Mom Syndrome

Most days I'm grateful to be a stay-at-home mom, but there are certainly times when I miss working in an office environment--having contact with peers (or even just adults!), getting recognition for a job well done, wearing slacks or a cute skirt instead of pajama pants all day.

And then there are days when my tall, thin, blond, beautiful accountant neighbor stops by to pick up her kids and I have food stains on my shirt and my hair in a claw clip and no makeup on, and I don't even know if I've brushed my teeth all day.

Yeesh.

Please Pass the Potato Soup

Cheesy potato soup is my comfort food. I made a batch tonight to try to smooth the wrinkles of a long, tiring day.

Hubby's at a conference in Florida until Wednesday. The kids are so weary of being cooped up indoors that they're fighting constantly and running in circles. Every frantic, high-pitched squeal is like a drill bit to the brain.

I love my children more than life itself, but if we don't have some warmer weather soon, I may have to check myself into a nice, quiet padded room. Preferably in Florida.

We Need a Little Christmas

I'm curled on the couch tonight watching the ice storm outside. It's pretty dark out there, so...not much to see, but I like the feeling of being cozy and warm by the Christmas tree while the weather is being so cross outside.

The kids' school music program was canceled tonight because of the storm, and they may very well miss their day of movies and parties at school tomorrow if the storm is still raging. Poor mites. What am I going to DO with them all day to make up for missing movies and parties with their classmates? Maybe some holiday baking would be good. The kind where I put my OCD fussing about messes on the back burner (hee) and just let the kids go crazy. Of course we're having a church function here at the house tomorrow night, so maybe I don't want to go making even more messes to clean up before company arrives. Guess we'll see what the morning brings.

The Little Princess watched parts of the Nutcracker yesterday and today on TV. After I changed her diaper tonight she refused to put her jeans back on. "Pretty," she announced, meaning she wanted to put on a skirt (that's her term for girly clothes) like the ballerinas. Man, that girl is a dancer and/or musician in the making. It's pretty much a foregone conclusion. Have I mentioned that when I leave the car door open and it makes that prolonged beeping sound, she'll sit in her car seat and hum the exact pitch until I close the door? She's done that with the garbage disposal too (matched the pitch, I mean). She can also play the rhythm to Jingle Bells on the piano while she sings along. She's 26 months old.

Middle Child is worried about whether Santa will make it on Christmas Eve, what with all the bad weather. He's also asked me several times if he's on the "bad" list. Poor guy. I hope he has a sufficiently wide-eyed, magical Christmas morning. He deserves it. Even if his eating habits make me want to pound my head against the wall.

The First-Born is reading the first Harry Potter book. It's like a rite of passage. I can't wait to hear what he thinks. His school reading program rocks. I'm still in awe of the progress he's made in just a few short months.

Hopefully next week will be calm and full of Christmas cheer. The shopping's done, the packages and cards are mailed. Other than the standard baking and wrapping marathon, I think we're in good shape. Dear Husband is off work all next week (theoretically), so that will be a treat.

The past few weeks have not been kind. Mom went into the hospital on Thanksgiving with pneumonia and intense muscle/joint pain (plus some confusion and slurred speech, which was scary). She's home now but still struggling with some of the same issues. The day she came home our house got hit with a violent flu bug. Mom escaped getting sick, thank heaven, but the rest of us took turns with an evil array of symptoms. After that the Husband had to go to India for eight days. Not Mumbai, but still, it was enough to make his nervous wife keep checking the news.

Calm. Christmas cheer. Say it with me. Calm. Christmas cheer. Here's to a peaceful--and magical--holiday season, and an uneventful 2009!

Kid Logic

The middle child and I had a conversation about boy animals and girl animals at the zoo recently.

I explained to him that animals had boy parts and girl parts, just like people.

"Oh," he said as realization dawned. "You mean like girls have headbands and stuff."

Yes, exactly. :)

Things Kids Say, Revisited

"If only we had travel tubes, you could go anywhere you want in the world if you just press a button. There would be these buttons surrounding you, even on the door, and you would be able to get anywhere you want in a few seconds. It's like an airplane but shorter. It's like a glass but a lot bigger. I would go to my friend's [house] and I could just like travel right to their front door and then the tube would go back to its place."

Sounds awesome. Beats airline food any day of the week.

Things Kids Say

Here's a sampling of random stuff my kids said yesterday:


"I wish I was an All-Star so I could teleport."

"If I was an All-Star I'd have a sensor that would find animals that didn't have a home and I could take care of them. I'd keep them in my underground command center where it's nice and warm so they could sleep."

"I just saw one piece of water come down from the sky."

"I'm going to be a plane that talks."

"She's a queen. All that's missing is a crown. And a dress. And a castle. And a country. And knights and armor and stuff."


This is gold. I gotta do this more often.