we are family

One thing that I do with my family during the holidays is laugh. We laugh until we are wiping our eyes dry and silently motioning each other to stop talking so we can take a breath from laughing so hard our guts are hurting. This is especially true with my younger sister and I. I love that we can laugh like this, being ourselves so easily; because we are family and even though we are family.

My brother got married the beginning of this year and it was his new wife's first year to be included in the gift exchange. My parents got my sister-in-law the Magic Bullet, not to be confused with the Silver Bullet (sorry ladies, I'm not linking and if you don't have any idea what I'm talking about, goggle it for yourself). My poor fairly-new sister-in-law had no idea what was coming, as soon as I laid eyes on the packaging, I just had to go with it.

An example of some of the verbiage of the packaging of the Magic Bullet:

The Magic Bullet "is an entirely new concept in labor-saving devices. ... the Magic Bullet is so handy, so versatile and easy to use that you'll put it to work EVERY single day (probably several times a day). Best of all, it saves you time because it does almost any job..."

Both of us went into hysterics, both of our husbands rolled their eyes and both of us dove on the floor with laughter when our mother announced "I don't get it".

sticks and no stones

It never fails, I'm left with one present. One last minute present and when I say last minute, it's Christmas day and the only places open in my family's hometown are gas stations. (I'm not going to tell you who I had forgotten on my list, but it's a big one, you'd think less of me than you already may if I told you who it was, worse, this is the second year in a row that I've done it).

So swallowing my guilt, somewhat lessened by my attendance of my mother-in-laws very traditional church, I found myself pondering what exactly I could purchase at a convenience store on Christmas morning?

The answer was as easy as looking at the sad cashier behind the counter wishing that she didn't pull the shortest stick on having to work on Christmas morning stick draw. "I'll take ten dollars worth of lottery tickets, please". Crossing my fingers that she might be a little more fortunate in the picking of my lottery tickets than she was in drawing sticks for working Christmas day, she handed them over to me. She gave me that look, the look that said yes, you are the lowest form of present-givers they have out there. There's nothing more that says I forgot you than lottery tickets, well, that and gas gift cards.

Just to let you know, Grandma won a buck back, so I've got a good feeling that maybe that cashier's luck is about to change and that it will not be her behind the counter next year when I once again stand there on Christmas morning buying lottery tickets for Grandma.

gambling on a good Santa

Why does it seems like your chances of getting a good Santa are like playing the 300 million dollar Power Ball?

You stand in a possibly near-endless line (today, we were lucky and woke up at the crack of dawn to see this display and walked right in. I heard that some people had stood in line for three hours, winding down three lower floors, which I think is crazy. How can any display, Christmas or not, be worth standing in line for three hours, much less with two or so children whining, tired and near starvation, or so they would tell you for the hundredth time, but I digress).

After waiting in line, you get put into another line, passed through this velvet curtain that leads you to believe you are nearly there, you've almost hit the big time, The Big C is near, but not the case, you still wait for them to allow you to turn the corner and actually see Santa.

And there he sat, his beard sagging down with worn out elastic, his white painted eyebrows looking more like a bad eyeshadow job and the twinkle in his eye was actually bloodshot from Saturday night that probably end just a few hours earlier.

The two teenagers took a few pictures of my screaming toddler and the rest of us trying to pin him down onto Santa's lap. They asked if we 'wanted the ten buck 5X7?'. "Why yes, I'd love a picture of this glorious memory!"

This is exactly why we tell Henry that some of those Santas are just helpers, not the real thing, but someone, who will remain nameless, thought it would be more fun for Henry to think he was visiting the real Santa.

This is not something we will be repeating, we will always in future refer to them as Santa's helpers. I'm not gambling on a good Santa, unless we do actually win that Power Ball and can afford those fancy mall Santas where you get a pager to see him.

We didn't actually buy a photo, it was that bad but I had to link up some that were featured on the Ellen Show.

Jesus is MIA

Wyatt has a thing for babies. He adores them. He runs to the door when the baby I watch arrives. He starts his little feet dancing, he starts to giggle and since he's my child, he generally starts to drool a little bit. He loves babies.

