You will no doubt be relieved to know I did not, in fact, meet an untimely demise in a tragic sledding accident. No, the reason I did not update yesterday when I said I would is that I conked out almost as soon as AJ went to sleep. Shoveling + dragging forty-four pounds of boy up a hillsledding = coma.

AJ�s first snow day was a success all around and it served to put us in the mood for starting to think about the holidays. Our financial situation, while still not great, is starting to look less dire now that we�ve started doing something about it. And tomorrow is our town�s annual Christmas parade, an event that puts Mayberry to shame. AJ and The Girl Next Door have been making plans to meet at the carnival where the parade ends, to take endless runs down a giant slide and fly on swings that even in the current Arctic temperatures bring flames to the cheeks. And then, of course, there is the inevitable chance to tell Santa what you want for Christmas. Gone are the days when the only thing AJ wanted was �a car and something to drive it on.� His single-mindedness then charmed me. But this year, his list is lengthier and more diverse, ranging from �video game,� which sounds simple enough but is in fact probably a specific video game that he is at a loss to describe, to �bug vacuum,� which is apparently for sucking up live bugs to promote scientific observation. However, AJ seems more concerned with vacuuming up the box elder bug carcasses in the tracks of the door from his room to the balcony. Perhaps, then, what he really wants is for me to do a better job of vacuuming his room.

AJ had his first basketball practice today. He was very excited but also extremely nervous and stood back several feet from the first huddle, twisting his shirttail absent-mindedly. But he soon started to have fun, did a magnificent job of dribbling and even made a couple of baskets. He was euphoric afterwards when we crowned the event with a rare trip out for a doughnut, which he devoured in great haste, lest someone tell him he couldn�t have the whole thing.

Meanwhile, I�ve been fielding emails from panicky students who have miscalculated their time, misinterpreted due dates, and just plain screwed up. I am all benevolence at this time of the term. I really do just want them to finish their work. Penalties are large enough to be fair to the students who did their work on time, but small enough that they can all breathe a sigh of relief.

I have realized, though, that the chief contributing factor of the incomprehensible quality in student writing is a complete and total disregard by prepositions. As I hope you can see from the way I am writing this paragraph, using prepositions indiscriminately without regard over their meaning is baffling out readers. And yet, that seems in be exactly what my students are doing. Puzzling. I never thought by prepositions on so complicated. However, this is a pretty consistent error out all my students.

Okay, that was annoying. I suppose I should get back to making my Christmas card list. Which reminds me: If anyone is interested in a CD of Polish and Ukrainian Christmas carols by an excellent but sadly defunct choir in which I used to sing (I�m on about half the tracks in the recording, although my name was left off the credits as I was filling in for someone who got sick the weekend of the recording session), shoot me an email with your name and mailing address. I have one extra copy, so the first to respond gets it. There aren�t too many familiar tunes here, but it still sounds Christmasy and it�s quite a nice disk if you like choral music. You can read about it here.

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