Crafting Time

Since I have most of the Christmas stuff put away (not including the Christmas card ribbons, which will come down after New Year's, or the small stuff I keep finding around, like the ceramic carolers on the end table and such), I am throwing myself with abandon into rearranging the 'tableaus' on my piano, buffet, and display shelves. Because, you know, it's not enough work to keep house and children clean...I must have a new seasonal display! Because we have to greet the New Year in style!

Really it's just my way of putting the holidays firmly behind us and moving forward with a clean house and clean slate. Plus things get a little stale when you don't rearrange your pictures and tchotchkes and such. Sort of a "New Look for the New Year" philosophy. So, since I recently discovered during an unpacking frenzy all the artificial flowers and holders that I bought when we lived in Arizona (and I picked up some more containers and a few flowers at Michaels on clearance) I have gotten down to business creating some new spring/summer floral arrangements for the house.

First up, I finally did the ivy topiary, which was quite tedious. Using zillions of flower pins and my wire cutters I carved up two faux ivy bushes and now have quite a nice little topiary with artfully arranged reindeer moss at the bottom. I think it looks quite nice in our hallway. Moving on, I finally pieced together an arrangement for a wire bicycle/basket thing that can only be described as a purchase inspired by one of my "I can do country cute!" moments. Thankfully it only looks just a bit twee, and I'm happy to have it on our piano.

Of course, all of this cutting and arranging and fussing was accomplished at the expense of DH, who had to deal with the kiddos and keep them away from all the sharp pointy things that Mommy was playing with. And I had to glue a leg back on my gnome (yes, yes, I KNOW) and miraculously DD stayed away from it while it dried.

Such moments of happy crafting are rare, however, and I don't want you to think that I have my whole house done up for a new season. Oh no. I've only just removed the last of the Christmas greenery and burned it, and there are half-arranged bits and bobs all over the shelves. I am moving things from room to room and I think it will probably take me the rest of the week to finish it all and have it dusted and looking pretty. And I have 3 more arrangements to do, at a minimum...a wall hanging basket, and 2 containers. Maybe I will work on that today during naptime; then again, maybe I will knit some more rows on DH's unfinished Christmas (to come, now) sweater vest. As with everything else in this house, it, too, is proceeding in fits and starts. But a little progress is sweet.

The Power of a Name

So, as I mentioned earlier, my mother calling our pet parrot by her name, as opposed to "The Bird", which had lately been in prominent use in our household, really made me reconsider her treatment since DS made his appearance nearly a year ago. Oh sure, she was getting her physical needs met, and we even held her occasionally, but watching her soak up my mom's attention and love really made me feel guilty about how often I shoved my little friend's emotional needs aside. Hearing my mom repeatedly using my parrot's name reminded me that she is a living creature and (to us) a little person with her own feelings. So now I am trying to create a new habit, where our little feathered friend comes to sit with us after the kids are in bed, so she can get her share of love, too.

I've been reminded of the power of names recently in other ways. My brother wearing his doofus "Jesus I'm Drunk" t-shirt on the day he arrived, and my dad's offended reaction, reminded me of a discussion I was in recently where we were talking about how often Jesus' name or God's name is blasphemed. "Blasphemed": a very old word, and one that we tend to mock...but we forget that one of the Ten Commandments is not to blaspheme the LORD's name! This is serious business.

One of the things we were talking about with our friends was how evocative a name is. Mother Teresa. Martin Luther King, Jr. Gandhi. All powerful names, that evoke powerful feelings. Ask the Pakistani people about Benazir Bhutto. For those who aren't Christians, the name, Jesus Christ, doesn't really evoke those kinds of feelings. And honestly, how many Christians really are reminded of the awesome, incredible God who came to earth when they hear the name, "Jesus Christ"? Let's be honest with ourselves--we have allowed his name to be watered down in meaning for those who follow Him, too. I am just as guilty of any in saying, "G--d---it!" or "J---- C-----!" when I'm annoyed by something. I've only just appreciated how serious and wrong it is to do that recently, and I'm catching myself and breaking that very bad habit.

