No matter what you may call us – the Carlinos; the Eichlerinos; the Eichler-Carlinos; Paul, Rebecca, Maya and Jonah; Rebecca, Paul, Maya and Jonah; Mr. and Mrs. Paul Carlino; or Mrs. and Mr. Rebecca Eichler; the year 2010 was a milestone year for us. Paul and Rebecca both turned 40 (NOTE: she got there first) and on July 2, Paul and Rebecca also celebrated ten years of filing a joint Federal income tax return together.
In June, Maya ended her first grade year at the top of her class and then quickly established herself in August as a no-nonsense second grade academic – reading a blue streak through the Magic Treehouse series, Babysitter’s Club, Judy Moody, Junie B. Jones, and whatever other above-grade reader she can get her hands on – while mastering those math concepts that we all forget we ever had to learn in the first place – telling time, making change, and recognizing triangles. As long as Maya hasn’t peaked in the second grade, Rebecca and I may have a future valedictorian on our hands.
Jonah turned 5 in August and started his final year in the cooperative preschool that has been such an integral part of our philosophical grounding and social network since we first enrolled Maya in 2007. Jonah also continued his full-on obsession with Star Wars and his influence caused several of his classmates, including some who have not seen even one of the sextet of movies, to costume themselves as little Luke Skywalkers and Darth Vaders for Halloween; a born leader he is.
Aside from these insular family happenings, we also got to see many of you this year; got to reconnect with many of you through Facebook, email, or other online mediums that remain so alien to me that I don’t know their names; or were made to feel guilty when we got your Holiday cards in the mail and knew that we had not sent any ourselves (to anyone, not just to you). Thanks for thinking of us. Truly, we really do appreciate your friendship. Knowing that we continue to make your Holiday card list will make it less awkward for us to knock on your door if we ever need a free place to stay when visiting your neck of the woods. And just so we won’t all feel like complete strangers when that happens, below are a few of our highlights from 2010:
My lovely wife Rebecca continues her immigration law practice that she opened when pregnant with Maya in 2002. Who knew that what we pictured as a temporary situation would blossom into a full-fledged, though still part-time, situation. And Rebecca's aspirations have expanded to include the immigration law partnership, EichlerWright PLC. We are hoping that one day success will be measured financially rather than in the exultations of joy Rebecca brings to families by securing USCIS approval of their citizenship applications to these declining United States.
Did I mention that Rebecca turned 40 on February 9, 2010? In memoriam of her youth, Rebecca organized an April trip for the two of us, and four of our closest friends, and two of their friends, to hike the Inca Trail in Peru.
This awesome adventure had us sandwich days in Lima and Cusco around a four day hike on a 14th century footpath used by the reigning Inca and his royal entourage to travel to his summer home in the mountains – Machu Picchu. The hike took us through a 14,000 foot high mountain pass, affectionately called Dead Woman’s Pass, and culminated in an early morning descent on April 17 to one of the few Incan settlements that was not vandalized by those dastardly Conquistadores – Machu Picchu itself.
Rebecca was so overcome at times on the hike that she has since warned me that she wants her ashes spread as fertilizer at the sprawling agricultural site of Winay Huayna.
True, it was breathtaking, but I can’t think of any better motivation to predecease a spouse than the threat of having to haul your octogenarian carcass up and down the Andes to satisfy her last wishes.
Here is a picture of us overlooking the main buildings and plazas in Machu Picchu.
Next year we plan to photo-shop ourselves into Tokyo and one of the seven wonders of the ancient world – the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
We were fortunate in June to have Rebecca’s bi-annual family reunion scheduled for the exact time and place in Oregon that we were visiting. We spent several days camping at her Aunt Nettie’s ranch in Grants Pass, Oregon, where Rebecca learned that she had even more cousins than she thought and that 100 degrees with no humidity is still pretty dang hot.
We spent a few days after the reunion camping on the Oregon coast where we saw tide pools and really big trees. You can read more about that trip right here.
In July, Rebecca spent a few days in L.A. visiting her friend from college, Dava. I understand Rebecca and Dava did girl things like going to a street festival, canoeing, and showing up late for dinner, but that they did not get to play any beach volleyball. From L.A., Rebecca traveled to San Diego to sun herself while I taught a class for IRS revenue agents. During off-duty hours, Rebecca and I canoodled and also learned quite a bit about why people don’t travel anymore by stagecoach. Dava and her friend Nick, and Rebecca’s cousin Thea and her husband Matt, drove down from L.A. to join us in San Diego one night. We had so much fun that we nearly got kicked out of our very fancy hotel room.
