Nice little cliff-hanger I left there, huh? I bet all four of you who still read this blog of mine were assuming that I had shanked an elf and lay rotting in a cell after attempting to shoot my way out the employee entrance to the mall. But no! We got our Santa photos with no drama, and got out alive. I think we even went out to a nice breakfast afterwards...the details are foggy after all the recent holiday festivities.

Truth is, I took a two week vacation from work and in order to keep myself honest (and vacationing) I kept the computer turned off. Same with my cell phone. Once the twitching stopped, it was downright refreshing.

Now, with less than 24 hours remaining, I'm slowly getting myself used to the idea that I'll be back in the saddle, bright and early tomorrow. I'm thinking I need another week or two, but you know, schools, work... they aren't as flexible about these things. I'm pwned by The Man.

With the kids out of school for their winter break, we spent the few days before Christmas in a frenzy of familial togetherness. They baked cookies with my mom and dad, and we hooked up my husband's present - digital cable, finally - and watched 700 hours of television and movies as it rained softly outside. Christmas Eve, we spent the evening with my parents at their home, and opened a few gifts, and shared a nice dinner. My son made his "famous" lasagne, which was well-received by the whole gang.

He's a funny kid, very sensitive and eager to have people notice his contributions. I understand that, being a middle child myself, with two vibrant siblings on either side of me. Except the whole sensitive thing - that's all him. Anyway, having a signature dish to prepare has put quite a bounce in his step. I might do a special recipe video blog for it in the near future.

Christmas night, my oldest placed three Tiger's Milk bars and a glass of chocolate almond milk for Santa and some celery for the reindeer. I tried to convince her that the lovely cookies she helped make would be a better plan, but she insisted. Santa needs some protein, apparently.

All night, the kids struggled to fall asleep, excited by what the morning would bring. My oldest came to sleep with us first, fretting that she couldn't fall asleep and worried that Santa would pass us by. My son and youngest came next, and Christmas morning dawned with all five of us crammed in our king sized bed. We made it until 6:30 this year!

The kids were thrilled with their gifts, and as usual, it was hilarious to see which of the gifts really made a huge splash. My youngest practically hyperventilated over a grocery-store plastic jewelry set. She spun in circles and trilled little bursts of song over it. Meanwhile, the new bike from Santa got a warm reception, but no singing or spinning.

After spending a quiet day at home, and tucking the kids in early on Christmas night, it hit me - this was the sweetest, most enjoyable Christmas we've spent with all three kids - and I think that is all due to the fact that my life is so hectic now that a peaceful couple of days with no fighting kids and no place to go and plenty of time to talk and relax and just be together made it a wonderful respite from the day-to-day.

I'm trying to decide whether to post about my New Year resolutions - it seems like the kiss of death. We'll see.

One of them is to post five days a week.

Posted by Jenny at 9:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) ||

Jenny: I still have to take the kids to see Santa because I believe in pushing things off until the last minute

Y: I still haven't bought half of my presents, so I KNOW. Have fun out there with all of God's people - try not to knife anyone because I SWEAR

Jenny: I know a side exit

Y: people are *ssholes haha. "side exit"

Jenny: In case I get overcome by The Spirit

Photos soon, if I don't shank anyone and have to make a break for it.

Posted by Jenny at 8:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) ||

Here we are, four sleeps away from Christmas morning, and I was feeling pretty smug about our gift choices this year. We told ourselves we were scaling back, making the holidays about the memories and the family and whatever it is that kindly, good people do this time of the year. Like, singing carols around the fire and enjoying each other - stuff you read about in novels - we were going to do that instead of opening a metric crap-load of presents.

And yet! Who just spent over an hour wrapping gifts - and has barely made a dent? Hint: not my husband.

I headed out into the cold (like 40 degrees - ARCTIC for this area) with my sister to do some shopping yesterday, and stumbled home 8 hours later with several bags of goodies and a belly full of Thai food.

Meiang Kam is the food of the angels. For reals, yo.

Posted by Jenny at 4:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) ||

The holidays are stampeding towards me like a crash of rhinos, and I'm realizing that I'm so busy experiencing all the festivities that I'm forgetting to record as I go. Blogging as baby-book, here we go:

We celebrated her 6th birthday with three days worth of celebrations. First, we brought doughnuts to her kindergarten class, and then had a family dinner of steak and baked potatoes and salad. Can someone explain to me why my kid loves everything about steak, and can look at a slab of raw beef and be all - yummmmmmmmmmm?

