2007

Christmas Care-Ol

December 21, 2007 · 0 comments

I’d like to change my name to Kathy “Christmas Spirit” Mommy. No season makes me happier than the season of giving. (Or the season of “spending” as Pat bitterly calls it). There is nothing I don’t like about December. Love the weather. Love Christmas. Love time off work. Love it. Love it. Love it.

When I was little I was always the first out of bed. 6. 5. 4 o’clock in the morning. It didn’t matter how early it was. I would sit and wait. Count presents. Look in stockings. Compare treasures. Contemplate what was in what. Wake up Smart Ass and Baby.

I tried to keep them up with me for as long as possible the night before, but they always crashed early. We’d even collect candy and sneak diet pepsi’s with the notion that if we ate a ridiculous amount of junk food we could stay up longer. It never worked and in all my years I never did stay up long enough to see how those gifts got under the tree. I think Baby stopped believing in Santa before I did.

One would think as one gets older the greatness of Christmas would fade and you’d become just like the rest of the adults in the world who complain about crowds and christmas lists and not being able to afford this and that, but not me. I am absolutely drowning my children in the Christmas spirit. From tree decorating and Christmas light observing, to cookie making and ornament painting. You name it. They will grow up to be Christmas freaks just like their Mama. I will see to that.

Last year Handyman and LoLo drove past Top Foods and laughed about how ghetto it would be to round up the fam every year, take them to the local grocery store and pick up a Christmas tree. She was telling me about it on the phone and was like “what kind of tradition is that??” Turns out it’s OUR tradition and she didn’t even know it. Now it has become a big joke. Here Pat and I are picking out a very lovely tree from Top Foods for the 3rd year in a row, thank you very much! Maile did her best to decorate nicely.
 Laina was more interested in divying out ornaments.
 Maile painting ornaments for Grandma and Papa.
 Santa pictures.
 Baking cookies.

Keeping the spirit alive…

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The Dentist…And Yes. I Brought My Camera.

December 12, 2007 · 0 comments

Maile recently had her first experience at the dentist…one of my very favorite places to be. I was SOOOOO proud of her. I had no idea how invasive they would be with a four year old. I stayed with her the whole time and they went to town on those little teeth. Picking at them with that sharp pointy thing…polishing…fluoride…more picking and sucking and spraying. I was trying to keep my face positive because she kept looking at me, but I felt so sorry for her. I HATE THE DENTIST!!!

At one point she did not want to open her mouth back up and looked like she was going to cry. I was just staring at her with sympathy when I realized “oh, I’m the Mom, this is my cue!!” and I forced myself to be encouraging when deep down I wanted to scream “RUN!!! Let’s get out of here and never come back….get that sharp picking thing away from my daughter and by the way I HATE YOU GUYS!!”

Alas. I did not.

At the end of the appointment Maile was quite pleased with the little goodie bag they gave her and even gave the dentist a hug. If Maile’s handing out hugs to strangers you KNOW they scored big points. I’m very very proud of her. Although she did mumble on our way out something about not wanting to go back…


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Behind The Scenes

December 6, 2007 · 0 comments

(Note: The conversations quoted in the following blog are based on memory and are not exact, but you get the gist.)


There’s something a lot of you don’t know when you’re reading my blog and that is that I have, for lack of a better term, a “behind the scenes editor”. Since day one when I started this thing, Baby has been giving me advice on the direction she’d like my blog to go in.


For example, my first couple entries had a lot of recent pictures and captions. She called me up and said something along the lines of , “The pictures are all fine and dandy, but I’d like to read funny stories about the kids…I think you’re blog is trying to find a story for the picture you took, instead of just telling a story. Forget the picture. I want a good laugh.”

So I’d get to work thinking of something funny and post it and Baby would call the next day during her lunch break laughing, “you nailed it! Yes, that’s what I’m talking about…keep those ones coming!”

If there is too long a time lapse between posts I’ll get something like, “what’s going on!?! You haven’t posted anything since last week. Don’t expect me to be checking your blog everyday if you’re not going to post something…I’m tired of reading that you hate the word fungus, let’s move it along.”

Yesterday when I talked to Baby she said my blogs were complaining too much,

“It kind of sounds like you’ve got nothing nice to say about you’re kids.”

