Too all of my friends and family:
I ordered about 15 too few Christmas cards this year and, as such, will not be able to send them to EVERYONE on my list. I apologize.
I'm going to post my Christmas Letter on the blog one day next week and send you all cyber-wishes.
As Virtual Tiny Tim said, Cyber-bless us. Cyber-bless us everyone.
I couldn't fall asleep last night because I was feeling leftover guilt about our solo East Tennessee snowfall last winter. The kids and I got one fleeting chance to play in the snow and I missed it for all of us. This happened nearly a year ago and I am still torturing myself. Perhaps it is because my son reminds me of the incident on a fairly regular basis, "Mommy. Remember when it snowed that time and you took us outside too late and the snow had already melted?" I REMEMBER! It went something like this:
East Tennessee received a dusting (and I do mean dusting) of snow during the night. Most moms realized the immediacy of the situation and got their kids up at the crack of dawn to play in it. Not me. I spent a good chunk of my teenage/young adult years in Central Illinois where snow tends to stay on the ground for days and weeks at a time. I rolled out of bed, did my morning cleaning, took my shower, took my time. Big mistake. By the time we walked out the door at 7:50, the snow was all but gone. My son collapsed immediately into a ball of disappointment. My daughter stood staring at him, wondering what the heck was going on and why she was in that ridiculous get-up. I felt like someone had stabbed me in the heart with a santoku knife. Did I really just miss the first chance my kids had to make a snowman? Did I really miss the snow angels? The snowball fights? The wet socks? The sledding? The photo-ops? My son was crushed. CRUSHED. And it was truly my fault. I could attribute this incident, 100%, to my laziness. I sit here, at the keyboard, hanging my head in shame.
There is a slight chance for snow this weekend in East Tennessee. Bring it on! I will set my alarm for 5:00am, get my kids dressed and coated and enjoy the snow until the sun comes up and melts it away. Bring on the snow Jack Frost! I've got some penance to pay!
I read this article in Brain, Child magazine and it really caught me off guard. Did you know that in some Eastern African cultures, a high percentage of infants are diaper-free by 4-6 months of age? Did you also know that there is a Diaper-free movement right here in the good ol' USA? I didn't. I had heard of EC (Elimination Communication) during my cloth diaper-makin' days from some of those crazy diapering Mamas on the Mothering.com message boards (No offense ladies but you guys can get a little nutty about cloth diapers!) but I dismissed it as completely absurd. The prospect of potty-training an infant seems ridiculous. I'm still wearing a big gold star on my lapel for toilet learning my baby girl at age 2. Go me!
My daughter (and her non-diaper-free Mother) would be behind the curve in the EC circles. Those mamas would take one look at my gold star, roll their eyes and laugh at me, "Two years old?" they would say, "Try two months old! What kind of Mother waits until her child is two years old to take off the diapers?!" According to a spokeswoman for DiaperFreeBaby.com, there are 37 U.S. states that offer organized Diaper Free Baby support groups. Surprise! Tennessee is NOT one of them. We're still sitting on our back porches in our rockin' chairs, chewing on weeds and watchin' our babies run around in the grass in landfill-bound diapers that we purchased at Wal-Mart. We listen in awe to the stories about babies who learn to use the potty before they reach their second birthday. We consider that these children might be prodigies, headed off to some Ivy League college on a potty-trainin' scholarship.
What about those Elimination Communication babies who are toilet-learned by 4 months of age? Well, I just don't know what to think about them. Who knows? Maybe I'd be a believer if I actually met a Mom who'd used this practice successfully but I haven't. I've read a couple testimonials and frankly, it seems like entirely too much effort to save yourself and your baby a year or two of diaper duty.
I was forced to be creative with my dinner tonight. I usually work with a plan when it comes to dinner. I know what I'm going to have and I have all of the ingredients for each dish. I lost track of time today. It got late and I ended up with nothing defrosted. I had to improvise. I combined all of
my shredded cheeses together, cut up some onions and peppers and combined them with hashbrowns for some surprisingly delicious hashbrown casserole. I defrosted some chicken and made chicken nuggets and I steamed some broccoli. I thought to myself, "Damn. You're a great Mom. You threw together a delicious, kid-friendly meal in no time flat. You go girl!"
Here's the exact response I got from my son after he finished his first bite:
When I first put it in my mouth I liked it just a little bit but when I started doing this (makes dramatic chewing motions with his teeth), it started to taste bad. The taste just got worse and worse until I swallowed it. When I eat the next bite, I'm going to try to take a small one so I don't have to chew much.
It's good to be appreciated.
In an effort to reinforce the true meaning of Christmas, my
mother purchased a Playmobil nativity set for my children. It’s really cute
and, in the grand tradition of Playmobil, has about 10,000 teeny tiny parts. My
son has a grand imagination and can play with Playmobil sets for hours at a
time. He makes lots of loud crashing noises and explosion sounds and small plastic
men are often seen flying through the air in my living room. Unfortunately, the
nativity is no exception.
My son has a tendency to keep toys made by the same toy
manufacturer together so he automatically paired the nativity up with the
Playmobil pirate ship and castle. The Baby Jesus has been on a wild ride in
recent days. He’s been attacked by rabid sheep, smuggled aboard a pirate ship
and forced to defend himself with against an angry Angel with a knight’s sword.
Mary and Joseph, tired from their trek to Bethlehem, are weary time travelers
in the Hale house, going from the stable to the middle-ages at warp speed. They’ve
been kidnapped by pirates, lost at sea on a life raft and ridden on camels over
a castle’s drawbridge. I’ll spare you
the plight of the poor shepherds and wise men. Suffice it to say, they never
saw my son and his arsenal of weaponry coming.
I’ve read the Christmas story to my kids a couple of times
this year and have done my best to explain to my son that the story of the
Nativity is to be treated with a certain amount of reverence. I piece the scene
back together each night, moving the Baby Jesus from the basket on the upper
part of the pirate ship mast to his rightful place atop the pile of hay in the
manger. I put Mary and Joseph back by Jesus’s side and strategically place all
of the other major players in the Christmas story in and around the cardboard
Playmobil backdrop. It’s a tedious task but I do it, day after day, because I
feel like I should. I have always taken a great deal of pride and pleasure in
my son’s vivid imagination and I can’t help but chuckle when I watch him create
scenarios for the folks in Bethlehem, “But the Baby Jesus likes it Mommy.” Who
could argue with that?
How many pounds of candy would you expect to receive at a small town Christmas parade?
Perhaps you think even one pound is a ridiculous estimate.
What if said town was home to an M&M Mars plant? Would that change your answer? Maybe not, but it would probably change the quality of the candy.
My children came home with two plastic grocery bags full of candy. Good candy. We're not talking candy canes and Bit O' Honey's here. We're talking Twix bars, M&M mini bags, Smarties, Skittles and Starburst. The bags were so heavy and full that my husband decided to weigh them. He hopped on the scale holding the bags and then jumped on bag-free. The difference? Eight pounds. Eight pounds of high-fructose corn syrup delight. Eight pounds of preschool crack. Eight pounds of, well, pounds on the hips and guts of my growing family. My kids think its Halloween again, only all they did was sit on the side of the road with cow-eyed looks and open grocery bags.
The parade may have encouraged sugar-induced comas and tooth decay but all was not lost. One of the last floats was sponsored by a local gym. Floating atop the sea of candy, just below the handles of the grocery bag, were several 14-day gym passes. I won't tell you where those ended up.
An article I wrote was published in the e-zine Simple Joy. Check it out:
http://www.simplejoy.org/downsize_the_holidays.htm
