Why the holidays aren't over

So many people are back to the daily grind this week, but I feel like I am still right in the middle of the holidays. Why? Wellllll....

Because I still have xmas presents to wrap.

Because I still have xmas presents to deliver.

Hell, because I still have xmas presents to MAKE.

Because New Year's Eve hasn't happened yet.

Because New Year's day hasn't either.

Because I still have a birthday party (or 2) to host.

Because I am still punch drunk from being around SO MANY PEOPLE after months of mostly being around just the kids.

And even tho I am home alone with the kids and back to "normal," it feels FREAKISHLY abnormal and maybe if I pretend that it is only because we are still in the holiday rush, it will (hopefully) make me feel better.

awwww. I just heard my little girl ask her brother to sit in his lap for some snuggles and he of course immediately agreed. Just seeing them all snuggled up makes me feel all peaceful and happy. What a nice break from the holiday grind!

I guess my baby isn't a baby anymore.

She is 2. TWO. Wow. How could this have happened? I don't remember authorizing this. Really. Two. geez.

We had a lovely birthday with her yesterday, despite the fact that the kids are completely FRIED from being out of town for a week. We went out to lunch and to a toy store so she could pick out a kitty (she ended up getting a family of 4 Calico Critters or some such somethings). We played a ton of Wii Fit Plus (she loves to watch, and begs for people to play!). BTW, you GOTTA get this game. It is way better than the original! We snuggled and napped and had ice cream. Then the kids' godparents came over for dinner. It was lovely.



Dear Beebz,

I love you, my little girl, impossibly, more every day. You are wonderful, and no one could show me a more loving, sweet spirit. I am so grateful on a daily basis that you chose our crazy family to join. Thank you, my baby. I mean, my 2 year old!

Namaste,
mama

Magic is ALIVE.

20 something years ago, I had a teacher who changed my life. He was my mentor. He was that one person in my life that seemed to believe in me when no one else did. He saw in me talent that I didn't know I had. After I graduated, we lost touch. But he has never been far from my thoughts. My best high school memories include him. One of my few regrets was losing touch with him.

Yesterday he found me on the internet. We have been writing back and forth, catching up. It turns out we have more in common than I ever knew as a angsty teen. As someone who has lived a crazy wonderful life, teaching was probably the most normal thing he ever did. He is now on to other insanely wonderful things, and he has brought magic back into my now mundane world.

Most of all, he has let me know that I meant a lot to him too. That he remembered me fondly. That I taught him. As an adult (and more so as a parent!) I completely understand how much you can learn from children. How much they can impact your life. But that little part of me that is still an angsty teen is awed that he even remembers me. That I influenced him in any way. I am awed by his memory of me, my talents, my uniqueness. Aside from my parents, this is the ONE person I always wanted to know how they really saw me. What he thought of me. And now I know. He thinks I am amazing.

Who could ask for a better gift? I have a renewed belief in magic. In the wonder of the universe. In myself. I am in awe of this.

When my memory falters, it is my wife who suffers.

For months before our anniversary, I hounded my partner that I had found THE PERFECT GIFT. (Lest I sound like a total jerk, please know that my partner is obnoxiously Zen about gifts. Wave a gift in her face, saying it is the best thing ever, and she will nod, thank you, and be happy to open it tomorrow. Or next week. I, on the other hand, am like a kid at christmas. If she calls and tells me she got me a present, I wait eagerly and pounce on her as soon as she gets home. Even if I know the present is probably her lunch leftovers. Back to the story....)

This gift was going to be special. Perfect. (And did I mention she is hard to shop for?) I preened loudly, I bragged, I generally made a big huge deal about it FOR MONTHS. And then I forgot. Forgot what it was, forgot what it might have been, freakin FORGOT. I even forgot that I had an idea in the first place. It was my partner who reminded me, when I asked her what she wanted for out anniversary. I forgot so badly, that it didn't even sound familiar when she mentioned me making a big deal about it. Finally, a few days later, I remembered being a stinker about the bragging. But I still had no idea what item had started the fervor. I racked my brain. I journaled, hoping it would come to me. I tried to make myself dream about it. No dice. I was crushed, and for once, so was she.

Today, while looking online for something else, I found it. I had even bookmarked, although that particular link had expired. Now here it is 2 months after our anniversary, and I have the perfect gift. There is NO WAY I will remember this for another 10 months! So I am telling YOU. I am posting a hyperlink here. Which my love WILL NOT OPEN. And NONE of you will tell her what it is. If you do, I will know who it was, so don't even think about telling her. Got it? Good.

Now, we all know what she is getting next year. Except her. Because I suspect she is back in that annoying Zen state, and will be happy to wait 10 months for this gift with way too much build up.

I am guessing I will buy it and give it to her in January. Because there is NO WAY I can wait 10 months! Geez! As much as I would love a good Zen state in general, presents are a WHOLE DIFFERENT THING! Am I right? Betcha the Dalai Lama agrees.

Windows into his mind

Ah, my son, my son. My hilarious boy. We gave the kids the train table. As I predicted, Beebz is pretty uninterested, and Pablo is pretty obsessed (although not as much as I thought he would be). I thought he would use it to build models of area roads and to replicate maps, like he did with our little 20 piece train set. I thought wrong. Of course, this more complicated set came with instructions. The pieces are identified by letter. Therefore, (yeah, I know you see it coming) you can make chemical formulae by linking up the representative element tracks. Yeah, it is so obvious, why am I even blogging about it?! I don't think Sulphur and Carbon make anything in the real world, but at out house, they make a lot of excitement. He has also settled into more conventional things. He is building roads in Cambodia. Like you do.

