The Season of Our Discontent

I love- LOVE- this holiday season we're in.  You may have gleaned this before due to the fact I have casually mentioned it a time or two thousand.  I'm aware that there are people who harbor more Scroogely feelings than my own, but by and large those people are to be pitied and/or fed gingerbread cookies until they crack and admit that Yes, this IS the most wonderful time of the year.  (Singing optional.  Well, singing encouraged.  Preferably in a stagey, karoake-type voice.)

But then, last month, I began to have the strangest feelings.  Feelings entirely foreign to me this time of year.  (Nobody panic- I'm not about to go all Judy Blume on you.)  Instead of joyful and shivery and just this side of manic, December 1st found me unsettled and discontent and out of sorts.

I wallowed for the space of a morning, then took action.  My weapon:  An imaginary red pen.  My victim:  The calendar.

Most of the year, I have little problem saying No Thank You Very Much to requests and snares of my time.  I am very protective of our family time and my own mental health and know that for me, that means not overbooking, and our children are still at an age where I wield most of the control of our family's schedule.

But at Christmas time?  Everything is fun and festive and worthy so why not do everything? Cookie-Exchange-Christmas-Cards-Tour-Of-Homes-Clothing-Pantry-Advent-Bible-Study-Caroling-Favorite-Things-Party-This-Kid-Needs-A-Donation-To-The-Animal-Shelter-This-One-Needs-A-Girl-Gift-This-One-Needs-My-Spare-Liver-ARE WE FEELING JOYFUL YET?

So I decided a bunch of it needed to go.  I could either do all of it in a way that made me an absolute jewel to be around and made everyone around me speed-dial Kevorkian for a good old-fashioned mercy killing, or I could hop off the crazy train, because the only one keeping me on there is me.  So I said NO THANK YOU VERY MUCH to myself a bunch of other people, and it felt incredible.

Then I found the Christmas lights I lost and couldn't find for THREE DAYS (because I'd put them where I always put them, SO CONFUSING), which is probably what really started the whole holiday identity crisis in the first place- a sad, unlit Christmas tree- and everything got a lot better, because Christmas lights are LIFE-GIVING.  I'm pretty sure Kierkegaard said that.

OH THANK GOD

But I'm not putting down my mental red pen.  Slashing through wide swaths of our schedule while cackling (in a festive, Christmas-y way, of course) is pretty much the best thing since the holiday sugar cookies that I will not be making this year, because this December I'm channeling Nancy Reagan and Just Saying No.  I'll use the resulting salt from my children's tears to flavor the Christmas ham, because my gosh, something has to sacred.

That's More Like It

Thanks to wonderful, wonderful friends, I think I've almost got this Valentine-party-game-situation licked.  Adelaide is thank-you-God capable of addressing and preparing her own Valentines this year, so that's done.  At least, I assume it is.  I think I glanced her direction all of one time while she was filling them out the other day, and she seemed to have everything more or less under control.  She's come a long way, baby.

Atticus has been steadily working on Valentines for his classmates since Saturday, which meant that, as of 10 pm last night, all that was left to do for this completely useless holiday was prepare Atticus's Valentine box for his classroom.

Unfortunately I had made the mistake of searching Pinterest for "Valentine's Day boxes" while Atticus observed from over my shoulder.  It took several minutes to explain to him just how little I was willing to invest in this whole project:  Zero dollars and maybe two television episodes' worth of my time.  That wiped out 90% of the results on there, but he did find an Olaf box I decided was reasonably do-able.

According to the Olaf Valentine Box Tutorial, I needed:

• One empty Kleenex box
• White Cardstock
• Black Acrylic Paint
• Scissors
• One Orange Pompom
• Two White Pompoms
• One Black Pompom
• Rubber Cement
• Low Temperature Glue Gun and Glue
• Black Craft Foam
• White Craft Foam
• A Sharpie

Of those things, I had:

• One empty Kleenex box
• Scissors
• A Sharpie

Instead of all those fancy materials I cut up an empty granola bar box for various appendages and taped the heck out of the whole thing.  He also sports the tip of a real carrot for his nose, which is rather precariously attached to his face.  I thought about calling him White Trash Olaf, but Fiscally Conscious Olaf or Refurbished Olaf sounds way more pretentious and makes me sound like I made it this way intentionally due to my high-falutin' hippie ways.  The truth is I can't bear to buy all that stuff for something that will no doubt be trash in a matter of weeks.  

