Christmas Happened All Of A Sudden

Ohhhhh Hi!

Right. Christmas. Christmas was good. Busy, fun, tiring, my daughter and husband were sick but that seems par for the course. If one’s family can get by with only 50% of the household being sick then they are doing well. Admit it – half of you guys had someone hacking away too. The Canadian Christmas!

In truth I may sound a bit cynical but the fact remains that we are blessed. As I count out our blessings for my son’s benefit – health, a warm home, food, love, family and security I have to remind myself of my blessings too. A happy marriage, a healthy son and daughter, and a fulfilling career. I might grumble occasionally but they are just daily grumbles of the regular stuff.

Henry and I were watching TV and a commercial came on for a relief agency in Africa. I was going to switch the channel but thought it might do him good to see what others lack. Henry was struck so much and asked if children didn’t really have clean water, medicine and food. He immediately said, well what are WE going to do? This isn’t right. I told him about Foster Parents Plan and other agencies and how when I was a child we sponsored one boy in Korea and another in Sierra Leone. He was very adamant about doing something, now, immediately. I realized another blessing then. That as challenging Henry can be, as sometimes he seems a lot more work than other kids and much more highly strung, that as long has he feels empathy and compassion that in the long run he will be just fine and hopefully he can help others along the way.

Happy New Years! 2008 – My kids are going to freak when they are older and find out I was born in 1968. I guess we must have rode horses to school. Excuse me while I go muck out the stables.

Christmas Thievery!

Christmas is such a wonderful time of the year. The get togethers, the classics on T.V., the food, and this year lets add theft. Dammit what a drag. Thomas was out at a Christmas lunch with his boss and other co-workers at the KEG yesterday. (The Keg – yum.) A server came to their table and asked if one of them was Thomas. Turns out two cars had windows broken in a smash and grab. The police had been called and ran my husbands plates through their system and came up with his name.

The thieves made off with his laptop computer, his contact book, our GPS system and a very large amount of gift certificates from The Future Shop. Also in his contact book was some bank info re credit and debit cards. Lovely! Doesn’t that make you want to curl up by the fire?

Quickly he called the bank and shut down his cards. That’s always fun when Christmas shopping has to get done. I had to hightail it from my office Christmas get together so he could jump in my van (yes, a van. Very soccer momish, I know but I like my van). He had to go to Future shop in person with the numbers from the gift cards – they can’t shut them down over the phone. I think that’s pretty ridiculous. It turns out that the certificates were cashed. Wily thieves. I only hope they used the money to buy some poor kid an X-box.

Thomas spent the night on the phone and the police are checking surveillance for the time the thieves cashed the cards. No doubt it will be a kid wearing a hoody or a hat of some sort. We hold no real hope of them being found.

Well we won’t let this get us down. Yet the inconvenience of getting a new window (and not using insurance because it only hurts to use the insurance you PAY for) and Thomas getting a new computer up and going isn’t a lot of fun.

On a totally unrelated matter (and much lighter!) I had a conversation the other night with Thomas about the things you find yourself saying when you have children that you never thought you would ever say. Invariably these sayings are always prefaced with a “please don’t”. Here are some examples:

“Please don’t sit on Alex’s head”
“Please don’t lick my ankles”
“Please don’t kiss your sister’s nudie butt” (Now that’s a good one to use to embarrass my son at a later date.)
“Please don’t dance on the fireplace”
“Please don’t use your fingers to eat rice”
And the one I REALLY never thought I would say,
“Please don’t press your bacon against my wine glass”. Really - it’s a whole new world sometimes.

Enjoy your X-Box whoever you are!!!!! Merry Christmas !

The Dreaded MAN COLD

This morning as I was getting ready for work, Thomas came into our bedroom with a loud sniff and moan. I asked what was wrong and he sort of whined that he had a cold. Except it sounded more like, “I hab a code.” I commiserated with him for a bit and then he said, “You don’t get it. I’m a MAN! I’ve got a MAN cold!”

He then re-enacted the whole latest Youtube video about the man cold.

Imagine this in a hoarse whisper, “I called for you! I called Steeeeephaaaanie! Steeeeephaaanie! And you never came. So I called 911.” “Go and get me a bell. Get me a bell and whenever I ring it come to me immediately and rub my head and say, “poor little bunny. Poooooor little bunny.”

