2013: Year of the Cream Puff

The best thing about 2012:

The first day of 2013:

Ringing in 2013 was a pretty tame affair around here. Second in tameness only to New Years 2003 when my brother Nick and I were in Edinburgh for the "world famous" Hogmanay festival and we did not realize that there would be NO BOOZE for sale AT ALL and so we froze our sober arses off wandering the streets and looking for the widely publicized but highly elusive Boy George concert. At midnight we were hugged and kissed by random kilt-wearing strangers who reeked of scotch while Boy George relived his glory days on a giant screen above us. We never did find that concert- drunken Scots aren't the most helpful or easy to understand in such situations. 

Since Brent and I had no swanky New Years party to attend this year, I insisted that we have at least have a special dinner to commemorate 2012. A special dinner where everyone complained about the veggie tart and both boys spilled their water within thirty seconds of each other.



And yet I was still determined to make it SPECIAL and so we made Jack eat his obligatory five bites and loaded everyone into the familymobile, heading to Sweet Life for dessert. Brent and I shared a slice of raspberry cheesecake because we are romantic like that. Sawyer opted for mango gelato because he is random like that. But Jack, well, Jack has a problem when it comes to dessert. After some panicky indecision and a brief lecture on why buying him an entire cake was out of the question, Jack settled for a chocolate cream puff that was roughly the size of his head.


 

My mom was a sucker for stray cats. We had A LOT of feline friends come and go when I was a kid, but I remember one cat in particular because he was feral. We would amuse ourselves by feeding him little pieces of lunch meat and watching him freak out, hissing and spitting and yowling as he greedily devoured his treat lest anyone tried to steal it from him.

And that is, sadly, exactly how Jack ate his cream puff. The people sitting around us were trying hard not to stare as he grunted and slurped his way through that giant pastry, smearing chocolate on his face and cream on his jacket. Brent and I were totally embarrassed. "Dude, slow down. Can you even taste that?" Brent asked him. I swear I could hear Jack growling as he continued to stuff his face with that cream puff. This was seriously one of the most disgusting things I have ever seen in my life and Jack earned himself a new nickname that night.

Once we got Cream Puff and Nelson (think Simpsons) home that night, Brent made them put on their headlamps and go run around the block to burn off some of the sugar while I put Clementine to bed. They each fell into a diabetic coma soon after. 

So we then spent a quiet evening drinking beer by the fireplace and watching Downton Abbey. There were no trips to Urgent Care and no one was hungover the next day. So yeah. Being old and lame is actually kind of cool sometimes.

I do have a resolution for 2013 and it's all thanks to my friend Doris, who is also the fairy godmother to my children. Despite my lousy track record with this sort of things, I think I just might be able to make this one stick. My resolution is to do more thrift store shopping! In the past six months I have scored so many sweet deals that I don't think I can ever go back to real store shopping. I will NEVER again pay retail prices for things like athletic shorts or soccer cleats. Snow gear? Helmets? Board games? Check. Check. Check. Patio furniture! Cast iron cookwear! Little pink sweaters! MY GOD, THE LITTLE PINK SWEATERS! I could go on.

 (I paid $8 for this Lego table! I think it has saved my sanity. Well, as much as it could be saved. At least I am not stepping on Legos anymore. $8!!)

Hopefully my resolution will end up saving our family some money. So we'll have more to spend on things like cream puffs. Or insulin. Or scotch. Happy 2013!

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Christmas Booty

One last photo op before we took down and hauled out the tree today. It's always kind of depressing to box up all of that holiday cheer but the house feels fresh and clean and bigger today than it has in weeks.
 

It was a warm and cozy Christmas with fondue and fireplaces and family. Late nights and big meals and two little boys who were beside themselves with excitement over the whole thing. Chicken hats and cannelloni, a replacement weed whacker from a grandma who believes in second chances and lots and lots of Star Wars stuff.