I NEVER cook red meat - maybe once or twice every few months, and only under duress, and yet my kid flat-out requests steak. It is the weirdest darn thing ever. We grilled a couple of steaks, and I baked potatoes, and made some popovers to boot. I had forgotten how much popovers rock. Go out and make yourself some right now. I mean it.

Anyhoo, after clearing away the dinner dishes, my parents and sister joined us for ice cream cake. It was really lovely. It cracked me up that the kid wore her paper crown for three straight days. I should really get her a rhinestone tiara as much as she enjoyed it - but then again, I think maybe I'm projecting and I should just ask Santa for a tiara of my own.

The following morning, we headed off to the local Pump It Up to join my daughter's classmates for a party. The kids all jumped until they were exhausted, and the moms and I flailed around in the combat arena, while the dads played some air hockey. The party itself was fine, but once we got into the party room, they had cranked the temperature up to 80 degrees or something and it was like a sauna. We threw some cupcakes at the kids and opened presents at light-speed.

My daughter was thrilled to receive a Perler bead kit (which my friend Kim had called to ask if we already had - and then said, "You'll LOVE them," cackled manically and hung up on me when I said we didn't - because a bucket of 5,000 beads the size of salad macaroni... well... we haven't managed to upend it yet.) She also got a colored hair streaking kit, which hello! I'm totally going to be streaking my hair now. I know the gifts aren't about me, per se, but I think I'm being a smart parent testing it out on myself first. Right?

There were other really thoughful gifts, and I'm thinking Christmas is going to be pretty anticlimactic because we're really scaling back this year.

My oldest had her first sleep over guest this month too - she's spent the night elsewhere, but I've been reluctant to reciprocate, because I'm lazy like that. The girls stayed up until 11:30, painting toes and fingernails and giggling.

The following morning, we went to cut down our tree with my daughter's friend in tow. I took a bunch of photos that make it look like we were having a delightful time, but my youngest and son were throwing tantrums the whole time. A year from now, I totally won't remember, and you can't tell from the photos, so we're good.

I'm currently sitting on the couch with a crackling fire in the fireplace, all three kids curled up watching a holiday special on TV and I'm looking at the little ceramic village that my grandmother painted for me before she died. I was never close to my grandmother - in fact, we had nicknamed her "Grambo" due to her aggressive personality. Yet every year when I pull out the little village, there's a twinge of memories, and I know that she made these for me (and all of the other women in my family) as a special gift. She loved the holidays, or so my mom says. And so I set them on the mantle, and think of the grandmother I really didn't know well.

At this sleepy time of year, when the days are short and the year is coming to a close, surrounded by keepsakes and traditions, it makes me wonder if I'm doing enough now. Will my children have doubt about my feelings? Will I be spending the last years of my life painting keepsakes to pass on, in the hopes that I'll be remembered during my favorite time of the year?

You know what I need? Some eggnog. I'm getting way too philosophical. Although perhaps one day I'll have a good answer why I've hung up 6 stockings for my family of five, plus two for the pets. Hint - I have no plans to add to the family, but it looks more balanced, and I haven't really got any clue other than that.

Posted by Jenny at 10:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) ||

It dawned on me and my kindergarten-attending daughter at the same time: today is Wednesday, and we haven't done diddly with the class mascot, Lucky the Leopard, and we've got to manufacture some quality family-bonding with the stuffed animal in the next 24 hours, or Lucky's week at the Lauck house is going to read like a real snooze-fest in the communal journal.

We brought the bag home with the little fella on Monday, and put him on the couch. So, I mean, technically, he's watched me whoop some little-kid butt in Wii Lego Star Wars, and he's witnessed the dog chewing on her butt a few times, and has caught a few episodes of Mythbusters. That's not nothing.

I flipped through the previous journal entries. Oh great. The other parents took the stuffed animal to the grocery store and to the dentist and to the beach and to San Francisco and to all sorts of places. I turned to my scowling daughter and said, "Well, we can use our creativity and imagination to enhance our time with Lucky!"

"You mean lie?"

"Um, no. Embellish!"

"Mooooooo-ooooom!"

I made her take it out in the yard and push it down the slide twice. Whee! Lucky totally had fun with that.

