Keal Family Letter, March 2007

Hello Friends and Family!

Happy March to you all. We had pretty much snow here in
Lenhartsville this past month. Unfortunately enough to shut down
the highway near our house. But fortunately enough to build a
snowman in the back yard with Thea and Cirdan. Well, actually a
snowlady... she was wearing a flowery sun hat, and a purple scarf.
The kids had a lot of fun with it... O.K. so did I... O.K. maybe I
had more fun with it than the kids did.
It got a little warmer towards the end of the month; warm enough to
rain and melt a lot of snow, and get our hopes up about Spring... but
now it's getting colder again, and it's currently flurrying outside
my window.

So starting with the youngest and going to the oldest:

Baby Keal is 18 weeks old (in the womb). He or she is 5.5 inches
long, and weighs 5.5 oz, just big enough to cradle in the palm of
one's hand. Fingerprints and footprints are starting to form on his
or her tiny little feet and fingers. Tirah has felt a few tiny
kicks already, and has started to notice that the baby seems to "wake
up" right as we are settling down for bed. The baby has been the
most behaved little kid I have ever been around. He or she doesn't
scream when he or she doesn't get his or her way. He or she
finishes all of his or her supper. Over-all, he or she doesn't get
into too much trouble. An absolute gem of a kid!

Moving up: Cirdan is 2 and 2/3. His favorite things right now are:
Dinosaurs, soccer, and cars. His favorite dinosaur is the
Triceratops, or "Top-ceratops" as he calls it. I certainly get my
exercise when I play soccer with Cirdan, which consists of running up
and down the hall way while kicking, throwing, or carrying his soccer
ball. And if I put two matchbox cars in his hands, he will be off
in his own little world for hours. Cirdan is learning to
communicate better everyday, while still retaining that adorable 2-
year-old comprehension of language. The other day Tirah was reading
a book about animals to the kids. They got to a page which had a
picture of a fox on it. Thea said, "That's a fox." and Cirdan
responded with, "No Thea, it's just one Fok!" One fok, two fox...
that makes sense!

I've discovered a perpetual motion machine! Here's how to build
it: You take one 2-year-old boy who loves to ask, "Why?" over and
over again. And you put him in the same room with a 4-year-old girl
who loves to talk non-stop... and boom! you've got a perpetual
motion machine. It's great!

Thea is 4 years old. She is quite the amazing little girl. Her
latest thing is that she keeps getting better at singing harmony to
songs. Tirah and I always sing lullabies to the kids before bed, and
we usually sing two-part harmony; Tirah on the melody, and me on the
harmony. Thea has been soaking this in for a while now. She
eventually started learning to sing my harmony (an octave or two up),
and would be able to sing along with me. Now, she has progressed to
the point where she makes up her own harmony, and we end up singing 3-
part harmony with our 4-year old daughter every night during
lullabies! She doesn't always get it right, but more often than not
she does, and she makes it up! This third part is not something
that we taught her... she just hears where the right notes should
be! Last night, totally out of the blue, she surprised us at the
end of one lullaby by intentionally singing harmony that created
suspension (where her note moved over three notes to create a
suspended chord which then resolved into the final major chord)!
That's the sort of thing you hear in classical pieces! It's very cool!

Thea has (I think finally) stopped taking naps. This means that I
have to switch my music time to the evenings because I don't get it
as much during naps anymore. Sometimes she will play happily by
herself, but she's a very social "Quality Time" little girl, so
during Cirdan's nap I try to spend more time playing with her. We
also might start putting her to bed at night a little later than
Cirdan. She often keeps him awake with fun games, chatter, and
uproarious laughter. We think we might try having Cirdan's bedtime
at 8:00 and Thea's at 8:30. Plus that gives Thea a little more
Quality Time with us, and especially with Mama.

Tirah is more and more feeling the weight of the baby. Morning
sickness is not a problem anymore, in fact she has lately been
craving meat, which is something that used to make her sick a few
months ago. Tirah is essentially working two jobs: helping a book
store grow, and helping a little baby grow... at the same time.
Understandably, she gets very tired. We are also starting to
wonder if Tirah suffers from SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder),
because we've started to notice that she often gets the blues in the
winter, so we are very much looking forward to Spring.

Tirah has been doing some great things at Hawk Mountain. She began a
program in which Hawk Mountain features monthly events throughout the
non-migration season. She's had two events so far: The Snowflake
Flurry in January, and Feed the Birds in February. These events were
designed to get families to come to Hawk Mountain, even when the
birds aren't flying as much. For the Snowflake Flurry, Tirah read a
book aloud to children, about snowflakes, and then taught people how
to make some really cool snowflake patterns. This past month she
read a children's book about Bird Beaks, and then helped people make
Pine Cone Birdfeeders. While the first event was a little slower,
the second event noticeably boosted the bookstore sales, and both
events were written up in local newspapers, complete with a picture
of my beautiful wife! Very cool stuff!

Tirah and I attended the Caring For Marriage Conference in Bryn Athyn
this past month. http://www.caringformarriage.org. We ran a
workshop on Marriage and Depression, which went very well. We also
sang some of our songs for the Sunday night celebration at the end of
the conference. The conference was a ton of fun! And with a new
baby on the way, we decided it was time to take a second honeymoon,
so we left the kids at home with Meemaw and Deedaw for that weekend,
and we rented a hotel room for three nights! It was luxurious! Not
something we can really afford, but if we have to go into debt for
the sake of a healthy marriage, I'm all for that! It's all part of
the philosophy that we try to live; of spending as much time, energy
and money on our marriage, as we did on our courtship and wedding.
The last day in Bryn Athyn was also Tirah's birthday, so it worked
nicely for celebrating that too.

So once again, we're doing a "No TV Diet" for a month. We often get
into bad habits of watching too much TV, so we put the TV away for a
month to focus on more important things, and hopefully get into a
better habit with our movie watching. When we do it successfully,
we often end up not watching TV for about two months just because of
the good habit we got ourselves into!

My music business is doing pretty well. With the baby on the way
this year, I don't know if I will manage to produce another album by
the end of this year. But I do hope to start producing sheet music
very soon. I have the notation software now, I just need to learn
how to use it. I've had some really cool for-hire studio projects
lately. Somebody hired me to create a soundtrack from an older
movie, for which the soundtrack was unavailable. With my audio
sequencing software I was able to cut out dialogue and put together a
really fun soundtrack, edited straight from the movie! And I got
paid for it!

In less than a week, I will be turning 30! Although I don't know
why I'm telling all of you that... the "old man" teasing has already
begun!

At one point in my twenties, I made myself a goal to be doing music
full-time by the time I was 30. So while it's not supporting the
family yet, I'm at least on that road heading in the right direction,
and that makes me feel good.

Have a great day everyone!

Love from,
Solomon, Tirah, Thea, Cirdan, and Baby Keal.