We’re back from our Christmas trip to Chicago, and although everyone had a fantastic time, the kids were definitely happy to see their little yellow house again. It didn’t help that the torrential rain and mudslides that slammed Southern California while we were gone dominated the news, even in Illinois. As a result, Julia asked whether San Jose was in the southern part of California or the northern part at least five or six times during our trip. Of course, once we got home, Julia spontaneously burst into tears more than once because, she insisted, she missed Grandma and Grandpa.

Santa delivered most of the kids’ gifts in Chicago—the children were evidently better behaved last year than I would have given them credit for—leaving us with suitcases and boxes full of stuff to take home. We mitigated the pain somewhat by shipping a few boxes via FedEx, making things a lot more convenient at the airport and providing us with the satisfaction of not having to give extra money to the airline.

On the topic of luggage and travel-related hassles, we took a big step with Julia just before the trip by moving her out of her bulky and massive convertible car seat and into a belt-positioning booster seat. She’s actually the last kid in her peer group that I know of to make this transition: the car seat was a complete bear to travel with and made it next to impossible for her to secure herself in the car, but it felt safer and seemed to offer greater support. Julia finally outgrew the seat’s height limit, however, so we were forced to make a change. On the plus side, the new seat is much easier to deal with when we travel, because it’s about half the size and weight of the old one and doesn’t require a complicated installation process.

We’ll have pictures from Christmas and the rest of our trip shortly, but first we wanted to post some snapshots taken after we returned home. In addition to the gifts Santa delivered to Grandma and Grandpa’s house in Chicago, Julie and I reserved two big-ticket items to give to the kids here in California: a two-wheeled bike for Joe and a big-girl bed for Julia.

The bike was something of a no-brainer: Joe is already older than Julia was when she got hers, and when they have Wheels Day at school, he’s usually the only one who shows up with a tricycle. Granted, he was a little later than most to get the hang of actually moving under his own power on a trike, but the timing felt right.

He was initially thrilled when he saw the bike: he let out a delighted exclamation that could be heard up and down the block. He remained enthused he started to climb on, but his excitement began to turn to worry once he realized that the bike was significantly less stable, even with training wheels, than what he was used to. We convinced him to pedal slowly up and down the block a little ways, but in typical Joe fashion, he wasn’t quite sure he liked it, and he wouldn’t let Julie leave his side. In contrast, Julia was zipping around the block almost on her own the very first time she got on her bike. Afterward, we lowered the seat a couple inches to make it easier for him to pedal, and we’ll give it another shot this afternoon.

Likewise, Julia’s move to a real bed was probably overdue. She had been in a a daybed that we’d converted from her crib since Joe was born, and she was getting to the point where she couldn’t stretch out comfortably. We knew she needed to move up, but we weren’t sure how to approach the matter. The obvious answer was to get a new twin mattress and a separate headboard, but we were a little apprehensive about the expense. We looked at more exotic choices, like elevated beds with desks beneath them—she’s going to need somewhere to do her homework eventually—but they were even worse from a cost perspective.

Finally, we remembered that Julia’s crib / daybed could also be converted to a full-size bed using a kit sold by the manufacturer. And, as it happens, we’ve had a full-size mattress and box spring taking up space in our garage ever since we converted the guest bedroom into an office. We decided to try attaching the crib headboard and footboard to the rails we already had and, lo and behold, it worked. We still need to tweak things to make the bed as stable as we’d like, but it looks as though we’ve found a workable, low-cost solution.

This strategy isn’t without compromises: because the bed takes a full-size mattress instead of a twin, it eats a lot of space in the kids’ bedroom, making getting around a challenge. And, when the time comes for Joe to get a bed, he might end up a little disappointed if he only gets a twin. That said, we saved some money and freed up a not insignificant amount of room in the garage.

If all that wasn’t enough excitement for one week, Julia at last hit a milestone that she’s been looking forward to—and I’ve been dreading—for more than a year: her bottom front teeth are loose. She’s been talking about loose teeth ever since her friends started losing theirs last year in kindergarten, but hers remained stubbornly fixed even as younger and younger friends started getting visits from the Tooth Fairy. At her last checkup, the dentist said there was nothing to worry about: her adult teeth were perfectly fine, but just a bit slow to develop; she thought Julia might be seven before there was much progress on that front.

It was a bit of a surprise, then, when I came home from work on Thursday and heard the news from a gleeful daughter: one of her teeth was wiggling. Friday brought a bit of confusion, as Julia couldn’t remember which tooth had been loose the night before. We double-checked, and found that both front teeth were visibly wobbly. I suspect this might be due to the somewhat idiosyncratic placement of these teeth—when they first came in, I started calling Julia El Chupacabra, until Julie made me stop—so one adult tooth might be killing two birds with one stone. We’ll find out in a few weeks whether we need to start looking into a second mortgage to pay for braces.

We’ve posted pictures of the bike and bed and should have more, including photos from Chicago and a couple albums from the archives, ready to go soon.

Update, 7/10/2011: As loyal readers of this site know, the loose teeth referenced above were a false alarm. Six months later, Julia’s front teeth are still firmly ensconced in her gums, though one of them is finally starting to show signs of being ready to get moving.