Santa can't bring snow

They both chime in a whine from the backseat "but it's not fair!"

"We are suppose to have snow, it's so not fair. It's my third favorite thing about Christmas" Henry punctuated from the back seat.

I'm mentally doing a little dance, thank you, God, we don't have snow. We've had snow 8 months out of the last year, we deserve a no snow month!)

"Last night," Henry continues, "I even prayed to God for snow."

(insert the audible sigh here from me.)

"I should have asked Santa for snow too," he finishes.

I scoff from behind the wheel, not loud enough for him to hear though. The visit from Santa went something like this...

::

9:30am, because we aren't standing in any line for a visit to Santa, we only stand in line for important things like free cappuccinos to the first fifty people.

We waited at the curtained gate to reveal what type of Santa we are going to get. (Yes, it's strange, but this is the way Macy's does it.) We always prepare the kids... either it's the real Santa (aka decent looking, smells good) or it's one of Santa's helpers (aka, fake beard is falling off, eyebrows are made-up with white cake makeup).

Lucky for us, he looked like the real deal, and the boys acted pretty much stunned.

So much so like two deer in headlights that I had to tell this Santa what they each wanted (not that Santa asked; he was more like let's go, get the picture, get you guys out).

Then Santa proceeded to stick his fingers into Wyatt's dimples and told him to 'keep smiling' in this creepy way. Instead of knocking his fingers off my boy's face, we packed up. We got a picture without Edy actually crying. Yippee for us.

One more time before passing through the curtains, weird Santa said again to Wyatt "keep on smiling, come on, keep on smiling... there you go!"

::

So back in the car, I waited from him to say it... without fail, Henry says "Can we visit Santa again? I need to ask him for snow too."

Umm, no. We will not be revisiting creepy, keep smiling, Santa.

I respond "Santa can't bring snow in his bag, Sweetie, sorry. You better just stick with the microscope."

Apparently, our Santa only brings the heebie jeebies.

break fast

I hate breakfast time, that horrible morning rush. It's packing snack, packing lunch and packing backpacks. It's pulling off covers, pushing in showers and pleading with people. It's one breakfast, two breakfast, three breakfast, then four.

My breakfast is eggs, microwaved. And I eat them standing up. I'm so glamorous, I know.

Yes, I may hate that time between 7:30 and 8:30am, but I love knowing that I giving them a great start to their day.


See this little graph, it states that 89% of moms want their kids to eat breakfast, but of that 40% don't have breakfast daily. That families spend only 17 minutes preparing and eating breakfast each day.

17 minutes... for me, it's worth adding breakfast to that morning rush.

I get to see Henry practicing his Chinese flash cards. I get to hear Wyatt singing to Edy. I get to talk to them about gym today. I get to cheer about a puppet show at preschool.

Even if I hate that rush of breakfast time, I get to give them the best start to their day.

And that starts my day off pretty nicely too.

Disclosure, this post is sponsored by Kellogg and The Motherhood, though all thoughts and opinions are mine (and not taken over by any alien). I really do believe in the power of breakfast and thank Kellogg for asking me to participate.

the deer one

Wyatt gave me a present for Christmas. No, I haven't opened it yet, but it's an ornament.

I know, not because I have x-ray vision, like I try to convince my children I do, but I know because Wyatt is so sly. "It's made out of glass, Mom"... "or it's not". "OK, I'll tell you, it's an ornament"... "or maybe it's *not* an ornament". "You guess!"

Of course, I guess things like a snotty Kleenex or a shark, or a half eaten peanut butter sandwich because I won't dare guess an ornament.

The card is adorable though, reindeer painted by him and inside is a note about this present being from my little 'deer'.


Wyatt said "Do you get it, Mom?" Yes, I do... thank you very much.

Climbing into the van after preschool, I asked him to explain what he painted...

"Here's me, the one with the red nose, I'm Rudolph". As he points with his finger, moving along, "then there's you, and Dad, and Edy."

I look at him, my eyes giving him that little look, "But where's your brother? Where's Henry?"

Wyatt responds "He's just gone, he's not there".

I poked at him a little with a giggle and a "well, why didn't you paint your brother?".

Wyatt settles down into his booster seat and slowly says "I'm not talking about this anymore."

So, our suspicions have been, apparently, confirmed.

Wyatt is (literally) planning on taking Henry out of the picture. (I'm teasing, of course, kind of.)

All of his screaming at Henry... all of the jumping on him and kicking in his sides... every time he smothers him with a pillow during a so-called friendly pillow fight... has just be practice.

Oh yes, Wyatt, he's my 'deer' one.

just missed

10 days until Christmas. I look at Edy and think about where she was a year ago. She was not the giggling, pointing, following the lead of her brothers for everything that she is now.

This is how she was the last time my sister saw her. One year ago.


My sister's coming home. From Afghanistan. From her second tour of duty. Just a few weeks after Christmas.

She'll just miss it.

So much of me wants to be shocked, that she's released early. That she'll walk through that door, smiling, a white Russian in her hand, announcing 'Surprise!'... we wish it with every bone in our bodies.

Just looking at my daughter, I can see how much she has missed. It's so tangible in this picture. It makes me feel down far in my gut how much she's missed in her own family; her daughter, her son, her husband.

I'm counting down the days. 10 days until Christmas. A few more days and she'll be home, but right now...she's just missed.

Joining Just Write this week

the toddler tree

I've officially let go of need to have a nice Christmas tree.

