Izumi’s been feeling under the weather for the past few days with a stomach virus so I’ve been at home looking after the kids. I have a profound appreciation for what it takes to look after the little tykes full time – I’m absolutely knackered after only a few days of it and now, as we try and catch some shut eye, there’s a band playing Christmas music under our window.

One thing I tried to keep them occupied was to have both Julia and Tyler write their letters to Santa. The mailbox is literally across the street from our house with the neighborhood organizing to take the letters over to the local old folks homes where the seniors there take the time to respond to each letter. Some of the older kids have caught on as I read in the paper one kid’s letter from this year (they publish the best ones in the paper) said something to the effect,

“Last year you sent me a letter that had an Oakland postmark on it. I know that the North Pole is nowhere near Oakland. Please explain.”

This ought to keep those old folks on their toes.

Julia still wakes up pretty regularly at around 11pm wanting the quick reassurance of her mother. It’s now a routine. I go upstairs where she is crying in bed, scoop her out of the darkness of her bed, then I bring her down to the couch where Izumi and I are usually watching the evening news. Julia usually drifts off to sleep 10 or 15 minutes later but this evening there was something that was keeping her attention this evening but the picture was just too perfect.

We traded in Flash our 4-year old Honda Odyssey, for a new Mazda MPV which is smaller and easier to drive around and park in our new, more urban neighborhood. Tyler was heartbroken to say goodbye to the Honda which has been our faithful chariot on drives from NJ to Tennessee, Boston and back. It was a great van, comfortable for the long haul but just too wide to zip around the streets of San Francisco and Oakland.

This morning we doused the wheels of the Mazda with a bit of sake from a bottle we bought to sprinkle on the four corners of our house when we move in (Tuesday!) and celebrated with a drive over to Berkeley.

Tyler later made a comment that “Sad is a rainbow” in which he was describing the shape of a sad face. I took a deeper meaning away from it, there are many shades of sadness and there’s always a brighter side of looking at every sad occasion.