Sunday, November 30, 2008

Our Christmas Tree, Darth Vader and the Tooth Fairy

Since it was a cold, miserable rainy day today, it seemed like the perfect time to stay indoors and decorate our Christmas tree. While both kids napped this afternoon I went ahead and strung the lights.








I need to do this while they are napping to spare them the pain and agony of watching me spend 2 hours trying to hide the cords that attach the lights to one another from view. I rest all blame for this somewhat neurotic behavior squarely on the shoulders of my Dad. I remember watching and waiting (not very patiently) for him to finish this same task when I was as child. It was like torture. There we were, my sister and I, all ready to hang all the ornaments, but first we had to wait for my Dad to hang the lights in such a way that there were no visible cords. The entire time he was working, we would pepper him with the standard question "Are you almost done yet?" endlessly. It took a long, long time and by the time he was done, I think he was just as frustrated as we were (If memory serves, I think he actually walked off the job one year & handed the responsibility over to my Mom who being less of a perfectionist probably had all the lights up in about 20 minutes or so...). Sorry Dad!



So, you ask yourself, why do I do the same thing? Why not just throw them on the tree with abandon so I can get to the really fun stuff? Words fail me....I'll just say that I try to do my kids a kindness by doing the task while they sleep, so as not to inflict them with my crazed behavior. Mr. Crackers can't even watch me do it anymore - I think it gives him hives.


So, I poured myself an eggnog (with a little extra enhancement to make the task more fun) and proceeded to hang about 800 white lights on our tree. When I started I was listening to some Christmas favorites, but about 30 minutes into the task, Mr. Crackers broke out the Lego Star Wars game and I lit the tree to the sounds of battles in a galaxy far, far away.



I also got to listen to a steady narrative stream from Mr. Crackers that went like this...


"Why is he jumping? Aaaarrrrggg!!! Tell my why he keeps jumping!"


"I'm gonna kick your booty!" "Aaaaaaaahhhh"


"GOD BLESS AMERICA, WHY DOES HE KEEP DYING!!! Aaaaarrrggg!"


Not as soothing as Nat King Cole, but entertaining nonetheless.



When the kids got up, we had a great time hanging the ornaments on the tree. I always love looking at them and reliving memories. Ours is not a designer tree, but a tree made up mostly of homemade ornaments and gifts from friends and family members. Here are a few favorites:


My mom made this one






And these I think


Glass ornaments we got as gifts long before we had to worry about little hands


Once the decorating ended & we finished dinner, it was time to unwind. K and I played with the kids' Fisher Price nativity scene. We've had this set for years. It was bought for us by my Mom when C was a toddler & I love it. The kids get to play with it and there is no worry about them breaking anything.

Before we started playing, we reviewed all of the main players and I was corrected by K when she perceived I had made a mistake. The angel Gabriel, will now be known to K as the Tooth Fairy. Her job is to bring the Baby Jesus, his Mommy and Jofus (this is my fault. I pronounced Joseph's name the same way when I was little) pennies while they sleep. It was unclear whether or not the family had lost any teeth. She seemed to be giving them the pennies because it was Christmastime. The fairy also serves as a middleman between the 3 princesses and the holy family (I could not convince her that these 3 were really Kings - they wore dresses and crowns and to K that means only 1 thing - Princess!). It is the Fairy's job to take the gifts from the 3 princesses and fly them over to the family. I'm not sure why the 3 can't deliver the gifts themselves, maybe it's a union thing...




While we played with the nativity set, the Cracker boys helped out with the rebellion in a galaxy far, far away...

You'll be happy to know they were successful.

Tomorrow our long holiday break is over and everyone here at the Cracker house returns to the normal routines of work and school. But it was a good vacation and we all had fun with the tree, Darth Vader and the Tooth Fairy

Friday, November 28, 2008

What a nice passport...




Our new passports are here!
Our new passports are here!


The Cracker Family will be going on a cruise this February thanks to the generosity of Poppa Cracker. Last year he took our family and my brother-in-law's family to Disney World for a week. It was a complete blast and one of the best vacations I have ever been on. This year Poppa C will be taking all of us (11 total) on a Disney Cruise. The entire family is practically vibrating with excitement.