I have run across a few instances lately of people being offended by others who use God's name in vain. My father being offended by my brother's t-shirt, a poster on an internet board describing how she was asked by her sister to not use God's name in vain around her. To those who don't follow Christ, I understand how it could be irritating to be asked not to do that. But let me ask you--would you be offended if, when someone was upset or angry, they shouted, "Martin Luther King!" in a very exasperated voice? Or they said, "MOTHER TERESA!" in the same way? Or "Muhammed!!" as an expression of disgust? Insert your own personal hero(es). Pretty offensive, isn't it? So is it really a lot for someone who holds a person in reverence to ask you not to swear by that name? Because for all the abstract talk about Christianity, Jesus Christ is a real person, and Christians claim to know Him personally. Regardless of your own personal opinion about whether that is true or not, I don't think it's too much to ask for a modicum of respect. That's tolerance, right?

The Christmas Rants & Raves

Rave: for my children, who adapted to a whacked out nap and bedtime schedule with grace.

Rant: for my brother, who wore a shirt with a picture of Jesus holding a beer that said, "Jesus, I'm drunk!" Er, you're 38, not 16...do you have to openly antagonize our parents and offend them as a matter of course, or are you ready to be a big boy now? And a mini-rant to my sister for sending it to him.

Rant: for my brother and SIL for bringing all their own sheets, pillows, and blankets, along with their own inflatable air beds. Erm, are you saying something about my linens and housekeeping? Afraid we don't have enough? Not soft enough? Pillows I can sort of understand; sheets, blankets, and even beds, I cannot. At least offer some sort of reasonable explanation, or polite explanation, if you please.

Rave: for my DH, who cooked a superlative Christmas dinner. YUM-MY!! Enough said.

Rant (well more of a lament I suppose): for DS, who missed his first Christmas dinner, due to the above whacked-out nap schedule. Poor tyke! Hopefully he will enjoy the leftovers today.

Rave: for my parents, who paid for everything associated food-wise with their visit and Christmas dinner. Thank you for sparing our budget.

Rave and Rant: for my mom, who folded all our clothes (yay!) but did up all the snaps on every piece of baby clothes. Who does this?? I'm already wrestling DS around like a greased pig trying to dress him...not helpful. Overall a rave, though.

Rave: for Niece #1, who was a great helper with DS and mediator between Niece #2 and DD. Sharing is still a tough pill to swallow for a 4 year old and nearly 3 year old.

Rant: for the snow which prevented DD from enjoying her new ride-on vehicle.

Rave: for the snow which provided a host of playtime opportunities for DD & Nieces (and, need I add, picture opportunities).

Rant: for the helpful person(s) who attempted to put away clean dishes, and who have managed to hide several things from us. Just ASK where things go, peeps!! (now I will be finding things for weeks)

Rant: for DH, who never told his mom to buy gift certs for SILs and BIL-IL, who each got only scarves and a pair of socks (respectively) from us under their Christmas tree. How skin-flinty of us!! I feel horrible and even if I order stuff from Amazon.co.uk now, it will still be pretty bad. I hate that we gypped their Christmas.

Rave: for Mom, who reminded me that our bird is not just "the bird", but actually has a name and she enjoys being petted and loved. Poor bird...she is the stepchild in the family now. I think I've already got a New Year's resolution...more on that later.

My Coping Strategy

This blog is my sanity saver. Here I can vent and complain and remain civil to family members. Last night was atrocious, due to the disrupted sleep and barking, seal-like cough of my father.

Today, Dad was persuaded to go to a local urgent care center, after much protesting about cost and "I'll just move to a hotel if it's bothering you." Uh-huh. Way to be Mr. Crochety. So Mom & Dad are waiting there, probably for a few hours, then they'll have to wait again at the pharmacy. Better today than tomorrow, I'm telling you.

