Claustrophobics beware

Every year, my husband's side of the family has a Christmas party. The host changes annually, on a rotating basis. We last hosted in 2001, pre-children. We lucked out with smaller than average crowd that year, and, having no children, we had some extra space to work with. We are up again this year. If you've been to my house, you know it is small. Very small. Say 1250 square feet. This would be ideal if Benny's extended family consisted of, say, three people. In all actuality, the number of attendees will likely be ten times that. Now, when I say 1250 sq. feet, that is not all usable space. Usable space is maybe 700 sq. feet. We were hoping for a warmish December evening, not out of the realm of possibility given recent years' green Christmas trend. We had hoped that we could comfortably put food and drink in the garage, and that maybe we could even light a big bonfire in the backyard for those brave (or drunk) enough to venture out there. Well, we have over a foot on snow on the ground. not exactly ideal bonfire conditions. And the weather prediction for this Saturday is cloudy (really, in winter?) with a high right around freezing and a low of...um...8. Yup, 8. Now nearly everyone who is coming has been here before and should be aware of the minuscule space the party is occupying. We will still utilize the garage, but I'm thinking I should look for extra mittens, and I will be begging my neighbors for their space heater. I am slightly nervous about all of this. And I haven't even gotten into the logistical chaos of trying to clean the house and prepare food with a very curious, very bright, very agile and often sneaky (but oh so adorable) not quite two-year-old on my hands.
I'm sure I will have lots of updates in the coming days.

And if you think you hear faint weeping sounds coming from afar, it is probably me.

Have an ice day.

I don't care if it rains or freezes, 'long as I've got my plastic Jesus

...or

The Modernization of Christmas


In an effort to save my lovely ceramic nativity set from the deadly grip and curious mind of little Helen, I have decided to keep it safe in its box for at least the next couple of Christmas seasons. So instead we got this:


Yes, the folks at Fisher Price have been kind enough to manufacture a nativity set for children, complete with all the pertinent characters in Little People form. There are some more pieces that aren't shown...the other animals are out of the frame, and the wise men are currently MIA, but I'll be looking for them today. Last night I was out with friends, and that, coupled with my nasty cold, rendered me too tired for my usual nativity round-up. We have about eleventy bajillion Little People parts to go with umpteen sets in our house, and most are just thrown into a bin at night. But the nativity needs special care, and, as such, I search each and every night (except last night) for the nativity pieces so that I may lovingly place them back in and around the manger. After all, it's the least I can do for Jesus when he is a guest in my home. Well, the other night, I was able to locate the now MIA wise men, who were seemingly fraternizing with Noah's wife over at the ark, and the donkeys and such were aorund, but Mary, Joseph and Jesus were nowhere to be found. I searched high. I searched low. No Mary. No Joseph. No Jesus. Unwilling to give up, I launch one more search of the living room and find this:

Yes, folks, that's Mary and Jesus riding around in an SUV.


I never did find Joseph that night, but after this, I figured him gone and gave up looking. Deadbeat.

Sorry

I've been MIA. I hadn't realized it had been so long and now I'm sick. I could amuse you with the ramblings of a woman whose head is full of snot, but I'm so wiped out I can barely type. Head cold + little Helen = very. very. very. tired. I am counting the seconds until nap time (1853).

The bidding starts at,,,ACK!

It's time for the local public television station to do their annual TV auction. Benny loves this. I mean loves it. He will watch hours upon hours of this. I can watch some of it, but not hours upon hours. Just can't. We've gotten some nice stuff from it though. we got a bitchin bike trailer which cost a shitload of money, relative to our usual cheapness (but a very high resale value) and which Helen hates. Probably because she must wear her helmet when riding in it. Blah. Maybe she'll like it better next year. We also got a gift certificate for a B & B for my mom, and a lovely print for her kitchen. One year Benny got a Segway tour of Springfield Massachusetts which he gave to our niece for her college graduation. She moved away like a week later and I don't think she ever used it. Me, I would have chosen something a bit more practical for her. He did call me in tonight to take a look at one of the items up for auction. It was three tube of caulk and two rolls of duct tape, all bundled in a lovely gift wrap of duct tape. I was consumed with the dishes and forgot to come back and see if anyone had bid on it.

On a totally separate note, Ruthie constantly amuses us with her mispronunciations and word substitutions. I've threatened people who try to correct her because I think it's just so damn cute. Some of the more notable: coca-dots for polka dots, the little fuzzy, many legged things that turn into butterflies are killer-pillars. And most recently, upon spotting a picture of Pinocchio, "Look mom, it's Pokey-nokey." Funny girl.

