Rainy day yuckness

Today was a yucky, rainy day. I had a child come home with horrible allergies and one who got her braces tightened. Yuck on both fronts. But, friends, I'll take that yuck any day over what happened in our community today. Two school buses from two different schools in the eastern part of our county carrying elementary schoolers were involved in an accident with each other. This crash resulted, as best as we can tell from the news, in the death of two children and one adult. As the parent of three children, two who are in elementary school, I am sick at the thought of such a tragedy. My day was hectic and stressful, but I still have my babies to hold tonight. Someone doesn't...and doesn't have their grown up to return home to anymore. Such sadness in this world. Hold your loved ones tight tonight and say a prayer for those whose arms are aching for their lost loved ones. Good night.


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Tic Tac Oh NO!

I worked childcare tonight at church. The holidays are here nad we were down a few people on staff, so I went in to play with some little friends and maybe get a few laughs. Well laughs I got indeed. Our little friends are at church twice a week, so they have the process down. They came prepared with two of their games: Bingo and Tic Tac Toe. I think they were playing some sort of El Paso rules or something, because there were Bingo marker switchups and X and O exchanges. I was told multiple times that I was going to have the "underpants beaten off" off me. I believe from 5:45-8:15 I played maybe 200 games of Tic Tac Toe. A formidable opponent I did have in this 6 year old, but when I beat him the look on his face was absolutely priceless. It was like he was so shocked and amused all at the same time. I may dream of life as it is contained in this pattern:



Either way, it was a fun time. He was awfully cute...but next time I hope he'll bring his box of Candyland.
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Back to reality

Tomorrow we will all return to reality from the Thankgiving holidays. My return kind of started today as Sundays are a workday for me. We were down quite a few grown ups today, so I got to work the nursery this morning which is always fun. They never cease to crack me up. I was discussing what they had to eat for the holiday feast. The baby looked at me like I had a third eye, spit up a little and smiled. I'm pretty sure I know what he had. The girls had to think about it a while. One would repeat that she had eaten every food we suggested. Me: JL, did you have have asparagus for your meal? MC: I had 'paraga at MY meal. Me: Ms. J, did you have frog lips at your meal? MC: I had lips at MY meal! The other wanted to be very coy about what she had at her feast. She was happy to share that she had spent the night with her aunt, got to sleep in with her cousin and hear her uncle snore. When I finally got her to talk about her meal, I said, "Did you have turkey, JL?". "I had different turkey."(insert eye flutter here). Me: "What do you mean 'different turkey'?". (insert heavy sigh and eye roll here) "Different turkey...you know...ham." The other grown up and I just rolled.

I'm going to go pack lunches for tomorrow. Just an FYI, I'm making "different turkey" sandwiches.


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We're treed

Today was the first day of the Thanksgiving holiday break that I got to actualy sleep in...and it was glorious. I can't even try to pretend like I have guilt about it. 7:30 wake up time. Yeah, baby, I got crazy up in this house.

The boy had a wad of cash burning a hole in his pocket and was itching to go Christmas shopping for his sisters today. After a long discussion about why you really don't want to take all the money you have saved up in your wallet...to Target...during Christmas shopping season...we agreed on a set amount and got on the road. An hour and a half at Target later, he had a very thoughtful gift picked out for one sister and had already put an item on hold at another store for his other sister. The kid is hardcore.

We also took the plunge and got our tree, always a Frasier Fir, from the tree gypsies across from our grocery store. We have gone to farms and cut our own trees in the past, but no Frasier Firs grow in our area too successfully so we have to imagine chopping them down. One time, I think I've told this before, we went to a tree farm where the FF's were locked up in a chain link dog run and the gift shop had decorations from Kmart circa 1982 and assorted nudie magazines if needed. It made for a great story, but we needed easy this year post back surgery. We went to these people one particularly cold night a few years ago and the children started pretending to stick their tongues on one of the poles holding lights. We couldn't pass up the opportunity to reenact Flick's decision to not back down from a triple dog dare:



Luckily, no one had to have a bandaged tongue at the end of the experience. The tree is now living in our house, acclamating to its new environment. It will be decorated in a few days. Until then the children will walk in a sniff it and probably bring Copper in to check it out. We are really exciting people around here...
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I have Black Friday feet

My oldest child is a great kid, responsible and true, but she is something that I will never be: a shopper. Unless it involves a bookstore or, back in the day a record store, I am good to stay home. She plans and researches for weeks ahead of time, budgeting her money and planning amounts for each family member. She has been looking forward to Black Friday shopping for a long time and the decided departure time from Casa de Loco was 6:30am. That alarm clock was not a happy sound this morning, I will tell you that, but I got up and got S up as well. Last minute change of plans, we had to take the hub's van. My doors were frozen shut...well at least 4 of the 5 of them. That's a problem. Vehicle changed and we were on our way. Our first destination was a Target store out in the western part of the county. Upon entering the store, and lots of stores after, I learned things.

