Darn Holidays

Oh the magical Christmas season; why is it always all about me? I buy, hide, and wrap all of the presents. I make, print, and address all of the Christmas cards. I decorate the house, the tree, and the kids. I make special plans, uphold traditions, facilitate charity, and make gingerbread houses not to mention dozens of cookies. I do all of this while working part time, keeping up my house, and being careful to protect the identity of a chubby red suited fellow. Why do I drive myself crazy with stress and run myself exhausted every holiday season?


Every year I start with the same goal. As the calendar counts down to Thanksgiving I promise that this is the year that I am going to have a calm and happy holiday season. I promise myself that I am not going to do too much, buy too much, or eat too much. I am not going to over schedule us. I am not going to go crazy buying presents, decorating the house or keeping up with the Jones. Basically I vow that I am going to try and actually enjoy the holidays. Easy right? Wrong!

I start out with a vision. Less is more. Jesus is the reason for the season. The best things in life aren’t things. Blah blah blah… here we are on December 9th and I am running all over the state searching for a cheesy plastic princess castle that I know is an overpriced piece of crap. I am calling stores, I am shaking down employees, viola, I am a crazed hysterical mother at Christmas. I can’t help it. If my daughter doesn’t get a princess Castle on Christmas morning she will be broken hearted and her life will be ruined. My son will be fine since I was up until two o’clock last night ordering him a huge over priced Lego set that he will put together once and then scatter the 5,000 pieces throughout my house. I Also have to volunteer at school, plan our special holiday gingerbread night, make dozens of cookies, buy teacher gifts, finish doing the tree, put the lights up outside, finish buying presents for my charities, and perhaps a gift or two for my husband, my mom, the dog? I have no time to write this! It’s the holidays!

I Am Sleepy

There is a new favorite game in my house called Who Can Get into Mommy’s Bed First. Here is how the game is played. I go to my bed to try and get some well deserved sleep. I turn out the light and try to fall asleep. Falling asleep isn’t the hard part, staying asleep is the hard part. For the last six nights aliens have been invading my bed. Of course like all problems in my house this sleeping invasion is my fault. About a week ago I came home from work and went upstairs to kiss the kids goodnight. When I went to kiss Alice goodnight I put my hand in a pig puddle of wetness. Being past twelve o’clock I decided that it was too late to change her pajamas and her sheets, blanket, and quilt. I simply changed her and brought her to bed with me. Bad idea! Not only did she keep Dave and me up all night, but she now thinks that all of these years Dave and I have been actually sleeping in her bed.


Oh yes. Alice starts every night in her princess bed, then she waits for mommy fall asleep…then she creeps into my bed steals my covers and spends all night kicking me in the ribs. How does someone kick box in their sleep? If you are my daughter you kick box very well and very hard. I wake up with aches pains and sleepier than I was the night before. Times that by six nights and I am one battered banged up zombie. You know when you are seriously tired? So tired that friend’s and acquaintances walk up to you and ask with concern if you are alright. Why would they ask that? Is it my pasty complexion or the dark black circles under my eyes; or the fact that I had my shirt on backwards?

You are guessing that I need sleep. In order for me to sleep I need to keep Alice out of my bed. Right? Wrong. Now I need to get Alice and Dylan out of my bed. Dylan was so jealous that Alice was sleeping in my bed that he started jumping into bed with me before Alice every night. Last night I had a child on each side. The kids are fighting over my covers, poking me in the stomach as they try to hit each other , they end up pulling my hair, putting their smelly feet in my face and keep my awake! Yes, I am here to complain today! I am tired! I am grumpy! But, worse of all I am eating carbs!

Tonight I am leaving them in my bed and sleeping on the couch!

You Can't Sleep With Me

Alice has been sleeping in bed with us for three nights and I am exhusted. I am too tired to write a blog. Here is a song. Sung to the tune of "You Belong To Me" By Taylor Swift.

Trying to sleep tonight, but you’re upset
Crying about a nightmare that you just had
Nothing I can do will console you.
Now you’re in our room, and you want to spend the night
I say no, and you putting up a nasty fight.
There’s nothing I can do to control you.

