Holidays…

My friend Liza was over last night to scrapbook.  During those evenings we talk about just everything.  Our conversations go from high school to the present, really.  It’s nice to have people that you have such a history with.  The kids were at Mike’s last night for the first time in quite a while.  So many activities on weekends, they can’t go or one can’t go.  She asked about my Thanksgiving schedule.  I mentioned going to Mom and Ed’s to spend Thanksgiving with them.  She asked if the kids were going to Mike’s.  I said they were this year.  Then, she asked about Christmas.  The kids are always with me on Christmas until around noon they go to their dad’s.  She asked if that was hard.  I told her it was great!  And it is… now.

That first Christmas I was pretty sad.  It was hard every time they went to his house.  I didn’t want to miss any part of their lives.  I realize now that was the issue.  I’d always been around for EVERYTHING!  I didn’t want to MISS stuff.  So, the very first Christmas Daddy came over first thing in the morning and we opened gifts then had breakfast.  Of course, we were running late but still had to visit Aida and Ken’s on the way to meet Mike.  I got home from dropping them off and the living room looked like a disaster area!  Paper, boxes, bows, clothes, CD’s and toys laying everywhere!  I turned on Christmas music, moved the appropriate stuff in the correct bedroom, put away the wrap and bows and lo and behold the room was clean again.  The tree was beautiful, music was nice.  I grabbed a book and a hot cup of cider and proceeded to read and appreciate the peace of the day.  Later, I went to Ken and Aida’s for dinner but that little moment of quiet was nice.

Now, the schedule is still the same with a few differences.  Now, the kids are up when Daddy and Sharon get here.  Elysse has on her makeup for the photo ops.  We eat FIRST and clean the kitchen because they can wait.  Then, the gifts.  Then, they move their own stuff and the living room is tidy again.  If Aida and Ken are in town, we still go there before Elysse takes them to her dad’s.  I still get my moments of peace until I go to dinner somewhere. 

I found out sometime later that Ken and Aida didn’t go to his parents that first year because they didn’t want me to be sad or alone.  I have been blessed to have such good friends and family.  I appreciate them every day.

The Christmas Ficus Tree

Christmas at our house when I was growing up meant lots of decorations.  The original house was a rectangle with kitchen, formal living room (yellow and green FLOCKED wallpaper if you can believe it), dining room, hallway to the other side.  The other side had my room, my parents room, one bathroom and a little den.  When I was in junior high or so, my parents put an addition on the back.  It was another rectangle that ran almost the entire length of the house.  It was HUGE!  We had a fireplace and a piano.  It became the family room, two separate sitting areas, big TV, the whole deal.  It was dark brown and black striped sofas with animal print accents. 

Back to the Christmas part of the story… Our Christmas tree was in the family room.  We always put up the tree on Thanksgiving weekend or as close to it as we could.  We also always had real trees.  I know as an adult I never could remember to water a real tree, apparently my mother may have had the same affliction.  We had a dog, Holly, at this point too.  About two week or so from Christmas, we started noticing the needles were falling off of the tree when we touched it (or the dog did).  The needles were starting to get pretty bad.  One of the last days of school before the holiday break, I remember walking home from the bus stop and noticing a completely bare Christmas tree laying by the mailbox, it had maybe 40 needles on the whole tree and a few pieces of tinsel stuck to it.  I went into the house and out in the family room where the tree had been was one of my mother’s ficus trees with red bows on it.  I could tell from the look on Mom’s face that now was not a good time to discuss what happened.  Later, I found out she’d bumped it with the vacuum cleaner while trying to vacuum up all the needles that had already fallen and the bump caused most of the rest of them to fall off.  She’d gotten frustrated with the whole thing, pulled off the ornaments and slung that bare tree out in the front yard.  I don’t remember us getting another tree, we just put the presents around the ficus.

My mom is still a wiz at Christmas decorating.  At her home now, every room has an enormous display, everything goes together… it’s absolutely amazing.  She did finally switch to an artificial tree two years ago (of course she has two of them, perfectly color coordinated and decorated) after another watering fiasco, too much water this time.  I wish I could decorate like that… oh, well, there’s still time to learn I guess.

A “spark” from my families past…

My daughter Elysse is 2 1/2 years older than her brother, Tommy.  As first time parents, we asked everyone for advice.  Sometimes it felt like I need approval from my mother before I tried anything.  I read when to do certain things in my baby books and followed the pediatrician’s rules to the T.  Elysse tried her first solid food, rice cereal, exactly when the doctor said she should have it.  I remember mixing it all up in the little shell shaped bowls with the formula, trying to get the right consistency.  Mom and Daddy were there too (I think) to watch us.  I sat on the floor while she was in her little chair.  I spooned a little in, she spit it right back out.  I didn’t know what else to do but wipe it back off with the spoon.  I think the third time I spooned it in she swallowed it.  From then on, she was like a baby bird.  Of course, I still followed all the timing guidelines, two or three days between each new food, all the cereals first, then a vegetable, then a fruit, etc.  Finally, the meats after that.  I admit to tasting everything she ate first.  I also admit I probably wouldn’t have liked that unsalted chicken baby food either, just yuck!  Sweet potatoes were her very favorite for the longest time.  Now, she wouldn’t eat one if I begged her.

