never mind the concrete curb he ran up on with the with the blades spinning or the exposed plumbing he clipped one time. Maybe he was just tired since he commuted every day on account of he wanted to be home during vacation. While this was not the most money-saving decision, I can’t hold it against him; we got to see more of him than we would have otherwise, even if he was asleep on the couch when we saw him.
Betsy, 17, is mid-way through her senior year of high school and has been accepted to the afore-mentioned Tabor College for next fall. Jim isn’t thrilled with the idea of her leaving us and wondered if Tabor wouldn’t consider letting Lucy live with her. Kind of like an emotional support animal, except maybe more like a bossy little sister who’s slept in the bottom bunk all your life and acts as navigator when you drive somewhere in town and neither of you knows where you are, even after she’s used Google Maps and called Mom and Dad for directions. Betsy plans to major in Graphic Art, and I think Jim speaks for all of us when he says, “What?” As always, she takes her self-imposed responsibilities seriously, like making out schedules to get her homework done; keeping track of her bank accounts; and taking care of the chickens and one remaining duck. By “taking care of” I mean the wink-wink kind of “taking care of”. You know: when you let the goose and two ducks out to free range, and then only one duck comes back to be put up at night, and you regretfully break the news to your mom, but when Aunt Amanda comes in, you give her two thumbs up and a big grin? If only someone had told them they were supposed to produce eggs. Even if they were male.
Lucy is 14 now, and a freshman, mostly in on-line courses. She loves reading, so naturally dislikes math. This semester her science is home economics. She’s worked on a few sewing projects – a pillowcase, a skirt, and a dress complete with a placket neckline (insanely difficult) and zipper (silent cursing and gnashing of teeth here – and that was me, not her). We’ve also been watching Alton Brown’s cooking shows, to learn the science behind the cooking, but which mostly results in a constant bemused expression on Lucy’s face. Really, who eats cracked bulgur, let alone knows how to cook it properly? I even had to look up how to spell it. In her spare time, Lucy works with resin, creating still-life dioramas and jewelry. If Jim is around, they watch BBC’s Pride & Prejudice, quoting most of it before the actors even speak.
With the boys gone and as she’s working fewer hours at Beau Monde, Amanda has more time to spend with the girls. They don’t appreciate it, since (in addition to doing fun things like shopping) she encourages them to exercise and eat healthier. Her can-do attitude is tolerated because sometimes she pleasantly surprises them with glimpses of their real aunt, like the time they soldiered through a 20-minute cardio workout video. The bubbly, 20-something-year-old instructor kept saying, “This is my favorite exercise!” and Amanda, who is no longer 20-something, and has never been bubbly as long as I’ve known her, demanded grimly, “Why can’t she just shut up and count?” The girls are quick to follow Amanda’s example in other ways, though, which is why they’ve taken to slapping on their most garish red lipstick when, and only when, they’re cleaning house. It certainly brightens up Saturdays around here, after the initial recoil.
Jim has had some health issues: mainly breaking out in hives after eating things like tree nuts, soy, and almost any processed food, it seems like. Over the summer he cut out carbs and tried to stick with a keto diet, which gets boring, especially when the rest of us callously eat bread and corn chips in front of him. Amanda made dinner one night and Jim, seeing it, asked, “What is it?” “Shepherd’s Pie,” she said. “Was it made with real shepherds?” he asked. This is still Jim’s favorite time of year because he loves to Christmas shop, which is surpassed only by his anticipation of what he’s going to get from us. It would be a lot of pressure, except we all know what he wants. And we also know that one of us (it’s always interesting to see who) might end up getting him the exact train he’s been showing us on some website, even though that person may have no recollection of purchasing the train, let alone wrapping and putting it under the tree. “What do you want for Christmas?” Jim asked the room at large recently, and then without waiting for an answer: “Please say trains, please say trains.” Subtlety has never been one of his failings. But it does open the door to enlightening discussions. “Does Mom even know what your most expensive train is?” Woody asked him. “Yes,” Jim said smoothly, “It’s the one I’m going to buy next.”
And that brings us to the end of the year. I’m not going to waste time here explaining why Fitz isn’t in the picture anymore (literally and figuratively), other than to say he’s in a happier place, and no, he isn’t dead.
As you can see, my year has been spent writing down what everybody says, but what you can’t see is that I’m wearing my most garish red lipstick right now. Amanda has a point; it does make everything more fun.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all!
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