Twenty years

I had grand plans to blog today and leave you with something profound and insightful to read, as you wipe a tiny tear from the corner of your eye. But today, not only did Helen awaken at 6 a.m., so did Ruthie. Perhaps on a different day of the week I could handle it, but Thursday mornings are tough. I do my NICU thing on Wednesdays, and it makes for along day for me, the last few hours of which are generally somewhat draining emotionally. I need time to unwind when I get home, and invariably end up going to bed late. So here I am, tired, achy and not wanting to do much but curl up on the couch and wait for Survivor to start at 8 p.m.. But alas, dinner must be made, Helen took a very abbreviated nap, so she is here with me instead of dreaming of sugarplums and binkies up in her crib, and Benny has basketball tonight, so I'll be putting the things to bed alone.
I feel though, as if I should not complain. My blog today was supposed to be reflection on where the last twenty year have taken me. I did not pick the number twenty from a random place in my head. This day has great significance. Today I am celebrating twenty years of sobriety. On this day, in 1987, I had hit the low point of my life. It's scary to think what a mess one can make of her life in seventeen years. I was completely confused, terrified, horribly lonely, but I knew I didn't want to be there, and I didn't want to be worse. I was lucky to have certain opportunities placed in front of me, and I was lucky enough to make the most of them. I worked hard, harder than I knew I could. I spent 14 long months doing nothing but figuring out how to change my life. And twenty years later, I have things that never could have been mine before. This is the part where, if I weren't so tired, I might start awing you with the wonders of my life, in a prose so rich as to, again, leave you wiping a tiny tear from the corner of your eye. but I'm too tired, and the words I currently have at my disposal coudn't do it justice. So I'll just show you what I have.
I have this


And I have this



And I have this



And really, what more could I possibly want.

Too Many Fish in the Sea

Let me warn you that if you tell your 20 month old that you are having fish for dinner, she will think that you are having Pepperidge Farm Goldfish crackers. And boy will she be pissed when she finds out she's wrong.

Thank you...

...to the daylight savings fairy who visited little Helen this morning when she first awoke. It was the time fomerly known as 5:30. But because the clocks went back, it was really 4:30. Helen cannot tell time, so I did not expect her to understand this and resigned myself to getting up with her at 4:30. Yikes. I listened to her cry for a few seconds, and dragged myself out of bed and into the bathroom. By the time I came out of the bathroom (and no, it was not hours, it was mere seconds) she was quiet. I tiptoed back into my room and climbed back into bed. I didn't hear from Helen again until I opened her door to make sure she was alive. That was at 8 a.m., now 7 a.m. Thank you, daylight savings fairy, thank you!

Smart Ass

For the last few holidays, I've been letting Ruthie pick out gifts for certain relatives. This resulted in this get-up for Benny for his birthday, which was the day before Halloween:


In addition to the hilarity of the gifts she picks, it also gets me off the hook. It's hard enough picking out presents for the eleventy bajillion poeple we shop for every Christmas, so I may as well delegate. Plus, it gets her involved and makes it way more fun for her when gift-giving time rolls around.
Last Christmas, when she was 2 1/2, she wanted to get everyone a ball. So Benny got a glow-in-the-dark basketball, Helen ,who was ten months old, got a mini NBA ball, and my mom got a set of pink golf balls. The only exception was my sister, who got monkey-print pajama pants. Everyone was thrilled. This year, Ruthie and I have gotten an early start. Grandma is getting a sorority murder novel, and Aunt Ali is getting a Pirates of the Caribbean wall calendar, (Did I mention that Aunt Ali is 35 and currently in Divinity School?) But so far, the present she picked out for Daddy takes the cake. She originally picked out a book for him that was a trilogy of horror/sci-fi stuff that I knew he would never read, and probably not appreciate all that much, and t was $20. To much for a joke that was only marginally funny. Then she decided he needed a book about lions. This decision was fueled by the lion display in the window of the Asian gift shop in our local mall. Everyone should use this tactic when picking out gifts. We peruse the bookstore, but locating a book specifically about lions was way too much for me and the girls on this particularly exhausting Friday. AS we continued to make our way through the bookstore, we wandered by the games. "Would you like to get Daddy a game, honey?" I inquired. "Yes mommy, I want to get Daddy a game. I want to get him THIS game." And she picks up this:
Now, the price was slightly higher than the sci-fi horror trilogy, but I thought maybe this would get played, and the thought of Benny opening a gift from his sweet little three-year old, only to find this, is priceless. So here we have it. Ruthie's Christmas gift to her Daddy. The game that boasts: "even if you are a "Dumb Ass", you can win!"

Semantics

Today is like the day after a nuclear holocaust in our house. We have had Ruthie and Helen out of the house and awake until after nine p.m. each of the last three evenings. Tuesday was Benny's birthday, and we went to dinner. Wednesday, for anyone who lives under a rock and may have missed it, was Halloween, and last night we dragged all four of our exhausted rear ends to a fundraiser for preemies. Good times, but not without a price. The girls are usually in bed around 7:30 or 8:00. Couple later bedtime with activities resulting in exhaustion even when bedtime is adhered to, and you have a very ugly situation. I commented to Benny on the phone this morning that it was going to be long day. I pointed out (mostly to cover my ass when he comes home and the house looks like a tornado hit it) that on days like this he's lucky because he gets to go to work and I have to stay home with the overtired (and right now screaming at maximum volume in my ear) children. He retorted with "No, I have to go to work." Yes, honey, on most days that is true. But today, you GET to go to work.