3 Reasons I'm In A Christmas Funk

Three days before Christmas. Wow ... if you would've asked me two weeks ago if I felt prepared for Christmas, I would've told you that for once I actually felt ahead of the game. Now ... three days before Christmas and I feel like the game is over yet my piece is still stuck at start.

Today I left work not to return for 7 working days. Most people would be doing cartwheels in the cubicle aisles to have 7 working days in a row off. Not me. All I can think about is how I'm literally going to be buried when I get back. For some reason having 7 work days in a row off is not nearly worth the amount of overtime I'm going to have to put in to get caught back up.

This is the first Christmas that I've actually had a good gift idea for my dad. He is one of the hardest people on my list to buy for. Most year's I am stuck shopping on Christmas Eve trying to frantically come up with something for him. This year I had the great idea to get him a new winter jacket. Not just a jacket though ... a Packer jacket. The problem is ... the Packers are doing extremely well and so everything is virtually sold out everywhere.

I resorted to looking online and I found this jacket that was described as "heavy duty". Now, I will be the first to admit that it is hard to tell how warm a jacket is going to be by just the picture. You clearly have to rely on the description to help you make the right decision. So, this jacket I found was described as "heavy duty" and in the particulars it stated that this jacket was perfect for any kind of football weather. Ok ... so I'm guilty in assuming they meant Wisconsin Frozen Tundra weather ... not Florida weather. So I ordered the jacket and it arrived yesterday.

I could tell from the size of the small bag it came in that I was in some serious trouble. It is a wind breaker. Seriously. A freaking wind breaker. Completely NOT perfect for football weather in Wisconsin ... I wouldn't even wear it in raking the leaves weather in Wisconsin. So, here I sit ... three days before Christmas with a wind breaker for my dad. I guess I will be shopping again on Christmas Eve.

We were in Walmart several months ago and Bella saw this Nala stuffed animal. She begged and begged me to buy it, but I told her no. This kid seriously has over 30 stuffed animals on the end of her bed. It's a good thing she is short because if she was my size ... there would be no room for her feet. So, she cried and cried for this stupid Nala doll. I finally told her that if she wanted Nala so bad ... she should ask Santa for it. Keep in mind when I said that ... I again assumed that she would forget all about this stuffed animal and that by the time Christmas came she would be on to something else.

Fast forward a few weeks and she was still obsessed with Nala. The only thing that changed since she first saw Nala was that now every Walmart store around seemed to be completely OUT of the stupid animals. So she ended up asking Santa for this Nala doll. Brian and I finally found one online and we ended up paying WAY more than it would've been in the store. I could've just kicked myself for not letting her get the stupid thing when we were in Walmart the first time!!

Nala has been secretly tucked away in our closet for about two weeks. Yesterday at school Santa and Mrs Claus visited Bella's kindergarten class. I asked Bella if she told Santa about how she wanted her Nala doll. "No mom. I told him I wanted a pony." Right ... a pony.

Who Said Kids Need to Read?

So tonight I was reading to the kids before bed. We have always been really good about making sure to read to them before bed. For some reason this summer that bedtime ritual has seemed to fall by the wayside. I think maybe it's because the kids have been staying up a lot later and by the time they actually get to bed it's too late to whip out several books and read them. I'm hoping we go back to more of a routine once school starts.

Anyway ... tonight I decided to turn off the cartoons a bit early and actually READ with them. So we are tucked into my bed and I start to read the first selection. I can see out of the corner of my eye Kadin feverishly picking his nose. I realize kids pick their noses ... I get it. I've been a mother for 7 years now ... I've seen my children pick their noses a lot. But he was seriously digging in that little nose ... moving his nostril all around and after every pick the finger went directly into his mouth.

So I nudge him. He gives me a dirty look kind of like ... "hey, what the heck was that for?" So I said to him ... "Kadin, stop picking your nose." I get another dirty look.

Not even a minute later ... again I see Kadin ... finger shoved into his nostril. Digging ... eating ... digging ... completely G R O S S I N G me out. So again I tap him on the leg. This time he gives me a punch in the arm accompanied by some sort of animal sounding whine. Really? This kid is going to sit there and eat his boogers like they are candy and he's going to make an animal sound when I tell him to stop???? It is officially ON.

"Kadin, dude ... you really need to stop digging in your nose. Do you need a kleenex?" I get another dirty look with a whiny "NOOOOAAAAHHH!"

I continue again with the book, really trying my best to ignore the excavating that is occurring beside me. At this point though I can't ignore it. It's almost like he is digging in my own nose ... it just begins to irritate me to the point that I want to grab his finger and dip it in disinfectant.

So as I continue with the story and as I'm reading I give him a poke in the arm followed by the "mother" look ... aka ... you better knock that off right now before I sock you really hard. This time he retaliates by karate chopping me in the leg. I close the book ... "time for bed!"

I should've just let him watch the damn cartoons ...

Get This Crotch On

I wonder when my children will be old enough that the things they say don't crack me up anymore. Maybe that never happens and our kids will always make us laugh and smile with the things they say ... at least I'd like to think that.

I was thinking about all the funny things my kids say, or words they say in place of the real words. I get a smile on my face just thinking about some of the goofy things my kids have said.