When we pulled out the nativity for our Christmas decorating, Wyatt immediately went straight for little baby Jesus. He loving refers to him as Jee-Jee. He walked around with baby Jesus in his little palm and then he proceeded to put baby Jesus down, somewhere. That's right, poor baby Jesus is MIA.

I've looked under the couch, in the couch, under the other furniture, in the Christmas tree, all to no avail.

Chances are slim that he swallowed him, but I haven't ruled out him flushing him down the toilet. Poor Wyatt, he should really know that the toilet is probably not one of those roads that leads him to heaven.

if the shoe fits

I know that I've written this before, but I charted for both of my children, so I know pretty much the exact time our children were conceived (I'm so romantic, aren't I). Since I did know exactly when they were conceived; with our first, I was also pretty certain that we were having a girl. I shared this with anyone and everyone "that factually speaking, this baby should be a girl". A friend even purchased a gift for our yet unborn baby, a beautiful, little white and pink hat.

I will be honest with you, I cried at the ultrasound. I cried hours after the ultrasound. In my heart of hearts, I thought our baby was a girl. I dreamed of dressing her up, playing with dolls, pretending tea parties, I was in love with all. of. it.

Henry is a boy, all boy. When Wyatt was conceived, I had no false hopes of having a girl. I knew it was going to be a boy, but I love boys. I've only taken care of 1 girl in my four years of doing child care. I really do love having boys.

That's said, my Wyatt loves wearing my shoes around the living room, loves clothing so much that some of his first words were "shirt" and "hat" and oh, how he loves to accessorize. I think he's filling my need for having a girl quite nicely.

outside the box

I'm sort of losing the appeal of anticipating Henry on Christmas morning opening his presents from us and from Santa (well you know, more of us). His eyes may twinkle for a day or so, he may tell us how he loves this particular new toy, randomly hugging us in thanks, but I'm pretty certain once again it will be tossed to the side a mere two weeks later.

Henry has been known to hand out hugs of thanks weeks later for giving him the box his new slinky came in or thrilled beyond words that my husband and I will give him our coffee cuffs when we are finished with our Saturday morning java. At the moment, Henry's current new favorite toys are of course, not toys at all.



My favorite new pastime is calculating the cost of wasted money where he was more happy about the packaging that a toy came in and those non-toys that we didn't have to spend money on in the first place; that, and figuring out how exactly do I fit 25 feet total length of PVC pipe into the toy box?

perspective

This had the potential to be a great blogging post. About how I reward Henry with stars to earn his choice from the Dollar Store for getting himself dressed. How I'm always in a hurry to get one infant, two toddlers and one preschooler out the door, into car seats, and on time for preschool. How I've come to expect comments everyday from the teachers and parents; given looks of sympathy as I push along the infant in the stroller and pull along the two toddlers in the wagon (yes, we are a human train, it's a spectacle and somewhere in the vicinity of our five person train is Henry). I could tell you about how the other moms winked at me and the teacher avoided looking me straight in the eye.

From a blogger's perspective, I wish that I could tell you that happened, what a great post that would have been. From a mother's perspective, I was lucky that this happened after preschool.

It only took me 4 hours before I realized that he had his jeans on backwards.


It only took me 1 hour after that to convince him to turn them around. I should probably give him an extra star for persistence and perhaps another one for his unique perspective on how to wear jeans.

hypothetical

Got ya!













I'm not pregnant but that was a fun virtual joke (for me as I imagine your shock, smile and then laughter... or perhaps not so much).

This did get me thinking about Hypothetical (which is our third baby's name of current). When I was pregnant with Wyatt, I had Henry hold up the stick to my husband and announce kinda, sort-of "I'm gonna be a big brother" and in three-year old fashion, he forgot about it five minutes later. He didn't know what it meant, at all.

That was perfect for us as we don't share with people that I'm pregnant until we hear a heartbeat at the OB appointment. I mean, I didn't share it with anyone outside of my little family; not my parents, not my siblings, anyone.

Now, what if Hypothetical comes along? Henry would certainly know what being a big brother means and would, in five-year old fashion, share it with anyone within audible distance. Of course, I would want to tell him, but he's horrible at keeping secrets. So hypothetically speaking (or not), what would you do?

PS - I totally nabbed this picture from Chelle, congratulations again!

PSS - again, I'm totally not pregnant for any of those readers that just skim through posts. You know who you are.