A New Year's Eve Christmas post

It was the week before Christmas. The 88lb kids' kitchen had arrived with nary a scratch. All that remained was assembly, and easy task by Mr. Claus.

Mrs. Claus to Mr. Claus:
"Maybe you should open up the kitchen now and see what you need to put it together. I can keep the kids out of the garage for a couple days."

Mr. Claus, working on the computer: "No, it's fine. I'll put it together Christmas Eve."

Mrs. Claus: "OK" (biting tongue against further comment)

9:00 p.m. Christmas Eve:
Mr. Claus kneels amongst chunks of styrofoam, a 20-page, multi-language instruction booklet and multitudes of itty, bitty screws.

Mrs. Claus knows well enough to not offer help, this is one of those Mr. Claus man-things that must be done alone. However, Mrs. Claus's sister, who is visiting, doesn't realize this about Mr. C. and naively begins reading to him out of the instruction booklet and handing him pieces of the kitchen.

"Now let's see, I think this is number 32..."

Because Mr. C. can't express his impatience to Mrs. C's sister, he relies instead on shooting Mrs. C. pleading looks. When that doesn't work he finally snaps when she sets her Christmas drink down next to a small grouping of screws.

"Could you stay away from the screws?"

"I didn't see them there. Lighten up." Mrs. C. was beginning to get a bit snippy herself.

"Use your eyes", Mr. C. growls quietly

Mrs. C.'s sister quickly begins helping wrap gifts. Luckily, Mrs. C....patient soul that she is... realizes that Mr. C. is just tired & grumpy assembling this mess. Besides, he'll apologize later.

Finally, at 12:30 a.m. the stockings are full, presents wrapped and the final wooden spoon and tiny pot holder is placed on that (@!#%*).... I mean, adorable, little kitchen. The Claus's go to bed tired, but happy. And wake up tired, but happy.

We wouldn't trade it for the world.

Look closely, Boo's already caught on to the whole hot pad thing.

Would you like some "cottee"?(a.k.a. coffee)

A Good Day

Boo crashed out for a second nap while Bear did his best to wake her up. The girl was tired.

Monday, the day of my "lockdown" post was one of the best days ever with the kids. Isn't life great when it works that way? My energy was good, we played most of the day, there was time for a nap. A good day.

Yesterday they went back to childcare and I went to the doctor; it turns out that I have chicken pox too, just without the pox (be thankful for the small things, right?). Apparently you CAN get it a second time. At least it explains why this "crud" I've had isn't going away. I guess I just need to wait it out.

Lockdown - 9 Days & Counting

I'm sorry I left you hanging with those YouTube videos and no interesting posts since December 1st! In the holiday spirit, we've had lots of red & green things happening: chicken pox, sore throats & runny noses.

To top it all off, I got sick too (and it's still hanging in there). I knew it would happen sometime, just another one of those parent paying-your-dues things. It's like returning to those first few months of parenthood:you sleep every spare moment you can. You doze on the couch holding 60 pounds of toddler, while Curious George hoo hoos in the background, you sacrifice hygiene to sleep during their nap time instead of shower. (Boo is a one hour napper max, so there's not much time.)

Self absorbed blogger that I am, I just realized that I've only shared MY discomforts, and not my children's. Poor Boo was the first one with this, she's had it over a week and is finally getting better. Bear has it too, although not as bad and his legs are covered with spots. One or two harmless little spots (that I thought were flea bites) appeared almost two weeks ago. So even after Frontlineing the dogs, more spots appeared. Turns out the spots are chicken pox, however, he was vaccinated for them (one of the things they include now in their shots) so his is a mild case. He's not even scratching. Apparently the vaccine doesn't give full coverage to all children, but he's still contagious. So we were escorted out the back of the doc's office,with firm orders not to go anywhere public until the spots are gone. Our play school had to be notified via one of those a mass emails. It's weird when it's your child that's the "case" they are talking about.

So our 9th & hopefully last day of lockdown continues.


P.S. Oh ya, & they turned 2 this week. More on that later.

Re Cut

OK, I stayed up too late on YouTube last night. It's amazing what a little editing can do!

Just another date movie



You'll never look at her the same way again...



Take my breath away...