Conversation between Aidan and me after dinner the other
night:
Me: Aidan, please come wash your hands and face off. No one likes sticky hands during battle.
Aidan: I’m not
Aidan. I’m Jenga Fett.
Me: Alright, Jenga. Please come wash off.
Aidan: Do you want me
to shoot a toxic dart at you?
-pause-
Aidan still hasn’t washed off.
Me: AIDAN MICHAEL!!!
Aidan: Okay! Okay!
Christmas time tends to become very full and overwhelming, so in recent times we’ve taken it upon ourselves to become very selfish on Christmas day and go absolutely nowhere and do absolutely nothing all day except lounge around and gorge ourselves on candy and junk all day. This year was no exception to that tradition.
Here are some of the highlights:
Santa brought some goodies in the stockings. Alex is holding up his very own summer
sausage (I know it may seem weird, but if you only knew how much Alex loves
that stuff). Aidan’s special gift is
self-explanatory, I think.
We pretty much did nothing all day (mission accomplished!). Alex and I did sit down for an intense game of Battleship at one point, though. He surrendered after his forth ship was sunk.
My favorite part of Christmas day is You-Call-It supper. I let everyone pick what they want and then cook it all up in a bizarre sort of feast. This year’s theme was “Breakfast Supper with a Twist”:
Pancakes—chocolate chip; because there isn’t any other kind in our house
Smokey links- 2 packages
Scrambled eggs with cheese melted in them
Biscuits and home-made sausage gravy
Breakfast pizza- topped with eggs, sausage gravy, salsa (‘cause it’s yummy on eggs), and lots of cheese
Fish, baked potato, and salad (That was Steve’s request—naturally he couldn’t just have gone with the whole breakfast theme. He apologized and said he would have eaten it, but I knew that he really wanted fish, so being the nice wife I am and all…)
Quite the feast. Not a lot left over. The breakfast pizza was actually really good. There wasn’t any of that left. After dinner, I felt guilty, so I ran/walked three miles on the treadmill. Awesome day—no family drama to deal with, no blood (unlike last year when Aidan hit his head and bled for about an hour), not too many fights between the boys. The only thing that I had been looking forward to and didn’t get was a fire in the fireplace (I forgot to get wood). But overall, a very merry Christmas indeed.
My husband set up our email so that all junk/ spam gets immediately sent into the trash file, but still it’s fun to go in there just to read the subject lines (though I DO NOT open them, Husband, so DON’T WORRY).
Of course, there are the links to porn: G!rlW!thHugeT!ts, ILikeP^$$y (I love the “creative” ones that use all sorts of symbols in their titles—so impressive). But then there are these other ones; the ones that want to sell you on going back to school. Yeah, right-- like I’m going to think to myself upon reading the subject line, “Become an Educator/ Classes Start Now” , oh yeah, I think I’m going to be a teacher. Let me give them my credit card number right now!!
I have a friend who is thinking of going back to school to become a dental hygienist. She started her search online to find schools in our area that offer the program. She called one and they told her that it was only going to take 11 months to complete the course and that it would only cost $1100. What a steal! When she asked how many of their grads found jobs afterwards, the woman said they had no way of monitoring that. I think at this point the red flags would have gone up for me, letting me know this is probably a (obvious) scam. After that, I guess the lady asked my friend for her credit card number, which thankfully, she declined to give her.
I also have received a couple lately that have to do with forensics: “Forensics training—be a real CSI” “Have a CSI career”. Ooh, gross. I guess they think that since people like the show (myself NOT included), that people will automatically want to play in the stuff for real. No thank you.
I think the only way I’d ever (potentially) be sucked into one of the on-line scams is if it's subject line said something to the extent of “Win Free chocolate for a year-- only $1 to enter drawing!” or “Trade your Children for a Year’s Worth of Swiss Chocolate”. Maybe, just maybe, then I’d consider it...
Between last night and this morning, we received our first major snow for the winter. I think we got around 5” of snow and about a ½ inch of ice. It’s while being home, watching the weather unfold outside of my nice, warm house that I’m truly thankful I didn’t have to go out in it, driving over an hour each way, to work nightshift. I remember those nights and can honestly say the nightshift differential is NOT worth it.