1. Caffeinate and eliminate before you "consumerate". I think that is self explanatory.

2. Start every question to all employees with "I'm so sorry to bother you with this question, but...".

3. Do not, I repeat, DO NOT make eye contact with the Mediterranean skin cleanser kiosk. They sense weakness and will slather you with goop.

4. Stay away from the little train that drives little chilldren around the mall. That man is serious about his job and apparently has a hard schedule to meet at each station stop. I saw him clip a woman coming out of Williams-Sonoma with her cider sample. Conductor don't play. He honked his horn and clanged his bell with great "authoritay".

5. Don't stare at anyone with a cart overflowing with the same item or strange combo of items, like a cart full of gloves or one full of Natty Light and boxes of Eggos. You just need to move on and make up their story in your head.

I will think of more, but feet are calling for motrin. I should have worn my pedometer, because these dogs are barking. Night all.


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Thankful for sure

Presently I am sitting in bed with sore feet and a tired mind...just like millions of other people today. I started the day before 6am making sure that Tom Turkey, or as my grandmother used to call it "Turkey Lurkey", had safe passage into the Jenn-Air for his five hour tanning session. Attempts to go back to sleep were in vain as the boy had gotten up with me and was in all of his wiggly glory. Eventually I gave up and got dressed in my dinner prep uniform and descended into a wave of roasted yumminess. The next several hours are a blur, but included(not in any particular order): visit from the VA cousins and jubilation as all the kids rough house and bodyslam each other in celebration; discovery that I had cleaned and dressed the turkey and roasted him upside down...very moist; the revelation that one can sustain a fairly severe hand injury from a "lively" game of Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots and that holding babies really does lower one's blood pressure.

We did have a great experience this evening. Our minds had been with Stanley, the gentleman who had helped us look for a new television a couple weeks ago. As I explained, due to Black Friday starting on Thursday, this was his 6th Thanksgiving with his famiy he was going to miss due to company requirements. We were so sad and had invited him to come eat with us, but we knew he wouldn't...but he appreciated the thought. The boy can be very convincing, but the poor guy probably just needed to have his feet up before being on the sales floor all night. He remained in our minds and hearts for the next several days. After ingesting enough food to feed a small country, the boy said, "What about Stanley?". We chuckled, looked at each other and began the deliberations. If people you had met twice brought you a plate of food, would you eat it? Would you be scared that it might not be cooked properly? What if he has food allergies? Would it seem creepy or too forward? We came to the conclusion that we would bring him a sampling of all the desserts just in case he didn't have access to a fridge. A tray was located and a bag with napkins and plastic utensils was prepared. We had plates of dessert and labels on them so no one with any conscience would take them:



We were all kind of nervous walking in there, not gonna lie. A couple of people looked at us in a suspicious way. Some employees came up and said, "Look at the food...where is that going?". After we explained that it was going to our friend Stanley, they looked disappointed. We saw him and he looked at us out of the corner of his eye. He was making a sale, so we didn't want to bother him. Then he walked by us, got a grin on his face, and said, "I'll be right with you folks." A couple minutes later he walked towards us, kind of shook his head and grinned. "We decided to bring you some treats to enjoy on this busy evening...get you good and sugared up to make some money." He shook his head, put his arm around me and said, "I can't tell you folks how much this means to me." He just stood there a minute and it felt like he didn't know what to say. We tried to alleviate his surpise and explained to him what was on each of the plates and who had prepared them. The boy got a fist bump for his chocolate dipped strawberries and S received a proper handshake for her mint chocolate trifle. "We just couldn't get you off our hearts, Stanley, and we wanted you to know we were thinking of you." Again he shook his head. "Thank you all so much. I can't say anything else or I'm going to cry." He gave another hug, handshake and fist bump and we let him get back to his work. We all walked out to the car a bit teary. Sure we had lots of food and family and fun and they were all great...but who knew that the little question "What about Stanley?" would lead to our favorite part of the day. Night all.
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Prepping for Tom's 2014 debut

I am exhausted as I know many men and women around this great country of ours are. I did not have the greatest of sleep last night, so today's venture into cleaning and cooking was a bit more of a challenge than usual. The kids are mentally burnt to a crisp and were needing a day of complete sloth. Their battle ax of a mother made them do horrible torturous things like pick up dog poop and clean dog slobber off the storm door and mop up dog hair....I'm sensing a trend. I had to battle with relatives who were feeling guilt for not hosting 75,000 people at their home when all they wanted to do was relax. I get it...stop apologizing and enjoy. I had to battle someone who decided they were going to be carrying 25lbs of poultry, unassisted, up the basement steps at 5am tomorrow so I didn't have to get up. Nice, but when said poultry is half your body weight? No. My feet and hips and back and neck hurt, but dalgarnit Tom Turkey is dressed to the nines and ready to make his debut tomorrow about 1pm. Anyone needing some food can come on over. You just have to clean up some dog hair.


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