Category Archives: holidays

This Is Stan

Posted on by Stacy Swiger

Early in December I had my first encounter with a fan.  It was exciting.  Then it wasn’t.

Sheepdog and I brought all of the kids to have breakfast with Santa at our neighborhood clubhouse.  We go every year, even though the older ones complain about having to wake up early and put makeup and nice clothes on (duh… because everything after November 1 becomes a potential Christmas card photo-op).  Stop your griping and moaning and sit on the nice man’s lap, but anyone who is thirteen or older has to sit kinda off to the side.  Anyway…

The kids told The Big Guy what they wanted for Christmas and we made the ornaments and we ate the eggs and bacon and donuts and we smiled for all of the pictures, so it was time to go.  As we were herding the kids, I saw the new editor of our neighborhood newsletter across the room.  I asked Sheepdog if he would mind getting the kids into the car and told him I would be out right behind them.

I said goodbye to Mr. Editor and thanked him for another wonderful event, but first he introduced me to a new neighbor.  Well, first he told me I was “difficult to edit,” but that is beside the point of this story.  He told me the man’s name and then told him mine, followed by “she writes an article in the monthly newsletter.”

There was a pause followed by recognition.  The man said very nice things, but he didn’t make a lot of eye contact.  I was uncomfortable for a second, but then it dawned on me that maybe he thought of me as an actual writer and this was my first experience with an admirer of my blog, someone I did not know prior to publishing.  For just a second, my mind was whirling with dreams of celebrity and fame and universal accolades and recognition.  At almost the same moment, Sheepdog was finally done gathering our charges and putting on their coats and hats, so he paged me as he headed outside.

“Stacy, I am putting the kids in the car now,” as the door closed behind him.

Still smiling inside my perceived fame bubble, I started to excuse myself and tell the man that it was nice to have met him when he stammered out with palpable excitement, “Wait.  Was that Sheepdog?”

“Yes.  That was my husband.”  Snap back to reality.

“No way!  That was Sheepdog!  I love him.  He is awesome!” said the man, this time with lots of eye contact.

I guess he wasn’t my biggest fan.  Pop went my own fame bubble, especially when he added, “Sometimes I really feel for that guy…”

Hey-Girl-Ryan-Gosling-Blogger

Wish me luck for tomorrow…

Happy Birthday, Kid A!

Posted on by Stacy Swiger

Seventeen is the atomic number of chlorine.  It is the seventh (lucky) prime number.  When you turn seventeen you can see an R-rated movie or donate blood.  It is the year when Harry and the other wizards came of age.  “Seventeen” is a song by the band Winger.  And it is the total number of syllables in a haiku (5+7+5).

Today is Kid A’s 17th birthday, so this one’s for her…

Born in a blizzard.
Middle name rhymes with “fire.”
You made me a mom.
Parenting Experiment #1

Me with Parenting Experiment #1, January 1996.

Happy 17th Birthday, Kid A!

I love, love, love (most of the time) navigating this crazy, winding path of mother and daughter with you.  My birthday wish is that you will always remember what brings you peace and happiness, and that you make time for whatever it is each and every day.  I love you unconditionally, forever and ever.  xo Mom

Happy 2013!

Posted on by Stacy Swiger

Hello, friends!  Oh, how I have missed you all.  And I have missed writing my stories, but you know the drill… December is a big, fat, hairy beast.  And it defeats me every single year.  It is my white whale (Call me Five Baby Mama).

I did my best to make our holidays uncomplicated, yet memorable.  Full of quality family time, but not so much that we feel the need to move to a deserted island with no forwarding address afterwards.  I did the planning and decorating and shopping and wrapping and delivering in small increments all month long so I wouldn’t be stuck down in the basement at 2AM on December 24th with nothing but scotch tape holding my eyelids open while I tried to assemble some crazy plastic contraption with more parts than there are letters in the Chinese alphabet.  But December still got the best of me.

The kids started getting sick back at Thanksgiving.  I have hand-outs from our pediatrician with the following titles… the stomach flu, croup, infectious mononucleosis, and pneumonia.  Fortunately, there was no cross-contamination and everyone got their own special disease.  Trust me, that did not happen by accident!  And they were all sick at different times, so the “sickiness” seemed to last forever.  A big shout-out to Kid B for staying healthy!