Good enough, says I, says Atticus, says Reused Household Materials Olaf.

Do Kids Still Play "Upset The Fruit Basket"?

I received an extremely disturbing email from Adelaide's teacher last week.

It would appear that at the beginning of the school year- you know, back when I was fresh off summer vacation and believed I could learn to like doing things with large groups of children, aka completely insane- I signed up to help out with the Valentine's Day party in our daughter's class.

Once I got over the shocking message contained within that email, suppressed memories began misting back.  I'm pretty sure I had blocked almost all traces of that fateful Back-to-School-Night to preserve my sanity in the intervening months.  I now recall that by the time we got to Adelaide's classroom and had stocked her desk, met her teacher, etc, all the easy jobs like bringing drinks and napkins and themed-snacks had been fulfilled by parents who had already come and gone, leaving the stinker responsibilities like "games" for all the holiday parties.

Thankfully my friend Anne was also a latecomer that night, and is to be my partner in Valentine fun.  I sent her a rather desperate and not totally coherent (I PANICKED, OKAY?) email right after I read the teacher's message stating I had signed up to coordinate games for 25 third graders for one hour.  Honestly, even now a part of my brain is having trouble believing this, because this is just not like me.  I'm not sure how I ended up this way, but I (usually) have little problem saying, "No, thank you," to people, and am not someone who feels pressure to say "Yes" to everything under the sun.  This likely has less to do with strength of character than my hermit-like tendencies coupled with having strong female role models in my family who were not afraid to say what they thought.  AND YET.  Here I am, searching Pinterest for Valentine's Day party game ideas.

This is probably because I know that if she asked me to, I would organize games on a monthly basis for Adelaide's teacher.  The way I've been carrying on since receiving her email you'd think Adelaide's school was some kind of displaced Gulag camp amid the Iowa cornfields.  Of course it's a fine school, but that teacher is in there for hours upon hours with those little vectors (I just can't seem to shake my mom's pet name for children, no matter how I try), whereas I'm slated to be there for one measly little hour, after which I will stagger out the door and renew my prayers of thanksgiving for teachers, who will still be stuck in there.


Upon finding out he would be coming with me, Caedmon, however, reacted as if he had won the lottery.  He cannot believe his good fortune:  One whole hour?  With Adelaide?  At school?

Hmm.  I put that gif up there to illustrate Caedmon's state of extreme excitement and anticipation, but I feel like it represents how I feel about the party pretty accurately, too, though for admittedly different reasons.

Freedom and Stuff

July 3rd I put on my dusty Creative Mom hat and had our kids do a fun Independence Day-themed craft that ended up looking like we trailed random bits of glue and salt all over black construction paper then sprayed it with blood.  This was all true except for the blood- that was just food coloring.  The sad part was when Atticus asked what the heck they were supposed to look like and I told him, "Fireworks, of course!" his response was "What are 'fireworks'?"

The problem with fireworks is that they're usually set off when it's dark which has a disturbing tendency to come about late at night.  I have this thing about our kids sleeping at night, so... it's true.  Two of our three children had never seen fireworks.  I'm not sorry.  (A friend of mine unabashedly dislikes fireworks.  "It's like watching money explode in the air!"  This is hilarious to me.)

This year, however, despite the fact that Derek had to work, I decided to brave the throngs of patriotic people (another reason not to attend fireworks displays- no offense, my fellow Americans), solely because Derek's parents offered to come help wrangle the children.  So off we went to Reiman Gardens to listen to a local municipal band and look at flowers and harass Derek while he tried to work.  And watch fireworks.

They say grandchildren keep you young (although I have a sneaking suspicion "they" are people without grandchildren), probably through activities like this one:

Take this little child-flippy-thing times fifty and you have a substantial percentage of Derek's dad's evening.

As our children see any grandparent trying to rest on the ground as an open invitation for super-fun-human-trampoline-time, Dennis soon suggested we tour the gardens.  

Why, yes, this is a statue of a rabbit in a giant garden, but I can't decide whether I should be crying "WHYYYYY?" to the heavens when seeing this or laughing because he looks like Psycho-Not-To-Be-Trusted Rabbit, which, in my possibly unbalanced opinion, is how all gardeners should view rabbits.  

