All I Want For Christmas…

Is it too late?

Can I still ask Santa for something special?

All I want for Christmas is an oven mitt, or even a nice pot holder.

Picture the scene.

It’s late evening, the kids are packing their bags and getting ready for the last day of school before Christmas break. We have been blessed with an early Christmas miracle and they are all getting along. John is in the back of the house wrapping presents and I am in the kitchen baking cookies. Christmas carols are cheerfully playing, the tree is lit, the animals are peacefully snoozing on their respective couches. The timer beeps and I reach into the oven to remove another pan of cheerful looking holiday cookies for Jane’s birthday snack and then…

“@!%$*# CATS!!!”

Pans crash, cats scatter under my gaze of fury, dogs jump up, kids and John come running as a stream of language that probably landed me on the naughty list for good runs out of me as I cool my burned thumb under running water.

The problem you see is that the cats – specifically this cute monster –

… have eaten holes in the thumbs of all our oven mitts.

Holes that make it seem like you should still be able to use the oven mitt – but you shouldn’t, you really, really shouldn’t.

Unfortunately after I burned my thumb and our kids’ ears, I doubt Santa is going to deliver.

But I wonder… do you think he’d trade for a cat?

How To Eat a Prick-Headed Monkey

My brother Tyler is going to demonstrate how to properly eat a prick-headed monkey. But first a few prick-headed monkey facts.

-First off, nobody knows why they are called that. They are three cornered pies filled with currents and citron, there are absolutely no monkeys involved.

-Second, nobody in our family that isn’t a direct blood decedent of Gramps actually likes these. There are those that will eat them, but nobody else loves them.

-Third, those of us who love them really love them.

-Fourth, we only make them at Christmas time.

The first thing to do when eating a prick-headed moneky is to find other prick-headed monkey lovers to eat one with you. Three people is the optimal number though two works as well. This is important because the first key to proper prick-headed monkey consumption is to con someone else into cutting it. I divide and you decide has never been more important than in prick-headed monkey division. The pies are nominally triangular in shape and must always be divided into three pieces (I don’t know, it’s tradition, just go with it okay?).

In this instance my mom divided, now she’s pretty good at prick-headed monkey division ( This is a skill, you try dividing a lumpy triangle into three equal parts, it’s not as easy as it seems.) but there was still a large piece. Tyler and I thumb wrestled for it. My brother has thumbs like a gorilla- he won. You can see him here with his rightfully gained largest piece.

This is of course exactly why you want three people to eat it with. Tyler would have had no fun gloating over the largest piece without the other two of us there. This is also the time to take pictures to send to those family members who aren’t able to join in the feast so that you can hold it over their head that you are eating fresh out of the oven prick-headed monkeys and they are not.

Sorry Uncle Jim, we know you are recovering from heart surgery and that’s why you couldn’t be around but there is actually no one else in the world who would want to eat these so these pictures were for you. Notice how Tyler is gazing fondly at his biggest piece before he takes a bite.

In the following picture you can see how Tyler is clearly enjoying his own piece while at the same time mocking ours. Because dough balls.

If the person who made the prick-headed monkey did a good job the filling will be all the way to the corner. If not, the corner will be nothing but a dough ball. To finish off the proper way to consume a prick-headed monkey you must stay on alert for dough balls in the corners. Then, if you made them, you should deny their existence and attempt to prove that you had a current in the very furthest corner of your piece. If someone else made them however it’s best to claim that your corner was nothing but a dough ball and completely terrible.

Even with a dough ball there are those of us who know that prick-headed monkeys are never terrible and, like Tyler in the picture above, we are already plotting our next piece.

The Grisha Trilogy by Leigh Bardugo

Sometimes you read just the right book (or books) at just the right time and you will love them beyond reason.

Would I recommend them? Yes! They are close enough to a typical fantasy story line to be a bit fluffy and easy to read but just different and gritty enough to be page turning and wonderful. Now I just need someone to read them so we can talk about them together. But beware, I read these at just the right time when they were just what I needed and I love them beyond reason!

Mom Ears

I lost my mom ears.

You know, the super sonic hearing ears that let you know every time your child rolls over, coughs or calls out your name.

They broke.

It’s the best thing that’s happened to me in years. Now instead of me jumping out of bed when kids cry or make other random noises in the night, John does. I don’t hear a thing, he has to tell me about it in the morning.

It. Is. Amazing.

I think this is what he felt like all those nights I was up nursing kids and banishing boogey men. (And yes, I nursed those girls, we have YEARS to go before John is even close to catching up with late night waking hours.)

There is one problem though. Since I don’t hear the girls I don’t know they are coming until they show up next to the bed. John can attest from his years on the night shift that when I wake up with someone next to the bed, I scream. For years I woke up to John saying “It’s John! It’s John! It’s John!” until I turned my siren off.