Then came December 14th and my heart broke so hard and loud that I felt it on the outside of my body.  I don’t normally watch the news because it feeds my anxieties in a very unhealthy way, but no one could escape the horror story.  My tears did not stop falling.  They still haven’t.

Then came Christmas Eve and our new family tradition of Chick-Fil-A and peppermint milkshakes, and our old traditions of Sheepdog re-telling the story of Jesus’ birth and me reading ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas and putting out a note and cookies for Santa.  Our Christmas morning was full of smiles and hugs and Skype and wrapping paper and joyful noises.  We are very, very, very blessed.

Kid A asked Santa for a vintage typewriter for Christmas. The Big Guy delivered an awesome one with keys en Espanol

Kid A asked Santa for a vintage typewriter for Christmas. The Big Guy delivered an awesome one with keys en Espanol.  Click, Clack, Moo (egg nog).

Then, since I couldn’t manage to get out of it, we had Christmas dinner for thirty people at our house.  No, I’m not kidding.  We had to find thirty places for thirty heineys to sit and eat.  And we managed to pull it off!  So on the night of December 25th, Sue, Tom, Bonnie, Joe, Tooker, Josh, Stacy, Ellie, Braden, Molly, Abby, Cal, Cam, Keri, Charlie, Foster, Luke, Nora, Rob, Kelli, Wilson, Phoebe, Mallory, Quincy, Brandon, Becky, Brady, Cooper and Eden all listened (most without giggling, although Brandon always fails at this) as Reverend Bob gave the blessing.  Then we sat down and ate together and laughed and shared stories and memories and made some new ones too.

And speaking of holiday memories… one of my biggest projects this December came in the form of a request from my dad.

Many, many years ago, back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, he fell deeply in love with a girl named Sue Speed.  He loved her so much that he asked her to marry him when they were just nineteen years old.  And being a dumb boy, he did it in a fairly unplanned, unromantic way… in the backseat of a car, with his pregnant teenage sister and her baby daddy up front driving.  In the middle of the Cardiff Circle.  Luckily, Sue Speed loved him back so much that she said YES anyway, and they have been together ever since.

But my dad has always regretted not having proposed with more style (partly because my mom tells him he should).  So, this Christmas he had my cousin Ashley design my mom a fabulous new ring, with both old stones and new ones too, and he asked for his daughters’ help in planning a new and improved proposal that would knock her socks off.  And we did it.  We gathered together as many old (and some new) pictures of our family’s Christmas memories and I put together a DVD that showed them off and then featured our Top 10, with Number 1 being the lame proposal (which we so fabulously re-created using Rob and Kelli as “Uncle Bobby” and “Aunt Janice”), and at the end my dad turned to the camera and asked for a re-do.

We played the DVD on Christmas Day when all thirty of us were gathered together and at the end my dad walked over to my mom and re-proposed.  He got down on one knee and talked about everlasting love and still getting excited to see her when he was driving home from work every day and it was sweet and romantic and my mom thought he was nuts.  Luckily, she still loves him back so much that she accepted once again.

So, here for your viewing pleasure is the fruit of my labor and a peek into our crazy family antics…

And then I recorded the new proposal…

I am so proud to be a part of this big, goofball family.  I wouldn’t want it any other way.  Here’s to happiness and health in the new year.  Wish me luck in 2013…

The Holiday Wrench

Posted on by Stacy Swiger

I did all of the laundry so everybody would have clean clothes to pack.  I charged the pump so we could blow up the air mattress for somebody to sleep on when we got there.  I filled the gas tank in the truck so we could get up this morning at 3 A.M. and just drive.  I did a little early Christmas shopping for some bigger items so we could drive them up instead of shipping them.  I’m not even gonna start on the preparations that Grandma and Grandpa made in anticipation of our Thanksgiving visit… the shopping, the cleaning, the cooking, the “little” projects around the house.

Turns out they were all for naught, though, because we have kids.  And kids come with a cornucopia of wrenches that they will throw into the gears of our lives at any given moment.  And because of a sick wrench, the seven of us are all milling around our house in Georgia instead of driving somewhere along I-77 watching (or just listening to, if you sit in the front seat and can’t view the screen) a Disney-Pixar movie right now.