I offered to get him some cold medicine and he scoffed at me, “Cold medicine doesn’t work! I’m dying here. I’m dying here and no one understands, not even the makers of Nyquil.”

I reminded him of last Christmas when I had pneumonia. Once again he scoffed, “Woman pneumonia is NOTHING like the MAN COLD.” “Get it through your head woman!” “This is truly awful!”

I then suggested that if he was so sick then he wouldn’t be up for any “romance” this weekend. He replied, “I SAID I was sick – Not Dead!”

Heh.

Hard Times In the Holy Land

It’s almost Christmas now so we are kicking into high gear. Henry’s school is also revving it up as he goes to Catholic school so they are all over the Nativity. Last night Henry and I watched a Christmas video he got from the library that was about the birth story of Jesus. It was very strange in that Vincent Price was the voice of King Herod and I kept thinking about Michael Jackson’s Thriller – the best music video of all time. So we snuggled up on the couch and watched the wise men, the shepherds, the star etc. Henry had a running commentary throughout the whole video that was hilarious. In no particular order here are some things he said: “Jeez, you think the son of God would have been born somewhere better than a lousey barn.” “That Herod guy was so bad. I bet he got tons of time-outs as a kid.” “Imagine having to run away to Egypt so your baby wouldn’t be killed. I guess they lived in a pyramid till Herod died” My favourite line of all was, “Wow, poor Jesus had a tough life eh?”

Henry became very concerned about Jesus last Easter. When the class was told about the Passion he totally got into it. “Mom, can you believe that bad soldiers put a crown of thorns on Jesus’s head and then they LAUGHED at him?” He didn’t mind so much about the crucifixion as much as he did about the whole laughing thing. I guess as a Kindergartener, one of the worst things to happen is to be laughed at. This is closely followed by being called a “baby”. I also find it interesting how we don’t let him watch Power Rangers or Mutant Teenage Ninja Turtles yet his school is very down with the detailed blood and violence of the murder of our saviour. Good times!

Chloe was looking at our manger the other day and I thought I would get a head start on her religious instruction. She kept pointing to Jesus so I said, “Say baby!” She happily yelled “baaaabeee!” I said, “Say Jesus!” She yelled, “CHEEESE!” I said, “No, no, Baby Jesus.” She really got into it and kept yelling, “BABY CHEESE! BABY CHEESE!”

Dear god. Now Henry has decided that this is quite funny and is singing Christmas carols about the little lord Cheese asleep on the hay. Gah. Yesterday at breakfast I cut up some cheddar for Chloe and she muttered under her breath, “Yummy, yummy, Baby Cheese.”

Sorry Jesus – Hopefully things will be better next year.

Stealth Shopping

Just to be clear I must tell you that I hate shopping. Yes. I HATE SHOPPING. I know this is quite different from most women but I think I suffer from shopping dyslexia or something. Don’t get me wrong, I love new things. If I could have someone go to the stores and bring me the new things I would happily pay for them. I cannot stand malls, stores, salespeople and polyester. I am sure that I am a huge disappointment to my entire sex. Sorry Ladies. I am deficient.

My girlfriend Ollie is my go to girl for shopping. Just the other week I told her I needed a nice top for a Christmas party. She was very specific and detailed. “Go to Danier as they have really nice v-necked chenille mixed sweaters on sale for $45.00. They will look great on you and will wash up really nicely.” Guess what I did. I went to the mall and walked directly into Danier. I tried on the sweater and bought it and was back in my car in under 15 minutes.

Christmas exacerbates the whole shopping phobia thing. Thank GOD for the online shopping or I would lose a nut. Last night I HAD to go to a mall because my husband’s company Christmas party is this Friday and I had nothing to wear. I don’t mean this in a sort of “oh everything in my closet is tired and worn” sort of way but in a, “I’m a size 4 and all of my clothes are a 9 or 10 sort of way”. I was totally pissed. I tried on dress after dress hoping something, anything would fit so I wouldn’t have to go to the dreaded mall of death. Alas, no.

