Christmas 2010

I had planned on posting about our Christmas right after it happened.  Reliving the joy of the day.  Writing about the sheer excitement C had when he saw all his gifts under the tree.  Feeling a little bit self-satisfied as I shared how he was so pleased with everything and more grateful than you'd ever expect a four year old to be.  (Due in huge part to how much time I'd spent sharing with him the reason we celebrate Christmas and how it's NOT about getting presents)  How the hubs and I cuddled on the couch sipping hot cocoa while watching our boy quietly play with all his new treasures.  Ha!  Hahahaha.  My idyllic Christmas morning blew up in my face the moment C opened his first gift and cried in the best nasal whine he could muster, "Awwww, but I wanted a big Batman set."  The whining turned to screaming and crying as he trudged up to his room.  He was allowed to come back downstairs when he had calmed down...to try again.  He finishes unwrapping his gift, revealing his new Batman rocking chair and says, "Awww, but I wanted a Batman couch or something."  Are you kidding me?!?  'Bedroom time' take two.  During this bout of screaming hubby and I exchanged our stockings.  When C came back down this time we told him that we were going to go ahead and eat breakfast.  "What about my presents?"  Well, we'll see what kind of choices you make during breakfast and then hopefully we can try again.  Repeat screaming and bedroom time.  We did finally have breakfast and C was finally able to open his gifts with an attitude that was acceptable.  Sigh.  What a failure I felt like.  I so badly wanted C to "get it" this year.  I wanted him to hear the wonder in the Christmas story.  To find joy in giving.  To realize how fortunate we are.  To be grateful.  Ok, so putting it in writing makes it seem like a pretty tall order for a four year old.  And it probably was.  But, at the very least I would have liked to have made it through Christmas morning without my child acting like a spoiled brat.  Later as I baked our traditional Christmas cookies all by myself C pretended to be Batman while webcamming with hubby's family.  His great-grandpa asked him who taught him how to fly.  And he looked up at me and pointed, "My mom, Batwoman."  Heck yeah I did.  I've taught that kid almost everything he knows.  Yeah, our day kind of sucked.  It didn't go as planned.  It was honestly pretty disappointing.  But, you know what?  God still sent His Son to save us.  And if I can teach my kid to fly, surely I can teach him that too.

Christmas Eve

Hubby and I opened our gifts after C was in bed.  We thought it would be better to do then instead of try to do it Christmas morning.  Little did we know what a great decision we made. ;)  Hubby loved his superhero "wrappie"  (the masculine version of a snuggie!) that my mom sent.  "This will be so great for playing video games!"

There's nothing sexier than a man in a snuggie....excuse me wrappie.

The fun begins...

...the fun continues...

...finally some smiles. :)

And more smiles...but these are fake.

At least his is.

Oh, wait there's a good one!  He does want to wear our matching Christmas aprons and bake cookies with me.  Or we just threatened to take away his new Batman toy if he didn't take a nice picture with Mommy.  Worked like a charm.

I got two super cute aprons from my Mom!  I figured I could change to finish up the baking... 

...He did!

And that was our Christmas 2010.  Not one that will probably be recalled with a ton of fondness.  But, it was ours nonetheless.  Ours to learn from and ours to cherish.  Because we are incredibly blessed.  And I'm not gonna let a little Christmas tantrum-throwing make me forget it!

Spontaneity!

I'm a planner.  I get flustered when curve balls are thrown my way.  Like this morning, when I was washing the dishes from breakfast in my pajamas and hubby came downstairs and said, "Hurry and get ready!  C and I have the whole day planned!"  What?!  What is the plan?  I haven't even showered!  Nobody's ready.  It's already ten o' clock?!?  Hubby looked me square in the eye and said, "You coming or not?"  So, I embraced the unexpected.  Threw on some clothes, grabbed some snacks, and ran out the door with my bacon scented hair flying all crazy behind me.  

 

And we had the best day.  We drove to Ocean City.  Which is literally a ghost town this time of year.  Pretty much just us, the snow, and a bunch of pigeons on the boardwalk.

Our reason for coming was the mirror maze.  A part of the Ripley's Believe it or Not.  While I was doing dishes, hubby was messing around on the internet and C saw an advertisement for it.  He asked his Daddy if we could go there and our morning was set in motion!