Then, Tommy comes along… He was born in the early afternoon.  Because he wasn’t C-section, I didn’t have to be in “recovery”.  I was under so many painkillers from the reconstruction stitches, that I wasn’t feeling any pain.  The grandparents, friends and family had gone for the night.  Mike was sitting in the little rocking chair feeding Tommy with the little four ounce bottles they give you in the hospital.  (The bottles are already filled to 4 ounces).  He’d eaten over 2 1/2 ounces already from that bottle, and it wasn’t his first that day of course.  The nurse walked in to check on us and asked how much he’d eaten.  Mike tipped the bottle right side up so she could see how much.  She told him to stop, that was too much for a baby his age to eat.  Mike dutifully put the bottle down and put Tommy to his shoulder gently to burp him.  The nurse did what she was doing to me and left.  He looked at me, I looked at him, and he picked up the bottle and fed him some more.  We knew now that we had to trust ourselves as parents, we KNEW what to do, to listen to our child.  Babies don’t eat when they are not hungry.  Tommy was hungry!  He didn’t eat much more but he did stop when he was full. 

That was an eye-opening moment for me!  I knew what was best for my kid.  I didn’t do anything stupid but I was a little more lax with the rules, treating them more like rough outlines.  He had cereal a few weeks before the “deadline” but the formula just wasn’t cutting it anymore.  I waited a little less time between the fruits and veggies.  He still doesn’t like vegetables… wonder if that’s because of my “reckless disregard” for the feeding schedule??

Naaaa….

I’m “blinged”!

I read the article and made my own blog header.  It’s simple but it gets my point across.

FYI, the word art is by Katie Pertiet, www.designerdigitals.com.

We had dinner with Aida and Ken tonight.  We always have a lot of fun with them.  Aida talked about how Simone watched a show over breakfast about how mama orcas teach their babies how to hunt.  Several adults swim swiftly to an ice floe and tip it over making the seal fall into the water.  They let it swim to the next ice floe.  Then the babies get to tip it over themselves and eat it.  We are discussing this over our dinner of burgers and fries at Five Guys.  The kids ate every last french fry.  I asked if they needed anything else to eat.  Aida spoke in her best announcer voice “the mother orca tends to the hunger of her young…”  We all busted out laughing!

After that we went to Petsmart for food for Jedi.  They had cats there for adoption.  We were SO LUCKY that they weren’t open for actual adoption that late.  There was this orange tabby cat that just looked at me…  I’d have taken him/her home in a heartbeat!  I’m not sure that Aladin would have enjoyed sharing his home with another animal.  But I sure thought about it while I was in there!

A new blog!

I started a new class at jessicasprague.com, my favorite website and very favorite digital instructor, called Stories in Hand.  It was designed to help us to remember the stories we want to tell even if we have no actual photos to go with it (like a normal scrapbook page).  It should also help me to tell a better story “in the moment”, so I’m going to try to do both.

It is my plan to try to write something on this blog each day, some more, some less.  Maybe current events… maybe “scuba dives” into my past for class work.

I read an interesting article in a Digital Scrapbooking magazine about blinging your blog.  I’ll try to do my own header, but I have to write in it a few days first.

Today is Saturday.  Last night was Tommy’s last football game of the season.  Elysse came out to help take pictures.  All the kids were lined up, hats and plumes included, when it started to drizzle.  No big deal, right?  Stopped drizzling, started again, stopped, then it plain just rained.  The kids were ripping off their plumes (not a non-event in itself with the twistie tie approach they have to use) and tossing their hats over the fence.  Talk about a pile of mismatched hats and hatboxes when we got back…  We stood on the sidelines and watched while they marched beautifully in the rain.  Elysse would take out the camera and get a few shots, then put it in the bag again, repeat.  She was bound and determined to get a shot of Tommy during the “chicken dance” part of the routine.  She got one!

During the 2008 band show

We thought we might get to leave if it kept raining but it didn’t.  The kids were milling about trying to match hats and boxes with no rhyme or reason.  The adults took over and put them in numerical order and matched up what we could.  The game ended like normal, a complete loss for the team but the band “won” as usual.  They played DP, where several of Tommy’s scout friends are in the band and at that school.  Their uniforms had to go home with us for washing.  We also brought home a bag full of wet plumes to blow-dry.  Tommy and I sat on the floor for an hour blowdrying those things.  After we were done with them, Elysse hung them all around the house to make sure they were completely dry.  Of course, I couldn’t miss the photo op for that!

After blow-drying hanging all over the house

Then it was off to bed!  Today, we have to get new ballet shoes.  Elysse’s are “well-used” and she definitely can’t perform in the nutcracker with those.  She never complains about that stuff, I always pay attention and try to determine if she needs something.  Tommy and I will see “Quantum of Solace” and then hope to get together with Aida and Ken for dinner.  I plan to post again tonight… let’s see how that goes…

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