Clara recently got a new blanket, a zebra blanket. It’s soft and fuzzy and has a “hood” on it with a stuffed zebra head she can pull over her own. She loves it. Clara wears it around the house while getting ready for school and sleeps with it every night. It is her new favorite thing.

This was not staged. This is just what she looked like when I went to check on her tonight!

So, when Clara came down to our bed in the middle of the night, I didn’t hear her coming. I didn’t notice her standing next to the bed. In fact I didn’t register her presence at all until a zebra was climbing into my bed and it’s big black zebra nose touched my face.

Facts.

1) I really hate it when things touch my face when I’m sleeping.

2) Zebras are more startling than small children.

3) Screaming in a panicked fashion in your child’s face does not make them feel better.

I lost my mom ears. It’s pretty amazing but I do feel a bit bad for the kids.

 

 

In My Element?

Perhaps you’ve noticed things haven’t been what one would call… easy, around here lately.

In addition this non-easy month has been filled with things that, thankfully, I don’t have much experience with. This of course makes them harder to handle and it feels as though all my answers now start with “I don’t know…”.

Today is the last day of a month of blogging (Applause welcome. Thank you!) and of all the things that happened this month, of all the stressors in life, blogging daily wasn’t one of them. I relished the time that I “had” to sit down and post something. I can do this. I am not the best blogger in the world, but I’m good at this. I know what I’m willing to share, and what I’m not. My writing is often missing punctuation and my pictures aren’t perfect but I’m proud to be able to share both anyway. Decisions in my blogging world have been easy. I know blogging.

Today, on this last day of daily blogging, Jane came home sick.

Super puking sick.

I went from a day of catching up on life and trying to make difficult decisions about things I’d never done, or am just learning to do, into sick kid mode. We have barf buckets, hair has been pulled into ponytails. There are extra blankets and water to sip. I’ve been running up and down the stairs emptying her bucket, tucking in her blankets and giving her water. And you know what? This might be the most relaxed afternoon I’ve had all month. I can do this. I’m not the best at mothering sick kids, but I’m good at this. I know what to do. I’m not debating if what I’m doing is the most important thing. I’m not wondering if I should be focusing my attention elsewhere. I’m doing what I need to, and I’m doing it well. Sick kids, though I never thought I’d say it, are easy.

It seems like I should now jump to the conclusion that this makes me the epitome of a mommy blogger (a phrase I have always avoided like the super puking plague). But, despite the fact that I’m relaxed and in my element while blogging and puker wrangling, that’s not it at all. Looking back at the month I am reminded that there are lots of things I’m learning. There are lots of things that are hard. And lots of things that have no good choices. I’ve spent the last month crying a boat load of tears and there was a good portion of them that were because I felt as if I didn’t know anything, that I had none of the answers.

But that’s not true, I’ve just been out of my element.  I know all sorts of things. I have lots of answers.  It’s just that this November things were really hard. When forced back into my element with a sick kid and blank computer screen I had a chance to remember… oh yes I can do these things, and a slew of others, well.

I just wish it hadn’t taken a dozen buckets of barf to remind me!

(And maybe I’m a mommy blogger too, but I’m still not ever going to own up to that.)

Stools are for Butts.

Stools are for butts he says.
But the counter is full of tiny pumpkins and there is no where else to put the pan.
Stools are for butts he says.
But the counter is full of slime making ingredients and there is no where else to put the tea cup.
Stools are for butts he says.
But there is a broken smoke detector and a broken fan on the counter.
Stools are for butts he says.
But there is a bag of markers and a compass on the counter.
Stools are for butts he says.
But there is a chapstick and a brush on the counter.
Stools are for butts he says.
But there is a towel and spray bottle and a flashlight on the counter.
Stools are for butts he says.
But there is a rock, a paintbrush, and a catalog on the counter.
Stools are for butts he says.
But there is an old horseshoe and a hair clip and a bracelet on the counter.
Ok,”Fine!” she says.
But then help me clean the damn counter!

Let it never be said that I glorified my housekeeping skills for social media.

Our kitchen counter is right inside the front door and becomes the dumping ground for everything as we go in and out. On bad days (all the days) the kids and I use the kitchen stools as extra “counter space.” John, does not approve of this habit. He does however always help clean the counter. We are just all very good a filling it right back up again.

Smile!

Tonight we looked through all the old photo albums to find pictures of Gramps for his funeral next week. It was kinda hard, kinda sad and kinda fun but it certainly confirmed that nobody ever took a picture of Gramps when he wasn’t smiling.

Running across photos like this one left us smiling ourselves.

I’ll admit it, this photo just gives me the giggles. What a cutie he was!

Then it was kinda hard, kinda sad and kinda fun and if my eyes occasionally “leaked” a little bit I was smiling when it happened.  Just like Gramps.