But, she’s so weepy, I’m so sleepy
Go to bed and stop that screaching!
I’m dreaming about the day when I wake up and find
That you’re not in my bed and I’ve been asleep the whole night.

If you could see that I need to sleep to
All night alone, that means without you, why can't you see?
You can’t sleep with me
You can’t sleep with me

Wakin’ in the sheet with your leg across my head
I can’t stop thinking “why is this happening to me?”
Pushing you away thinkin’ to myself
Hey this is just crazy!

Then you wake-up with a smile that could light up this whole town
I haven’t slept in a while, So tired I’m fallin’ down
I say I’m fine, but I’m really starting to crack
How am I gonna get my whole bed back?

She hears monsters, she hears witches
She’s in my bed and my eye starts twitching
I’m dreaming about the day when I wake up and find
That you’re not in my bed and I’ve been asleep all night.
If you could see that I need to sleep too
All night alone, that means without you,
why can't you see?

I’m laying awake listening to you snore
All this time how could you not know that?
You can’t sleep with me
You can’t sleep with me

Oh I remember you-driving me out of bed in the middle of the night
I’m the one who gets whacked, and poked in the eye
You steal all the sheets no matter how much I fight.
I think I know where you belong and it’s not in bed with me.

Can't you see that mommy needs sleep too?
Been laying here all night, can't you see?
You can’t sleep with me

Hiding under the covers- locking my bed door
Some how your here-pushing me onto the floor
You can’t sleep with me
You can’t sleep with me

Sleep in your own bed?
Just maybe?
Casue you can’t sleep with me!

Merry Margarita Stroll

Tonight our town had the holiday stroll and I had a Margareta for dinner. A Holiday Stroll is how you kick off the Christmas season if you love in a cute country town. First the town decorates the common in tons of lights and kitschy seasonal decorations. Then decorate Main Street with pretty window boxes filled with lots of Christmas greenery and red and white striped bows, and light the trees. Then wait for a warm winter night and have all of the businesses give out cookies, cocoa, candy, and a picture with Santa. That is a Holiday stroll sounds like heaven, unless you are Lydia.


My kids and I were looking forward to the stroll, I love our town’s quaint holiday traditions and they love free candy. I thought that the stroll started at 6:30, but around five we were driving through town on the way home from a friend’s house and heard Christmas music, saw tables of cookies in front of the stores with cookies and balloons. Not wanting to miss a minute of the festivities I pulled over the car immediately nearly knocking over a beautifully lit potted pine tree as I parked right in the center of all the action on Main Street. The kids and I jumped out of the car grabbed a swag bag from the back and headed on down the sidewalk.

We went to a few holiday clad businesses; the frame store, the quilt shop, and the coffee house gleefully spreading cheer and filling the bag with free candy and spoils. The kids were eating as many cookies as Santa, but we didn’t eat dinner; cookies are kind of healthy right? They have milk, eggs, and flour; but the sugar. Ah the sugar. In about thirty minutes the kids were like whirling dervishes. What are whirling dervishes? If they are like cranked up kids running up and down sidewalks crowded with people holding cups of scalding cups of cocoa; then I think that I saw two tonight. The good news is that my kids were only two of the fifty or so frenzied kids buzzing around our once save and quiet streets like killer bees.

The kids kept bumping into friends and school mates at each store and getting more and more overexcited. We were going to go see Santa soon at the furniture store so I wanted to get the kids away from their friends and calm down a bit before we saw old Saint Nick. I walked them over to a new out of the way store. We walked in and I realized that this wasn’t a store but a boutique. This store had velvet couches a chandelier and racks of very expensive clothing. They also had refreshments not a cookie or a cocoa to be seen. This store had sushi, gourmet pizza, imported cheese, fancy crackers, a fruit platter, wine and Italian sodas. Oh did I forget to mention that they had huge glass vases filled with Starbursts candies and Hershey kisses? We walk in and my son in elbows deep in candy. While I am busy confiscating the candy from my son’s greedy fists, Alice is stuffing her face with pizza; too bad that this was caramelized onion goat cheese pizza. Alice takes one bite gags and starts looking for a place to spit out. I let go of Dylan’s hands sending candy flying all over the floor as I try to run over to Alice. I get to her just as she starts to spit out her chewed up pizza. I scream the cliché slow motion “NOOOO!” as I try to put my hand over her mouth a millisecond too late. The refuse falls mostly on the floor but a tiny glob goes right into one of the many cheeses.