So I girded my loins (who really does this nowadays – sumo wrestlers?) and headed to Sherway Gardens. I was on a mission and there was to be no dilly dallying. I had to get a Christmas dress for my daughter and one for myself and I wanted to hit two stores and two stores only. No browsing (again I hate to browse) just in and out like a finely tuned rescue mission. I first hit the baby gap and instantly found Chloe a dress. Black velvet, empire waisted with a grosgrain bow at the front and a taffeta skirt. Please don’t start on me with the whole, little girls shouldn’t black shenanigans because my daughter has reddish hair so pink or red looks crappy on her. The black will be great. Found the right size, checked out and it took less then ten minutes. Rock on.

I next hit Laura Petite’s because I am not the tallest girl in the world. Okay I’m 5’4” in the morning and 5’3” by the evening. Sue me. The saleslady copped on to the fact that I was focused and determined to get “the” dress. I grabbed about 4 dresses in my size and went to the fitting room. Why why why do fitting room lights always make you look like shit? If I ever had a store I would get all Barbara Walters with the lighting to make everyone look fantastic. I put on the first dress and zipped it up and walked out to get the saleslady’s opinion because I am a fashion retard. She said it looked great and I sort of thought so too. Okay DONE! She was shocked – “don’t you want to try on the others?” Nope, like this, looks good, I can go home – done deal. In hindsight I also bought the first wedding dress I tried on. I’m highly decisive. Need a decision? Give me a call.

I checked my watch and was pleased. Both dresses bought in under 23 minutes. Woo. I know I should have stayed and done some Christmas shopping but I HAD to leave. This is an interesting phenomenon. I’ve heard of Agoraphobe’s who won’t leave their houses but I’ve increasingly become a Mallophobe who hates malls and stores. It’s funny because I go to tons of other places with lots of people and have no problems but ask me to shop and I freeze up. Most of my grocery shopping is now done through grocery gateway now as I hate going to the supermarket. As I mentioned earlier, 90% of my Christmas shopping will be done online. This is all rather alarming.

As George Bush would say, “thank you for the internets.”

Roughing It.

It was a rough weekend. Okay that’s a lie, a big fat lie. The weekend was a lot of work but let me tell you when work is done in such lovely surroundings it really isn’t that tough. Especially when you find yourself sleeping on million thread count sheets. I’ve been spoiled for life now. Once you’ve been to the "city" in terms of sheets it’s very hard to go back to the farm. Now I know what Oprah is going on about when she won’t stop talking about sheets. I’m thinking of giving up eating for a month so I might have a set of sheets like these.

I won’t go on about the weekend because it wouldn’t be of much interest but old Montreal certainly is beautiful in a way that Toronto is not. The dining experience is different also. We had a dinner that began at 7:30 pm and did not end till almost 11:30. Five small courses plus coffee served in a way that makes food the main event – not something to have before going to a movie. Even though all of this sounds lovely, I cannot tell you how much I missed my husband and little chicken pox children. I felt like such a heel leaving when they were clingy and whiny and under the weather. I mean the children, not my husband. Ahem.

The good news is that I did not die in a plane crash as we flew in a six seater turbo prop to and from Montreal. I was mildly concerned that something might go wrong as we flew through a snow storm in Montreal and on the way home flew through that freezing rain. It was quite an experience and I would do it again in a heartbeat. My husband did want to inquire if it was possible for me to get extra life insurance for two days. Nice eh? I told him if I died he could marry a curvy 27 year old. He was mortified. "God no! She'd want to have more kids!". Hee.

Another good thing is that the kidlets were well on the mend by Sunday night and Henry reported that he was crusty now so he could go back to school on Monday. YAY! Also Monday is our parent teacher interview. BOO! I KNOW he has trouble concentrating. I KNOW. Yet I must hear it again. It’s so hard because you know this is all done out of concern for the well being of your child but what I tend to hear is , “You are a shit parent!” “This is ALL your fault!” “You have screwed him up for LIFE!” “Why don’t you DO something to FIX this?” I swear to god I will never get all Judgey McJudgerson on another parent again (okay that’s a lie – only sometimes if the parent is really truly crap.) Sometimes you do ALL the right things and try everything yet it doesn’t affect the type of change you want to make.

Am I alone here? God!