Back in the Swing...

Following ten days of cousins and aunts and uncles and BaBa and PaPa, not to mention a long list of "Greats" in Kansas City and a 12:15 AM arrival home Tuesday morning, Charlie actually slept in until 8:40 yesterday! 

The extra two morning hours combined with a fabulously slow work schedule enabled me to unpack and find homes for four suitcases full of stuff, restock the refrigerator and still pick up Charlie from school a little bit early and make dinner!

Now the house is back together, the three of us are back on schedule and Otis is slowly coming around to forgiving us for abandoning him, but Charlie is still a bit confused.  He definitely got used to having an abundance of cousins and friends and grandparents around for mutual entertainment and laughs.  I don't think we've gone 20 minutes without him asking about Tyler or Elizabeth or Grampy or Nanie or Tom or Abby or Alexis or Mal-Mal or Ellie or one of his many Aunts and Uncles...and I know we haven't gotten in the car without him immediately requesting "BaBa House?" as if I'm a paid chauffeur.  Last night he even ran off with the phone in order to "call Landon".

But who can blame him? We had more fun adventures in Kansas City than I could possibly sum up in one entry...so here is Our Twelve Days of Christmas

Twelve train cars rolling

Eleven mornings dawning

Ten frames of bowling

Nine tools a buzzing

 Eight candies missing

Seven cousins asking

Six (million) geese a flying

Five cookie sheets

Four toddlers driving

Three axels turning

Two parents smiling

and One very merry Charlie!

A Mom for Christmas

Despite all of the festivities, the cold weather and the copious amounts of food, Jason and I both are having  a hard time believing it's Christmas.  We have thoroughly enjoyed our time with friends and family, and seeing Charlie catch on to the gift and candy aspects of the holiday has been hilarious, but it just doesn't feel like Christmas.  Maybe it's because we were so busy between Thanksgiving and Christmas or because we came to Kansas City so early in the month...I don't really know.

In an effort to get more into "the spirit" of Christmas, I have focused my Bible reading this week on the first couple chapters of both Matthew and Luke -- the accounts of Jesus' birth.   As with most of us, I am very familiar with the history of Mary and Joseph and the angels and shepherds -- though careful reading does confirm my former pastor's assertion that the magi have no place in the nativity seen...they didn't show up for months or years. 

Anyway, what has struck me most this week is Luke 2:19 when following the wonder of the shepherds "Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart."  Despite the absolutely extraordinary circumstances of her pregnancy and the amazing person of her son, Mary was just a mom who adored her baby boy and wanted to remember every single second of his life.

I'm sure that she felt that time was going too quickly and Jesus was growing up too fast.  She probably laughed when he took his first step and cried when he skinned his first knee.  For the first time, it is clear to me just how "human" Jesus was -- even though he was God. 

He was a little boy with a Mommy who adored him, before anyone else knew him and continued to adore him in ways no one else could, because she knew him better than anyone other than God.  Amazing.

Christmas Fun

I've never considered myself particularly slow...but it apparently took a while for my expectations for Charlie's Christmas to reach a realistic level.

After the Living Christmas Story debacle, I practically ruined Santa for him...  First, I introduced him to Santa in a yard on the way home from school, and the whole way home he kept repeating, "Hi, Satan!"  Let's just say that my inability to contain my laughter didn't help the situation.

Over the next couple of days Jason and I worked very hardto correct the slight dyslexia, and by Sunday Charlie was hooked on the safer, "Santi" -- good enough for us. 

Well, that afternoon Santa was visiting our neighborhood, so I planned to squeeze in a visit between church, the post-church luncheon, naptime and having the Sereika's over for dinner.  Santa arrived in the neighborhood around 2:15, about 10 minutes after Charlie went down for nap, but since our neighborhood is brimming with kids, I though there was a chance he would still be there when Charlie woke up at 4:00.

After rushing him into a clean diaper and jacket and tossing him in the stroller, we hurried down the street with a very doubtful Daddy in tow, to find the clubhouse completely deserted.  Of course, in order to explain the rush to Charlie, I had promised to take him to see Santa, so the whole way back to the house, he was whining, "Santi, go?"  Way to go, Mom... 

At the last minute we visited a giant blow-up Santa in the front yard of a house on Scrapbook Lane, but it wasn't the same and Charlie knew it.

Being two for two in the Christmas Cheer department, I decided to cut my losses and not plan any other festivities for fear of ruining Christmas for Charlie forever -- possibly the best decision I had made yet.