Exactly what we were trying to avoid
*photo courtesy of Google Images*

On Monday, Kid A came home from school in tears.  She was extremely nauseous and on top of that another girl in her lit class had written an essay about her (a very flattering one, not a mean one) that made her extremely emotional.  Since naps are my go-to cure-all, I immediately sent her to bed.  She felt a little better after that, but ended up not going to school on Tuesday because she got worse through the night.  She had a fever and didn’t have the energy to get off of the couch.  She was shaky and dizzy and icky, but I figured whatever it was would run its course and be gone after 24 hours.  So I kept on packing.

But by Tuesday at 5 P.M., while standing amidst 6 fully packed duffel bags (Sheepdog, of course, waits until the very last minute to pack.  He also feels the need to run every article of clothing past me as he does it, despite my insistence that I DO NOT CARE which damn shirt he wears to drive home), 7 winter coats, 7 sets of hats and gloves, 7 pairs of sneakers, 7 backpacks filled with charged electronics and books, a soccer ball, a football, a few baseball gloves and balls, the travel pillows and blankets, the sleeve of DVDs, the camera bag, the snack bag and the drink cooler, Sheepdog and I made the decision to cancel our trip.

The kids’ reactions were similar… all of them were very sad that they wouldn’t be seeing their Grandma and Grandpa, or their aunt and uncle and cousins.  Kid D started to cry inconsolably and he continued through bedtime.  Kid E was mad at me.  But I saw an ever so slight look of relief pass over Kid A’s face when she realized that she wouldn’t have to fake tough for ten hours riding through the ups and downs of the mountain roads while trying not to even think about throwing up even though she would have the Tupperware vomit bowl within her arms’ reach the whole time.  We would also be sitting right next to her the whole time, breathing her sick air and coming into contact with her cooties, pretty much guaranteeing that somebody else would have what she has for the trip home.  It was definitely the right call.

The next call I had to make was to my in-laws, who were vibrating with so much excitement in anticipation of our arrival that I could feel it through the phone lines.  Ironically, our trip to visit them earlier last summer was canceled on their end, as they were all dealing with some sort of plague that we couldn’t take a chance contracting, especially since Kid A’s boyfriend had just had a bone marrow transplant and was extremely immunocompromised.  I was scared that my mother-in-law would be furious or cry or have some sort of extreme reaction that would cause me even more guilt than I was already experiencing, but she was understanding and gracious and so sweet about everything.

So now we are all home.  We have the gift of an unexpected day with nothing much on the schedule.  Kid A is recuperating and we are all keeping our distance.  Kid B went to the movies to see Breaking Dawn Part II (which was AWESOME by the way… best of the series) for the sixteenth time.  Kid C and Kid D are running around in shorts outside playing some sort of bucket, snoochie boochie game.  Kid E is shadowing Sheepdog while he changes the air filters and applies wood putty to a broken door and generally performs a bunch of Sheepdog chores around the house.  I am going to take a much-needed nap.  And tomorrow, as long as everybody has been fever-free for at least 24 hours and nobody shows any signs of being sick, we will join two of my sisters and their families, as well as my mom and dad for Thanksgiving dinner down the street.

I sure hope nobody throws a wrench into that plan.

Wish me luck for tomorrow…

Ding Dong, Bitch

Posted on by Stacy Swiger

There’s this Halloween tradition in the suburbs called “Boo-ing.”  I’ve attached a copy of the note (go to http://www.beenbooed.com) that anonymous revelers leave along with the treats on your front porch, Ding Dong Ditch-style, that pretty much explains it all.  I don’t care how it came about; I simply find it awesome that people leave candy for me right on my front porch.  I hope that once day the girl scouts will start doing it this way with their cookies.  And I wish they would do it during the day instead of at night when all of my pesky kids are around to lay claim to the goodies.  But I’m also considering cutting my doorbell wire.

We got Boo-ed a couple of weeks ago.  It was dark out and Kid B had just come home from soccer practice.  The boys were already in bed.  I have no idea where A and C were… I tend to lose track of a few them as the night goes on.  Eh, they’ll come back home when they’re hungry.

I am a grouchy old lady, so I turn my front porch light off early in hopes that it will deter any late night visitors.  Most people ignore this, so I was not surprised when I heard the doorbell ring after 8 p.m.  Kid B answered it and proudly announced to everyone and no one that we got treats.  I just crossed my fingers that the boys (a) didn’t get woken up by the doorbell, and (b) did not inherit my sixth sense about chocolate being anywhere within a 50-foot radius.  Luckily, the boys stayed in bed.  Luckily, we had candy in the house (not for long!).  Unluckily, now we had a job to do.  The very next night we had to go Boo some neighbors.