The girls are all getting on reasonably well, and miraculously we managed to get DS back to sleep when he awoke at 6 am. Since both living room spaces were occupied by sleeping aunt, uncle, and cousins, it wasn't exactly possible to bring him out as usual so he can do his thing and play/explore. And, knowing that the toys we have in our bedroom for him would keep him entertained for 20 minutes at best, we opted for the harder "coax back to sleep" strategy, which did work after about 30 minutes of sporadic protest crying. He finally snuggled down and slept until after 8 AM..blissful!

Hopefully we can avoid a repeat of last night's high drama. Presents are going to be deployed at strategic intervals today, which we hope will avoid nuclear meltdowns for the kids. The adults are a whole 'nother kettle of fish...we just have to try our best to be grown ups. I'll keep you posted.

Doing My Best & Worst

Well all family members expected for Christmas are here, and the summary phrase to describe the chaotic, energetic, irritating madness is, "Why did we agree to host again?"

Oh yes, that bad. Within the span of the past four hours, we've had the following joyous events:

• My father yelling at my DD, "Do what your mother tells you to do young lady!" Bearing in mind that a) she is only 2, and b) at that moment she was doing what I had told her to do. After an instantaneous expression of shock, DD promptly burst into tears and I had to repair the damage as best I could, given that she was 1.5 hours past her bedtime and still hadn't eaten her dinner. And, of course, my dad did not apologize to her when I told him that she had been doing what she was told to do.
• My brother (aka Dad Junior) throwing what can only be described as a hissy fit about the planned sleeping arrangements which included them sleeping on our sleeper sofa. Brother insisted that we find our other air mattress, disclaimed loudly to SIL that, "I'm not sleeping on some damn flea-ridden sofa bed!" and in short behaved like a completely boorish asshole. Er, first of all, our sofa bed is not flea-ridden, and second, if it was such a big deal, why did you not say anything weeks ago when this plan was suggested by phone, and before I hunted down the sheets for it, washed them, and put them all on the sofa bed? Thank you for wasting my time and insulting my housekeeping.
• A tiff with DH after I had to segregate myself with our DS (again) in our bedroom to try to get him to go to sleep. This particular tiff occurred after DD and Niece #2 were running back and forth down the hallway and even came into our bedroom, looking for DS in his crib. Needless to say, I was not best pleased by this turn of events, and called DH in to suggest that a) DD needed to sleep alone in her room, so the air mattress for the Nieces needed to be removed, b) DD needed to be put to bed, and c) I needed my laptop and to be left alone. DH was annoyed to be told that he wasn't supervising DD properly, and I was annoyed that all my hard work of putting DS to sleep was being destroyed every two minutes. It was quite frustrating for both of us.
• Overheard from Brother, "(Daughter), you need to go do this, okay? You don't want me to yell at you like Uncle (DH), do you?" Em, thanks a bunch for vilifying DH to your child.
• Our very tired DD being told she had to eat "five bites more" at the dinner table before she would be excused so she could go to bed. NO. We do NOT play that game in this house, TYVM. If she wants to eat, she'll eat; if not, that's fine too. We don't make a big deal out of trying to force an overtired child into eating a "proper" dinner. I (having just returned from finally getting DS down) said she was done, and it was time for bed.
• Me being the "bad guy" and insisting that the air mattress be removed from DD's room so that she would go to SLEEP, FINALLY, TWO HOURS past her bedtime. Gee, I wonder why she wasn't going to sleep--it's not like Nieces entering and leaving the bedroom every three minutes with endless and pointless requests had anything to do with it, you think?? And this after Niece #1 was oh-so-helpfully showing DD how to jump on the air mattress! Visions of broken limbs aside, it was quite clear early on that the proposed sleeping arrangements would not work, so I was a bit peeved to have to be the Enforcer What Lays Down the Law at 9:30 pm. I could not help but grouse to myself that if the Law had been Laid Down an hour earlier, DD would have been asleep and everyone (myself included) could have enjoyed a good dinner together, as DS would have woken up AFTER I had a chance to eat.
• Me skipping dinner, because frankly, by the time I was done soothing overstimulated and overtired children to sleep, all I wanted was to BE LEFT THE HELL ALONE for a bit so I could unwind. Which, of course, made the jibes and sarcastic remarks of my Family At Large oh-so-fun as I attempted to lower my blood pressure by doing the mundane and sanity-returning practice of reading the newspaper. Thank you for being understanding, Family! Oh wait.

