Christmas 2000
Merry Christmas, Everyone!
It has certainly been a year to remember for our family. We’ve managed to settle into our house and are enjoying it very much. I’m learning what I can about home maintenance, landscaping, etc., which by itself is enough to make my parents wonder if I’ve been replaced by a “pod person”. It has been fun, though, and both Janet and I are enjoying the challenge.
What’s new with Alex? Well, everything. Alexander Robert Pilkington was born on March 5th of this year. (7 lbs, 4 ozs. and 20” long) By 7 weeks, Alex was sleeping through the night. By 10 weeks, Janet was sleeping through the night. By 2 weeks, I was sleeping through the night. I give credit to my finely-honed “selective hearing” skills and the fact that not a single gland in my body can produce milk. Alex is now 9 months old, almost 18 lbs. and 28 1/2” tall. He has started eating cheerios (or anything else that can’t outpace him), prefers “carpet-swimming” to crawling, says “dada” and knows what it means, says “gaga” and knows what it means (ga=good, gaga=favorite green monkey puppet), says “baba” with extreme conviction and seems to know what it means, blows raspberries on Brittany’s command and has 7 teeth. He is also starting to blow kisses and ADORES the ground Brittany walks on, literally shaking with delight when she interacts with him.
What’s new with Brittany? She is almost 3 (Jan 27), uses complete sentences, remembers to thank people, sings songs, has many of her books memorized near verbatim, is tackling the ever-so-important skill of potty training, knows all her colors and shapes and is dressing herself. Her social accomplishments include going to pre-school twice a week, winning the neighborhood halloween costume contest as a bumblebee and proudly announcing her “baby bwudder, Owgex” to everyone she meets. She helps keep Alex supplied with toys and smiles and helps Janet and I by yelling, “Kent, could you get that!” when the doorbell or oven timer ring. Funny how that’s the only time she calls me “Kent”. I can’t imagine who she picked that one up from!
What’s new with Janet? Janet is spending most of her time making sure our blessed children are fed, clothed, healthy and generally not wreaking havoc upon mankind.
She still has her online children’s clothes business, though it is taking a back seat to Brittany and Alex for the moment. She is involved in the church’s Sonshine Ministry (taking food, etc to people with new babies, recent deaths in the family, etc.) and nursery committee.
What’s new with Kent? Well, if you remember from last year, I was just leaving Tivoli Systems under the name “Scape Goat”. Ironically, they are still trying to finish my old project and are looking for a developer with a resume REMARKABLY close to mine! After we parted ways, I took a month and half (by choice) to recover from the stress and enjoy my family. A week after starting my job search, I was working for a medium-sized, dot-com startup. It was kind of an odd experience, though, because I rarely had to do any work! After four months, I discovered that the company business plan was “to go public so we can all cash in and get rich”. No thought was given to how we might legitimately accomplish that goal, or generate any return to the investors – hence, no work. That’s when my current employer, Foree Software (a TINY dot-com startup), contacted me. Foree has been fun. I’m employee #2 (out of 8 total) and Chief Technologist (That means I can wear socks with my sandals and people take it as a sign of intelligence rather than complete lack of social awareness). I lead the architecting, building and testing of our professional relationship management system (like a web-based, team-oriented, DayTimer, on speed – If you want more detail, ask). I’m having fun and learning a lot at the same time.
And of course, all that brings us now to Christmas. Thinking about Christmas always reminds me of how God chose to live as a human for about 30 years for the sole purpose of taking the punishment for our rebellion against him. Sometimes its funny (and sometimes not) how I want to “play God” and decide what is right and wrong, true and false. For me, Christmas is a celebration of the fact that God cared enough not to let my arrogance and pride kill our relationship. Christmas means that I don’t have to be “good enough” for God’s perfection because he has offered to cover my imperfection with his perfection. Some find this intimidating and some find it hard to believe. Personally, I’m just happy the offer is there!
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
Kent, Janet, Brittany, and Alex Pilkington