Hard Lessons Learned

I was getting Fiona ready for bed and the kids were all in the bathtub supposedly washing their bodies and hair. Suddenly, I hear screaming and then see 3 naked and wet children running out of the bathroom...followed by a very wet and indignant kitten.

Lesson 1: Kittens do not make good bath toys.

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Lesson 2: Know when to leave.

This is one of the top five lessons parents need to learn, in my opinion. Life with children is so much easier once you have this mastered. For example, my in-laws always go shopping on Black Friday and I usually tag along. Well, not along completely since they start at 4am. I meet them for lunch. This year we went briefly into the mall because I had to get this year's Hallmark singing snowman. As I'm walking through, this woman in yelling at her 4 or 5 year old son because he is running around and whining. Exasperated I hear her say, "Why did I have to get such a rotten kid!" to which I responded, "You didn't get a rotten kid. You got a kid. He's done. It's time to go." She shot me a well-deserved "mind-your-own-damn-business" look. But, it was true. She had missed knowing when to leave.

So, last week we were spending our 3rd day that week at the great Christmas train exhibit near my house. It's a great exhibit our garden puts on every year and since we are members we get in free. We go quite a few times during the holidays. The kids really enjoy themselves and it's just a nice low key activity to keep us in the Christmas spirit.





Bob and I were split up trying to keep track of everybody while they ran from train to train. After they spent about an hour watching all the trains, I came around a corner looking for Oliver and Max. That's when I found them. I couldn't figure out what they were doing at first, they were repeatedly falling onto the ground, but my mouth was already open to tell them to get off the floor. Then I saw the sign. And heard Max pointing to the sign and encouraging Oliver who had just flopped onto the floor with his arms flailing. "Almost. You just need to stick your foot up more like this."

I knew it was time to go.

Our pathetic excuse for a snow...

Every time we get this little hint of winter, Bob starts looking for jobs back up north. Look out Canada! He's focusing his sights on Ottawa. or Buffalo. or Vermont. or...

Here's our dinky snowman.





And you know, I can take the occasional stolen car. The periodic smashed out window. Even the random mugging. But today when we got home 2 hours after building our snowman, some little buttholes had knocked it down. I can't begin to tell you how this filled me with the worst kind of rage. My kids were crushed. We are building another one...in the fenced in backyard.

The Man of the Hour

Today after school got out at 11:30am, we invited the class upstairs for pizza and cake and ice cream for Oliver's birthday. The kids had a great time running around like crazy people. And though I had to field another interrogation about the size of my family from one of the parents, and 3 of the kids speak little to no English so directing them was a bit of an issue (luckily their teacher was there to help!), and twice as many kids came as RSVP'd, we really enjoyed ourselves.

Here is the picture I took of Oliver with his class...



and this was the second take in case the first one wasn't a good one...



and the proud owner of one new rocketship...

Not to Keep Harping on This

A few pictures for your comparison

2005

2006

and...2007

4 years ago tonight

I was in the middle of a cookie baking marathon with my sister-in-law when I felt the first contraction come hard and fast. I went upstairs and laid down for awhile only to end up at the OB triage only to be sent home because they said I wasn't in "real" labor. I knew of course that I was, but I wasn't dilating so they sent me home. 2 hours later I was back with contractions 2 minutes a part, begging for my doula (this hospital supplies them...once you've been admitted) but I still wasn't dilating.

Bob and I walked the hospital halls while I labored. Finally, my water broke outside the elevator on floor 6, where I yelled, "HA! Take that Nurse Ratched!" Seconds later, I was overwhelmed and out of control. By the time they checked me (2cm) and got me upstairs and out of my clothes, I was a complete lunatic. 15 minutes after the first check, they checked me again. I was completely dilated. "Oh," they said. "No wonder you were acting like that. huh."

It then took me 3 hours to push the little bastard out. (My fault. I just figured out how to push with the last one.) 15 minutes after that Bob was out the door to get to Conor's City/County soccer Championship (he won!) and I curled up with my brand new Oliver and
took the first of many warm and wonderful naps. *sigh* heck! We had one this afternoon.

So, tonight we made gingerbread men along with 5 other kinds of cookies. If I had to describe the differences between Rosie and Max I could never describe it as well as this picture. Want to guess whose is whose?



And then there's this little cherub. I'm afraid she has weaned. Just like that. It makes me sad because it kind of came with no warning. If I had known that was the last time...

Charlie Brown's Got Nothing on Us...

We've had to put off our usual trip to cut down our Christmas tree three times, now. We usually go the 1st weekend of Advent but each time we thought we could go, something has come up. The children were ready to cut down the neighbor's tree and drag it into the living room, so we decided to skip the long trip and just get a tree from our parish boy scout's lot. Last year, we had to go there as well because we had a huge ice storm and all of the trees at the farm were covered in inches of ice. We bought a tree still bound up from under a tarp sight unseen. It was surprisingly close to our usual tree.

What our usual tree lacks in beauty and form it makes up for in sheer size and girth. We buy the big dumb ox of the Christmas tree world. If our trees had legs they would be galumphing around like giant dumb cyclopses. I give you examples from a few year's worth of our past Christmas cards...








ok, so you can't really see the tree so much, but trust me. They are curled over at the top and completely shapeless. But, we love them.

This year we all pile into the car and head to the pizza place and then out to the tree lot. First, we haven't been to the pizza place in awhile and I was shocked at how much it cost us, but I figured we were saving it on gas not driving out to the country to the tree farm. So bellies full and trips to the bathroom before we left, we headed to the tree lot. oh wait. That's right. Someone is going to have to pee before we drive those 2 miles. Yep, there it is. Rosie screaming from the back seat that she is going to wet her pants right now! just minutes after having gone. So, we swing by our house where the power of suggestion overcomes Max and Oliver. With everyone's bladder empty, we arrive at the lot. We are a bit skeptical because already it is slim pickins. I'm about to suggest we wait and go to the farm on Friday, but I catch Bob's eye and turn to see the kids gleefully winding through the sparse aisles. I knew we wouldn't be leaving without a tree.

Did I mention it was 29 degrees? It was. It didn't take long for me to give up any hope of getting a galumph a tree and told the kids to pick out whatever tree they wanted. I didn't care. If they liked it, we would buy it. They found a tree in about 5 minutes, I snapped a quick picture, gave Bob the money, and corralled everyone back to the van. It didn't look that bad at the lot but once we got it home to our 10 foot ceilings, the poor little thing seemed to shrink. But, isn't that the beauty of children and Christmas? Look at Rosie. Do you think she gives a crap that this is a mere imitation of the Family Christmas tree? Of course she doesn't even notice.

ok. So maybe I can love that cute little feller of a tree. But next year, I want a gigantamungous tree.



Please note: Since last year I didn't get all my decorations down until early March, I decided that we would decorate with ornaments made from recyclable paper so we could just throw it all in the recycling bin and be done with it.

Peek-In-Monday

4 years ago I bought our first Hallmark snowman thingy for Rosie and Max. Bob was disgusted. Thought it was awful....and annoying. I explained that it was this kind of cheesy stuff that children will remember from their childhood. Not the elegant decorations so tastefully strung over the fireplaces, but the tacky, silly singing snowman. He disagreed. Now we have 4. oops.

I pulled them out while the kids were sick in hopes of lifting some spirits.