“There are three things I’ve learned never to discuss with people: religion, politics, and the Great Pumpkin.” – Linus Van Pelt, It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (1966)

I don’t know if you have ever tried to do anything stealthily with little kids, but I can assure you it is next to impossible.  Remember, Boo-ing is supposed to be done anonymously so you have to leave the basket of goodies and skiddoo.  This created several technical difficulties for us.

Obstacle Number One: My youngest kids go to bed by 7:30, when it is still kind of light out.  That meant that our mission had to be carried out without them (yeah, right) or at dinnertime in the daylight with the hopes that the recipients take at least ninety seconds to get up from the table and come to the door, so we would have enough time to run out of sight after we rang the bell.

Obstacle Number Two: Little kids can’t run very fast, no matter how much you yell at them.  They aren’t very quiet, nor do they follow directions until they are given to them umpteen times.  They also don’t react well in situations of panic.

Obstacle Number Three: Who to Boo?  I never knew that these kids had so many “best friends.”  Where are these so-called best friends when there’s heavy lifting to be done, huh?  I immediately narrowed the list to one house.  Boo-ing rules be dammed.  This was going to be crazy enough once without having to do it again.

So with a basket full of Halloween candy and a “You’ve Been Boo-ed” note, we finally headed out into the pre-twilight to accomplish our mission.  The house we had agreed upon was at the end of our street so we decided to drive most of the way down for a quicker getaway.  But not in my (highly identifiable) XL truck.  We opted instead to take Kid A’s car, which fewer people would recognize, and hide it behind some bushes.  We mapped out a plan so that everyone got to partake in the fun, while also attempting maximum potential for a clean escape.  When we got to the house we saw that both parent’s cars were in the driveway and the garage door was open, indicating they were most likely at home.  It was on.

Kid A stayed in her well-hidden car, with both back seat doors open and ready for the quick getaway.  Kid C held Kid E’s hand along the front walkway so he wouldn’t have to maneuver up or down any steps (face plant on the concrete driveway, anyone?) during their escape.  Kid D had the biggest and most important responsibility of carrying the basket to the porch and dinging the dong.  I stood at the end of the driveway to watch everything go down (that’s when I realized that Kid B wasn’t even with us… oops).  After a minute or two of absolutely nothing I whisper-yelled to Kid D, “Ring the bell, dummy, so we can ditch!”

Several things happened at once.  Kid D jumped off the porch.  Kids C and E spun around to hightail it out of there, but C was giggling and E got confused and ran in the wrong direction.  D and E collided somewhere along the driveway, but they quickly recovered and everyone headed for Kid A’s car.  They made good time, but they were so pumped up from their caper (or the body slamming) that they went in one back door and exited the other one.  Twice.  Finally, I was like, “Get in and stay in!” and we sped away.  With Kid E in the middle back seat yelling, “I’m not hooked!” I asked Kid D if he heard them coming to the door after he rang the doorbell.  His answer, “I don’t even know if I actually rang the bell.”  Awesome.

******************************************************************

This morning parents and kids were in our driveway waiting for the school bus.  Today was also my day to drive for pre-school carpool, so Kid E and his friend were running around all of the elementary school kids.  They kept running to our front porch and then back to me, laughing hysterically.  When I asked what they were doing, Kid E announced to everyone (in his little boy, lispy speech) that they were “practicing the ‘Bing Bong Bitch,’ I mean the ‘Ding Dong, Bitch'” so they would be better at it next time.  Double awesome in front of a school bus full of kids.

Wish me luck for tomorrow…

Let Them Eat Cake

Posted on by Stacy Swiger

Making breakfast every morning is not so bad, especially since most of my kids can pour their own cereal and milk.  I will even occasionally make them an omelette or cheesy eggs or pancakes when it strikes my fancy.

Making sandwiches every afternoon can sometimes get my goat, especially since I have to line up the bread in assembly line fashion, 14 slices at a time.  But I still spread the peanut butter and stack the turkey breast and cheese with love, because lunch lady duty is certainly not the worst chore in the world.

Making dinner every night is what sometimes makes me vexed, especially when I plan and shop and prepare and chop and sauté and grill and boil and toil, only to be met with insulting commentary from the peanut gallery.