Gnomes are, of course, another popular garden feature:

Friends, meet Elwood, the World's Largest Concrete Gnome.  Elwood was nice and everything, but he's no Viktor. 

He meant nothing to us, Viktor.  Nothing.

And what did we find in the children's area?

A whole string of Tardis's!  (What's the consensus on the plural for "Tardis"?  Tardis's?  Tardii?)  I'm not real sure what Doctor Who has to do with flowers, but when something this awesome happens, I'm not inclined to question it much.

Weeping Angels plus Children's Area equals... Fun?  Education?  Nightmares?

Never mind that, children- look at this Sonic Screwdriver Windchime!

You know, for being at a public garden and, you know, loving flowers the way I do, I took very few photos of flowers while we were there.  And by "very few" I mean ZERO, because I'm a failure.  

I did photograph some Wild Caedmon while I was there, though, so it wasn't a total loss.  Is it just me, or does Cade look more like a forty-year-old man here than a three-year-old boy?

We also made sure to pester Derek a bit before the fireworks started:

Believe me, we are terrific pester-ers.

We finished the evening by introducing our children to the wonder of a fireworks show.  They liked it.  A bit.

I've spent the past four days recovering from all this frivolity, and reckon I'll be ready to do it all again in right about one year, which is an 95% attitude improvement from how I felt while waiting 45 minutes to get out of the blasted parking lot because no one was there to direct traffic.  

Merry America, friends!

4-H Crafts for Grown Ups

See this?

Right away, let me assure you I did not come up with this idea.  I first saw this monster Valentine box idea on Pinterest a long time ago, and it has since mated and reproduced and made many, many monster babies.  Also?  I did not think that analogy through.

Backing off of the reproductive practices of monster boxes and onto the advent of Valentine boxes:  If you have school-age children, you know that it is not longer enough to send your child to school with a plain old Valentine.  They must now have a small treat with their standard Valentine (something that was only reserved for the over-achievers when I was young), half of their classmates' Valentines won't even be those cheap, perforated, store-bought numbers; they will be beautifully crafted, hand-made creations you'll feel guilty about throwing away (oh, but you'll still do it), and you will be expected to create some kind of receptacle for all those gorgeous Valentines and treats and other guilt-inspiring doodads ("guilt" because I don't generally do those things).

Enter the Valentine box.

Somehow, when you see those amazing Valentine boxes on Pinterest, you believe that it's just that: something that that one mom on Pinterest does, while the rest of us are content to wrap old Kleenex boxes in butcher paper and hand our kid a crayon to decorate it (this was my actual plan, FYI).  Then you walk into your kid's preschool and see glittering castle Valentine boxes and Lego Valentine boxes and boxes that are covered in real chicken feathers (don't even ask).  At this point you realize that your slacker parenting methods aren't going to work this time.

I know how this all works, okay?  I was in 4-H.  I competed in the fair every summer and won my share of ribbons.  (And not those lame reds or, God forbid, white ribbons, just so we're clear)  I can lose sleep and cry real tears over meaningless crafts with the best of them, making these Valentine boxes right up my alley.

Still, it's been a long time since I was in 4-H, and there are no ribbons on the line here (soccer moms prefer to deal in guilt and shame), so I find myself veering toward the ideas on Pinterest with key words like "Under 10 Minutes!" and "So easy I was able to do it in the middle of the daily ten-mile run!"  Unfortunately, Pinterest moms are dirty, dirty liars, as this box took me approximately one and a half episodes of Doctor Who to complete (although, to be fair, one of the episodes was Angels Take Manhattan which I absolutely recommend if you want to have a panic attack every time you see a statue for the rest of your natural life- it may or may not have slowed me down a teensy bit), and involved around half a roll of tape.

It also seemed really plain when I was done, so I twisted up and added some random sparkly pipe cleaners to the top.  I thought this jazzed it up nicely enough, until our children woke up and saw it this morning.

Adelaide's verdict was "It's funny," but Atticus looked at it, smiled, then turned to me and asked, "Why did you make my Valentine box look like Ms. Hollie?"

Ms. Hollie is one of Atticus's preschool teachers.  She is not red.  She does not have the shape of a Kleenex box.  She does not have blue eyes, nor does she have three eyes, nor does she have lazy or wandering eyes.  She does not have a gaping maw of nightmare teeth.  So I asked, "What do you mean, Bud?"