 It was really neat!  And a bit creepy.  We were the only ones in there, but my heart still jumped a little when I would suddenly see a group (my group!) of people appear.  We found our way out and then went back in.  We stayed and played in the mirror maze for a long time.  C thinking it especially fun when he and Daddy would sneak off and leave me to my own devices to find my way.  The funniest, and I would say saddest, moment came when C and I were looking for hubby.  We found him and once C had him in his sights he took off at a sprint, prepared to tackle.  However, he was unfortunately running straight for a reflection.  Really sad.  But, he was not hurt.  So, also really funny.  Just picture it.  You can laugh, it's ok.

After C had his fill of the mirror maze, we explored the rest of the museum.  You can't tell from the picture, but this tunnel was crazy!  It spun around you while you walked on the bridge and it felt like you were spinning upside down.

World's Heaviest Man. 1,400 lbs.

Shark Attack!

No paint was used in this picture.  It's made entirely of butterflies.

See?  Eww.

The bathrooms were full of jokes.  Including farting sounds.  Which C thought were hilarious and kept blaming on hubby!  When I went to leave, the door said "thanks for visiting our men's restroom."  And this door led to this sight, complete with sound effects...

With the exception of the mirror maze, I would venture to say that C's favorite part of the day was attacking us with snow on the boardwalk.

We grabbed a quick dinner and started the drive home.  About halfway there, I spotted lights as we were coming to the end of the giant Bay Bridge.  I was in the spirit for spontaneity after our successful day trip and I urged hubby to check it out.  We took the next exit and arrived at "Lights on the Bay."  A really neat drive-thru light display.

 

It was the absolute perfect way to end our little adventure.  We made memories today.  Thank you hubby for pushing me to embrace your spur-of-the-momentness.  I wouldn't have wanted to miss this.

Snowy homecomings

We had our first official snow the other day.  Nothing big, maybe an inch or two.  The next morning C insisted on helping me shovel (although I'd already shoveled the drive the day before...and the sun had already begun melting everything else)  But, he managed to find a spot I'd missed!  And he went after it with the windshield scraper.

 

 Here he is moving snow from one side of the drive to the other.  I guess next time I should let him help with the actual work.

 We picked hubby up at the airport yesterday afternoon.  We had to circle around about 4 times waiting for him to come out.  Each time C picked a different person that we should take home with us instead since Dad wasn't out yet.  "Hey what about that soldier guy?"  "Can we pick up that old lady?"  In the end he settled for his Daddy.

In honor of hubby's homecoming I decided to surprise him with a delicious meal.  I made cannelloni, which he often requests but I rarely make because it takes too stinkin' long to stuff the filling into those pasta shells.  I also decided to make this...

I can remember many times being asked to make this as he browsed through my recipe cards.  I always refuse stating, "That looks way too hard."

I rest my case.

 

 "Why are you making that dead fish?" 

Yep, even the four year old can recognize a failure when he sees one.

There has been a lot...I mean a LOT of running around crazy, and wrestling and "fighting" going on since this little boy's Daddy got back home.  Yesterday evening hubby and I were sitting on the couch just watching our little tornado tear through the kitchen and living room, jump on the couch, and then repeat the sequence...over and over and over again.  At one point hubby started singing "Roid rage" to which I started cracking up.  Mainly because I don't know that the steroids have really made that much of a difference. ;)   

 We love our little crazy man!

 He's the best gift we could ever ask for.  Har, har. :)

Proof.  He does know how to be still. :)

Everyday happenings for the hubby

Hubby informed me last night that I need to step up my blogging.  I told him I haven't taken any new pictures so I haven't posted.  To which he replied, "you don't have to have pictures."  Shocker, I know.  So, this pictureless post is for you babe.

* C has croup, again. :(  He woke up Monday night with that awful seal bark cough.  He spent the rest of the night alternating between coughing, crying, and blaming me for him being sick.  The doc put him on an oral steroid this time and it has worked wonders.  For the cough.  One of the side affects is hyperactivity.  She told me to give it to him early in the day because it would wind him up.  Just what my child needs...some extra energy.

* We made a ton of sugar cookies the other day.  Which I was planning on taking to our neighbors, but then thought better of it because my child would want to go inside their homes and play all while hacking up a lung.  Then the perfect idea occurred to me and I packed up those delicious snowmen and sent them to my brother-in-law overseas.

* We will be picking hubby up from the airport in about 30 hours!!!  He'll be home for two weeks for Christmas exodus.  So, so grateful to have him home for the holidays.

* We're going to see my sister this weekend.  (Assuming everyone is well!)

