Good morning! I hope your Christmas was completely awesome. Mine was, except today I am realizing that a few days of not enough sleep + eating whatever looks good + sure, I'll have another glass of wine + oh yes, more coffee, please = my body begging for mercy. I wisely processed this confluence of circumstances as I woke up this morning, stretching and rising from the twin bed where Chickadee had slept the night before. (While the kids were here, they slept in twin beds in the spare bedroom while Otto and I slept on the pull-out couch in the living room. Now that the kids have gone to their...
The cot did finally show up at the motel, which was awesome because the kids fell asleep right away. And then there couldn't have been more than three separate incidents of people having loud conversations either out in the hallway or underneath our window during the night. Chickadee was snoring. Monkey talks in his sleep. And Otto still hasn't gone in for the sleep study he really needs to go have, but we have long suspected he has some sleep apnea, and thanks to the other noise, I was awake most of the night listening to him rest oh-so-peacefully (which was not, in fact, peaceful, as it...
We've had a very exciting morning, here, because we've been to our first awards ceremony. And it was something. The school the kids attend now have a student of the month type thing where one boy and one girl from each class are honored each month. They call it something else, of course (something long and unnecessarily complicated, along the lines of the Very Special Yay You Didn't Get Suspended Or Hit Anybody What With Your Super Excellent Powers Of Following The Rules This Month Unlike Half The Student Body Who Couldn't Be Bothered So We Shall Honor You For Just Being A Good Kid award),...
Last night was the kids' holiday program at school. And by "holiday program," I of course mean "Santa-centric Christmas show," because this is the south and apparently here they don't feel the need to so much as nod to Hanukkah or Kwanzaa or anything else. Politically correct, schmolitically bereft. Praise Jesus, pass the eggnog, and bless your heart if you're not a church-going Christian, darlin'. Anyway. This children have been talking about this for MONTHS. I am not exaggerating. (I mean, I am ALWAYS exaggerating, just not about this particular thing.) Chickadee is in chorus, which is...
A few days ago Chickadee kept saying GORGONZOLA over and over, until Monkey started doing it, too, and before long they were both in the kitchen, bouncing up and down, chanting "GOR-GON-ZO-LA! GOR-GON-ZO-LA!" "Why are you doing that?" I asked. (Because I am foolish and expect my children to make sense, even though nearly ten years of experience has never borne out this hypothesis in the slightest.) "I don't know," Chickie replied. "It's just fun to say. GOR-GON-ZO-LA!" "GOR-GON-ZO-LA!" Monkey added, for good measure. "Do you even know what gorgonzola is?" I pressed. "Yes," retorted...
Once upon a time there was a small boy who became overly attached to his stuffed puppy. The puppy's name was, of course, Puppy. And everything the boy did, he did with his puppy. And any time you suggested a game or a book or even a TV show, the boy had to check with Puppy, first, to make sure that that was okay. At bedtime, his mother had to kiss him AND Puppy goodnight, or he couldn't sleep. And if Puppy was missing at bedtime? Well, let's just say you'd better find him. STAT. This was extremely charming when the boy was two or three years old, but was becoming tiresome by age six or so....
Chickadee is mastering the fine art of defusing a potentially unpleasant situation with humor. I'm not sure where she got that, but WOW I LIKE IT. (This is your humor. This is your humor perpetuated through DNA. Any questions?) I mean, yes, I don't like it so much when I'm mid-rant about how there's books all over the floor and a wet towel on the chair and would it be SO HARD to get her dirty clothes into the HAMPER... and she flings her arms around me and shouts, "WOW, I think I see something SHINY! And it is YOU! And I LOVE YOU SO MUCH, SHINY MOM!" It is very hard to lecture when you're...
Oh, the joy of a long weekend! The sleeping in! The holiday food! The family togetherness! The quiet implosion when you attempt to return to your previous schedule! [And hey, speaking of schedules, I realized yesterday that it had been over a week since my MRI adventure and I hadn't heard a thing, so I called my doctor to inquire. They informed me that they haven't received the report, yet, but will call when they do. Fine. I was almost content to assume "no news is good news" from that, buuuuuut then in the mail I got an official-looking letter letting me know that my mammogram yielded...
I have never been big on the whole "mall Santa" thing, for various reasons. I mean, yes---we've done it a couple of times, but on the whole, it's not like I search it out every year as an essential part of the Christmas season. (Frankly, the fact that some man is being paid to sit little kids on his lap all day long disturbs me in a way I'd rather not even verbalize.) Regardless, in spite of the fact that the kids are on the cusp of being too old for such a thing---and really, if we're being honest, I strongly suspect that Chickadee's suspension of disbelief about the guy in the red suit has...