"It looks like Ms. Hollie.  You know," he gestured to the top of his head, "crazy hair."

Ah.  Ms. Hollie does have a head full of curly, corkscrewy hair.

This all gave me an idea for a terrific new reality show:  The 4-H'ers of [Washington, Cowley, Story, whatever] County, where you follow young 4-H kids as they get ready for the fair.  The tears!  The drama!  The animal excrement!  The sewing machine-induced injuries!  And- plot twist!- all the 4-H judges are preschoolers.

Makes about as much sense as anything that's on tv now.

A New Year's List

• I'm pretty sure last year I wrote a post grousing about New Year's and how it's just an arbitrary day and it's completely meaningless and blah grumble blah.  I still feel that way.  

• Last night was the first night in several years I was still awake at midnight, and the only celebrating Derek and I did was watching old Friends episodes, which is a pretty perfect party, if you ask me.  We did switch over to the re-broadcast of Dick Clark's Rockin' Whatever (because we're in the Central time zone, they re-air the last hour leading up to the ball drop on CBS so we middle-of-the-country peasants can pretend to have fun, too; NBC doesn't bother) to see the freaky celebrities doing completely incomprehensible things and uttering inanities that make absolutely no sense whatsoever.  It makes me believe no one should ever be up that late, although, to be fair, I'm pretty sure those people are just as flummoxing by the light of day.

• I don't make New Year's resolutions.  Well, that's not quite true; I will sometimes enter into a small mental pact with myself to try and maybe perhaps do something over the next year that I'm currently sucking at, if it's not going to be too hard and I feel like it.  It's like a resolution for under achievers.  Last year, while everyone was saying things like "I'm going to do more to lift up my fellow man" and "I'm dedicating 20 hours a month to helping the poor" I was telling myself that in 2013, I'm going to try and shower on a more regular basis.  And I did!  Please keep in mind that at the end of 2012, I had a 2, 4, and 6-year-old and showering- or doing anything for myself- was generally dead last on the day list of Things To Do.  (And if you think that our kids' current ages of 3, 5, and 7 years is practically the same, then I suspect you spend very little actual time around small children.)  So far today I've read- via social media- the resolutions "Ran 9 miles today, going to crush that half-Marathon this year!" and "2014 is going to be the year of letting go for me.  I already feel more peaceful."  Since I'm now getting regular showers, more or less (do you have any idea what a luxury that is?  Regular bathing?), I've moved on to this year's Mental Pact With Myself But Don't Call It A Resolution Because That Smacks Of Accountability And No Way Am I Setting Myself Up For Failure Like That:  Eating more fruits and vegetables.  I started several days ago, and have been doing quite well.  Why yes, I am the most exciting person you know.

Happy Just Another Day That Someone Randomly Assigned Meaning To, everyone!

About the Books Page

As you may or may not have noticed, there's a little tab right up there at the top of the page entitled, "Books."

You further may or may not have noticed that I haven't been updating that page over the past few months.

It's not that I haven't been reading.  Trust me, me not reading is never the answer to any question.  I have, however, been a little short on time recently, and updating the Books page falls to the very bottom of my priority list when I'm busy.  Actually the blog is toward the bottom of the list, anyway, so the Books page is at the bottom of the bottom.  It's far more time consuming than my normal posts, and while I'm always happy when I've done it, carving out that time is sometimes difficult.

Still, I don't like leaving things undone, so when New Year's rolled around, at one point a tiny piece of my tiny brain tentatively put forth the idea of a resolution to update the Books page weekly.

The rest of my brain violently recoiled and threatened that tiny piece with bodily (er, brainily) harm.

This is because I do not do New Year's resolutions.  I have problems with the entire concept of New Year's Day itself.  It has always seemed to me like a very arbitrary holiday, one where someone somewhere closed their eyes, stuck a pin in a calendar, and declared, "There!  That will be the first day of a new year!"

Now, I get that you could say the same thing about most, if not all, holidays.  I realize that Jesus was most likely not born on December 25th, Valentine's Day has become the day that keeps Hallmark in the black, and as for Easter Sunday- even the Church admits they have no idea exactly when Jesus died; Easter Sunday is different every year!  For me, though, those other holidays are about celebrating an event or idea, and I'm okay with that.  New Year's Day- what exactly are we celebrating? I just don't get it.

Wow.  Anyway.