I love family get togethers. I would love them even more if the families involved would a) stick to planned arrangements, b) be realistic about children's behaviors (and here I include myself), c) be a bit more open-minded to how other families operate, and d) refrain from commenting on or attempting to enforce behavior codes inappropriate to the situation. I don't care if my Nieces stay up late, but would it be a teeny bit much to ask that Brother refrains from castigating or criticizing my style of parenting to his kids or a general audience at large in my own home? Hrrrhhhm, I guess so.

I hope sometime over the next few days I get a chance to blog about the flip side, the good things to getting together as a family. At the moment, however, I have a newspaper calling my name. Good evening.

Doing My Best

At the moment, I am doing my best to keep things juggled and somewhat tidy. Parents arrived this AM after a frenetic morning involving my long-awaited (well not really) appointment with the gastroenterologist, more blood sucking for me (only 2 vials today, please) and a rush through lashing rain to the airport. All this by 9:30 am. Fun!

I did not get the guest room tidied before their arrival. Instead, after getting my blood drawn, mailing the last of the Christmas cards, and racing home, I cleaned up their room. Which meant, I removed the four boxes of outgrown children's clothes which need to be stored in the cottage, removed the dirty sheets for washing, put on clean sheets, and put four additional pillowcases on pillows since we have a wide variety of pillows to choose from. Oh, and remove the 2 double/queen size comforters to their temporary staging area for the sleeper sofa and air mattress, which will be deployed on Saturday when Brother and Fam arrive for Christmas. And just to tidy it up a bit I put away the toys and miscellaneous stuff that migrated in there and set up my parents' suitcases in convenient and mostly out of the way places. I even had 3 empty coat hangers for them to use to hang up stuff as needed (with more in the coat closet...just ignore the pile of coats/pullovers in the crib there).

My sore throat is worse today, thanks to a third sleepless night. DS finally is starting to feel better, we think, as we got a solid four hours last night before he woke up for the first time. DH feels like death warmed over and I'm trying to pack in vitamin C. Shoot, I meant to get more orange juice. Oh well. My parents treated us to lunch which was nice, and I think the plan for dinner is, well, not much of a plan...maybe we'll order pizza or do soup and salad, something easy. I do have a pork shoulder blade roast to BBQ in the crockpot but methinks that is going to happen later this week, seeing as it's still a frozen hunk at the bottom of the freezer. And I have no doubt that my folks will find countless things they need/want which will necessitate trips to Costco and the grocery store, as usual.

Time to go slurp more hot tea and pray that DS, and therefore we, will sleep well the whole night through tonight! I just need some sleep and did I mention practice time for my harp? Yes, because I'm playing at church on Sunday and again at the Christmas Eve service. So I am in need of that "finesse" time for my (very easy) pieces. Ahem. Never a dull moment!

Sniffling, Snorting, and Sleepless

DD's cold is now shared by all in the house, including a miserable DS. He has enough congestion to make him wake up every 30 minutes last night because he couldn't breathe lying down, so I had to sit up and hold him sitting up for him to sleep, then when my back was killing me I'd lie back down with him. Rinse, lather, repeat all night. I was not very pleased, having congestion and a sore throat myself. Nasty little adenovirus or some other somesuch bugger we've got.

DH hauled himself off to work this AM, having slept poorly as well due to the aforementioned night wakings and his own throat and congestion misery. DD at least got a good night's sleep, even if her nose is running like a faucet.

Misery, I tell ya! I've got DS's crib propped up tonight and have slathered on the baby Vicks in the hope that we will all sleep a bit better thus equipped. I have bags the size of Rhode Island under my eyes, and my parents arrive in about 35 hours. At least I got the linen closet reorganized--something prompted by my failure to find to the sleeper sofa sheets. They are found and washed, hallelujah! Oh, there is my tea kettle...I hear a hot tea with lemon calling my name. *Sniffle* I hope my scant readers avoid the Cold of the Season.

