Year in Review...Entry #3

Having covered our major trip of the year and our major visitor of the year, I think this review should be about the people who make up my awesome every-day life- my wife and kids. This year has been a good year, but really not many unusual things have happened. I manage to feel like I have a relatively boring life when people ask me what I'm doing. Have you ever found a good way to answer that question? I haven't. In fact, I'm still guilty of asking others this...but I digress.

Eva has experienced many changes in her life this year. As you might expect she's figured out the walking thing, figured out some talking things, and (if you read the lyrics to her song you'll realize) the bossy thing. Probably the most notable thing that has happened to Eva this year that doesn't happen to every baby is her helmet-head days. Eva was born with torticollis which means when she was in the womb, her head was almost always in the same position, which resulted in the neck muscles on one side developing short and squatty while the muscles on the other side were longer. Since her neck was off, she slept in the same position and ended up with a large flat spot. To fix her neck we had to take her to physical therapy for 5 months and Nellie stretched her neck at home several times a day. After her neck was fixed, we got a helmet that Eva had to wear 23 hours a day. The helmet was on from February until the beginning of June. We definately got stared at a lot, which didn't bother us like I might have thought. We'd often hear other children asking their parents about the helmet, and were surprised to hear parents responses. I figure, if you don't know, ask! Eva ended up with a nice round head in the end.

Scott experienced a few changes this year also. In the spring he wrapped up his Kindergarten year at school, which he loved (as do all kindergarteners it seems). One of his major changes was the transition from Jaden to Scott. For those of you who might not know, his full name is Jaden Scott Perkins. His grandpa goes by his middle name of Scott, and he had several friends who went by middle names, so one day he decided he wanted to go by Scott. As parents, it was very difficult to call him by another name. I never realized how many times in the day you say your child's name. I was sluggish in my transition until one day, apparently frustrated he said "you just called me Jaden, that is not my name! My name is Scott!" I think after that day, I got a lot better a lot faster.

Scott has been doing very well in school, and he loves first grade and his teacher Mrs. Glass. He was student of the month in February, and again for September. He seems to really get into the recognition, and he is pretty proud of it. Scott also played soccer for the second year. I don't know that there is a future in soccer for him, but he seems to like it anyway.

As for Nellie and I, I had a very good year at work this year. I seem to get the hang of it slowly but surely. This year I hit my 5-year mark in May, which isn't really a long time, but with the turnover rate at my company I'm only 5 years away from getting a Rolex for my time there (woohoo!) Nellie seems to have really figured out what the mom thing is all about this year, how she juggles everything I will never get. She volunteers for Scott's class, deals with Eva, ends up doing a lot of free photography for people who don't really appreciate what they are getting, keeps the house running efficiently, and manages to hammer out one craft project after another. Her craft room is really getting to be a thing of beauty. She manages to keep it pretty organized, I am always surprised at how many projects could come from her "room of requirements" as she calls it.

Nellie has been an all-star resolution keeper. Instead of having a huge list of new-years resolutions she focused on doing one thing for several weeks to a month and then moved on to perfect the next thing. I've really seen a lot of improvement from her. One of her major accomplishments was taking off the baby weight and more this year. Last year about November she really started to watch what she ate and her caloric intake. By June you could really tell she was losing weight, but from June until now she's really shrunk to where everyone seems to be telling her how great she looks. It really took a lot of work and a lot of will power and I'm proud of her.