Who can ever guess where his mind will go? I mean, last night we were asking Beebz about her upcoming birthday. Who she wanted at her party, what kind of cake she would like, etc.

(I should mention that among my insane parenting obsessions is home making a cake for child birthdays that is representative of the child's favorite thing. For Pablo it has been: a castle, letter blocks, a calendar, a map of the world, and a trampoline. For Beebz, it has been puppies. Pablo continues to be easy. This year will be the periodic table. For Beebz, she loves lots of things, so choosing the one representative thing is pretty difficult.)

She really wants a Fisher cake. Fisher The Lovely Years being her current favorite album. um. An album. huh. So, we were asking her about other favorites, and she suggested babies. Babies do meet all the criteria for being a birthday cake theme, but... who wants to cut into a baby? My partner and I sat there speculating on ridiculous ways to make a baby cake (including making "babycakes": lots of little cakes... Beebz does like a good pun!), when Pablo piped up with his suggestion: a mama ACTUALLY GIVING BIRTH to a baby. With the baby coming out of the birth canal. Cause nothing says "Happy 2 year Birthday" like genitalia on a cake.

We settled on a moon cake. I think you can see why.

Who knew mouth to mouth worked on computers?! Now would it work on my wrist?

Yes, it turns out that sometimes by removing the hard drive and blowing on the pins, new life is infused into an old computer. So I am BACK IN BUSINESS!!

My computer is fixed, but sadly, I am broken. I apparently have carpal tunnel in one (or two) of my wrists. My hand falls asleep while I am knitting. Both hands fall asleep while I am sleeping. I keep telling them that's redundant, but they don't seem to be listening.

I went and got a brace for my worse hand, and it seems to be helping. The weird thing is that my partner and some friends seem to think I should stop knitting or crocheting to let my wrists rest. huh. They haven't looked at a calendar. Hello? DECEMBER?! Hannukah? Christmas? Solstice? What are these people thinking?! I have presents to finish. Hell, I have presents to START! There is no time for resting. This is the time to play through the pain, dude. This is my Olympics.

I am not, however, unreasonable. I will stop working on anyone's present if they explicitly tell me to stop that project. See? I am at the height of reason. (If a person doesn't know I am making something they can't stop me tho... hehehe.) After the holidays I will give it a rest. After I make myself another pair of socks....

For now, I will sign off. It kind of hurts to type....

Gift Insanity

Well, I am doing it again. Sort of. I have more projects than I will be able to complete before xmas. The stress is not in finishing them, though. The stress is that I WANT to be knitting but have this cute little side kick who thinks staying up half the night is oh so fun. Last night it actually worked out well, since she let me knit, but usually she wants actual attention while we are not sleeping. My knitting time (read that as my ME time) has been cut down to almost nothing and boy do I feel the lack of it. sigh.

In other news, I am stressing about xmas presents for the kids. I want to get Beebz a dollhouse, and have finally narrowed it down to one: Plan Toys My First Dollhouse. Understand, the narrowing down was a harrowing process fraught with stress and strife, all made more complicated by the fact that I couldn't just go LOOK at all of them side by side.

In addition to looking for new ones, I am looking on ebay, since you can get so much more bang for your buck. I love the idea of recycling toys, and getting something gently used seems much more kind to the environment. And my pocketbook. Of course, the problem with ebay is that there are all these good deals that have tons of extras, but are more than we wanted to spend. Of course, we can put away some of the furniture etc for later, but the money part still goes out now. Also, ebay is stressful. I rarely win auctions, since people are more than happy to spend more on ebay than things would cost NEW on amazon. Argh.

So that means new, right? Part of me loves the thought of getting a brand new dollhouse for her, with just one set of furniture, and letting the house evolve, getting more rooms and accessories as gifts over time. But inside me is a little kid who thinks that instant gratification is WAY more fun than accruing stuff over time. Hence the stress.

What to do? Get used that is tons of stuff at once (and more than we really want to spend) or be mature and get a little at a time?

Oh, and did I mention that we found an amazing train table on craigslist while looking for something else? We know the kids would love it, and we will buy it if we can. So should that replace the idea of the dollhouse? I mean, those are both pretty big items. hmmm. I will say that when we went to the toy store yesterday, Beebz sat and played with the dollhouses for a LONG time, but she then went to the train table and had a blast. My partner thinks she would like the train table more, but I disagree.

It is a quandary. And I have no idea what to do. I bet it would all be more clear if I had more knitting time.

In memorium...death bytes

Alas, my laptop has died. It is a tragic loss, and currently irreplaceable.
Ah, what can I do? Access the internet mostly in my dreams, I suppose.

To take my mind off those woes, I would now tell cute stories about my children
but I can't remember any off hand. I promise there were several times I thought:
I need to remember to blog this! Since I had no working computer handy I had to
rely on my memory, which I think we all know is shot. But I just can't seem to think
of anything. Huh. Cute stories are in there somewhere...maybe you could access
my imagination through the internet?