We have spent the past week saying "Hi" to the Christmas tree twenty or thirty times a day, opening our Advent calendars every two to three days and thoroughly enjoyed the Advent chocolate (tastes the same as it did 30 years ago!), practicing "Ho-ho" (still working on that last "ho"), baking for Christmas parties, pulling the bows off presents, hunting for Santas "hiding" in the Christmas Tree, shouting "brrrr" while playing in real-life winter weather, learning to the true story of Christmas with our other Advent Calendar and nativity clings for the back window and loving our little family and all of the amazing friends in our life.

In other words, I finally got it -- we've spent the past week being a one year old learning about Christmas and enjoying the little things -- lesson learned.

Sous Chef

I knew it was coming...  Charlie just hasn't been completely himself this week.  He's been in a fairly good mood and hasn't had a fever, but he's just been a little off-kilter with some major energy swings, from manic to dragging and back again.  Then to top it off we had to get his second round flu shot yesterday afternoon...so we were doomed.

Charlie woke up in a great mood this morning, but his eyes were a little droopy.  Having a touch of a sore throat and congestion myself, I went ahead and took him to school since he was fever-free, thinking that he'd enjoy himself more there than here.  Well, at 9:50 school called and he had a fever.  I definitely wasn't surprised.

Since he wasn't quite ready to go down for his nap when we got home, I set him up with a snack and started to work on the noisy parts of preparing the cheesecake that I was making for tomorrow night -- crushing the graham crackers and slicing the cranberries -- better now than while he's napping. 

Watching me "cooking" perked Charlie right up, so I brought his high chair over to watch.  Pretty soon he was standing on a kitchen chair hammering away at the graham crackers.  Then he had his first and second lessons in pressing a graham cracker crust (I forgot to spray the pan the first time), and even got to use the hand mixer after pouring in the lemon juice and eggs.

As crummy as we were both feeling, we had a blast, and imagine my delight when Charlie's favorite part was doing the dishes -- if only it stays that way!  It reminded me so much of sick days when I was a kid, baking cookies with my mom.  Obviously today's fun will probably be lost in Charlie's subconscious, since he's so young, but I can't wait to make more of the same memories with him and turn sick days into Mommy-Charlie days, just like they were Mommy-Jenny days so long ago.

Pat, pat, pat

Mom's kind of power tools

 One more cranberry and it's perfect!

Fa-la-la-la...yeah, whatever...

Wednesday mornings are always a bit hectic around here.  It's trash day -- Charlie's favorite day of the week.  We spend the rest of the week explaining to him why he can't push the trash can to the street, but on Wednesdays it's all worth it.  Lately, though,  the cold weather and Jason's longer work days mean that I need to have him fed, dressed and bundled about 45 minutes earlier than other days...

Despite a second helping of oatmeal and lost mittens this morning, we were ready to go and Charlie and Daddy fully enjoyed trash --even getting the chance to chat with Bob! 

Around 8:20 I ran out to start the car, and as I was walking up the stairs to "seek" Charlie I was feeling a bit overwhelmed trying to figure out when I was going to schedule his flu shot, finish the Christmas cards, buy eight more Christmas gifts, run by the grocery store, prepare an appetizer and dessert for tonight's Christmas party, a side dish for Saturday's Christmas tea and a dessert for Saturday night's Christmas party, complete my weekly report, clean the house for Sunday night's dinner guests, get the laundry done, get Charlie to/from school, hopefully run on the treadmill and if I'm lucky, wash my hair for the first time since Sunday...

About five stairs from the top, I spotted Charlie on the landing chewing...something.  He immediately raced into the guest room, where I caught up with him to discover he'd found a piece of gum -- and didn't really know what to think.  My frustrated morning appeared to be turning into a Hallmark commercial, as I took a deep breath, laughed and persuaded Charlie to spit the gum into my hand... Such a sweet reminder of the life experiences and laughter, right?

Well, unlike a Hallmark commercial, we had no fade to black.  Charlie immediately rushed away, yelling "poop" then proceeded to roll around like a maniac on his changing table while I tried to change him and keep us both clean.  He continued rolling while I shoved his feet into his sneakers downstairs then initiated a game of tag, yelling "I FUHnee" when I tried to get him into his coat.

After a battle to get him into the carseat, punctuated with "I Char-char" (meaning: I do it myself), I realized that I had failed to turn the heat on when I started the car, so it was still freezing and covered in frost...and the check engine light is on...  Ugghhhh...

So much for Hallmark...today is feeling more like one of those old Calgon commercials...but someone turned the TV off before I could be transported into a peaceful, warm bubble bath...