To which I responded, “Well Baby, as much as I’d love to write about what rose petals of children they are and what we eat for dinner each night, this is what’s going on and they’re pretty much driving me crazy.”

That being said, I will listen to my editor and try to keep things fair…I’d like to take a moment and say something nice about each of my children:

Ahem.

Maile, though I’m always the ridiulously large stick figure in all her family pictures, LOVES her baby brother. Last night when I was cooking dinner he started fussing and I couldn’t get to him yet. “Mo-om!! Kainoa needs a toy…it’s ok little boy, I’ll help you.” And she hopped down from her stool, ran and found some toys and entertained him for a good five more minutes.


Laina, though she maneuvers in and out of her crib like a little monkey, is GREAT at playing with her toys. I could spend hours watching her play with the same little toys completely engaged and uniterrupted. I’ve never seen anything like it from a child her age.


Kainoa, though he’s just a baby and has no respect for my “quiet” time, is an angel…sent straight from heaven and into my home. My peaceful little dove. My happy little clam.

Now…back to the complaining…

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Laina Says The Darndest Things

December 4, 2007 · 0 comments

I busted out “The Grinch” recently and Laina really took a liking to it. Problem is she can’t really say Grinch, and instead follows me around all day asking to watch the “Binch”…which, after some repetition, starts to sound like you know what.

“Mommy wanna watch Binch. Watch Binch now Mommy. Wanna watch Binch. Binch Mommy? Binch? Watch Binch? Wanna watch Binch now. Watch Binch Mommy. Binch binch binch binch binch bich bich bih bitch bitch bitch bitch.”

You get the picture. Nothing says cute like the same cute words repeated a million cute times over and over.

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Spoiled Much??

December 3, 2007 · 0 comments

Sunday I decided to treat my girls to a special day, and they repaid me in more ways than I could ever ask. I had made arrangements to take them to make gingerbread houses with the Tacoma Children’s Museum. For 35 dollars (plus 8 for parking) we got a pre-made house, all the frosting you could ask for, and endless amounts of a variety of different candy.

For a red hot second they were in HEAVEN. Laina was less interested in decorating the house and concentrated instead on taste testing. Maile enjoyed decorating, but soon lost interes when host lady called the kids up on stage to sing Christmas carols. She was nervous, but got excited when her turn came to sing into the microphone.

After the singing most of the children left the stage and host lady proceeded to draw tickets out of a bucket for participants in some raffle. When we went back to our table Maile was no longer into the house and wanted to go back onto the stage. Once on the stage she just stood there with her head down looking like she wanted to cry….think haircut pictures…THAT’S what she was doing.
“Oh dear.” I thought. What has set her off??
When I approached her she refused to tell me what was wrong.
“Did someone hit you? Did you get in trouble? Are you scared? Do you want to go home? Are you hungry? Should we go finish the house?”
No. No. No. No. No.
She simply would NOT talk. Whatever. Mope then. I walked away and started packing up our work of art and then Maile lost it. And I’m not just talking whining and crying lost it. I mean LOST IT. Foot stomping. Screaming. Yelling. Crying. We’re talking a very angry girl here and I STILL don’t know what’s wrong. All of the tables are staring as we pass by and I’m just smiling and wishing everyone a merry Christmas.
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Embarassed? Just a little. I understand kids get overwhelmed and tired, but I was really not expecting this behavior from Maile.
So we’re walking out and while screaming she starts talking and FINALLY I get an explanation as to what set her off.

You ready?
She didn’t get a prize. Host lady never called her name in the raffle and my poor poor sweet baby did not get a prize.
I was APPALLED!! Are you kidding me right now!?! My daughter is spoiled. By the time we had gotten to the car she had stopped that nonsense and on the way home I was livid. Thinking about how I wanted to take back all her Christmas presents. Spoiled little brat. Didn’t get a prize. Hmph. I’ll show YOU not getting a prize.
After all is said and done I decided to cancel our plans to go the the My Little Pony show at the Tacoma Dome. I’m mad that I wasted almost 45 bucks trying to do something nice for my girls and I’m certainly not going to make that mistake again by taking them to an even MORE expensive show.
When we got home my mood was further improved when Laina colored on my couch and then broke one of her ornaments that I so sweetly picked out for her to add to her collection last year.

I grounded them both for the day. No joke.

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