'Tis the Season...

a) for ridiculous baking frenzies,
b) for overhyped and overstimulated children,
c) for unrealistic expectations regarding decorating/present buying/card writing,
d) for diplomatic entreaties worthy of Madeleine Albright between family members,
or e) All of the above.

If you picked e), welcome on board! Yes, it is the time of year for all of the above. Oh goody.

Lemme see, in the past 24 hours we have, yes, you guessed it, All of the Above!

First, I have just spent the better part of four hours solid baking away in the kitchen for the goodwill gesture d'anné for the neighborhood. Why? Well, because, that's why! I feel like Alton Brown here...I just wanted to do it, okay? And frankly it seemed like it was necessary since so many of them couldn't make our party last weekend, especially since those not present included the families who take our trash the 1/2 mile to the main road every week, TYVM. I bake them stuff throughout the year but since it's Christmastime it seems to call for pulling out all the stops and giving them lots of baked goodness for the kids to go into sugar induced comas enjoy since they take the cans most of the time. And after gifting all those families with copious quantities of baked goods it would just seem wrong to leave out their neighbors, and thus you have me planning goody plates for the whole neighborhood. Ahem.

And, speaking of hyped up children, I think DD is already oversaturated with all the talk of the family members who are coming to visit next week. She is sort of blasé about it now, and discussions today with my brother and his family did not produce the ecstatic squeals of delight that would normally accompany the declaration that her cousins are coming to visit. Her attitude was, "oh, that's cool," and off she went to do some imaginary doctoring of her baby doll. Hmm. I think we are overselling it to her, the neatness of having people come for Christmas. Of course the endless varieties and amounts of sugar around the house and more generally (if not always specifically) available has led to a focus on, can I reach the advent calendar now while no one is looking as opposed to asking endlessly when her grandparents or cousins will arrive (like she did last year). Chocolate advent calendars are evil, I am telling you.

Ah yes, those family members who are coming to visit...did I mention that includes a set of very spendy (read: spoiling) grandparents and a set of very non-spendy and non-spoiling parents? Yes, and who should be caught in the middle, but moi. As middle-of-the-road parents, we let the grandparents spoil to a fairly liberal degree and put our foot down on non-negotiable (i.e. dangerous) items. Brother and SIL, however, chose the course of putting their foot down over extremely stupid and silly things, and thus have invited the current situation to a certain degree...the current situation being, my mom looks at their designated wishlists for their kids, decides what she wants to buy, and then adds on to it at her choosing based on what SHE thinks their kids will enjoy instead of what Brother and SIL say they want the kids to have and that their kids will enjoy.

The latest round which has us impersonating Switzerland involves a certain ride-on vehicle for Niece #2, who is 4. DD is getting a ride-on vehicle from the grandparents for Christmas, and in the interest of fairness and to avoid the green-eyed monster my mom decided to go against what Brother and SIL had said and order one for Niece #2. Now, to be fair to Mom & Dad, Brother & SIL do not have a good track record of predicting what their kids will like. Niece #1 wanted an American Girl doll for Christmas last year, and my parents bought one for her despite the constant moans from Brother & SIL that she would "never play with it" and "she hates dolls". Well, you can guess the outcome, can't you--Niece #1 still plays with her doll, absolutely adores it, and takes it to "teas" with her friends who also have American Girl dolls. This is just the latest example of this poor predictive ability of Brother & SIL, so it came as no surprise to us when Mom & Dad ordered the ride-on vehicle for Niece #2.