The one catch to going on a cruise, is that we needed to obtain passports for the entire Cracker clan. The trickiest part to this (at least for us) turned out to be obtaining the passport photos. After successfully managing to put off the photography for several weeks, we decided we needed to get our act together & get the process rolling before we were too late to get them. Unfortunately, we decided to do this after church one Sunday, when (as you could probably have guessed) all of the photography shops & studios were closed.


After pulling up to a couple of closed stores, we decided to hit a discount drug store on the way home to see if they could take our pictures. After a quick verification made by Mr. Crackers, we all piled out of the van & into the store.

I should probably point out that this store is no ordinary CVS or Wal-Greens. This particular drug store has a bit of everything including groceries & videos to rent. It is a veritable potpourri of various discounted & off-brand products. I am still unsure why we decided to go to this store rather than wait 2 more hours for the other places to open, but we were inside and there was a very nice woman who seemed eager to help us out.


It's good that she was both so eager & so nice, for that helped to make up for her total lack of knowledge about photography and passport photos. Our first clue that we had probably come to the wrong place should have been when she first pulled out the camera she was going to use. It was an antique...


OK, so it wasn't quite that old, but it was a 2 mega pixel camera from a manufacturer I had never heard of. I was able to study it so closely during the 5 minutes or so it took her to realize that the reason her camera wasn't working was because it had no batteries in it. That should have probably been our second clue....(did I mention how nice she was?).


Once the batteries were finally in the camera, it was time for her to start taking pictures, so she pulled down the white shade to hide the discounted tobacco products from view and asked my husband to smile (we later learned you really shouldn't be smiling in passport photos).


Now came our final clue that we had (perhaps) chosen our photography venue poorly... In order to take the picture she placed her left hand over her left eye while holding the camera up to her right eye (I guess she never learned how to wink). Then slowly as she swayed back and forth on the balls of her feet she began taking photos. I really wish I had video of this process, it was (while not conducive to taking good passport photos) entertaining to say the least.



She repeated the strange swaying, hand up to the eye process for all 4 of us and then informed us we could pick up the pictures the next day. She also informed us that she would gladly retake any pictures that didn't turn out, free of charge. Needless to say, both Mr. Crackers and I were looking forward to seeing the pictures with a combination of curiosity and dread.


When I picked up the pictures the next day, I was pleasantly surprised that 1 of us actually got something that could be submitted to the State Department. However, the other 3 of us would clearly have to sit for re-shoots. My picture was so blurry & I was smiling so hard (almost laughing really - I'm telling you again she was really entertaining to watch) that mine would definitely have to be retaken. The kids' pictures were no better. K's head was tiny & her head was so low that the woman nearly cut off her entire chin. C had a similarly tiny head and his was also way out of focus.


Since I had come alone, I went ahead & had my photo re-done and got to once again witness her in all of her comedic swaying-picture-taking glory. I told her that Mr. Crackers picture looked fine and that I'd return later to check out the latest version of my photo and would probably bring the kids to have their pictures redone at that time. She was very nice & told me to come back anytime and that she would keep taking pictures of us until she had it right. I was starting to think that we perhaps hadn't left enough time to get our passports after all.


I returned a third time to the store (without the tiny headed Cracker children) to see how my second picture turned out. I figured there was no reason to get the kids involved until I knew we could get at least one more good picture out of her. To her credit, it was slightly improved over her first picture, but still kind of blurry - probably from all of the swaying. At this point I decided it was time to cut my losses & find another place to take the pictures. I mean, I am a sucker, but even I have my limits. So I paid for the pictures (yes, even the tiny headed ones of my kids. I didn't want to hurt her feelings. Did I mention how nice she was? Have I mentioned my fear of conflict and my tendency to be a complete sucker? Sorry Mr. Crackers you married a complete and total marshmallow - of course you probably already know this.) and the next day I took the kids to have their pictures taken in the place that had been closed the previous Sunday.


Wow! What a difference - they had a special camera just for taking passport photos. It was awesome and best of all the pictures were clear and in complete focus. My kids had normal sized heads and K even had a chin! The only downside was that the woman who took our pictures lacked the pizazz of our previous photographer. She was able to hold one eye closed without the use of her hand and there was no swaying. She stood absolutely and completely still - where is the fun in that?
But you know what, I have to say, she was sure was nice too!