 
 

 





 I did manage to finish the jammies, bit by bit during the days leading up to Christmas Eve. A seam here. A seam there. Then when we realized that Clementine didn't have a stocking and so I quickly sewed her a sweet little doll. She will get her stocking next year, if I remember in time. Poor third babies really get the short end of the stick, I am realizing.

 She is such a good baby. We became somewhat alarmed two weeks ago when she got fussy. I think we might have PTSD from Sawyer and all of his screaming for the first FOUR MONTHS of his existence. But Clementine was just gassy and once we figured out that she needs to belch like a beer guzzling frat boy after each feeding, she has been much, much happier. All smiles for dad and the hint of a giggle for big brother Jack.

I am going to go out on a limb here and talk about something that no one wants to talk about. I have a pretty good idea of who my readers are and who might be offended by this, but I am willing to risk it. Friends, family, friends of friends, family of friends (hi Connie!), coworkers, former students (who knew Mrs. Ross likes to say the F word so much?), random perverts who googled "hippie nudists" or "naked pee pee boy" and got my blog, and others. But I am going to do what has to be done here.

Today we are going to talk about my butt.

(Oh sorry, did you think we were going to discuss gun control? Maybe next time.)

In case you have never noticed (please tell me you have never noticed!!), I have no butt. No booty. No junk in the trunk. No cushion for the... Well, you get the idea. In addition to being unattractive, my flat butt is also the source of some serious discomfort for me. Remember my falling down pants? This is a battle that I fight on a daily basis. No belt can keep these britches up for long. It's a constant tugging and squirming and sagging. Not pretty. I am not even going to tell you about the underwear situation because I still have my pride. Barely.

No jeans were made for the buttless. Shopping for pants, jeans especially, is an absolute nightmare for me and whoever has been dragged along to discuss back pocket positions and embellishments and whiskering and which wash is most flattering. And this is an exhausting conversation because NO JEANS EVER LOOKED GOOD ON MY FLAT ASS. Ever. So then I hang my head in defeat and buy nothing.

But that's not all! No padding on my posterior means I cannot sit for long on wooden chairs. I start wiggling around and have to sit on my hands until those pointy butt bones cut off the circulation to my fingers and then I have to be that weirdo who is standing around at the back of the room during the staff meeting.

You know that they have butt implants, right? Instead of getting a boob job, I could get a butt job. 

Let's segue, shall we? I promise we will talk about my butt again real soon. Our friends always host a wild New Years party in their awesomely cavernous Victorian era house. This gathering often results in a horrendous hangover and/or stitches in Brent's forehead. This year they had a Christmas party instead and made it a white elephant gift exchange. Now I am usually pretty bad at this sort of thing, but I found canned spotted dick at Fred Meyer and was feeling good about my white elephant contribution.

It was one of those games where you can steal other people's gifts a certain number of times or whatever. Instead of paying attention, I was wearing a sleeping baby and nonchalantly hovering over the hors d'oeuvres table, stuffing my face while the game was being played. Brent played our number and got some sort of slot machine liquor dispenser which would soon be collecting dust in our garage. There were boisterous shouts and peals of laughter coming from the living room as the game wore on. Meanwhile I kept on eating Cheetos. Suddenly I heard Brent shouting my name, an eruption of hysterics, and he came bursting through the door triumphantly waving a little black victory flag.

Only it wasn't a flag at all. Brent had stolen a spanx-style butt enhancement garment! We were now the proud owners of padded underwear!

And now, because I apparently have no shred of decency left, I will post pictures of my butt on the internet. Mentally prepare yourself for what you are about to see.

I know, right? I KNOW. 

(I had to ask Brent to stitch the photos together like this. When he finished I wanted him to put a before and after label on each one. "Uh, I'm pretty sure you don't need to do that," he replied.)

So here's to 2013! The year my pants will finally stay up. (I hope you got everything you had ever wanted for Christmas, too.)

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Christmas Stuff, the Encore

I have spit up stains on both my shoulders. I have not left the house for two days. I am wearing sweat pants and I just picked a piece of candy cane out of my hair.