I also caught the dog trying to sneak off with Lucky in her mouth and pulled off a rescue. My dog likes to chew button eyes off of stuffed animals. That and she likes to chew on her butt. I am sure I can weave those details into a scintillating tale appropriate for a 5-year-old audience. They like anything to do with butts, farts and underpants.

I've finally tucked the kids in for the night, and shoved Lucky under the covers next to my daughter. She's oblivious, but we can totally write that she slept with him - which is another common theme in all the other entries.

Shoot. I'm going to go extract him from the bed and give him a ride in the washing machine. All those cooties - ick.

So - let's recap. We went from nothing to observing the natives, learning about science (maybe, depending on the episodes) being snatched from the jaws of certain dismemberment, some righteous butt chewing and butt kicking, a few harrowing drops down the slide of doom and now some white-water rafting. I'd say Lucky's having a great week.

Posted by Jenny at 9:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (10) ||

I'm having the hardest time getting anything accomplished since returning from the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. It isn't that I'm not moving quickly or attempting to do 9,000 things at once. Au contraire, I'm doing lots of things, really fast and it has the net effect of trying to use a leaf blower during a windstorm.

That's okay, though. I'm all hopeful and stuff. A good part of this optimism is due to the fact that my mom recommended a possible teenaged mother's helper for me, and I'm totally counting my chickens before I've even gathered the eggs here, but seriously, I've needed backup for over a year, and I haven't been able to coordinate it. The plan is to have her come over after school for a couple of hours so I can work in relative peace while the kids play and do their homework and master Wii games that I'm not interested in.

Here's the thing. I know other parents have help - but I've marooned myself on an island since my kids were tiny. I told myself that I could and should do it all without help. Even working full-time, a decision that should have made hiring childcare assistance a no-brainer didn't motivate me. I couldn't ever get the house company-ready clean enough to hire help for the kids or the house, or couldn't justify the expense of hiring a sitter, or didn't know where to start looking. I told myself that the occasional break provided by my parents would have to do, and continued to wallow in a lonely swamp of my own making.

And now, I've got the phone number for a possible mother's helper. (And the number of a professional organizer, too, but dude, just had expensive car repairs and property taxes. That is going to have to wait.) And even if this isn't the right mother's helper for my family, that torch has been lit. There will be help. Once again, my mom has delivered a well-timed boot in the butt.

Posted by Jenny at 4:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) ||

Oh, yes. Blogging. Riiiiiiight. All those NaBloPoMo folks are congratulating themselves, and likely taking a well-earned day off of blogging. Me? I'm blowing the dust off of this little corner of the 'net and am getting ready to share some minutia. Aw yeah.

I'm realizing that I totally botched an opportunity to have Christmas gift-giving managed easily this year by handing out copies of Sleep Is for the Weak
to family and friends already. I'm going to have to fall back on the kids' school portraits, or maybe a bunch of cookies because we're keeping our holiday gift giving to small, thoughtful gifts this year- especially for the grown ups. And nothing says thoughtful like cookies, right?

In a slight departure from my normal drill, I've actually invited children to my youngest's 6th birthday with a full two-weeks notice. Go me! We might actually have some kids attend this year. December birthdays sort of suck, I think. And of course, my spoiled little dahlinks don't need a single thing, so trying to find a "wow" gift is really an exercise set up to fail. She wants a bike for some reason - baffling really, since I don't think she actually wants to RIDE a bike. No, she just wants to have one.

I think they get this from me, actually. My oldest was like that too, wanting to take riding lessons but totally not wanting to ride the horses. I like the concept better than the reality in most cases. I don't know what that makes me, besides pathetic. If only I could wrap up concepts and place them under the tree this Christmas.

In new developments, I had a mole removed from my thigh in October and the darn thing is still all purple and scar-looking. I am ready for it to heal already. It's not infected, but it looks way more dramatic than the mole did. All this is making me leery, since I have sprouted some sort of little skin tag or mole on the inner corner of my eye. You wouldn't even notice it if I didn't point it out, but it is bugging the crap out of me, I want to get rid of it, but I'm worried that any surgical improvement would result in a big purple blotch where my eye used to be. I've got an overactive imagination.

Let's see - overactive imagination and favors concepts over reality... any wonder why I am so comfortable on the internet?

Just add in an imaginary pony and a cool nickname and I'm all set.

Posted by Jenny at 10:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) ||