However, from the way Brother & SIL reacted today when we pre-emptively warned them about it on the phone, you'd think that my parents had bought a miniature coal power plant for the girl to increase her carbon footprint, complete with an integrated Krispy Kreme doughnut machine to turn her into a couch potato. "What's wrong with people power!??" "We told them we don't want our kids using things to get around, we want them to use their own feet!" Uh, calm down, campers, ho-kay? It's not a big deal...she accepts it graciously, you can't take it home because "It won't fit in our car," and we say we'll bring it the next time we visit you...which probably won't be for a good while, by which point you can say she outgrew it and that's that. No biggie. But Brother whined about how much they spent, SIL said she wants us to serve my parents Mexican food the whole time they are here because it will make her happy (because they don't like Mexican food). The whole time DH & I were looking at each other and rolling our eyes. I wanted to scream, "GROW UP!!" but refrained. Instead we counseled them to remember that grandparents are supposed to buy things that parents won't buy, and it's their job to spoil their grandchildren, and that the way my mom expresses her love is to give lavish gifts. It's not an attack on their low consumption, granola lifestyle.

I can hardly wait to see how many fires we get to put out when everyone is under our roof for 4 nights. Oh yeah, THIS will be fun. Especially when I bring out the birthday cake for Jesus at Christmas dinner. That's going to be popular with my brother. Well, you know what...I don't care. It IS the birthday of Jesus that's ostensibly being celebrated, and in my house, it most definitely IS the birthday of Jesus that we celebrate. The whole Santa thing is not played up here, but we do emphasize the birth of Christ. So, I guess we will not be Switzerland when it comes to the reason for our celebration, and that's okay. I just hope we've bought enough wine for everyone to be a bit mellow by the time the cake is being cut!

Tour De Potties

Well, the sticker chart did the trick for DD. Using the potty is now de rigeur, and it's quite accepted that when she wakes up in the morning, we put on 'big girl panties' and that's how she spends all day. No accidents, she is doing really well!

The downside is what I am calling the Tour De Potties. DD is now fascinated by how different public restrooms can be. She absolutely loves checking out the different toilet paper holders, and whether a stall has seat covers or not. Handwashing is a whole different set of things to explore: some faucets turn themselves on and off, others require lifting a lever, others are knobs...and the soap varieties! Liquid soap! Foamy soap! Even one place with soap flakes! Who knew it could be so fascinating?? She dislikes the hand dryers ("they're too noisy Mommy, I don't like it") but loves the motion sensing paper towel dispensers. She hasn't figured out how the center 'pull' towel dispensers work yet, probably because her hands are usually too wet to grasp and pull effectively.

I did not anticipate this side of potty training. I was expecting to stop more frequently at public restrooms, but was totally unprepared for the sense of wonder my DD experiences when she gets to use a different public toilet. She just can't get over how many things are done differently in each place! So now we are subjected to, "I need to go pooooottyyyyy," whenever we are in a store where, coincidentally, she has never used the bathroom before. Hmmmmmmm. We are still in that delicate place where we don't want to discourage using the bathroom, but when my DD chooses to make this proclamation just as I've finished putting all the groceries and her brother in the car, well, it's a bit more dodgy to get everyone organized and back inside for the sole purpose of using the restroom.

I am trying to be more proactive about this, and ask her as we enter the store if she needs to go. And of course she gets a mandatory pit stop before leaving the house. When presented with these requests, I find myself gauging how long ago she finished her chocolate milk and how far we are from home, coupled with the relative new-ness of the store, etc. Should we go? Will she make it home? Questions I had not anticipated as part of this whole process. And sometimes I am boldly telling her she will have to wait until we get home, and praying we make it. So far, so good.

Yet another reminder that the world is a whooooooole different place to a (nearly) three year old. *LOL*

La La La...I Can't Hear You

If I just pretend that my house doesn't need to be cleaned, that there aren't a dozen more Christmas decorations to be put up, that my daughter isn't spreading mayhem and chaos around the living room, and that my son WILL stay asleep and not wake up in an hour's time, I can quite successfully delude myself that I have enough time to post a blog and catch up on some internet reading. Yep, nothing pending here! Nope, we're just fine and dandy, all ready for that party tomorrow, thanks!