Christmas is in full swing around here. Brent and I have been pulling some late nights hard at work drinking seasonal beers and watching Downton Abbey. Having a baby has forced us to slow things down around here. Christmas will be simple this year, and I am thinking I like it better this way.

Now that Clementine is getting a bit older (almost 8 weeks already!), I've begun to realize that my maternity leave just might be my only opportunity to visit the boys at their schools. I popped in for Sawyer's preschool class's holiday singalong. There he was, front and center, wearing a reindeer hat and singing and dancing his little heart out. It was just as cute as you think it would be.

The next day I braved freezing rain and ridiculous parking to attend Jack's school assembly. He didn't see me there, standing in the back, trying to keep Clementine from howling along to the music. There were Christmas songs in French, a troupe of ukelele playing 4th graders, and then the entire school jumped to their feet and danced the Macarena.

(The entire school except for my kid, who stood awkwardly with his hands in his pockets and looked like he couldn't wait for it to be over. Don't worry, we've been practicing at home. Sawyer's Macarena is coming along nicely, and Jack's isn't half bad. Predictably, mine still sucks. Kate?)

I couldn't help but notice an armed police officer at the assembly. And I guess he was there to make us all feel safer, but it just made me sad. I've been thinking about those kids in Connecticut a lot. It's hard not to. I sent my kid off to school that morning, just like those parents did. I wonder if they hugged them goodbye. Was anyone angry? Feeling rushed and yelling at their kids? Had I been nice to Jack that morning as I helped hustle him out the door? Did I kiss him and tell him I loved him? Before I had kids I could have heard about this kind of tragedy and simply thought, "Those poor people" and gone on about my day. But having kids has changed me and now I can't not walk around with a heavy heart as we all try to understand this horrible thing. What a fucked up world we live in.

But my kid did come home that afternoon and I hugged him and loved him and reminded myself that this is now and will never be again. Now is, really, all we have.

 



We humans are a resilient bunch, which is a good thing since we do such atrocious things to one another. I think, though, that I don't want to "get over" this tragedy. I think I want to carry it with me, in a dark corner of my heart like a secret, so that I remember to hug them as they walk out the door each morning. So that I take their hands when we cross the street even when they are old enough to do it on their own. So that I hug and kiss them. So that I always remember to love them.





Jack is in charge of his own presents this year. He made a pair of pink flannel pants for Clementine, but a gift for Sawyer was proving to be more of a challenge. I was trying to help him by asking what he thought Sawyer was into. "Well, he likes Legos. He likes candy." I told him that I didn't think he could afford Legos and reminded him that we'd be making peppermint bark. "I know! He loves One Direction! Let's get him a One Direction CD!" And of course you know that this is the PERFECT gift for my little pop music junkie and just leave it to his big brother to figure it out. I knew Brent could absolutely not tolerate an entire CD of One Direction and so I convinced Jack to make Sawyer a mix of his favorite top 40 hits. It's going to be gawd awful, but Sawyer will LOVE it.



Santa stopped by our house and terrified the children. It was really, really, REALLY hard to keep a straight face for this.

 

We had another visitor this week... Amberlee! I was excited enough to stay up past my bedtime to surprise her at the airport. Then Clementine was excited enough to wake up in the middle of the night and demand to meet her. Babies sense important people.



This slower paced and simplified Christmas has given us more time to just be with our friends.



Friends who know the perfect gift to bring from Washington DC (yes, that is a Lego White House!). Friends who will gladly make you your first (and possibly only) Irish coffee of the season. Friends who are really more family than friends.



They say that the greatest gift we can give to our children is our time. I think the same can be said of our friends.

 

So Merry Christmas, friends. Let's have an Irish coffee together. Or brush up on our Macarenas. I will even change out of my sweatpants just for you. Please tell me if I have food stuck in my hair.

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Christmas Stuff

The first non-rainy Saturday of the season found us loading the family into the family mobile and joyously caroling our way to the Christmas tree farm to find and cut the perfect tree.

Ha.