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Happy Thanksgiving

Since we are only 2 days away from Thanksgiving & I have 15 people coming over from dinner, this will be the last anyone hears from me for awhile. I have a house to clean and lots and lots of food to prepare, so my days of hanging out on my computer are coming to an end for awhile.



If you are still getting everything ready to go and need some Thanksgiving ideas, I recommend you check out this website. I love the Pioneer Woman & everything she cooks (& her stories, & her photography & everything else she does). Some of her lip smacking recipes will be finding their way onto our table this year.



I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving. I hope that you enjoy the time you have with whatever family or friends you have assembled around you. I know it gets said a lot this time of year, but let us not forget to be thankful for all the wonderful blessings we have around us.



In closing, I thought I'd share A Pilgrim Story, written by my very own son C Crackers. This is his first novel & I being the proud Momma that I am, thought I'd share it with you:



Native Americans lived all over.


Pilgrims left England. The king was mean.

(so true...)

The Mayflower sailed for 106 days.

(at least that is what I think it says here)


They landed on Plymouth Rock.


Native Americans watched the Pilgrims.

(Somehow, I don't think they were quite this happy about seeing the pilgrims, but it makes for a nicer story this way)

Many Pilgrims died.


Squanto and Samoset came to visit.


The harvest was good!

(Should I be troubled by his use of the exclamation point at such a early age? See previous post)

A feast was planned.


Happy Thanksgiving!

Now, I'm headed downstairs to try and scrape a blackened layer of soot from the bottom of my oven, so I won't set off the smoke alarm every time I open the door on Thanksgiving day. May your your turkey be juicy, may your gravy be smooth and may you enjoy the smiles and laughter of those around you.

Happy Thanksgiving from all of us at the House of Crackers!

Monday, November 24, 2008

Practice makes (nearly) perfect

So, I think I mentioned in a previous post that Mr. Crackers has been working on getting all of the exterior holiday illumination ready to go for the Christmas season (I've said it once & now I'll say it again: moss does not grow under this man's feet). He's got our 20ft pine tree decorated with lights & giant Christmas ornaments. The wreaths are on all of the windows and for the first time, Mr. Crackers has hung icicle lights underneath the trim on the house.


(I must pause and say that Mr. Crackers really took one for the team on this one. The lights were hung right under our 2nd story eaves, which required him to use our extension ladder. I should mention that he really, really does not like heights - nope, not at all. Thank you, thank you, thank you Mr. Crackers!).

Now that it's all done, I have to say the house looks really good:




OK, that's not really our house. This is:






Doesn't it look great? Just the right amount of lights (for me anyway).

Ever since we made our move into our first suburban home, Mr. Crackers has taken over responsibility for decorating the outside of our house. He's really done a great job of it in recent years but, and I think he would agree with me here, some of his past efforts have had mixed results.

Probably the biggest decorating "challenge" he had came back when we first were living in the suburbs of Atlanta. Our home had no bushes or trees that could be decorated in the front yard. We had some tall pines, but no one was climbing 30 feet in the air to hang some Christmas lights on those suckers. For some reason (I'm not sure why, although I am sure there was some thought behind it) we decided that we needed some kind of outdoor Christmas tree display.


When we talked about the idea,I had a picture in my head of what we would be getting and it looked like this.





Most of you are now thinking that we headed over to our local Target store and picked up a few of these babies (I will admit here, that was my plan).


But, honestly that would be too easy, where would the fun be in that? And, let's not forget that Mr. Crackers likes a good project. So, he decided that he would make us some Christmas trees himself using chicken wire.




Yes, that's right, I said chicken wire.


He decided that he would use the posts from his old boy scout tent & fashion a chicken wire cone around each pole. He would then string multi-colored lights through the chicken wire in an attempt to make it look more like a Christmas tree. I think the vision in his head looked like this:



Can you believe I found this image on Google? Someone else clearly had this idea too. Should I be scared?


But, sadly, this is not what our trees looked like. It turns out that chicken wire is really difficult to work with, especially if you don't have the right tools. So, instead of cones that kind of looked like Christmas trees made out of chicken wire like this,



we had something that was (if you used your imagination) kind of conical in shape, but only if you squinted and viewed them from a distance (maybe from about 60 feet away or so? Really, just kidding Mr. Crackers!). Seriously, they looked like very short, very squat tee-pees complete with the large opening in the back.