Case in point, this is our tree. (Just keeping it real here, folks)

I call it the Charlie Brown tree, but no matter how many times I've sang off key to it, it hasn't magically turned into this beautiful spectacle of Christmas or any emblem of all things beautiful this holiday season.

Dang it.

Please note:
1- The bottom row of lights is no longer on because one of the three toddlers pulled out a bulb, and they don't really make strings of lights that you can easily replace a bulb and it re-light (now, *that* would be magic).

2- All breakable ornaments are hanging higher than 4 feet. Anything that can be manhandled can remain lower. Notice that it's not an equal ratio.

3- There is one, maybe two candy canes left on the tree because my little girl thinks they are toys. She grabs one, breaks the hook off and hands it to me. She then puts part of it in her mouth, only to scream at me for letting her put such a pepperminty hot thing in her mouth. She proceeds to give me the look of death.

4- Presents with tags have been ripped off, placed on other presents, stuck to the television screen, stuck into each other's hair. Tags have been placed anywhere but back on the present from which they came from.

5- The tree skirt has been pulled out so many times, that just want to throw the darn thing away. Edy thinks that anything that is soft and fuzzy is a blanket to her. Try giving her an actual blanket, and she thinks I'm crazy. Her BFF is her pajamas, or her coat, or her spaghetti stained shirt. (see, she's the weirdo)

It's like owning cats, and having to keep them away from my tree.

Who am I kidding, it's not my tree, it belongs to those toddlers.

(selfish little things)

Like I was saying... just like cats.

cheese please

Please allow me to be a little monterey jack this morning. A little cheesy.

This girl, how you lights up when the camera is pointed at you. You have a little voice that comes out along with that camera. You wrinkle up your face, spread on a smile and says 'cheese', only it sounds more like 'tease'.

And every time you see a picture of you or your brothers, you point to it and say 'tease' over and over. You have to have me pull it down for you so you can hold it in your little palms and stare at that picture. You look at it and say again in your little whispering voice... 'tease'.

Oh, how you melt me.

And how you make me laugh.

You invented this new game. It's crazy to think that you solely came up with this on your own, little almost 16 month old you, but you did.

You lay on the wood floor, put your hands by your face but palms pushed down onto the floor and you zerbert the floor. A big ol' sound that would shake the floor if you were bigger. You then look up at me, cobra style, with that smile, that cheesy smile, I laugh, and then you do it all over again.

It makes me laugh. Big laughs. Belly laughs. Feels so good laughs.

But I swear, if you ever blow raspberries on the floor of McDonald's, I'll start freaking out so that everyone in earshot will hear me, that 'I have never seen you do that before, that it's the most disgusting thing I have ever seen you do' and pull out the hand sanitizer to start disinfecting your body.

Sweet, weird, a little vain, baby girl of mine...

try to keep that kind of stuff to just at home.

a career you can count on

We walked into the Dollar Store to get ribbon and wrapping paper for the one, yes, as in singular, present that I had purchased up to this point, because I'm (obviously) super on top of Christmas presents and wrapping and all that other stuff.

*sigh*

Of course, at the Dollar Store you're almost obligated to get something for the kids if they are not scratching each other's eyeballs out and remaining, sort of, good while in the store.

"You both can pick out one thing" I nodded to them. It's a buck, it minor bribery in the grand scheme of bribery right now, i.e. Santa has some major pull right now in our house.

So, Henry picks out a flashlight to add to his growing collection of no-longer-working, cheap ass flashlights. I should have known...

And Wyatt, what did he pick? This balloons and pumper kit, for making balloon animals.

He's now foregoing his future as a garbage man, or the mail carrier, or Spiderman and concentrating on a career you can count on in this unstable economy, a future in his true calling:

Balloon Artistry.

Made completely by him, this is, as he calls it "the silly bike thing that clowns ride" or unicycle.


I'm sure that is obvious to you too.

real moms use Spam

The boys were each standing on their chairs in the kitchen, ready to use the handheld mixer, a big ol' treat for them since I rarely bake anything (or that I don't let them help me in the kitchen, because we all know that it's not really 'help' when it takes 23 minutes longer to do anything in the kitchen with them).

I told them, "hold on, there's one more ingredient I need to add", as I reached over them to grab the Spam hiding behind the big bowl. "Wow, what's that?" Obviously, they are intrigued by this canned ham, just like 99% of the world is.

I reply, "it's Spam." Though it's not really Spam, it's a generic Spam, but I figured, does it really matter, canned ham is canned ham.

Then both boys simultaneously plug their noses and yell at me when I crack open the can "what's that smell?"

"It's the Spam... it will smell better once we mix it in with the other stuff".

Doubtful, they hold their shirt's sleeves to their noses and try to negotiate the mixer at the same time.

Henry has more questions about this canned ham as Wyatt takes a turn. "Why do people eat Spam if it smells so bad?"

"Well," I reply, "most people I know don't actually eat Spam. I don't even think I've ever eaten it by itself. I promise you though, it will be delicious once it's mixed up with this other stuff and baked."

Henry continues on "I don't understand, if people don't like to eat it and it smells bad, why are we using it in this recipe?"

I close my eyes and tried to think of something to end this (already way too long) conversation about Spam. I already knew he wouldn't be touching this cheese fondue thingy already, ever. "It's a mystery, Buddy. That's probably why some people call Spam mystery meat."

"It's really called a mystery, that's so cool! I'm good a solving mysteries. Can we solve this Spam mystery?"

Oh, for the love of God.