“Can I have a sandwich for dinner?”
 
“What’s that smell?” followed by a gagging noise.
 
“What’s for dinner tonight?  Can I stop and pick up something because I’m REALLY hungry?”
 
“Is there any leftover pizza?”

Ingrates.

But my favorite thing to do in the kitchen is bake.  I just love making cupcakes and cookies and pies and muffins and cakes.  Especially the cakes!  I love the smells that fill the house and I love flour on the counters and the perfect sweetness of a really good vanilla extract.  I learned my mad baking skills from my mom and from her mom as well.  They showed me how to sift flour and to grease a pan and to whip cream into perfectly stiff peaks.  They taught me to bake bread and pie crusts and fill cream puffs, all made from scratch.  I learned how to flavor and spread real icing, drizzle chocolate melted in a double-boiler, and how to make art come out of a pastry bag.  The rest I have learned from watching hours of cooking shows and even more hours of trial and error.  There is little that can make me so happy as a cake made and decorated in my own kitchen to celebrate someone I love.

As I have struggled with my stupid thighs and general time management over the years, so I have used mixes and canned shortcuts and cheaters, and even foregone the desserts altogether.  It was just easier that way.  I bought finished products right from the grocery store.  It got the job done, but it just wasn’t the same thing.  Oh, how I have missed real baking.  I missed it so much!

Kid E contributed the last quality of “A Good Friend.”  Cake is awesome.

I recently rediscovered the love and I started baking again.  This time around I mix the old school with a few shortcuts, and I try not to sample the goods as much.  I also try to have a reason for baking… holidays, birthdays, rainy days, PMS… you know, something legit.  We celebrate five family birthdays throughout the month of September, two in this house alone, so I have had an excuse to bake until my heart is content.

Kid E’s 5th birthday came first and he let me bake him the moon.  I made 24 cupcakes to bring to his school, a traditional double-layer round decorated cake which we used to sing “Happy Birthday” to him on his birthday, and an additional 24 cupcakes to “have around.”  What?  Cupcake Emergencies are a real thing.  I even let him choose icing colors and decorate his own cake.  It was fabulous.

“Happy Birthday” written out by mom. Lego guys (one on a chain), Super Mario character with a broken wing, Double X-eyed guy, blue plastic bear, and a “See No Evil” monkey all added by Kid E.

When Kid B’s 14th birthday rolled around, you’d think that I was all baked out, but no!  I was on a roll.  Bring on the sheet cakes, bring on the fancy decorations.  I set aside a day just for baking on the weekend prior to her actual birthday.  My mixer and my spatula were ready.  I was about to explode with the baking love.  I even offered to try making icing roses (if she wanted a girly cake), or an icing field that looked like actual grass (if she opted for the soccer theme).

So, I guess it was predictable that teenage Kid B asked for an ice cream cake from the store.

Sigh.

I definitely feel a Cupcake Emergency coming on now.

Wish me luck for tomorrow…

Mother’s Day Tea

Posted on by Stacy Swiger

Today was very important for Kid D.  He woke up vibrating with excitement and secrecy.  He put on his best dress shirt and tie.  He has been working hard for weeks preparing for a very special Mother’s Day Tea, which his first grade class held this morning.  It was a Very Big Deal.

Since I was invited and all, I got out of my pajamas dressed up and headed over to the elementary school for the festivities.  Every year the first graders put on this show in order to make their moms get all sappy and sentimental and to watch them cry in public.  I mean, they play “Wind Beneath My Wings” as background music, for cripe’s sake.  There is always plenty of sweetness and love and lemon pound cake and itchy dress clothes and video cameras and it is just totally awesome.

This year did not disappoint.  One smooth operator wore a tuxedo!  The kids all sang “Puff the Magic Dragon,” which is a much sadder song than I ever remembered (P.S. I looked up Honah Lee and it is a fake place.  I’m bummed.)  They also each wrote and read aloud a poem with the theme “I Love You More Than…”  The kids this year included standard things like “video games,” “the chocolate chip pancakes you made me for my birthday,” “our trip to Disney World,” and “our dog, Mutley.”  But my favorite this year was when one little blonde girl said “I Love You More Than… Dad.”  I couldn’t help but laugh out loud, even though I don’t think she actually meant to say that.  It was part of another sentence or something but the way it actually came out was truly awesome.  I wanted my kid to say that.

