A Little Holiday Gratefulness

Today I'm thankful for:

-a less-stressful-than-previous-years holiday season.

-great Christmas music on Pandora.

-lights on our Christmas tree.

-online shopping.

-free Christmas activities to do as a family, like this Living Nativity (if you live locally you should check it out) and a cute Christmas program at the cousins' school the other night. I especially appreciated the hilarious kindergarteners, though they were not intentionally hilarious. The Boogie kept looking over at me and whispering, "Why are you laughing?"

-all gifts mailed that need to be mailed.

-a good 33-week check-up this morning. Blood pressure is great and Baby Bacon is guesstimated to be around 4-4.25 lbs. Dr. S asked how big the girls were at birth, and said, "This one won't be small." Well. He was exactly right with the Boogie's birth-weight, and pretty close with Peabody's so I guess I have to believe him.

-2 little girls who behave themselves when we go to the doctor, as well as all of the other places I've been dragging them over the past 2-3 weeks.

-2 little girls who are big enough to walk everywhere and who don't require a bunch of gear. While I am more uncomfortable the bigger I get, I appreciate that a 4-lb. Bacon is (almost) all I have to carry around -- no infant seat, no diaper bag, no making sure the stroller is in the car, plus both hands are still free!

-Peabody's bravery yesterday at her first "real" haircut. Although I've cut her hair myself, she was nervous about having someone else do it, and she told us in so many words: "Well, I'm nervous."

-Peabody's vocabulary. She cracks me up.

-Peabody's exclamation of "Ella!" when she hears an Ella Fitzgerald song play. The first time it happened I thought it was a coincidence, but nope, she's correctly identified her several times. I am so proud.

-funny conversations between the girls, like the one overheard this morning:
Peabody: "I just want somebody to help me!"
The Boogie: "Well, it's certainly not going to be me."

-my sewing machine. It's been fun to come up with simple Christmas gift projects and then see them happen.

-my husband who, when I creep to bed long after midnight (because while it's been fun to learn how to use my sewing machine, I'm still very much a novice seamstress so even simple projects take about 3 times longer than they should), instead of shrinking away from the block of ice that is his wife, snuggles closer so that I'll warm up quickly.

-being a stay at home mom and the perks that come with that, like taking a nap at 10:30 in the morning after being up until 1:30 a.m. working on Christmas projects that take 3 times longer than they should.

-a backyard in which to let the dog out so that I don't have to actually take her for a walk to do her business in below-freezing temperatures.

-above-freezing temps today, and a forecast of 60 and 70 degrees for the weekend! Yippee! I'm dreaming of ... not wearing a winter coat.

O Christmas Tree

Every year we get a live Christmas tree. We know that it would be more financially responsible to purchase a fake one and use it for several years, but we like real ones. Besides, a real one will eventually return back to the earth from whence it came, so that makes it the greener choice, right? Gotta justify that decision somehow ...

We decided that we would go after church last Sunday. The forecast called for snow flurries -- no big deal, and the girls would get a big kick out of tree hunting in the snow (and by tree hunting, I mean searching through the stacks of them at Lowe's. We've tried to do our part supporting local businesses in the past, but let's face it -- those trees are way more expensive.) The flurries started during the morning service. Soon it became apparent that it was more than just flurries. I asked Eric, "Are you sure you want to do this?" We hadn't told the girls so they wouldn't be disappointed, and he was the one who would have to haul the tree around and tie it to the top of the van. He said he still wanted to, so off we went after the service. The roads weren't too bad. We stopped for something to eat, which was probably a mistake because while we were eating the snow came down fast and furious. By the time we left there was considerably more on the ground. Eric still wanted to go, though, so we continued on to Lowe's.

At Lowe's I stood under an overhang out of the snow and pointed at different trees which Eric then stood up and shook off and spun around for my approval. We found one we liked pretty quickly -- I didn't want to be TOO picky, but then again I didn't want to be stuck with a Charlie Brown tree. Meanwhile the girls ran around in the snow while I repeatedly told Peabody to stop eating it.

Eric tied it to the top of the van and we slowly made our way home. By then the roads were pretty bad, and there were a lot of people out, but we didn't see many cars in ditches. Our little town has one hill right through the center of it, and we saw people stuck going up and going down the other side. The van did great, though! We made it safely home with no trouble, praise the Lord.

The snow-covered tree went into the garage, though after a while I realized that it was just as cold in the garage as outside so it would never dry off. So Eric brought it into the laundry room to drip-dry.

Not the first time we've had a tree in our laundry room! Mama Dog was NOT happy with that. She doesn't like it when things are strange or out of place. There were bins of Christmas decorations stacked up in the living room, and the next day we rearranged in order to set up the tree in front of the window, and she really did not like that at.all. She moped around for a couple of days until she got used to it. Weirdo dog.

On Monday night we put the lights on in what had to be the quickest light-stringing-experience ever. I think it literally took us less than ten minutes which was surely a record. On Tuesday night we watched a classic Christmas movie and drank egg nog while I sat on the couch and handed out ornaments for the girls to hang on the tree. That meant that multiple ornaments ended up on same branches, and hardly anything made it to the top, but overall they did a pretty good job and after they went to bed we cleaned it up a little.

We even convinced Peabody to put the penguin on top! Last year she was too scared.