I'm convinced that the recent manic pace of our life is designed to teach me some sort of important lesson...but whenever I try to figure it out that annoying new American Express commercial keeps coming to mind (too much TV lately maybe?) where the lady is talking about how she's saving the world one baby at a time by developing her own highly successful and lucrative line of organic baby food, and she and her husband have enough AmEx points to pay for visits across the country to all of the local, independent, organic farmers that provide her fruits and vegetables... 

At first I feel like a complete slacker, because I'm having trouble keeping up with one child, a house, a job and some volunteer work during the Christmas season -- but then I come to my senses and wonder why on earth anyone would spend free travel dollars doing anything other than jetting straight to a private beach without phones, computers, grocery stores or battery powered toys, where she can just lay in the sun while her husband brings her fruity umbrella drinks and her son digs holes in the sand...

Obviously, I haven't learned my lesson yet, but I am feeling cautiously optimistic about completing my four hours of meetings, appetizer and dessert and possibly even squeezing in a shower before I get Charlie and whisk him off to the Christmas Party where we'll meet Dad who's coming straight from work...of course, if his runny nose turns into something more serious, I could get a call from school at any moment then everything will be tossed back in the air...so we shall see.

Oh, and I'm sorry for no pictures...Charlie's aversion to them seems to have passed, but I just haven't had time to take any this week.  I'll do better!

Great Idea

It sounded like a great idea, I swear.  Jason got back from Washington DC yesterday afternoon, and I suggested that the three of us have dinner in town and drive through the Living Christmas Story that the local Methodist Church puts on each year.

Last night was the first night and a school night, so I assumed that the traffic would be light (first mistake) and that if we arrived right when it opened at 6:30, we would have Charlie home and tucked in bed by 7:30 (second mistake).

At least dinner worked out.  When I asked Charlie what he wanted for dinner (probably another mistake), first he said "hummus", then he paused and said, "no, chicken", then he paused again and said, "no, broccoli."  Then he continued to ask for broccoli all the way into town -- no kidding.  I'm not even sure he'd ever had broccoli before, but he was determined.  I googled the menus for McAllister's Deli and Cracker Barrel on Jason's phone, but found no broccoli.  Hoping to distract him, we ended up at Famulari's pizza, where Charlie watched them toss the dough and dress the pizzas (tons of fun), flirted with the cashier (even better), and enjoyed Thai Pie with broccoli!

Since he was such a good boy, Jason bought us a great big, homemade chocolate chip cookie to share, which I started divvying up before we even made it to the church (fourth mistake) -- it was gone before we even found the event...

Even thought I left the map at home, we pulled right up to the line for the Christmas Story at 6:48...just a little bit late and didn't think it looked too bad (fifth mistake).  About thirty minutes and thirty feet later, we let Charlie out of his carseat to drive, climb and wreak havoc (sixth mistake), but we figured that we were barely moving and if he was stuck in his seat he would fall asleep.  About thirty minutes and 100 feet after that, we strapped him back in and settled in for 15 minutes of screaming .

At 7:55 we seriously considered bailing out of line -- we had neighbors coming over at 8:30 to help move my new 400 pound treadmill to the third floor (whole other list of mistakes), and couldn't be late -- but we decided that we couldn't bale out when we could actually see donkeys!

At 8:02 we pulled into the Living Christmas Story and it was amazing -- the church really did a beautiful job of recreating the time of Christ (well - it at least matched my imagination's version), and they had all sorts of live animals. 

Charlie quickly became obsessed with some horses that he saw with the Roman soldiers, so in an effort to distract him, Jason and I pointed out a donkey we saw with some Bethlehemites (seventh mistake).  Once we pulled back onto Main Street at 8:16 (yes, really), Charlie started moaning, whining, yelling and crying "donkey, donkey, more donkey, donkey, blue donkey..." all the way home -- it may well have been the longest 13 minutes of our lives.  Jason and I were promising to find the movie Shrek, to find pictures of donkeys online -- I was even prepared to hunt down a petting zoo -- anything to get him to stop.

We arrived home at 8:29 (just in time!), and mercifully Charlie stopped crying -- in his defense it was a good hour to hour and a half past his bedtime.  He sweetly kissed Jason goodnight, and I carried him up to bed -- where I had an epiphany. 

After laying him down in his crib, I rummaged through his toybox and produced Eeyore -- a blue donkey! (Success!)  Despite the fact that he gave it one glance, tossed it aside and went to sleep, I consider this full redemption for the ridiculous idea that Charlie would love sitting in the car for almost two hours to drive through the Living Christmas Story at 20 months of age.