Puff, let me introduce you to my friend, The Giving Tree. Tree, this is Puff.

There were little notes and drawings and pictures talking about moms posted all around the classroom.  There was a whole wall of mom portraits obviously drawn by the kids.  For some reason, we all looked very angry in those renderings with scowls on our faces and nobody could tell which one was supposed to be them, but they were still cool.  Then there were these Runaway Bunny-style short sentences.  You know the book by the Goodnight Moon lady that has a petulant little bunny rabbit who tries to leave his mommy and every time he says he’s going to morph into something to get away (a rock on a mountain, a fish in a stream, a sailboat), his mother always adapts into something that can catch him (a mountain climber, a fisherman, the wind).

This was Kid D’s version:

If you are the baseball bat, I will be the player who hits a home run with you.

Well, hmmmm.  Now most of us are well-versed in baseball metaphors.  With that in mind, his project seems dirty, right?  I will acknowledge that my brain has permanently set up camp in the gutter but this seems pretty wrong.  It actually sounds like something Sheepdog said to me just last week.  I can tell you emphatically that baseball to Kid D is just baseball, but with his father being straight outta West Virginia he can’t be playing fast and loose with words like that.

Wish me luck for tomorrow…

Over the River and Through the Woods

Posted on by Stacy Swiger

The holidays can mean different things to different people.

To the young child it may mean that their parents will dress them up and drag them all around town, and if they have been a good little boy or girl this year they might have a Hot Wheels wall track or a pink LeapPad Explorer waiting for them under the tree on Christmas morning, Santa willing.

Hey Santa! This is number one on my wish list... an inflatable remote control flying shark. Awesome, right?

To the young couple it means spending lots of time with each other’s relatives, usually with excess stress and excess food and excess alcohol, all the while making whispered promises to each other that their lives will never, ever resemble those with whom they share those inextricable genetic links.

To the parents of teenagers it may mean being able to enjoy the Christmas Eve church service without (as much) fear that it might be their child who drops the taper candle during the congregation’s rendition of “Silent Night,” thus setting a pew or a hymnal or an old lady’s wig on fire.

To the grandparents it may mean a renewed spirit, and seemingly new eyes through which they get to watch the next generation experience the innocence and unguarded joy of believing in flying animals and toy workshops and true, untainted Christmas magic.

I have been running around for the past month like a crazed (yes, even more than usual) lunatic, slowly but surely crossing things off my To-Do lists, which were constantly being extended and amended and created anew.  I have been planning and shopping and wrapping and baking and decorating.  Sheepdog has been traveling for work all month, right up until he flew home from California on the 22nd.  The kids have all participated in their classroom parties and team celebrations and gift exchanges.  Then yesterday the seven of us piled into the car and drove well over five hundred miles to be with Grandma and Grandpa in West Virginia.  We are all still swirling around, caught up in the glorious enchantment that reaches its pinnacle tomorrow morning.

This afternoon we will finally slow down as we come together to spend time with even more family.  Tonight we will watch a reenactment of the birth of Jesus at a family friendly church service in town.  Finally, when the kids are just about to burst with anticipation, Sheepdog will read ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas and everyone will eventually fall into bed.

In theory, Christmas is supposed to be about simplicity.  It is about Jesus being born in a stable.  You don’t get much more unelaborate than that.

In reality, Christmas is complicated and stressful and expensive and anxiety-ridden, especially in the weeks and days leading up to it.  But, if you are really lucky, you will also get to experience those moments of calm and peace and love and true magic that make Christmas such a wonderful time of the year.

Here’s to you and yours.  May your weekend be filled with the people and things that make you happy, even amidst the crazy.  Make sure that you take the time to stop and smell the Christmas cookies.  Joy to the World!

The House Where Christmas Threw Up

Posted on by Stacy Swiger

Let me start by saying that I am a modified Christmas traditionalist.  I believe in starting my shopping closer to December than August, and I make most of my purchases online.  I believe in putting up my fake Christmas tree after Thanksgiving.  I believe in putting money into a Salvation Army bucket every time I see one.  I believe that the Elf on the Shelf was cute and funny for one or two seasons max; by year three I wanted to take it out back and rub its face in some yellow snow.  I believe in Angel Trees, but I’m not even getting Beats by Dr. Dre headphones for my own kids.  I believe in opening my door for carollers, as long as they show up before we are in bed for the night (porch light on vs. porch light off… it is common sense, people).  Of course, I believe in Santa.  I believe in making (and eating) Christmas cookies together as a family while listening to Frank, Tony and Barbra singing the Christmas classics.  And I wholeheartedly believe that your decorations should reflect the way that you feel about the holiday season.