While I did not make a resolution to do so, I will be making more of an attempt to update the Books page on a more regular basis.  This does not affect most of you; I know most of you don't check it- most people don't love to read as much as I do, and that's okay!  I don't know what's wrong with you, but it's okay!  I love you anyway.

So.  I hereby do not resolve but do half-promise to update the Books page somewhat more often than I have in the immediate past.

That's as good as it gets around here, folks.

Just In Case You Ever Wondered

I love Christmas.

But now I'm kind of ready for it to be over.

I know what you're thinking:  "Um, Christmas is over.  It's December 27th.  The rest of the Christmas-celebrating masses moved on yesterday.  Idiot."

Man, you guys are harsh sometimes.

The reason I bring up the whole I'm-ready-for-Christmas-to-be-over thing is that I'm usually not ready to give up the Christmas ghost until mid-January.  Sometimes I use Epiphany as an excuse, sometimes I say that I won't take all the decorations down until the wise men have had a chance to arrive.  Sometimes I'm honest and say I just don't want Christmas to be over yet.

This year, though, I might go nuts and take it down right after the new year.  I won't lie to my children again and tell them that Christmas decorations can do double duty for Valentine's Day (by the by- does anyone actually decorate for Valentine's Day?  I keep seeing all these ideas on Pinterest- do people really do that?  Am I the only one that thinks that's crazy?).

We're not done celebrating yet, though.  We still have some traveling to do and some family to see.

Which means one of my favorite parts of the holidays isn't over yet!

That's right:  I still have more presents to wrap!  It's funny; I'm not much of a gift person, and yet I love to wrap gifts.


Gift wrapping was one of my favorite parts about one of my high school jobs.  I worked in a drugstore, and when I wasn't working in the back in the pharmacy, I was up front, where we sold gifts and make up and stuff.  And around the holidays?  I spent many an hour at the gift wrapping station, making perfume bottles and knick knacks look all purdy for the pathetically grateful men who were out shopping for their womenfolk.

Hey, have I ever told you guys about the time I was talking to my Spanish Conversation Partner about that high school job?  I was a Spanish minor in college, and part of the program included spending a certain amount of time every week talking to one of our Spanish-speaking international students.  This gave us gringos an opportunity to practice with someone who wasn't allowed to speak English to us, and was a lot of fun, besides.  Well, one day one of my Partners and I were talking about who knows what, when for some reason I mentioned my high school job.  He asked a question about it, and while I was trying to answer, he began to look alarmed.  I continued attempting to explain myself, his face looking more and more incredulous and a trifle worried, until he suddenly began laughing, and I decided it was time to stop talking.

When he finally regained control of himself, he explained to me that I had told him I sold drugs in high school.  I was a drug dealer.  It turns out they don't really have an equivalent word for "drugstore" in Spanish; they just stick with 'la farmacia.'


To sum up:  I love wrapping presents, and I am not now, nor have I ever been, a drug dealer.


I hope everyone had a terrific Christmas!

Christmas Newsletter 2012

For the past few years, rather than spending precious time picking out a design for, composing, typing, and printing out a family newsletter to stuff in the envelope with our Christmas card, I've been putting something along the lines of "Merry Christmas- If you actually want to know anything about us, check the blog."

Not in those exact words, of course.  I try not to sound quite so surly on Christmas cards.

The really ironic part is that I love reading other people's newsletters.  So if you usually send one, please don't stop.  Don't be like me.


Now, for those of you that were sent here via our cards:  Welcome!  For those of you that are here on your once-a-year check of the blog:  Welcome back!  For those of you that are regulars around here:  I love you!


Curious to know just what we've been up to over the course of the past year?

How about a month-by-month blog recap?

[Just a quick note: For anyone new here who may not consider themselves to be the most tech savvy person in the world, I'm going to be providing links to previous posts about our family embedded within each month's paragraph; the links will be a different color than the rest of the text.  Simply click on any alternate-colored words to read the story.]

January

Adelaide turned six in May and absolutely loves to read; I soon learned I can no longer leave just any reading material lying around the house.  Caedmon, who turned two in September, taught me I can't take my eyes off him for two seconds at the grocery store.  We still don't have any pets at this point, but our kiddos are making do.  You may also be interested to know that because we have three little kids in the house, we spend most of the winter season battling some kind of cold or illness. (Like right now, as a matter of fact.)  I also decided to take the advice of a random parenting article and started reading from Grimm's Fairy Tales to Adelaide.  It was an interesting lesson for us both.  