Anyway, he finished them up & hung some multi-colored lights on them & we used them for a couple of years. I have no photographs of the trees to share with you because, er well, they weren't really all that pretty to look at. But, all of the extra lights on them did make our house appear more festive for the holidays.



Sadly, the trees did not survive our move to Ohio from Atlanta (I am not saying I intentionally threw them away forgot them. Let's just say that in all the hustle & bustle of the move our chicken wire trees got overlooked).



Putting all that aside, I have to say that these days Mr. Crackers has really hit his stride. He has a holiday vision that (without the aid of chicken wire) really puts a magical spin on Christmas for the whole family.



Thanks again Babe! The lights look great.


If you would like to make your own chicken wire Christmas trees, here's the link I found. Good luck to you my friend! May the force be with you.

Saturday, November 22, 2008

What a nut

Saturday was the big annual show down between the 2 rival schools Ohio State & Michigan. I am very happy to report that the Buckeyes came out on top this year 42-7. Go Bucs!




I myself did not attend Ohio State, nor did Mr. Crackers. We both went to another state run school that at the time boasted the longest losing streak in the nation. In fact the football team at my Alma Mater (a school that had an enrollment of almost 16,000 students) did not even tie a game until my junior year. So, I don't think you can blame me or Mr. Crackers for backing a team that has a much better track record in athletics. It's more fun to root for a team that has an outside chance of winning a game at least once a season.



Thankfully, mascots have no bearing what-so-ever on the outcome of athletic events. I say this because the team I have chosen to root for every college football season for the past 4 years has chosen as it's mascot, a nut. I think it can be said without any fear of argument here that there is nothing intimidating at all about a buckeye nut. It is in no way malevolent or frightening. Really, it doesn't even smell bad.









While I am sure there was a good reason for this decision on the part of Ohio State, I really can't fathom what was going through the heads of whatever committee voted to approve this choice all those years ago.



I'm no expert, but I can't think of another school that has chosen a small inanimate object as the mascot for their athletic team. There are a few other schools that have made some interesting choices. Take the UC Santa-Cruz Banana Slugs for example. Theirs is not a mascot that really strikes any fear in the hearts of their opponents. And yet, I must point out that a Banana Slug (with the proper motivation) could probably do some real damage to an unsuspecting buckeye nut. If nothing else, the slug may be able to push it around a bit.






Then there are the Scottsdale Arizona Fighting Artichokes- again, a very unusual choice for team mascot. At least though they added the word fighting to the name. It makes it a vegetable to be reckoned with. I myself would think twice before messing around with a fighting artichoke. Seriously, I want my vegetables motionless and inanimate.






This brings us back to the venerable buckeye nut. A strange choice, but at least Ohio State hasn't let it get the better of them. And you know what - at least it's a mascot with a fashionable twist. String a bunch of buckeyes together and you've got a nice necklace (well maybe not a nice necklace, but a necklace nonetheless).



There are very few schools that could say the same. The thought of a banana slug necklace fills me with absolute horror (of course that may be my irrational fear of slugs talking here..shudder, shudder).

I take it back. I am frightened by the banana slug. Well done UC Santa Cruz!

Friday, November 21, 2008

I love my van


I am a minivan driving Momma. I didn't want to be one and I must admit I fought it and danced around it for years. But now that I succumbed to the inevitable, I have to say it.




I. Love. My. Van.


I do, I really really do!



I have always been a big fan of the automobile. Even when I was little, I had only a passing interest in dolls and barbies. My real passion was matchbox cars.


As a toddler I would place a towel on my head, hang my rosary around my neck and play with my small vehicles (I guess I should mention here that I am Catholic - just in case you didn't understand what was going on there). My parents called me Sister Mary Karen the auto mechanic.








I loved the way those little cars looked & spent hours upon hours driving them through the small town my parents had built for me as a Christmas present one year.


My Mom & sister think I am a car savant. Show me the front end or tail light of a car even from a distance & I can usually name the make & model of the car in question (I am not good on the year it was made though - I'm not a total geek. OK yes I am, I just don't have a head for numbers).


My passion for the automobile only grew as I got older and was finally able to drive one myself. I had the usual hand-me down cars that are standard fare for most teenage drivers, but I loved them all. Even the Tank - the late model 1970's silver-grey Buick Century that my sister & I drove in high school.