 

We're pretty happy with our little tree this year, especially at night with the lights on.

 

Shopping

I don't like it. I can't fathom shopping for fun. It just makes me tired. The only kind of walking around a store that I like is when we go to Target because then I can get a mocha. And okay, people-watching is fun.

But I especially dislike grocery shopping. Do you know why? Other shoppers.

For example:

-Carts left in parking spaces. There are cart corrals everywhere. Why is it so inconvenient to walk an extra couple of parking spaces to put a cart into a corral? I mean, it's not like the shopper isn't capable of it. They just walked all over an entire store. But maybe that's why. They're simply too tired to take another step.

-Aisle blocking. I'm sure we can all relate. Really, it's not so hard to pull the cart over. Or, you know, stand just a liiiiittle closer to the shelves while perusing them.

-Never moving out of anyone's way. For some reason this is a confusing concept for the other shoppers to understand, so maybe I should wear a shirt that says, "It is much more difficult for this pregnant woman to maneuver my heavily loaded cart and two young children out of your way than it is for you and your small basket to step out of mine." Except they obviously haven't noticed me, my kids, or my cart, so why would I think they would read my shirt?

-Check-out line inconsideration.
The customer who leaves their cart in line to "hold" their place while they run back for something all the way over at the other end of the store.

The short conveyor belt and the customer who puts their groceries on it, then stands at the register in front of their (now empty) cart while all of their purchases are scanned and paid for, effectively blocking the (now empty) entire belt for the next customer (me.)

The long conveyor belt which I foolishly neglect to completely block while putting my own groceries on it, so that the person behind me decides to unload their own cart ... despite the fact that my cart is still piled high meaning OBVIOUSLY I'm going to need more than the two feet of belt they have left me.

-Parking lot inconsideration.
The person who sits in their car next to mine chatting on their phone until I open my door in order to buckle my kid into her seat, at which time they decide they need to open their own door.

The person who parks next to me while I'm loading my car and then, as soon as I'm finished, gets out of their vehicle, walks to the nearest corral, and gets a cart. Um, hello? Offer to take mine! It was RIGHT THERE! No, really, I'm happy to give it to you!

The person who sits in their vehicle in the aisle waiting for me to finish loading groceries in my car, return my cart to a corral, and buckle my kids. Never mind the fact that by the time I'm ready to leave, they could have parked somewhere else and been inside the store already. Heaven forbid that they have to walk an extra few feet by parking two or three spots away. They have to save all of their energy because believe me, it's exhausting dealing with all of those other inconsiderate shoppers.

And that is my rant for the day.

Peabody This and Peabody That

We were getting ready to leave the house for a walk.
"Your shoes are on the wrong feet," I told Peabody.
When she sat on the floor to fix them, she hit her back on the bookshelf and started crying. I comforted her and said, "You'll feel better when we go for our walk, but your shoes are still on the wrong feet."
Tearfully she replied, "So fix them."
"Me? I'm not going to fix them. You fix them!" I said.
"But, I have a hurt back ..." she said sadly.
 
I saw a picture of some friends on Facebook and showed them to Peabody.
"Dose are not your friends," she told me. "You are a grown-up. You don' have any friends."
Thanks a lot, kid.

She is super excited about it being Christmastime. The day after Thanksgiving she told us half a dozen times, "Now we can watch Christmas movies! And listen to Christmas music! And look at Christmas decorations!" She said she wanted to watch Rudolph the Rodent Reindeer.

We were trying to agree on a movie. The Boogie wanted White Christmas, but Peabody kept insisting on, "The one with the man, with two letters, in between." I finally figured out what she meant:

She explained to me about time passing:
"Honey, ri' now it's morning time. After morning time, it's night. After night, it's raining. After raining, it's snowing. And after Thanksgiving, it's Christmas!"

She told me seriously, "Well, Honey, I go'd to the store today."
"You did? Who did you go with?" I asked.
She thought about that for a minute, then said, "I drived myself."
"Oh really? What did you drive?"
"I drived the van."
"You did, huh? And what store did you go to?"
"Well, first I go'd to Walmart. An' then I go'd to Target. An' then I go'd to Petsmart. An' Walmart was all out of toys."
Tragedy.

She still prefaces action words with "un" unnecessarily: un-cut, un-glue, etc. "Honey, will you please un-zipper me?" means that she wants me to zip up her coat.

One of my favorite things she says is "hims" instead of "his." She observed a little boy repeatedly disobeying his mother, and told us later that "he was loud, and mean to hims mom."

If I refuse her something she tells me, "Well, Honey, I'm jus' really disappointed." I know she means angry, but I play along. "Why are you disappointed?"
"Because you telled me no," she says.

She and the Boogie still disagree about what 101 Dalmations is really called. Peabody calls it 7 Dalmations, upon which the Boogie corrects her, "No, you mean Ten Thousand Dalmations."

Her favorite article of clothing is this Toy Story shirt that her cousins gave her.

She asks to wear it almost every single day. One day in the car she said, "Honey, when you pack my shirt away up in the attic, I will be so sad." I told her that she can wear it until it gets too small, and then we will save it for Bacon, so that cheered her up a bit. But really I doubt that it will survive her. If it does I think I'll sew all of the openings closed and stuff it to make a pillow!