I think DH is a bit peeved with me, because after a whole day of attempting to get stuff DONE for the party, and being stymied at every turn by a myriad of other responsibilities and whining children and naptimes and lunchtimes, I declared myself non compus mentus at approximately 5:36 pm and trooped out of the house by myself, leaving DH to shepherd the children through last minute errand running after getting out of a two hour and twenty minute work call at 5:35:50. He just stared at me blankly when I put on my jacket and said I was leaving, assumed I was pissed at him, and I left for my sanity break.

And believe me, it was a sanity break. I'm just not up for this whole house cleaning and vacuuming and mopping and toilet cleaning at the last minute gig any more. Thank you, I'm done now, can I check out? Yeah. So over the whole housecleaning thing. What I could not tell my DH and really had to take some time to figure out myself is that I am burned out on doing all the vacuuming, mopping, schlepping of recycling and trash to the bins, etc. Don't get me wrong. DH does pitch in and do his fair share. But as I've mentioned before, you get tired of doing the same old things, and, well, you don't want to do them any more. Or at least not for a while. Unfortunately for DH, this realization has occurred approximately 17 hours before our party. D'oh!

I don't know if I'm going to be in the mood to do it tomorrow, either, to be honest. I'm kind of peeved about the last minute pattern we've got going, wherein I do all the sweaty cleaning and DH preps the food. Well, I think I'd like to do food prep tomorrow, thanks. Somehow tidying up our small kitchen and slicing cheese and arranging food on trays seems more appealing than wrestling our vacuum cleaner around the house, or scrubbing the toilets, or cleaning the birdcage and moving the decaying Halloween pumpkins (finally, although to be fair we never go in or out the front door so we just forgot about them until I swept the walks today) to the compost pile. Yep, food prep sounds pretty good to me right now. I don't even care if I put up the rest of the decorations--as far as I'm concerned, I can throw my pretty red velvet tablecloth on the dining room table and prop up a wreath on the sideboard and call it good. I don't even care that our pretty crystal isn't artfully arranged on our display shelf in the living room. Ok, maybe I care just a little. But, the point being, I don't want to do the cleaning. And, well, when your husband has just gotten off a 2+ hour work call and is going to schlep two tired and cranky kids to two stores (one of which is Costco), well, how do you say that to him?

The answer, of course, is you blog about it. So there you go dear. Finally, the answer to your question. Good luck with that toilet bowl.

P.S.

My DH just walked into the closed bathroom door. LMAO!! *Snort!* It's the little things.

Random Updates

• My thyroid is just fine, thank you. All results normal, which makes the whole kafoffle with breastfeeding all the more galling as it just indicates all the tests were utterly unnecessary. I filed the appropriate 'Patient Complaint' with the clinic's patient advocate, who promised to see that changes are made. Hmmm. I dislike the lack of follow-up here, but have to trust that changes will be enacted.
• My laptop has been returned to me, with a new hard drive (as expected) and a cryptic note attached to some removed RAM complaining about "Bad 3rd Party Memory!!" Huh? My computer had no additional RAM in it--just what we bought and paid for, TYVM. DH reinstalled the RAM (1 GB of it, no less!) and it works just fine. DH was irritated and is now of the opinion that future computers will be self-insured as had we not shelled out $300 for the extra warranty, he would have fixed it himself weeks ago and I would not have had to suffer the amputation of my lifeblood, my line to the outside world the absence of email and the internet for large swaths of time in recent weeks.
• My DS took his first steps (awwwww) and is cutting his first molar (yee-ikes, is he cranky!).
• My DD is likely going to be in preschool 2 days a week starting in January. *sniff, sniff* My little girl is growing up! She is also going through another bout of major attitude which is requiring constant vigilance on DH's and my part.
• We are having a Christmas party in 40 hours, and our house is incredibly lacking in decorations and cleanliness. GACK! What was I thinking???
• I am now an adjunct faculty member at the local community college. Thank you, thank you *bows*. Yes, I interviewed and got the job--one lab section, 3 hours per week. Just about right given the kiddos, I think. Yippee!
• I am insane to be posting now when I need to be CLEANING! GACK! ttyl.