The first new car I ever owned was a 2 door Nissan Sentra (& by owned I mean that my very kind parents bought me a car when I graduated from college. They purchased the car once I promised them that I was not going to grad school, but would instead find a job & make myself a useful member of society) . I loved that car, it was shiny bright red & had a sun roof. I would delight in driving through town singing my favorite songs off-key with my hair blowing in the wind. My husband would probably also like me to add that I abused the interior of this car horribly. He is right. For some reason the rear floor boards of my car were always buried under piles of loose pills of Advil, tampons & mismatched earrings. Mr. Crackers was rightly horrified the first time I gave him a ride somewhere & he happened to glance back into the rear seat of my vehicle. I am happy to say he was able to look beyond the mess of feminine products & date me anyway.


After a couple years of marriage during which Mr. Crackers tolerated the tampon-mobile, I had a particularly successful year at work and was awarded my first bonus. I took that bonus & put a down payment on a new (well, it was new to me anyway) vehicle. It was a black Nissan Pathfinder. It had a roofrack that was handy for toting around our canoe & a large rear storage area that was handy for toting around our 2 dogs.




It served us well ... until it died very unexpectedly (& prematurely) in the mountains of Tennessee when I was 7 months pregnant with C.



So...after much deliberation we found this car (sigh):

Isn't it awesome? It was 3 or 4 years old when we bought it, but it was a terrific buy. Seriously, how can you not love that car?







Here I am showing off my new vehicle with baby C still cooking in the oven.




We owned it for 6 years. Just like the velveteen rabbit, our station wagon began showing signs of wear (some of that wear came in the form of a very large dent in the hood courtesy of Mr. Crackers) that gave it some real character. I loved it. Since there weren't many people driving around in a white Volvo station wagon where I lived, I would get reports of people telling me that they had seen me at Target, or driving down toward the mall.

Sadly, I just couldn't fit 4 kids into my car (of course, in the days before car seats, I could've probably squeezed eight or 10 kids in the back). So, this summer we began the process of finding a new one. Mr. Crackers breaks out in hives at the thought of car shopping with me. I was instructed to narrow it down to 1 favorite & then he'd gladly take a look at it. Since my Dad is a car nut like me, we set off to find a family car that could accommodate my 2 hooligans as well as the 2 other kids that are in the carpool I drive to the parochial school over in the next town.

I didn't want a van at all. I wanted something cooler, something that didn't scream "I have a lot of kids to transport, so I really don't care what my car looks like". My Dad was very patient with me, but in the end, I found that they don't make convertibles that seat up to 8 people comfortably. I conferred with my Mom who pointed out (ever so delicately) "This car isn't for you, it's for the kids. Suck it up." So, I gave up the fight & got a mini-van. I am going to admit it here....I love it. The room, the automatic sliding doors, the 15 cupholders, the storage space...My God The Storage Space! I can cart an incredible amount of crap around in my new van & still have room to drive all of those hooligans around town in comfort.


I've said it once & I'll say it again. I Love My Van!




(Coolness be damned. What the hell - I'm a big dork anyway. What was I going to do with a cool car.)





Thursday, November 20, 2008

I think I am addicted to Craig's List

I've been busy the last couple of weeks cleaning out old toys that aren't played with to make room for all the new ones that will be entering our home over the next few weeks. Between Christmas and both of the kid's birthdays, we end up getting a lot of toys in just a couple of months. So, it's time to get ready for the onslaught.


I've got a pile to donate & a pile to sell. The pile to sell includes big things like our old train table (memories.... sniff, sniff), and other large size toys that the kids have outgrown.

Here's a shot of C right about the time we got the train table....almost 3 years ago




I don't really want to mess around with Ebay or garage sales, so I use Craig's List instead. It rocks! I find that posting all of these items on Craig's list is getting my old retail juices flowing again.








The beauty of it is that no matter what price I sell the stuff for, I win! Even if the item only sells for $8.00, that's $8.00 more in my pocket than I had when I woke up this morning. It really bugs me sometimes that I am not helping out with the finances. I used to work full time & I really enjoyed it (for the most part). Even though my husband & I both felt it was the right thing to do to have someone stay home with the kids while they were little, I still sometimes miss being a wage earner.


