I’m sitting here in our living room on the tail-end of a snow/ice storm that hit us on Monday night questioning my sanity. I’ve been in this house for 3 straight days now. They’ve canceled school and work again tomorrow. Which just gives me another reason not to shower. I love having a day off to lounge around and do nothing. I truly do. But having 4 unplanned days in a row where you can’t get out is a bit much for me.

Although I am obviously complaining, I know that we are lucky to have power and heat. Many in the area do not. I’m extremely thankful to be able to watch Suzanne Somers on Oprah today and learn about estrogen and compounding hormone supplements. I’m almost positive I’ve gone into early menopause after listening to this show.

Did you know that you can get estrogen by applying a cream on your skin? I knew they made creams, but I seriously would have never thought you could apply it on your arm. In all honesty my first guess would have been to apply it ‘you know where.‘ Wouldn’t that make more sense?

To recap day #3 in our cave, the dog decided to throw up all over the carpet in our bedroom this afternoon. As I was trying to push the dog into the hallway where the wood floor is easier to clean, Ethan walked around the door, saw the vomit, gagged and then threw up. That made two piles of vomit on the bedroom floor. It just doesn’t get much better.

Tomorrow is day #4 and I guarantee you I will be leaving this house. I haven’t decided where we are going or even how far we will make it, but I need a reason to shower and put on clothes.

I had over 3 weeks off from work over the holidays (right at 24 days) and I had a list of things I wanted to accomplish during that time. Did any of those things get done? No. Where did the time go? What did I do?

Since I was off a week before Ethan’s school let out I was able to volunteer in his classroom a couple of times and enjoyed eating lunch and reading to his class. I watched him from the sidelines as he interacted and answered questions and realized just how smart he is.

I also helped plan the Christmas party for his class and spent WAY too much time creating a game in which teams dressed a snowman. Although I was proud of my creativity and the kids did love it, when I saw that the game lasted all of one minute before we moved on to something else, it was not worth the time I spent making all the stuff. But then I saw the picture of Ethan as a snowman and changed my mind.

I searched for a shepherds costume all over town and ended up using Ethan’s green bathrobe. I creatively folded a white pillow case as his head garb and wrapped a brown stretchy headband around his head to hold it in place. He was a shepherd at our Christmas Eve midnight mass and my parents were able to attend with us, making it even more special.

Ethan and I did some last minute shopping and we allowed him to venture to the Dollar Tree to do his own shopping again this year. Only this time he was able to write a list of everyone’s name and mark it off as he decided what to buy them. He goes through the checkout line and pays on his own. Then, he wraps the gifts and fills out the name tags as well. Our family knows to expect the unexpected when it comes to the gifts he chooses. That is why my cousin Laban got a thumbsucker (an actual sucker that is a thumb!).

The gifts were wrapped, put under the tree, unwrapped and put away. Santa needs to buy stock in batteries! Thank goodness for rechargeable! The gifts were abundant as usual and more than we needed. My husband and I have both agreed that next year will be much more low key. Ethan was so overwhelmed with the material items that he asked me at bedtime how many more days until the next Christmas.

This years celebrations were much better than the events from last year, so for that alone I am thankful. We were able to spend a lot of time with family and friends and hosted several get-together’s at our home and I enjoyed having the space to entertain. I was also able to sneak in a few lunches with some girlfriends and enjoyed the conversation.

I cooked more in these 3 weeks than I’ve probably cooked in my entire life. I’ve developed my own lasagna recipe and my husband actually had seconds and ate the leftovers - which means he liked it!

My husband was off for almost 2 weeks as well. This is the first Christmas since the accident that I did not spend re-cooperating from a recent surgery, so we navigated how to spend our time together. It was almost too much quality time together, but the night before we all were supposed to return to work and school, we agreed that we dreaded heading back into the real world.

A large portion of our time was spent playing the Wii that my parents got us for Christmas. I am not a video game person. In fact, I really hate video games, but this is so different! We have been missing out, but we made up for lost time. I think tennis is my favorite game right now, although after a fine glasses of wine American Idol creeps in there.

I think my favorite Christmas memory this year would be watching Ethan play the Wii. It’s hard to explain and maybe I can take a video and post it on here soon (we got a new video camera!). But he has this style of bowling that can only be described as “Don’t know what I’m doing/act crazy/don’t pay attention to what I’m doing/piss everyone off because I win!”