February

Atticus celebrated his fourth birthday in October.  He's a hilarious and active little guy.  He also suffers from what we believe are night terrors, which means I can pretty much guarantee that on any given day Derek and I are both operating on minimal amounts of sleep.  I (that would be Kristy; I refuse to speak in the third-person for the entirety of this post) decided that 29 is the appropriate age to become a curmudgeon.  Caedmon chose the month of February to really drive home the point that Derek is his favorite person on earth.  Right around Valentine's Day is when we found that Adelaide seems to have inherited her father's perfectionism and her mother's excruciatingly slow pace.  I got to go see my sisters, who were both expecting their first babies, and it was painfully exciting.  Shortly after my visit, my youngest sister and her husband survived a tornado, even if their house didn't.  

March

March reminded me that our children are crazy.  But that's okay, because I am, too.  I also let a little bit of my inner grammar freak slip, and I've been getting good-natured crap for it ever since.  The three kids spent much of the spring reinforcing my politically incorrect gender bias.  My spring gardening reminded me how much I hate rabbits.  This was also the month my sister Kelli had my sweet little niece Charlotte.  Adelaide showed everyone that she, too, is a curmudgeon-in-training.  Atticus reminded me that there's a sharp learning curve to this whole 'raising boys' thing.

April

Derek got to go fishing in April.  I decided that Atticus is scared of all the wrong things.  I made a grievous mistake due to a lack of sleep.

May

One of our kiddos got sick.  Again.  We had another typical day in the Crisler household.  I shared my views on childhood boredom.  Adelaide turned six and said more inappropriate things.  My youngest sister Steph also had her first baby girl: Vada.  I had to wait over a month to meet her.

June

Our daughter gets emotional at times, and I had trouble dealing with it this month.  Atticus proved that he was paying attention during our summer "Fruits of Spirit" lessons.  Adelaide said the "F" word.  The kids and I had great fun completing a Father's Day questionnaire to celebrate Derek.  They were also super helpful when I went swimsuit shopping.  

July

We traveled south for Charlotte's baptism and to finally meet Vada.  Whilst traveling, I pledged my undying love for certain fast food chains.  I also battled ants and proved what an exceptional friend I am.  Japanese beetles wreaked havoc on my gardens this month- this coupled with the rabbits made me turn to Derek for some rather unconventional help.  

August

Caedmon continued to rub his preference for Daddy in my face.  We made our annual pilgrimage to the Iowa State Fair.  Adelaide finally began losing her baby teeth.  She also tried out cheerleading, and ultimately decided it's not the sport for her.  Atticus loved a very specific part of the Olympics. 

September

This month I was strangely heartened to see another mother at Aldi having trouble with her little ones.  Caedmon decided he does not like having his picture taken.  We spent a wonderful weekend at a wedding, but I had a little trouble packing for the trip.  I survived an imaginary home invasion.  I posted a ton of photos of Caedmon (just because I can), and wrote him a letter for his second birthday.  

October

We embarked on a family golf outing, which was especially appropriate given that Atticus turned four this month, and golf is one of his very favorite things.  He also inadvertently humiliated me at the store.  We went trick-or-treating for Halloween and Caedmon got creative in his greeting of strangers.

November

In November we had fun visiting our local pumpkin patch.  Our older two showed me just how much they love their daily chores.  I got strangely sentimental watching our boys play with Derek.  Atticus was indignant at the nurses' treatment of him at his yearly doctor's exam.  Adelaide informed me that her tooth fairy isn't as generous as her friends'.  We spent Thanksgiving at Derek's parents' house, where I got my baby fix.  Atticus waged war against a nightmare chicken.  Adelaide said some more stuff that was either really strange or really wise.  

December

So far this month, we've discussed the vast differences between Derek's brain and my own, Adelaide had her school Christmas concert, Derek wrote a surprise post for my 30th birthday, and I talked about how grateful I am to be 30 and healthy.




I hope you've all had a wonderful 2012- Merry Christmas!

Thanksgiving Over-Explanations

I was going through all the photos from Thanksgiving weekend.  I took 173, and 168 of them seem to be of babies.

I have no idea what happened.  Must have been some kind of fugue state.

You therefore should not be shocked to find that most of the following photos, originally intended to be a little highlight reel of our Thanksgiving weekend, include babies in some form.