So for now, I will bring money in by using Craig's List. I love it & best of all (unlike my time spent as a buyer in a department store), I get to keep the money! I'm up to about $50.00 so far, but I just listed the train table today. Keep your fingers crossed, Momma needs the money




Wednesday, November 19, 2008

I gotta be me

The thing you gotta love about K is that she's her own girl with her own sense of style. Since we do battle over other bigger issues, I let the small stuff like wardrobe decisions slide. You'll usually see her in some kind of dress -she is a girly girl. I know she doesn't get that from me, since I seem to always be wearing my Mommy uniform (a pair of jeans & a hooded sweatshirt, much to my husband's dismay. I think he would die of shock if I actually wore a dress myself someday - but that's a post for another time).

Every once in awhile though, she likes to experiment. We've gone out of the house in all kinds of outfits. She once went to the doctor's office in a bumblebee costume. We got some strange looks, but we were on time & she was happy, ergo I was happy.



Lately, Tuesday has become dress up as Cinderella day. Last week Cinderella's outfit was accessorized with a purple hat & mittens









I think the satin of the gown was a nice contrast to the polar fleece, don't you?


This may be a family trait. Her older brother C used to love a pair green boots that were a hand-me down from our neighbors. He liked to wear the boots most when he was au naturel . I think he felt the lack of pants helped him better show them off.






I think he had a point there. They really do jump out at you more don't they?

His current obsession is his hair. He likes to get it really wet in the morning, so he can get it to stand on end. When he really gets his style on, he resembles someone who stuck a fork in an electrical outlet. He gets very disappointed that it falls as it dries out. We asked him if there was someone else at school with hair that stood up. He said "No, I just like it that way."

I am well aware that by the time adolescence rears it's ugly head around here that they may lose this independent spirit that they exhibit so freely now. I am hoping though that they can tough it out. I have to say, I really enjoy seeing what they will come up with next.

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Holy exclamation points!

Today my husband & I received an email here at Chez Crackers that had us scratching our heads a bit. Here is what it said:


"Rita is not feeling well. Connie and I may go over to see her this afternoon.
Hank said she had a blockage of the bowel!"


Now in all honesty, I do feel quite bad for Rita & I hope that she will be feeling better soon. My issue here is not with Rita or her bowel predicament. The thing that I found odd was the punctuation. I can't help but imagine the writer excitedly screaming the last line of the email (& I feel pretty strongly that Rita probably would not want this information talked about in a loud or excited manner).


I am certainly not an English teacher, nor am I a very proficient writer (as evidenced by my terrible grasp of grammar in this and previous posts). That being said though, I think I am not alone here when I say, perhaps that sentence could have wrapped it up with a simple period.



I need to tread a little carefully, because I myself am an abuser of the exclamation point. Often, when proofing an email before sending it on, I find that I have used exclamation marks at the end of almost every sentence. Why is this? Am I really that excited about what I am saying? Does the statement "Hope you are well" really merit 2 exclamation points from me?


Perhaps this problem is genetic. I do remember receiving cards from my aunts while I was younger that read:

Happy Birthday Karen !!!!!!

(Each word would be underlined at least 3 times. The word Happy would be underlined 5 times for greater emphasis).


No matter what the reason, I hereby vow to do a better job monitoring my punctuation to ensure it is appropriate to the actual sentiment being conveyed. I will try to make a stand & fight the genetic coding that seems to just beg me to end every sentence with an exclamation point. I think I can do it, I really do!!


Oh, and Rita: I hope you are feeling better soon!!!!



Thursday, November 13, 2008

Holy Crackers!! I better go clean the house.



My husband is a comin' home tomorrow. He's been working pretty hard on a new project for his company which has required quite a bit of travel over the past 4 weeks. This should be his last trip for awhile (thankfully), or at least until after Thanksgiving. I am glad he's coming home as we have all really missed him. As you can tell from the above picture, Mr. Crackers is a terrific Daddy. He is never shy about mixing it up with Snow White, Tinkerbell, Woody or any of the other characters that my two hooligans can dream up (dressing up is almost an obsession around here...).


As evidenced by the following:










What was my point again?? I seeemed to have gotten sidetracked by the cuteness of my hooligans...