Friday night, I risked life and limb and ventured over to Walmart to do the big bi-weekly shopping trip. I don’t usually go out grocery shopping that time of the day because that is typically when everyone and their brother also go out. But, I couldn’t help it—we were out of pretty much everything, I knew that I was going to have three extra mouths in the house to feed (we watched our friends’ kids overnight for them), and Mr. Weatherman was predicting several inches of snow between Sat. and Sun. As I expected, everyone in our town was there, and so I found myself parking in the very back row of Walmart. Then, I grabbed the first cart I came to in the parking lot (because carts are at a premium on Friday nights, I’ve noticed), and headed right for the two top priority items on my list: bread and milk. I couldn’t believe how many people were hording the milk. Dude, you don’t really need five gallons of milk to last you over the next two days, do you? And the lines to check out were INSANE—I mean, it’s one of those times you just sorta settle in for the long wait with a People mag you borrow off the newsstand and actually read it front to back while waiting.
Today, I have to take Alex to a Christmas party one of his friends is having. At first, I thought about telling him that I didn’t think going out today would be such a great idea, but the longer I stay home, cooped up in the house with my kids, who are also starting to climb the walls, I think maybe it won’t be so bad after all to run out. I figure I’ll head over to my favorite store (take a guess where I’m talking about), pick up a few things (because even after the $200 I spent the other day, I still managed to forget some stuff), meet up with a friend for a drink, then get Alex and will have the “antsies”out of my system.
We still have the daunting task of shoveling out the driveway (which I’m truly dreading). We have to get it that before tomorrow, when Steve has to go back to work (because even though I have 4-wheel drive, he doesn’t). Steve volunteered to do it by himself—I just may let him.
Here are a couple pictures I took today once the sun came out. It’s so pretty—I know it will only look this good until the kids get out in it later today and mess it all up:
This is what I found stored in the Microsoft word files:
Explode kaboomee shiny thingy go by-by gone. WALA-WALA KOOIE-
I so can't wait till he has his first girlfriend so I can show her his "creative mind".
The other day, I went shopping with a friend, leaving the kids with Dad to fend for themselves for dinner. This is the conversation that Steve told me went down while they sat eating their spaghetti.
Alex: So, you know when it’s thundering outside, I make myself feel better by just pretending it’s other things. Like God’s up in heaven, bowling.
Aidan (who apparently thought this should be his two-cents worth to the conversation): Well, when I want to talk about my penis in public, I use the word “privates”.
?????
Steve: Well, you probably ought to watch who you’re saying that around.
Aidan: It’s okay, because I say “privates”, not “penis”.
I can’t wait until the next parent-teacher conference.
Anyone who knows me even remotely knows that I LOVE chocolate—I pine for it the moment I awake and it continues throughout the day. Now, I don’t sit and eat chocolate all day (because I don’t think even the treadmill could keep me from gaining 300 pounds). I just think about it often... like, every-other second.
I have been known for having my afternoon “chocolate therapy” (especially needed at work or during extra-stressful times), which consists of either Dove chocolate or M&M’s and a Diet Coke. And I can chalk up one of my most-favorite gifts I’ve ever received as the one year that Steve bought me my very own box of Godiva—20 pieces of heaven all for me—that I promptly sat and ate in one sitting… and didn’t feel the slightest remorse about. Even as I write this I sit, indulging in my afternoon “therapy break”, M&M’s in one hand, Diet Rite in the other (because, you know, I shouldn’t drink too much caffeine in one day. That would be really bad).
I’m always on the quest for “new” chocolate. I like “pretty” chocolates—ones that are
aesthetically pleasing to look at. The
Godiva chocolates fit that category.
Even the Target “fancy candies” are nice to look at (though don’t taste
as good as they look, in my book). Since
my mother-in-law brought back Swiss chocolate a couple years ago, I’ve become
sort of a chocolate snob. The nasty,
chalky chocolate that you find at the Dollar Store just doesn’t cut it after
you’ve had the real stuff from cows that have grown up eating grass from the Alps
(yes, I know chocolate has cocoa in it, but it also has milk in it, too).
So, if anyone is wondering what I’d like for Christmas, I
will always take something rich and chocolaty (hint hint). I don’t really need anything else… and why
not put that treadmill to good use, right?
