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.

my poor, poor kid

I think whatever we tell Henry, he takes to heart. Not just to heart, but puts that heart into a little Ziploc baggie and then wraps that bag in duct tape about a million times. I guess I'm just saying, what we tell him is what he believes more than anything.

And he is never wants to disappoint us, ever.

::

Henry and I were sitting crisscross (take that preschool teacher who said he could never sit crisscross 'right') on the floor playing with the little ones. I'm using the term playing loosely, because all I was doing was pushing the button on the pretend microwave so they could throw a ball into it. They would then shut the door and sign for help from me to push the button again so they could get the ball out of the microwave. Repeat this over and over and over. Yes, totally fun times.

So anyways, in between pushing the microwave's darn door open button, I noticed Henry had a hole in the bottom of his shoe. "Henry, did you know you have a hole in your shoe?" I exclaimed and pointed to the worn down sole. "Yep" he responded with a shrug. I continued, "Well, how long has it been there?" remembering that it had snowed that last weekend. "A few weeks... I think," he replied.

Henry continues, "my friends at school were wondering why I have a hole in my shoe and I told them that it hasn't been 6 months yet, and that my shoes are suppose to last 6 months like my mom and dad said."

To further stab the plastic fork into my muffin top region, he finishes "it's OK Mom, I'm happy with what I've got."

My poor, poor kid.

::

He's the one who makes me feel like we might doing this parenting thing pretty well.

Wyatt, on the other hand...