Oh yes, my husband is coming home tomorrow. I can't wait to see him & give him a big squeeze & catch him up on all of the fun (and tantums) that he has missed while he was out galavanting around in the mountain time zone. I can't wait to share a meal with another person who doesn't say "Ewwww" when anything is on their plate EXCEPT Macaroni and Cheese (seriously, I am needing a real meal that doesn't involve hot dogs, pizza or peanut butter -- help me! ). It's been a kind of lonely few weeks & I am looking forward to talking to him & just sharing the evening with him again. We may not always say much, but I find his presence on the couch with me very comforting - even if we are both doing our own thing.


** And now, a brief note from our blogger to her honey-bunny: If you are reading this post Babe please skip the next 2 paragraphs - believe me, you don't want to read them! **


But...here's the thing. I will admit when he is not here, I am not always good about keeping up with things around the house. Mr. Crackers likes a clean and organized house (don't we all?). Admittedly, I do too - I just can't relax if things are too messy. But, when my husband is out of town, I seem better able to let things slide. Dishes may sit in the sink for a day (or 2). Bathrooms start to get a little scary looking, the beds don't really get made & please, please, please let's not even talk about the playroom. I just shut the door & think about something pleasant - like having a full time live-in maid.


So, now that he's coming home tomorrow, I need to get my butt in gear & return the house to some kind of normalcy. I'm not going to do anything drastic like cleaning the shower, or scrubbing the toilets, but I should probably empty & re-load the dishwasher. Maybe I'll even vaccuum the carpet & clear a path through the playroom. This is probably a good thing to do anyway seeing as I have a playgroup to host tomorrow morning & I'll also be babysitting some neighborhood children later in the day. I certainly don't want to endanger other people's children with the mess this house has become - who knows what may be lurking in my kitchen sink at this moment?


Farewell then, I am off to tidy up a bit. You know what? Maybe I will scrub those toilets. It's a special occasion... after all, my sweetie's comin' home!






Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Our magic toilet


A picture of a tantrum taken sometime last year....


I think I may have mentioned in my last post that my daughter K has a strong personality & that it is just about impossible to get her to do something unless she wants to do it. This includes not only potty training, but everything else including eating.

Lately, K has decided that for the most part, she just doesn't want to eat when the rest of us do. So, instead of eating she either sits & talks with us or alternatively sits in time out. She has always been in the 75% in weight for her age group, so I am not too concerned that she will waste away to nothing. Also, I should point out that she does usually eat about 1 decent meal a day (usually lunch) & that she loves, loves, loves eating her vitamin everyday (thank goodness).

I am telling you all this because unfortunately, there is a direct correlation between her lack of enthusiasm about eating breakfast and her tendency toward mid-morning temper tantrums. I could draw you a graph, but I think you can guess at just what that relationship is. I try to catch her around 9:30 or so with a snack to ward off the impending tantrum, and usually I am able to catch it in time, but sometimes I'm just a litlle too late getting her the pb crackers or granola bar. And when I am too late... watch out, because anything & I mean anything can set her off. Once she starts in on a good tantrum, she really likes to milk it for at least 20-40 minutes.

During the course of this morning's tantrum, we ended up in the bathroom because she said she had to pee. But, once we got into the bathroom she wanted to show me the "magic". For some reason she began raising & lowering the toilet lid & seat over and over again while screaming (& sobbing), "I want to show you the magic". I really tried to grasp what she was trying to tell me & I asked a lot of questions trying to understand what kind of magic we were looking for here. The only thing I did find out for sure (thanks to more screaming) is that the magic certainly did not involve, in any way, the flushing of the toilet. In fact, the flushing seemed to make the illusive magical nature of our toilet even harder to find (I am only guessing this because as I reached to flush the toilet the screaming got louder & my hand was smacked away as she screamed "NOOOOOOOO!").

Thankfully, I was finally able to get her away from the toilet without having to wait for further evidence of magic. I got her out with a granola bar & the promise of watching a Charlie & Lola show on the way to visit my friend's brand new baby.







We finally made it to my friend's house, so we could welcome her new little girl to the world. While I sat there holding that sweet little 3 week old baby, I remembered fondly back to when my own 2 hooligans were babies:

> My baby boy....what a cutie!




Those cheeks! Those rosebud lips. My sweet (peaceful) baby K.


Now, I have to say that as my kids get older I find that I like each age better than the one that came before. But there is something to be said about the peace and quiet of a sleeping baby. Thankfully, I can still get that quiet by holding my friend's sleeping child. The best part? I still get to sleep through the night!