Bella sometimes seems infatuated with the word "crotch". I'm not sure exactly when she heard that word, since I'm not one to use the word crotch in my everyday conversation. Somehow though she heard the word and it's stuck ... for better or worse.

1. Bella handed me a barbie doll and asked me to get her crotch on. "Get her what on?" "Mom, can you get this crotch on?" as she points to the doll's shoe. "Bella, do you mean her shoe?" "Oh ... yeah." "Why did you call it a crotch?" She giggles nervously ... "I don't know!"


2. My mom called the other night to tell me how she twisted her ankle. When I got off the phone the kids were asking me what I had talked to Grandma about. I told them that she had twisted her ankle. Kadin asked if she could walk ... "yes, she can walk, she just has a limp." "Is she using crotches?" asks Bella. Kadin & I cracked up ... "They aren't called crotches Bella! They're called crutches!!!" Kadin is always so quick to correct his sister.


3. The other night I was trying to get Bella ready for bed. I was telling her that she needed to go potty before she went to bed. She turned to me and said ... "you have a hairy crotch mom." and she pointed to her vagina area. "Umm ... yes, I suppose I do." I didn't really know much else to say ... at least she used the word right this time ...

Our old pediatrician was named Dr McIntee. Bella only saw him a few times when she was really little so she has no memory of him. She has however, heard me talk about him and so when she tried to say him name it came out as Dr Mac 'n Cheese. Add that to the fact that maccaroni and cheese is seriously her favorite meal and I cracked up laughing.

Her current speech struggle is the word cash register. She cannot say register to save her life. Every time we are in a store together, we make Bella say the words "cash register". "Hey Bella ... where to we go to pay for our stuff?" "The cash regiger." Too funny ...

This Boy Can Poop

Literally ever since I can remember Kadin has had some kind of issue surrounding his poop. When he was a toddler and we were trying to potty train him ... pooping was the one thing he refused to do in the toilet. I will always remember him screaming in the bathroom. That boy decided it was a better idea to poop on the bathroom floor instead of in the dreaded toilet. I'm still amazed that Kadin actually learned to use the toilet at all.

As potty training progressed ... he finally came to grips with pooping in the toilet, but now the difficulty was getting the hang of actually making it to the toilet. Remember the story of the smoldering piles of poop yet again on my bathroom floor? I remember as I picked up that poop, I thought to myself ... this can't be what I signed up for!

Of course as Kadin got older he had less and less accidents. Lucky for me ... I didn't have to clean up any more poop off of the bathroom floor. Brian, on the other hand ... wasn't so lucky. I'll get to that later ... I digress ...

So along with poop comes farts of course and I've never seen a kid that can fart as often or as loud as Kadin. The kid farts ... a lot ... like I'm talking more than average here. Seriously. I'm not trying to be mean or to pick on him by saying that ... it is seriously a running joke in our house that whenever anyone farts ... we always blame it on Kadin! Then we all laugh ... The only bad thing about farting is when those farts are juicy ... you all know what I mean.

I think most everyone has had a juicy fart. Probably you've had one when you've been sick with the flu. Well, another thing that sets Kadin apart from others is that he has juicy farts all the time. The kid has racing stripes in every single pair of his underwear! In fact one time in school he sharted and the poor kid has to sit in poopy underwear all day! Can you imagine?!?

Ok - so back to Brian and his unluckiness with the poop on the floor. So I got a call at work last week ... it was Brian on the other end ... laughing ... hysterically. He proceeded to tell me the following story ...

Kadin went in to our bathroom to poop (the kid always chooses our bathroom to take a dump in ... don't ask) and he starts calling me over to the bathroom. So I get there and I see his little face sticking out through the crack in the door and he's crying and asking me for help. I assumed he clogged the toilet because he almost always does. No, he proceeded to tell me that he needed more toilet paper because he had an accident on the FLOOR. (insert me laughing here) So I asked him what happened and he said that he was finished pooping and went to put his pants back on when he farted and poop flew out and landed on the floor. (now insert me laughing so hard I'm crying and the people around me are probably wondering what the heck my problem is)

Yup ... you read that correctly ... my son sharted on the floor. HA! I'm telling you ... his poop stories never get old.

Hello Again ... Maybe

So here's the deal. I was sitting here tonight killing some time on Facebook while the kids were sleeping and Brian was out. I came back to this blog ... just to read it. Just to read some of the funny stuff I used to write about. I was trying to remember what exactly I talked about multiple times a week.

It's funny because as I started reading some old posts ... I realized what a cool thing this blog really was. It really was a diary of sorts. Just in the few short posts I read ... I remembered things that I probably would never had remembered if they hadn't been written here. I laughed at funny stories I had told ... I even cried reading some things I wrote about myself and my marriage. Hmmm .... looking back ... it has brought back a lot of memories.

One day my children will ask me about their childhood. When they get married and have children of their own they'll want to know what they were like as kids. If I am supposed to tell them about their childhood from my memory ... they are screwed! I can't remember my own childhood, much less all the details of theirs! I want my kids to have a legacy ... something they can read and laugh at. Something that tells them a little bit about their mom and what type of mother and wife she was.

What better way to tell that than through my words.

It has been a long time. Perhaps too long ...

Hello again ... friend ...