Consider yourself warned.

I'd like to submit the following two photos as evidence that Vada should be this generation's Gerber baby.

[You should really click on these to embiggen.  It's the right thing to do.]

Not that I'm biased or anything.

In addition to turkey, we had a little ham present on Thanksgiving.

Her name is Charlotte.  

(Sorry about the turkey-ham joke.  I just had to.  Sometimes I can't control myself.)

Now, I realize Aaron's eyes are doing a kinda scary Exorcist thing in this photo- but just look at Charlotte.  Isn't she so cute?  *Said in the most sickening, gushy voice possible*  

(Not the scary Exorcist eyes.  Charlotte.  Charlotte is so cute.)

(Sometimes I don't know when to stop explaining things.  You should ask me to tell you a joke sometime.  I'll tell you exactly why you should be laughing, and just keep going until you're crying and I'm confused.)

Anyway.

This photo is driving me crazy.  My sisters and Char are obviously enthralled with something... but what is it?  Is this when Becky was throwing a cat in the air?  And did she actually throw the cat, or just pretend to?  I mean, I know they have a few extra kitties they're looking to unload, but I can't see her actually throwing a cat.  

Come to think of it, those aren't 'I'm watching a cat being thrown in the air and it's both hilarious and terrifying' expressions on their faces; that looks more like polite-but-forced interest.

Was I telling a joke?  

No, wait.  I was behind the camera.

Can you tell I'm not at my most coherent right now?

I think right about the time I was snapping the following photos is when Mom was leaning over and asking me, "Isn't that Kelli, the girl who doesn't even like kids?"

Motherhood really does change you.  Although, to be fair, Kelli's been good with all our kiddos, from Adelaide on down (well, once Adelaide got old enough for Kelli to stop being afraid of her).

Charlotte seemed to find Atticus to be particularly interesting.

I think Atticus enjoyed the attention.  Hey, maybe Charlotte should come live with us!  (I'm asking purely on behalf of our son, of course.  There's absolutely nothing in it for me.)

Had enough babies yet?

TOO BAD!

Oh, I'm kidding.  I'm fresh out of baby pics.  But I do have a couple sweet kitty photos, if that's more your speed.

Adelaide and Boots the cat.  

See, they call him Boots because he has white paws.  Which resemble footwear.  Boots, to be specific.  Hence the name.

(Over-explaining again.  Obviously.  It's a disease.  Except I don't know if it afflicts me or the people I interact with.)

Adelaide, Caedmon, and Boots, whose name you now understand thanks to me.

Do you spend tons of time with your kids, and when they eventually go play by themselves you're like, "FINALLY," but then you start to get curious/frightened as to what they're doing, so you spy on them, and try to take pictures without them noticing?

Me, too.

I hope you all (that would be y'all to the uninitiated) had a terrific Thanksgiving, as well.

Baby Fever

We spent Thanksgiving at Derek's folks' house.  They graciously offered to host my family for dinner, which meant we got to see all kinds of family, including...


BABIES!


I may have mentioned my nieces, Charlotte and Vada, a time or two.  Charlotte is the daughter of my sister Kelli and her husband Aaron, Vada is the daughter of my sister Stephanie and her husband Clinton.  And just to refresh your memory, Aaron and Clinton are also brothers, which makes Charlotte and Vada double-cousins.

You'd think sharing both maternal and paternal genetic material would mean these two sweet girls look very much alike.  You'd be wrong.



Vada with her daddy.

I just love pictures of babies with their daddies, don't you?

Then we have Charlotte...

...with her daddy.  Note that she looks nothing like Vada.  

And here's Charlotte and her daddy again:

You're just going to have to take my word for it that she was enjoying this.

I know she looks terrified.  I somehow caught her between big smiles.  Trust me.

Vada giving me a big, wet kiss.

You may notice that I'm in the midst of pure, baby-induced ecstasy here.

I love babies.  Especially babies named Charlotte and Vada.

Caedmon has a thing for babies, too.  He kept snuggling up next to one or the other of them, giving them one of his gentler hugs that he reserves for stuffed animals, dolls, cats, and apparently babies.

I have no idea where he gets it.

This May Become Our Go-To Substitute for "Trick or Treat"

Celebrating holidays with small children is always interesting.

