Cut It OFF

We love some Christmas lights around here.  Love.  It's the highlight of the evening to walk three houses down the street to gawk at the especially well-lit yard.  We are also trying out a new motivation tactic:  the Energy Drain technique, a la Love & Logic.  So basically, less desireable behaviors drain the energy out of parents for doing nice, fun things, requiring more good deeds to replace the energy. 

This particular brand of manipulation has been working well.  I rode that train all the way through playroom clean-up, room clean-up and putting laundry away.  Putting books on the bookshelf proved to be too much for one three year old.  Too.Much.  When delivered the news that only the little sister got to go see lights, The Regulator lost.his.mind.  Screaming.  Screeching.  Tears.  Topped with the shriek of, "Cut it off, Mommy!"

The intended meaning is either, "Cut it out, Mommy." OR a version of when I tell him that I'm going to put off an injured body part when he's being especially dramatic.  Either way, it's one of those moments where my frustration and anger turned on a dime. 

Merry and Bright. (Dammit)

Mornings where I am responsible for getting 4 people out of the house without help are my kryptonite.  Needless to say is that some go more smoothly than others.  The last 15 minutes are typically made of me rushing around, trying to figure out how many trips I'm going to need to make to the car.  That's the scene. 

Me:  (putting a jacket on Brooklyn)

The Regulator:  (jamming one of our Christmas cards in front of my face) What does this say, Mommy?

Me:  What am I doing?

The Regulator:  Putting Brooklyn's jacket on. (jamming the card in front of my face again)  What does this say, Mommy?  Tell me. 

Me:  Ell, you have to WAIT.  I am BUSY.

Me:  (finish putting on Brooklyn's jacket)

The Regulator:  What does this say, Mommmmmmmmmmmmy?  (shrill whine included)

Me:  (impatiently, with a big sigh, and full-on Mommy voice) It says, "May all your days be merry and bright."

The Regulator:  What does that mean, Mommy?

Me:  (short, hateful tone) It means have a good day every day.  (Dammit. This part was said to myself.)

Yep. I'm a paragon of Motherly Virtue.

Let's Send Santa a Number

Elliott is obsessed with Christmas.  All things Holiday, really.  Everyday we have at least one conversation that goes something like this:

E:  It's almost Halloween!
     What comes after Halloween, Mommy?

Me:  November.

E:  It'll be. . . THANKSGIVING!
     And then it'll be. . . What comes next, Mommy?


I'll let you predict for yourself how the rest of it goes.  Based on this obsession, we've had several (hundred) conversations about Christmas.  He already has a list for Santa:  an alarm clock and blocks (Legos).  I was completely confused when he spontaneously told me this morning:

E:  Mommy, we're going to give Santa a number.

Me:  What, Elliott?

E:  You said I could give Santa a number at Christmas. (very emphatically)

Me:  (racking my brain for some clue)

E:  We'll give him a number to tell him an alarm clock and blocks.  You SAID!

Me:  (light dawning)  You mean a letter?  I said we could write him a letter?

E:  (completely indignant) Yes, Mommy.  You said.

Ah.  I suppose it never occurred to me that my three-year old didn't know the difference between a letter that is a symbol and letter than is a form of correspondence.  So yes, we'll be sending Santa a number.

Twinkles in the Death Spiral (or Controlling the Holidays)

The most amazing blog ever, Rants from Mommyland, calls the holidays the Halloween to Christmas Death Spiral.  I have aspirations of over-controlling the holiday to prevent the death spiral. This approach always seems to backfire, but being the determined soul I am, I continue to persevere with the same approach.    I am skidding sideways into the holidays, holding on tight to the sled with my eyes squeezed tight.

Remember the stellar parenting that made up our tree-buying experience?  If not, check it out here.  Well, despite the poor planning in the purchasing (like that alliteration?), our tree is up and is even decorated.  I know, right?  On top of that, I even managed to snap some of those sparkly light pics of the tree while putting off answering the oft=repeated, "What doing, Mommy?" in a quiet moment of serenity (I can pretend, right?).  Fun special-effecty pictures.  Oh, and I finally managed to rearrange our living room.  I'll have to post pics of that after I find a special effect that clears out the piles of folded laundry and various small toys.

Collection

I'm not a collector.  Unless you count a collector of clutter.

My husband and his family are collectors.

When we started dating and were getting first gifts for each other, my dear husband kept asking what I collect. I stared at him in puzzlement.  I told him I only had one accidental collection, and that was crosses to hang on the wall.  People just started buying them for me, hence accidental collection.

I was wrong. When I was a child, my mom made sure that we had a dated Christmas ornament for each year.  It's really the only thing I've ever collected with diligence my whole life.  Other collections end up forgotten as I have moved on to the next interest.  I have every ornament in the Frosty Friends series since 1980.  Yep.  That's a freakishly long time.  Last night, Monkey was finally old enough to really investigate.

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I don't see myself starting any new collections, but each year I'm thankful that I bullied convinced my mom to and them over to me when I got my first Christmas tree.  

Christmas Nostalgia

Sunday we went to get our Christmas tree.  Being the fab parents we are, we set out on our mad dash mission in between lunch and naptime.  It's all about timing, don't ya' know.  Half-way to our destination, I realized just how awesome we are--it's raining and we had no stroller, no baby carrier, no umbrella, and no tie down for a tree.  Turn around and go home?  Hell no.  That's for  parents with more spare time weenies.  We carried on like the determined people we are.  Our tree-picking took place in the form of a drive-by through the lot and then me sacrificing Chris to the elements to actually get and pay for the tree.  I'm nice like that.  Try not to be amazed.  Then we crept home with our soggy tree because the lot attendant warned that our precious tree was going to slide off the top of the car.  (It didn't, in case you were wondering.)

This experience of parent-fails family togetherness harkened me back to my childhood.  My family loaded into the cab of my dad's Silverado pick-up truck.  Yep.  That's the model that would burst into flames if in an accident at just the right place. 

This looks pretty much just like my dad's truck minus the bubbly do-it-yourself window tinting, funky smell and random shop rag for snotty noses under the front seat.  Can you imagine four people in the cab of this truck?  What?  Seat belts?  Nope, we didn't use those in the 80s.  You know what we did use? Flocked trees.  Mmmhmm.  Amazingness. This is what our tree doesn't look like this year, but did in my childhood.  

My childhood tree also included rad bubble lights.  Drats that they are fire hazards, because the special effects were mesmerizing.

I guess I'm now realizing all things I loved about my childhood Christmases may have been life-endangering. I'm guess that judging by Sunday, our children will have the same recollection of their childhoods.