Actually we drove 20 minutes with a screaming baby, then briefly lost one of the children at the Christmas tree farm before our failed attempt at a holiday themed family photo shoot. But we did end up with a pretty decent tree.

We NEVER get family photos taken, and while usually I am happier behind the lens, every once in awhile it's good to cram everybody together and try to coax simultaneous smiles from your children. You know, for the sake of posterity.

Take one. Jack! What the hell are you doing?

Take 2. Dad is on to you. Knock that shit off.

Take 3. IDLE THREATS! IDLE THREATS!

Take 4. Oh fuck it. Nevermind.

So yeah. Christmas cards. They might be late this year. But let's focus on the positive! The tree is nice and fragrant and full of Christmas spirit and all that. Also, it has not fallen over yet, so that's a plus.
 

Guys, get in front of the tree for a picture! What the? I don't even. Grrr. Sigh.

But I do love this picture because, well,  way to capture the moment, Brent. The dishwasher is always running. A kid is always blurring his way past me. The living room is always trashed. My pants are always falling down.

I bought Sawyer these shorts at a thrift store for $1.50. They are gigantic on him and it is December, but that doesn't stop him from trying to wear them every day.

We let the kids decorate the tree by clustering every single ornament at eye level and then Brent and I adjusted things once they were in bed. As we meticulously rearranged the tree over pints of Sleigher, I began to notice that we seem to own a lot of odd and downright ugly Christmas ornaments. Also, I am pretty sure my mom saved every single ornament that my brother and I ever made and let me tell you, artistes we are not. What to do with all of these non-tree worthy ornaments?

I started to put them back into the boxes and then I stopped. I have saved a lot of my mom's things. Some of it is sentimental and important, but some of it is just stuff.  And even though it was valuable to her, I have my own kids' ornaments to save now. The truth is, no matter how many boxes of dusty memorabilia I hoard in the attic, it won't bring her back. I can close my eyes and remember the sound of her voice and the smell of the perfume she wore when she went out dancing with my dad.  No hand painted ceramic stocking ornament that I made in 1986 is going to change that. And so I let go. I cleaned out that box of ornaments with the enthusiasm of spring cleaning. It felt good.

I didn't stop there. While Brent took the kids up to Lake Creek to see the salmon jumping the fish ladder, I cleared out the closets, heaped a gigantic pile of clothes on the kitchen table for donation, and bagged up just about anything in our house that hasn't been used for the past year.



I paused when I came across our collection of board games. Some were easy to toss, too complicated, missing pieces, too many pieces, etc. But then I got to the Sorry game. We've always played Sorry as long as I can remember and I was in possession of my family's original game. The box was long ago broken, repaired with duct tape, and then broken again. The plastic player pieces went missing longer ago than I can remember and have been replaced by beheaded Parcheesi men. I am sure the deck is missing cards. But my family spent countless hours playing this game, splitting sevens and cursing those backwards fours. On the day my mom died, Nick and I played this game over and over and over again simply because we did not know what else to do with ourselves.

I read somewhere that you should photograph items that are sentimental before you give them away.



But then at the last minute, as Brent loaded the car for the Goodwill run, I just couldn't do it. I don't know why, but I just had to keep that game.

(Can you guess what I found in the depths of the hallway closet?? My fucking passport. OF COURSE. FML.)

Okay, one more try, guys! Let's all practice for our Christmas card photo shoot!

Getting closer. Just have to get you out of those Halloween shirts and then well be... wait! What are you doing? NO! Stop that right now, you guys!

At least Clementine finds them amusing. For now.

Cleaning out your closets and hauling away some of your emotional baggage is a good way to start the holiday season. I now have room in my life for a new tradition: Christmas candy! Mary and her sister Susy taught me the Wagner Family Super Secret Candy Recipe. It was an honor.

 

There will be a bit of nostalgia this Christmas season. The holidays are always sad when someone is missing, no matter how long it has been. But this year I'll also be making fondant and dipping chocolates and making room on the tree for my kids' ugly handmade ornaments.

And playing Sorry.
And getting a presentable Christmas card photo.



That one might take awhile.

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