For her Destination Imagination group play, Berit tells everyone she wants to be a cat.

"You ALWAYS want to be a cat, Berit!" says Nicki, another member, who obviously has spent some time around my daughter.

Berit was out sick from school again today. She spent the day with me, prowling around downtown Boulder... snowballs and tea and granola and chinese yo yos... topping it all off with a free arrowhead from your local grizzled street flint-knapper.

Griffin and I walk through 4 inches of snow into the open space during my lunch hour. The day and the snow are cold, but the Colorado sun is beaming as usual. I pick up a handful of snow, form it into a ball, and hand it to Griffin. He is pleased beyond measure.

"Make another snowball." he says.

I do, and we go about this for sometime. I make snowballs for him, and he throws them. He loves throwing them. He trys to make them with his little fleece-mittened hands, but he can't quite get it.

"I tan't. You make it snowball, Daddy."

He's having a blast taking them from me and throwing them against the open space fence. It's the most fun he's had all day, and he reminds me that this really is the greatest thing on the planet.

Berit came to work and cleaned up selling Girl Scout Cookies. Now she's drawing on my dry erase board.

"It's fun to draw stuff that's happening right now. Like I drew you typing on the computer, and me drawing up here on your board, and the pictures on your walll, and the garbage can. That's what I like is to draw what's happening right now."

"Are we late, Daddy?" Rowan asks as we are leaving the Rec Center pool. It's 5 pm, and dusk is just falling.

"Late? No Rowan, we're not late. Why?"

"Because it's getting dark, and when it gets dark, it's late."

Entering the house with Pam, Griffin turns the corner to see me. He flashes me his large grin,does a little hop,points into the air and exclaims, "Superman!"

Berit evidently tied Griffin to the front porch with a jump-rope, this morning. Unfortunately, I was at work and missed it. Pam came down on her hard, though: no hot chocolate at Starbucks for her.

Tonight, I picked Berit up at Destination Imagination. First we went to Whole Foods for dinner. I asked Berit to change into her yoga clothes in the bathroom there, while I got food. She choked on the words, almost crying as shetried to express her fear at me being so far away. So instead, we got dinner together - a nice meanl of salmon, brocolli, mushrooms and cornbread. Berit ate and liked the mushrooms.

Afterwards we went to the YMCA for yoga. She was great, as usual - flexible as Gumby and willing to do most of the postures, as long as she was guaranteed short breaks in between.

After yoga, it was over to Barnes & Noble for a small after dinner treat and a few books. It was a stellar adventure.

Early in the morning, I've got "Bear and the Big Blue House" on to entertain the kids while I'm getting ready for work. In a moment of parental guilt before walking outthe door, I offer Berit the opportunity to do one of the tangram daily puzzles with me. It's a no brainer for her -Really, Dad, as much as I'd love to, there's actual television happening right now that I can't afford to miss. Rowan, on the other hand, shoots me a huge grin and says, "I'll do a tangram with you, Daddy," despite the alluring presence of TV. She loved doing it, too - having my attention to herself. I loved it, too.

I picked up Berit at gymnastics class - that was great fun. We hung around for a while afterward so that she could play a bit on the parallel bars and show me her stuff. She's quite good, and I was very proud watching her.

Griffin is Mr. Independence these days- he's constantly moving the chairs over to the kitchen counter to get at fruit, eggs. knives...

The other night upon returning late from the bookstore, I found that Pam had gone to bed already. The only one awake in the house was Rowan, who came out to me all cuteness, smiles, and red cheeks and proferred a sketch pad to me.

"Here's the drawing pad, Daddy."

I had no idea why she was coming out to give this to me at 10:30 pm, but as with many things the kids do I just accepted it and thanked her. I also advised her that it was very late and ushered her back into her bedroom to go to sleep, where (aHa!) saw that she had been busily cutting up pages from the drawing pad into small confetti that was strewn all about the room, making it into a winter wonderland of small white bits of paper. :)

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I just noticed that December was a pathetic 2 entries. I promise to do better.

New Years Day!

It was a beautiful day - a balmy 50 degrees on which I took Berit up on her request for a bike ride. We found the Coal Creek Trail that took us all the way from this house to our old house. Berit was pleasantly surprised to see how far she had ridden, and I was very impressed with her stoic approach to the ride! To top it off, we saw a coyote on the way home... and not just some distant sighting, either. The coyote was within 10-15 yards of us in the open space off the trailside. Big, too! He just looked at us, and then disappeared behind a tree. Most certainly an auspicious omen for the new year.

We followed this up with a family hike in the open space behind the house, and we later went to Grammy's house to celebrate Rowan's Birthday!