In September, with amazing foresight and vision, Rebecca determined that we needed an automobile that could fit more than just Maya and Jonah’s car seats. After she revived me with smelling salts, I learned this did not mean that she was pregnant. Rather, the car we owned did not allow our children to bring a friend along on any trip. Thus, Rebecca put her considerable internet surfing skills to the test and we decided on a Mazda 5, the mini-est of mini-vans. We call her Blue Cheese and she is the first brand new car that either Rebecca or I has ever owned. We then promptly went on a car-camping trip with Blue Cheese where we learned that we could pack even a mini-van to bursting and that new cars do not stay looking new for long when you have two young children.
Finally, you may be surprised to hear that Rebecca, that peaceful little flower, took up karate in 2010. The story of how that came about can be read here. Despite her well-known aversion to war and cutting in line at the grocery store, Rebecca has progressed quickly up the arm-twisting, leg-spraining, testicle-rupturing ranks, and recently achieved her purple belt and black gee. As evidence of her limb-breaking prowess, she earned two first place trophies (for form) and a third place (in sparring) at a recent tournament. I’m waiting for just the right moment in 2011 to get in someone’s face so Rebecca can step in and kick their tail.
Maya – I am wiling to bet that Maya’s first quarter report card was the best to ever have the name Carlino attached to it. It was certainly better than any report cards that I ever got – and if that does not shock you, you may be surprised to know that I was spelling bee champion of Mrs. Axley’s second grade class at Memorial School in 1978. The only bad thing you could say about Maya’s report is that she left no room for improvement.
It is also fairly common for Maya to come home with notes from the teacher stating how helpful Maya was that day, how well she grasped the subject matter, or other niceties. Who is this girl? Rebecca and I were at a loss as to how Maya could perform so well in school and behave so poorly at home – fighting with her brother, ignoring or being directly insubordinate to requests for help, crying over spilt milk. When we asked Maya’s teacher for her thoughts, she suggested that Maya is so engaged at school in every subject, activity, and lesson that by the time she gets home her poor little head must be just plain worn out. This provides one plausible explanation for Maya’s ability to turn from happy-go-lucky to wailing banshee on a dime. Another more practical explanation is that Maya matures two years for every one calendar year – so she is actually fifteen years old, hormonally speaking.
Maya got to spend some quality time with her grandparents in 2010. In April, she went on a week-long cruise with her brother and my in-laws to the Bahamas. My in-laws managed to keep her from falling off the boat, thus earning the right to take her on a future cruise. In July, Maya spent a week at “Camp Grandma” with her brother and cousin at my parent’s house on Wolf Lake in New York. This is where I spent much of my teenage years learning to be a juvenile delinquent so we are hoping my Mom can do better with Maya. For 2011, Rebecca and I are resolving that Maya and her brother spend twice as much quality time with the grandparents.
We are told that one of the great joys of parenting is seeing parts of yourself in your children – the mini-me complex. Maya mimics me (and Rebecca) in that she is a voracious reader. She also mimics me in that she is an early riser – but a much earlier riser than I care to be. The great thing about the reading though is that after Maya wakes at an ungodly hour and makes a racket to wake the dead while peeing, she will then retire to her room and read until I get out of bed to help her ready for school.
Maya is very athletic. She holds her own in swimming, skiing, jumping rope, biking, ice skating, and roller blading. She is also a fast runner, good climber, and can hit the heck out of a wiffle ball. However, she is so non-competitive that she once said that she didn’t like to win because it meant the other person had to lose. Rebecca and I are hoping that her attitude improves in this regard.
Another problem is that neither one of my kids will willingly engage in any club sports or group activities. The one exception to the group thing for Maya is Brownies. Rebecca signed Maya up for Brownies without her knowledge and tricked her into attending the first meeting. We were spared any histrionics when Maya realized that she had been duped because she spotted some of her friends in the group. This fall Maya went on a Brownie camping trip where she learned some campfire songs that don’t really have anything to do with camping or Brownies. But she sure is cute when she sings them.
In sum, Maya is a pretty good kid. She tries our patience at times but is very caring and nurturing of her brother, very responsible when tasked with a chore, and is mostly sweet, except when she’s not.
Jonah – Rebecca and I used to hold to the ideal that we would not allow guns (real or toy) in the house. For Christmas this year, Rebecca made everyone their very own marshmallow blaster. This weapon was added to Jonah’s arsenal of pop guns, dart guns, light sabers, swords, daggers and maces; and his stable of plastic soldiers, Star Wars, and knight figures that wreak death upon each other daily in colossal trans-genre battles.