Adelaide is old enough to remember past Halloweens, but Atticus clearly had no idea what I was talking about when, a few weeks ago, I asked what he wanted to dress up as.  As a result, he decided he wanted to be Spiderman mid-afternoon on Halloween, after seeing other boys dressed up in Adelaide's elementary school Halloween parade. Needless to say, by then it was too late.  He ended up being a clown, simply because that's what Adelaide wanted to be.

Caedmon also had no idea what was going on when I began stuffing him into last year's almost-too-small chick costume.  Still, he swung his little pumpkin bucket happily enough as he followed his two older siblings to the first house we visited, then stood silently as our neighbor put candy in his pumpkin.  After some prompting, he managed a whispered, "Day-dew."  (Thank you.)

By the time we had walked from the first house to the second, however, he had obviously had time to process exactly what this night was all about.  People were giving him candy.  And he was going to get to eat it.  Whoa.

As a result, when the next person opened their front door holding a big bowl of candy, Caedmon started crowding the doorway, and rather than the polite "Trick or Treat," Atticus and Adelaide were chorusing, his demand was,
"PUT CANDY IN MAH BUCKET!"

Fortunately, this neighbor of ours decided to find an avaricious chick about to trample him cute rather than rude, chuckled good-naturedly, then gave him a Snickers.

We had a talk with him once he returned to the wagon, and from that point on he managed to keep his greed in check and kept his salutations to "Trick or Treat!" and "Day-dew!"

You'll notice that Atticus and Adelaide don't really have costumes; their entire look centers on my shoddy face-painting skills.  Except it's not even face paint, it's Halloween make-up I bought three years ago and is finally starting to get a little crumbly.  There's probably oodles of bacteria growing on it while it sits in a dark cabinet the rest of the year, and this may have been the last year I could pass it off as a reasonable costume effort.  Especially now that Atticus has seen what other kids with loving moms do for them on Halloween.

Not that I don't love my kids.  I do.

Just not enough to actually buy them Halloween costumes, evidently.

Father's Day Questionnaire

It's Father's Day!  What have all of you done to celebrate the fathers in your life?


Derek got to open a couple gifts, including multiple Father's Day cards made by Adelaide.

We also began what I hope will be a continuing Father's Day tradition.  I, unfortunately, have a memory like a rusty sieve, and the chances of my remembering to do this every year are somewhat slim.  I also, however, have a blog, and since I'm recording the idea here, perhaps I will remember to do it next year.  All I have to do is remember to look back at the blog around this time next year.  Which is not good.  (See rusty sieve simile above.)

But just in case 2013 Kristy remembers to check back, here's the fun little Father's Day Questionnaire I posed to our two older children this year:



(Note:  Atticus's answers in red.)

All About My Daddy

By Atticus, Age 3

My Daddy's name is Derek.

He is 2 feet 3 inches tall.  He's tall.

He weighs 3 pounds.

His hair color is gray.

His favorite tv show is scary things.

He likes to go to B-Bop's and Hickory Park to eat ice cream.

His favorite food is marshmallow stars.

His favorite drink is coffee.

For fun my Daddy likes to play blocks.

I love it when Daddy plays blocks with me.

My favorite thing about my Daddy is watching tv.

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Note: Adelaide's answers in pink.

All About My Daddy

By Adelaide, Age 6

My Daddy's name is Derek.

He is 6 feet 19 inches tall.

He weighs 60 pounds.

His hair color is grayish brown.

His favorite tv show is Channel 12.

He likes to go to Hickory Park.

His favorite food is bagels.

His favorite drink is iced tea.

For fun my Daddy likes to golf.

I love it when Daddy spends time with me.

My favorite thing about my Daddy is how much he loves me.

----------------------------------------------------------

Just to clear a few thing up:  Derek is not 2 feet, 3 inches tall, but as Atticus said, he is pretty tall- 6 ft, 5 in.  So I guess our son's answer to that one wasn't too outrageous.  Derek does not, however, weigh 3 pounds; nor does he weigh 60 pounds- he weighs a little more than that.  His hair color is kind of a dark blonde, and his favorite tv show would be live NFL games.  He is not a coffee drinker, but he does like to golf.  

I had a lot of fun doing this, and the idea is to re-question them each year and see how their answers change.  I think I'm going to put these in a binder and try really hard not to lose it by this time next year.  

Happy Father's Day!

Note:  I got this idea from this website via Pinterest.