Welcome to the Second Annual Tinkleflick Holiday Letter. After years of resisting the urge to join the annual holiday letter mania, tinkleflick management decided last year to jump in. This year, like last year, we have decided to post our letter here on our poor, neglected website (yes, we are going to make another promise to update it regularly but hopefully this time it won’t be of the empty variety) rather than mail it out so those of you who are interested can read it and those who aren’t can join the rest of the world and ignore it.
Things have started stabilizing for us this year. That is, if you want to consider having to negotiate with a soon to be four-year-old for everything from putting on shoes to the size, shape and order of slices of bananas every morning. Yes, that’s right, gone is cute little Noah and what seems like his quaint little hand signals and phrases of mono syllable words which have been replaced with a turbo charged super ego. We do love our little dictator but there are some days when Wendy begs to rejoin the workforce if only to get some quiet time to herself. Noah’s professional aspirations include being a trash truck driver (the inspiration for his Halloween costume) and to “own everything” in a nod to the Gordon Gekko genes he inherited from his father. Noah started playing soccer this year but was much more interested in being a coach than a player.
This this time last year, we were eagerly anticipating the arrival of who we now know to be our little Natalie. Unlike her brother, Natalie took her time and didn’t show up on the scene until a few days before Christmas. It’s hard to believe that she’s just about to celebrate her first birthday. We sometimes refer to her as our “pet” because she’s just so little and cute and she follows us around the house determined to be included in whatever is going on. She’s a much better sleeper than her brother (but most insomniacs are better sleepers than Noah was during the first year). Natalie loves to dance and will start bouncing around to just about anything that barely qualifies as music and she has her own little drum and loves to play it.
Natalie wasn’t the only new addition to the ever-expanding tinkleflick extended family. When Noah was born, he was the first of his generation of kids and now he is one of seven cousins with more on the way (not to mention the gaggle of younger siblings of all of Noah’s preschool friends). This year, August Sonsma and Dylan Zavarella joined the clan. However, we were saddened by the loss of Wendy’s grandmother, Ethel Tinkler who joins Ralph’s grandmother LaRue Bowersox in a better place.
The house is finally done (stop by sometime and see us) and, all joking aside, things are settling in for us now. We are really looking for to 2007 and we wish all of our friends and family a safe and happy holiday season and New Year!