Recent dinner discussion between Aidan and Steve:
“In which episode did Darth Vader die?” asked Aidan.
“Episode 6.”
“Which movie did Darth Maul die in?”
“Episode 1, I believe.”
“That’s correct.
Which episode did Count Duku die?”
“Episode 3.”
“When did Han Solo get frozen solid?”
“Episode 5.”
“When did Count Duku escape?”
“Count Duku didn’t escape.”
“Yes he did!! I heard
him.”
Sidenote: Aidan became mock-offended while watching me type
this and tried to backspace it to erase it—it didn’t work.
Last Sunday, I broke down and went to Toys ‘R Us. “Why?” you may ask. Temporary insanity? An urge to play with fire? No, coupons drove me to do it. I had two coupons that would save a good amount of money off the DS that my older son wants so desperately that he can smell it. After purchasing the DS, I received a $10 gift card, which I planned on using toward the game he also wanted (please understand, I DO NOT normally haul out this much cash on Christmas for one child, but these are the only two things he really wanted and he came to an understanding with me that Santa DOES have a price limit per child and this would be it), I found the game and walked back over to the cashier to pay for it. She turned off her light right after I got to her register, but a family of four still got in line behind me (like she was going to just be all “yeah, sure, I’ll go on break 15 minutes late so I can ring up your CARTFULL of stuff”). After the cashier told them that her lane was closed, they got nasty with her then CUT IN FRONT OF THE WOMAN IN LINE BESIDE ME. Even while watching all this go down I was thinking to myself, “Oh no, they aren’t”. Of course a fight breaks out between them and the woman (in front of the couple’s children, none the less—great example for the kids, Mom and Pop). I, not one to really want in the middle of the mix, left as quickly as possible. While walking out of the store, I looked back through the windows to see someone (security? manager? in-store psychologist?) “talking politely” with the parties involved. This is a classic example of why I start Christmas shopping in September and try to be done by December.
Now, last year, I did venture out the day after Thanksgiving and it wasn’t bad. My friend, Jyl, picked me up at 5 or 6 in the morning (I can’t remember what time exactly—I just remember it feeling like the middle of the night) and we headed out to the Castleton Madness. We had a game plan, though, which I think is key to making it less painful. We knocked out all our shopping by noon and were home in time for lunch.
I watched this year as people were lining up in front of Best Buy the night before. One man was being interviewed and said that he’d been there since 10:30 am, Thanksgiving Day (WTF?). I can just see it—he probably called his family and had them bring his turkey to him. Whatever. Not worth it, people.
This year, Jyl and I ventured out again. But only to two stores. And we didn’t start out at an ungodly time, either. We started out around 7 (anyone with children knows that isn’t considered that early), hit Kohl’s and Walmart (naturally—wouldn’t be shopping without my favorite store), and then went to Cracker Barrel. We were home by 10:30, and I was napping by 1.
Aidan’s newest obsession has been with Star Wars (I know that some of you can relate to this, as that you’re married to obsessed fans). I like Star Wars, too (at least the “originals” that came out back in the 70’s and early 80’s). But, unlike my younger son, I couldn’t tell you exactly details from each movie (except episode 3, which Aidan has not been allowed to watch yet).
Here’s a sample of our many
discussions lately on the topic of Star Wars:
“You remember when Padme and Anakin got married in Star
Wars, episode 2, Momma?”
“Yeah, okay?” (I start wondering silently where this is
going)
“Well, (hands on hips, expression of “duh, Mom, you are sooo
stupid” on Aidan’s face) you told me that kids can’t marry their moms.”
“Yeah, and Padme isn’t his mom—Anakin and Padme are Luke and
Leia’s mom and dad.”
“Oh… Well, then who is Anakin’s mom?” (Another exasperated "duh" look from Aidan)
“I don’t know. Some
other woman, I guess.”
“Pst.” (Followed by
Aidan stomping off, hands on hips)
Clearly another area in which Mom is inferior to Aidan’s
supreme intelligence.
Side note: Steve, my
husband, corrected a couple of the names’ spellings for me. Isn’t it scary how that DNA passes down
through the bloodline from father to son?
I know a couple of you out there who recently have had boys. All I can say is that this is your future as
well and you have no choice but to embrace it wholeheartedly.