I see the proprietor’s enchanting holiday grin turn into a scowl. She stomps over and starts removing the food and dumping it in to the trash mumbling something about the swine flu and killer germs. I didn’t stick around to hear the rest. I start spouting apologies as I grabbed the kids and run out the door, I run the kid’s over to Santa at the furniture store, and straight into our local Mexican restaurant to have a huge margarita. Bah humbug!

Vote for My Lil' Heartthrob

Okay so I am one of those mom's who lives through her kids. I was a fat dorky kid. My son is a gorgeous, skinny, charasmatic kid. He wants to be a model. He loves attention perhaps even more than me. I also like the idea of him making money for college or for paying child support to all of his future baby mommas.

Vote for Dylan II at the Parenting.com Baby and Child Model Search - Parenting.com

http://modelsearch.parenting.com/contests/showentry/110762

It's Begining To Look A lot Like Chriatmas

Santa Claus is coming to town and I am out shopping or at work. Catch you later!

Intervention

You were too young the first time you brought it up to your lips. You didn’t understand the danger. Anyway everyone else was doing it so how bad could it really be? Bad. Real bad. You liked the way it made you feel. You felt calm, at ease, somehow comforted. You became a regular user. Then you became a heavy user you needed them night and day. Pretty soon you’d never be seen without one hanging out of your mouth. Years pass and the others have quit. You know that you should too but you just can’t. You try cutting back, it works for a while then the cravings took over. Your usage gradually crept back up until you were sneaking them in your mouth behind your families back. They beg you to quit, they point out the health risks and the social stigmas but you simply can’t. Your addiction is just too strong, the compulsion is too powerful, and again and again you are brought to tears.

Oh cunning Binky why are you ruining my life!

Binky returned in September. I am guessing that it had something to do with my getting a part-time job or with her new school? Anyway binky is back and we are despondent and discouraged. Will this child go to high school with a pacifier in her mouth? Will her father lift up her wedding veil in order to remove her binky before she says her vows? We are starting to wonder. We have tried the binky-fairy, giving the binkies’ away to babies, giving the binky only at nighttime; we read the books; Bye Bye Binky, Pacifiers No More, No More Nuk, AA’s Twelve Steps for Toddlers, and countless videos. We are coming to our wits end.

The main reason for my strong reaction to my daughter’s binky Jones is the fact that her teeth are already damage. She can actually stick part of her tongue through the hole in her teeth. Dave and I knew that she was going to need braces eventually, but she is only four and her smile is destroyed. Shhh don’t tell Grandma Alice because she will kill me for letting Alice Jr. ruin her teeth. We are such bad parents.

Well we were bad parents. The day before Thanksgiving I was online looking up toddler dental issues and found an article about the true devastation binky sucking can have on a child’s mouth. I thought that the effects were only aesthetic. Oh contraire, binky sucking sucks! She could have permanently stunted the growth of her lower jaw, stretched her upper jaw/pallet, and shortened her cheek muscles. I read this horrible article and ran out into the kitchen and started cutting up all of the binkies with scissors.

Alice started screaming and flailing as if she was on fire. She screeched, shrieked, and caterwauled. She kicked, stamped, and banged every surface of the house. A few hours in Dave and I were hiding in the bathroom rocking back and forth sucking on our own binkies. Seriously, Dave was upstairs looking for earplugs and I was in the kitchen pouring cocktails. After a few hours of Linda Blair quality tantruming, Alice lay in a catatonic state on the kitchen floor. Poor thing looked like a demented starfish. She is still lying there today…no she was eventually fine. We now only have one binky in the house. A binky that has only a little plastic nub left on it. She doesn’t seem to mind she has been sucking away. I cut a little bit off every day. Pretty soon she’ll be done. Well at least that is what I hope. Binkies suck!