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when Jonah’s obsession with weapons started, but it has manifested in a more than passing interest in Star Wars. He’s got dozens of Star Wars action figures and vehicles, several Star Wars Lego kits, Star Wars sheets, and Star Wars underwear and T-shirts for every day of the week. He went as Luke Skywalker for Halloween 2009 and Kit Fisto (a more obscure Jedi) in 2010. He starts asking on Monday morning when is it the Wii-kend so he can play his Star Wars Lego video game. When not playing with war-mongering toys, Jonah is play-acting battles from Guadalcanal to the ice planet Hoth.
None of this is unique to 2010, but it paints a picture of what he is all about. It’s a stark contrast to his more serene, gentle-minded sister and gives credence to the old stand-by “boys are different than girls”.
To try to channel some of this physicality, in May we enrolled Jonah in karate lessons where he was quickly declared a prodigy by the instructor. Jonah looked cute as hell and twice as deadly in his white karate outfit and Rebecca and I had plans to leave our home security in the hands and feet of our little black belt.
However, Jonah had to be dis-enrolled from lessons when he refused to attend any of the group instruction that is critical to moving up in rank. It was a dark day when I had to take him, bawling, from the karate studio where he was supposed to get his orange belt because he would not go into the test with the other kids. I am not an economist, but something seemed financially unsound about paying more than $250 a month so Jonah could have 4 private karate lessons with no way to ever rise above a white belt. Nevertheless, we sunk another chunk of money this Winter into a group gymnastics class to which he refused to go. Someone is bound to give in eventually.
These humbling experiences do not negate the fact that Jonah is physically advanced for his age. I have not given up my dream of an early retirement when Jonah signs a contract out of high school with the NY Yankees. For now though, we’ll have to be content with the knowledge that he can climb a fence or tree lickety-split, run circles around most of his friends, perform multiple cartwheels and round-offs, and is tenacious in his efforts. Hopefully, he gets over his reluctance to participate in group settings – jeez, he even refused to play in the annual Carlino family Thanksgiving football game. He would have been at least as good as my sisters.
Jonah turned 5 on August 22. He had a Star Wars party and because he is such a big fan, Darth Vader attended.
In September, Jonah started his last year of pre-school. Hard to believe that next year he will be a kindergartner in the big house, riding the bus, eating lunch with his friends, learning things. I can still remember when he was an infant waking me up at 1, 3 and 5 in the morning. I’m not pining for those days again, but I am trying to keep in mind how quickly these days pass and keep my cool when times get trying so that when my kids are older I can look back on their childhood and be certain that I am not the reason that they are in therapy.
A couple of firsts for Jonah this year – he saw his first rock concert – They Might be Giants at the Kennedy Center. Jonah is a big music fan and has even professed to like Michael Jackson better than he likes Rebecca. He lost his first tooth last March from natural causes and lost three more during the year, also from natural causes. The tooth fairy got two of them, but Jonah is holding on to the others; probably waiting for inflation to increase his return.
Jonah is not reading yet, but if he applied himself instead of bouncing here and there while we are sounding out words, I bet he would pick it up quickly. He definitely still enjoys having 2 books read to him before bedtime and try as he may, there is no place for Waldo to hide where Jonah can not find him.
So I guess that just leaves yours truly. I also turned 40 this year – a few months after Rebecca did. I celebrated a 10th anniversary with Rebecca and a tenth anniversary at my job at the IRS, which, I think, puts me solidly in the middle-aged demographic. Wow. Who saw that coming? For our wedding anniversary dinner, Rebecca and I ate at this wonderful restaurant in Grants Pass, Oregon (her aunt was kind enough to babysit our kids). The name of the place escapes me at the moment, but I remember the event very clearly. We ate in the shadows of a beautiful, warm evening sun – definitely worthy of my ten mostly-wonderful years with Rebecca.
My fantasy baseball team had an exciting year. We started out in the basement and made a run past ten teams to first place in September before falling back to a fourth place finish. Because the baseball season runs from April until October that kept me entertained for most of the year.
I brought a new bike in September and have committed to riding it to work (about 6 miles one way) on something like a daily basis. Nevertheless, I still managed to gain five pounds this year making me the heaviest I have been since my college freshman fifteen.
I also joined the Slightly Overweight Father’s Association (SOFA). SOFA is basically a boys club of some local guys where we do fun things like play softball, watch football, and talk about the movie “Roadhouse”.
Anyway, I could go on and on about all the routine things that happen during the year that are memorable, but that would be like telling you my life story. I’ll save it for when I see you.
Here's to a happy, healthy, and successful 2011!
