December Moments

This month flew by so fast, I couldn't keep up. Here are a few glimpses of what we did...

We had a huge snow storm the weekend before Christmas with over a foot of snow:




Yes, I did send my kids out in the storm to shovel the driveway with their dad. Mostly they just ate snow, but at least they got some fresh air, right?

We made a homemade ginger bread house with stained-glass windows. In case anyone wonders, the excessive icing is indeed an indicator that I had a ridiculous amount of trouble getting the house to stick together. This little house was so much work and there were several times where I was ready to throw the thing in the trash and get the kit from a craft store. It was mostly fun, though. We may even do it again if I get enough distance between myself and the royal icing.





We made several different kinds of cookies:




Yes, that is my son's thumb in the cookies you may have eaten. I'm pretty sure his hands were washed...(I can only do so much domestication at a time.)
This is a favorite of mine - he does this little smirk sometimes and it is so adorable:



Of course there was also Christmas but in all the above domestication, I have somehow still neglected to get a good picture of my children in front of the Christmas tree. Here are a couple of shots from Christmas Eve to hold you over until I get it done. Or my tree dies - whichever comes first.

No Bears?

This whole bug situation has seriously put me off schedule. I had the best intentions of sending out Christmas cards (on time ad everything...) but most of my time the past five weeks has been spent on my hands and knees looking for bugs - and unfortunately finding them. We pretty much consider the exterminator part of the family by now; he's been over so often. I'm still praying that we'll be bug-free some day. Soon, I hope! I really need to spend my time doing something other than vacuuming and bug-hunting. Of course, that's what I said last week and then as I was doing my parameter bug check, I suddenly found water on the floor of the basement. I guess, I should be more careful in the wording of my wishes. Oh and I also got to get two of my wisdom teeth extracted today; due to an unexpected infection. But hey - at least there are no bears eating my food, right Sarah?

I am truly sorry to those of you who didn't get a card this year. I will post a Christmas picture asap and consider sending out Valentine's cards instead. Whoever thought of adding the card-writing stress at the busiest time of the year should be punished. Maybe with a wisdom tooth extraction. Or a liquid diet for a few days. Or maybe I just need to figure out how to get my life organized. Do they have drugs for that?

Conversations from the Edge of Sanity

A few of the latest:

S: "Abira taught me a bad word that her mom sometimes says."
I pause and try desperately to think of a way to teach S that "we" don't use certain words - even if they sometimes slip out when mami's driving. Also praying that this will not be the day I hear my son use an actual swear word...):
Me: "Oh, yeah. Which one?" (Buying time...)
S: "Stupid."
Phew. Innocence maintained for a few more days at least.


S: "I think - I don't know this, but I think, that people used to put mummies in their house a long time ago."
Me: "Really? That sounds gross."
S: "Why - they were just dead people wrapped in bandages."
Me: "Well, I guess I wouldn't want to keep dead people in my house..." (I.e. How in the world will I explain this one?!)
S: "Well, they would be in those boxes that look like statues. So why would that be disgusting? "
Me: "Er...I'm not sure...It just seems like it might." (Do they have books that teach you how to deal with these questions?)
S: "Well, I don't know this. I just think it."

How am I supposed to respond to these comments when the part of my brain that deals with abstract issues works at half speed most days?

The following exchanges occurred within a few days of each other:

Me: "S, do you need to go potty before we leave?"
S: "No. And we don't call it potty at school. We call it the bathroom. Potty is a toddler word."

Followed by this one a few days later:

Me: "S, could you do me a huge favor and move that blue bin that's in front of my car?"
S: "What blue bin?"
Me: "You, know the blue bin that's right there...The big one."
S: "Oh. The recycling bin."

It's probably a sad state of affairs when I have to bring the level of my speech up to meet my five year old's...

Finally here's one with L from dinner a couple of weeks ago:

L: "Mami, I want Chocolate milk."
Me: "Eat your dinner first."
L: "I ate one bite pizza; now have chocolate milk."
Me: "No. You need to eat the whole thing; then you can have chocolate milk." (We do these negotiations very often...)
L: "Eat whole thing. Gah. Bad for me."

That's my little food critic. He has also announced that he wants to be a chef when he grows up - I'm still trying to figure out whether he likes to help me cook because he loves cooking or because he figures he can improve on whatever I make. Gah indeed.

Don't Blink

I shot this candid of S on Thanksgiving and every time I see it, the lyrics to Kenny Chesney's song "Don't Blink" play in my head. Part of the chorus goes:

Don't Blink - Just like that you're six years old and you take a nap
Wake up and you're twenty five...

This song always makes me a little teary eyed and seeing my baby look like such a big boy hammered it in. Time is going soooo fast. And it's not just seeing the kids grow. I honestly don't feel like it was that long ago that I was a kid, building fairy houses in the soccer field near our apartment complex. It seems like the years in between were just cliff notes of actual time.
My sister always laughs at my notorious bad memory because I often go blank at the "do you remember when...?" question. I can't remember a lot of events/ experiences we've had. It's not even that I can't recall details about them; most often I have no clue they even happened. I even do it about my age; I have to think aout it when people ask me how old I am and I always do a double take, when I realize it actually is 31.
I'm beginning to wonder if it's not bad memory at all. Maybe I did just lay down for a nap and suddenly woke up in my twenties...
Don't blink. No kidding!