So my guess is that these people in my neighborhood hate Christmas.

Why else would they have all of that stuff in their front yard?  Is is a joke?  Maybe.  It is pretty funny.  Are they doing it ironically?  I just don’t get that hipster nonsense.  But maybe their next-door neighbors get it, because this is what is decorating their front lawn…

Only 18 days left until Christmas!  Hang in there, friends and neighbors.

Wish me luck for tomorrow…

Nothing But Socks and Underwear

Posted on by Stacy Swiger

I know that I have been a little obsessed with sleep lately, but that is mostly because I was not getting a whole lot of it.  I liken it to the forbidden fruit.  Great, now I’m craving apples and a nap.  Fortunately, things seem to be moving in the right direction for us in the sleep department.  Finally.

As you know, I had tried almost everything to get Kid E to stay in bed.  His most recent major complaint was that the night “is a very, very, very long time” and he was “getting bored with it.”  Whenever I took the positive reinforcement route and said that I just knew he was going to have a good night, he would assure me that he planned to “try (his) best,” which of course was code for “see you at 3 a.m.”  This kid plays dirty and is wicked smart, so I finally decided that I was going to have to fight fire with fire.

I played the Santa Claus card.

Inspiration hit me last week when the Target Holiday Toy Sale catalog arrived in the mail.  Kid E started going through it page by page and he told me he wanted everything.  Except for the pink pages because, apparently, he is a very manly four-year-old.  He pointed to each and every boy toy in the book and said, “…and I want this and this and this.  OH!  And I want this too.  This is so so so cool.”  Even when I pointed out that we had one of the toys, just in a different color (not pink), he insisted that he needed it.  He was already becoming brainwashed by commercials and catalogs.

I started to remind him that Christmas is supposed to be about giving and not just gimme! gimme! gimme! and then I had a brilliant idea.

I mean, really, what kid is going to take the chance?

“That’s a great wish list that you’ve got going there so far.  We’ll have to be sure to write it all down and send it in a letter to Santa at the North Pole,” I began.  I noticed his eyes lighting up so I sold it even harder,”… and we can ask him about his reindeer and the elves and if he is ready for his long trip on Christmas Eve.  And then we can tell him how big you are getting and how good you have been lately.  We can tell him that you have been sleeping through the night and…”

Kid E’s face fell.  I knew that I had him.  I just had to bring it on home.

“Oh no,” I said.  “That won’t work, will it?  Since you keep getting out of bed, either at bedtime or in the middle of the night, we can’t really tell Santa that you have been very good this year, can we?  And do you know what Santa brings for little kids who aren’t very good?  No toys.  No games.  No treats.”

Kid E had heard something from someone before.  “Coal.  Santa brings coal to bad kids, right?” he said with despair.

I had told the older kids the coal story for years.  I even have a bag of coal that I keep in with the Christmas decorations so they run across it every year when we break out the boxes.  The story goes that Sheepdog was really bad one year (he was eighteen and the dummy went out and got an earring and a tattoo), so Santa brought him nothing but coal that Christmas.  The moral of that story: don’t be an idiot teenager.  But I was now dealing with a toddler and I needed more firepower.

I held a steady face and continued, “Sometimes Santa does not even bring coal.  Sometimes for the bad little kids he brings just socks.  Socks and underwear.  And not even the fun underwear with Nemo or Buzz Lightyear or skulls and crossbones on them.  He just brings tighty whiteys and tube socks.  And they’re not even wrapped.”

When I looked into Kid E’s horrified, big eyes, I saw fear like I have never seen before.  I had a twinge of guilt for causing him such panic, but I quickly remembered that he had brought it upon himself and I was slowly turning into a zombie.  The madness had to end.  I needed to sleep through the night.

Now, every night after Sheepdog reads him a book and tucks him into his comfy bed, I tiptoe in to kiss him and say goodnight and before I leave the room I whisper softly, “Socks and underpants, little man.  Stay in bed.  I love you.”

Mmm-mmm-mmm, this is a very good apple.

Wish me luck for tomorrow…