* It is bitter cold here.  And just as I did the last two winters I was in Kansas, I am mourning the loss of my Mississippi winters.  Oh, how I miss them. :(

* I may have broken my little toe last night.  In the most ridiculous way, of course.  Which is why I attempted to run on the treadmill in spite of the pain this morning.  I made it about half a lap.  It's also why I will not go to the doctor today.  It's just too soon to admit that stubbing your toe on the vacuum cleaner could actually cause legitimate damage.  But, man it hurts.  In the "hurts so bad I had a hard time sleeping last night" kind of way.  Here's hoping it improves!

* I need to do a "the things he says" post soon because C has been coming up with some great ones the past couple of weeks. 

***  We got an email from our adoption agency yesterday and our home study is officially complete!  It's been "unofficially complete" since September, which is when we were placed on the waiting list.  But, now the report has actually been written and notarized and they are sending us copies in the mail!  Which means it's time for me to start cranking out those grant applications. 

I know this was supposed to be a pictureless post, but this is how I'll know he read it.  "Why'd you put that picture of me on your blog?" ;)

Super

"Why are you getting super old?"

Huh.  And to think that up until that moment I hadn't really felt much of a difference between 26 and 27.

Cracking down and getting crafty

Oh my, oh my.  It seems we've reached another one of those "tough spots" in our parenting journey.  About a year ago C really began testing the limits (right around the time hubby left, hmm, how convenient)  I needed to overhaul my whole discipline approach and found lots of inspiration in a book called Love and Logic.  I put in a few hard weeks worth of work.  And voila...my sanity returned. ;)  It was pretty smooth sailing after that up until a couple of months ago.  (Funny how the beginning of the Christmas season seemed to spark our little one's "gimmie, gimmie" attitude last year...I see a very bad trend here...one reason why I put the grandparents on restricted gift-giving status this year...but that's beside the point)  To make a long story short, bad habits have begun to slowly sneak back in.  Mainly on my (correction, our part, I'm not about to take all the blame!)  :)  You know, give a warning, and because you're in public and want to avoid a scene, you give another warning and another...and maybe you even throw in a threat or two...followed by bribery...it just gets ugly people.  And before you know it your kid is getting away with way more than he should because you've decided to take the easy route.  No more!  I am getting back to my Love and Logic ways and nipping this in the bud before I've got a ten year old screaming and kicking his feet while I try to drag him out of a store.  And it's actually surprisingly easier to tackle something like this while doing the single-parent thing.  The consistency level goes way up when you've only got one disciplinarian in the house. 

In other, more uplifting news, C has been sleeping in underwear at night for about a month now.  And he's only had a couple of accidents.  I probably kept him in pull-ups at bedtime longer than necessary, but I was just not too keen on the whole 'changing the sheets/bathing the child at two in the morning' thing...especially because C still often finds his way into our bed in the middle of the night.  Um, no thank you.  Towards the end of every package of pull-ups I would tell myself that I wouldn't buy a new one.  I finally faced my fears when C himself saw that there were only a few pull-ups left in the box and said, "They're almost gone and then I can start sleeping in my Batman underwear, right Mom?"  It's gone extremely well!

I've been getting crafty lately.  My friend Grace and I had a little wreath making session the other day.  I'm pretty pleased with my creation!

Out of respect for Grace's self esteem, I chose not to post a picture of her finished product.  Let's just say I'll be sweeping up glitter for the next month thanks to her.

And as always, when hubby leaves for an extended period of time, I can't help but make some kind of change in the house.  Usually it's just rearranging furniture, but this time I went all out.  I decided to re-do our bedroom.  In the past I've always selected bedding/curtains/etc. based on what I think he would like too.  And really, he doesn't care.  I mean he puts on a front (like the other night when I mentioned some of my plans and he crapped all over them) but after he gags a little bit the first time he sees the new space, he'll get over it.  So, this time I decided to do exactly what I wanted.  No second guessing myself or "hmm, I wonder if hubby will think this is stupid."  I created a bedroom that makes me happy!  Because that's what a girl all alone for the next few months needs!  It's pretty and pink and obnoxiously girly.  And I LOVE it!  And because I know he didn't read a word of that, I'm posting some teaser pics for the hubby.  And cue call from hubby, "What did you do!?!"

I am not the only one who's been getting crafty lately.  Check out C in his new apron, compliments of Nana.

 He drives me crazy sometimes, but oh how I love this child.  So incredibly grateful I am to have him in my life.

Birthday Surprise

Hubby worked late the other day.  To make ammends, he offered to bring home pizza for dinner.  He showed up with more than that...

 We celebrated my birthday on Tuesday (since hubby will be gone for the real deal) :(

Me showing off my cake.  C showing off his photography skills.

 It's a nook color!
 Totally made up for that nasty grocery store cake he brought home. ;) 
And definitely beat the pants off last year's gift.