His record so far is 8 strikes in one game and 5 strikes in a row. He has played our entire family (and neighbors) and has beat them all. I’m thinking maybe we’ve found his talent and the Wii people may be calling soon to take him on tour. Can you major in Wii in college?

Throw in a few outings, a few good books, a couple good movies and that was our holidays in a nut shell. So what was on my list that I didn’t get done? I had thought about repainting a bathroom and wanted to organize the closet in our spare room, but I think my time was much better spent when I read back through this.

We are all three expected to return to the real world tomorrow (real world as in no naps). Unfortunately, Ethan has come down with what appears to be bronchitis and is will be staying home tomorrow and headed to the doctor. The over-the-counter cough medicine isn’t kicking it. I have eagerly agreed to stay with him and work from home tomorrow. Which is code for - “I can’t handle the real world just yet.”

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I realize we are very new to the this whole school thing. With our son in Kindergarten this year it has been live and learn about the in’s & out’s of what occurs. Last week I was a little shocked when he came home with a suggested gift card list for all the school personnel.

Now I know teachers can really only have so many mugs that say “#1 Teacher!” and I would much rather get something useful for them, because I value the work they do and recognize they do not get paid adequately. We are confident he is in a good school and that the staff is very committed to helping each child do their best.

In the past I’ve usually purchased a gift certificate to a local bread company (which can be used for a variety of baked goods) and purchased some small gift for Ethan’s pre-school teachers. I had something similar in mind for this Christmas, but I was a little taken back by the list that named about 10 specific places that each teacher would enjoy gift cards from.

Maybe I’m making something out of nothing. I just thought it was awkward to send home the list, because now anyone who doesn’t purchase a card from the list for their teacher will be “that person.” Once again I’ve compromised and bought a small gift card from the list and then a small gift.

This week they had their school/church Christmas music program. A note came home stating what his class should wear that evening and again I was a little shocked. The request was for black dress pants, all black shoes and a white shirt. Let me explain that Ethan wears navy dress pants to school as part of their uniform. So why would you ask parents to send kids in black pants? Why not navy pants that everyone obviously has? As the new family on the block I did not question this (even though I wanted to), instead I conformed and bought a cheap pair at Target that I promise you will only be worn once.

As for the black shoes, there was no way in hell I was going to buy him a new pair of all black shoes. He just got new tennis shoes that were mostly black (with a little silver and green) a month ago. When we got ready to leave that evening Ethan protested that he HAD TO WEAR all black shoes according to the music teacher. I explained to him very simply that I could have bought him new shoes to wear once tonight or a toy for Christmas and asked which he would rather have. The choice was simple for him. Seriously who is going to notice?

I was fine with the white shirt, because that is one of the colors they can wear as part of their uniform and he already had a turtleneck. That was the easy part!

So maybe it’s the pressure to conform that I’m not quite comfortable with. I want to raise Ethan to be himself and not always follow the crowd. But in the same way I want him to get along with people and learn to choose his battles. It’s only Kindergarten…

Yes, I made it home. We made it home from the land of crazy. All three of us. No, make that four, because we actually took the dog. (Not my decision.)

Despite the usual defectiveness of it all, it went alright. The law-in’s were their usual cheerful selves, but given the fact we hadn’t traveled up there in a year we were able to cope a little better. For the first several days their behavior is amusing, but by around the third day tension rises and the countdown begins. By the time we leave the driveway both my husband and I are laughing hysterically as we wave goodbye. Usually the visit provides enough conversation to get us through the 6 hour drive home.

There was one major revelation made within the first few hours of our arrival that I was not expecting. Apparently the wedding I drove 6 hours by myself for our son to be in last November didn’t last long. By didn’t last I mean they were separated within 4 weeks and divorced by the end of last year. I lost my bet because I gave it a year tops.

The only other big thing that happened over our visit was the yearly change in furniture. I don’t think I’ve mentioned it on here before, but every time we visit my husband’s father and step-mother they have new furniture. They always have a new kitchen table and usually some other pieces such as a couch or chair (or two). I think in the 10 years I’ve known Nate I’ve sat at 8 different tables in that kitchen. To me it’s ridiculous. If you can’t find a table you like after 2 or 3, then just give it up already. The one’s they choose are awful. My favorite was the round glass table top with rolling wicker chairs. Try keeping a 3 year old from wanting to roll all over the place during a meal.

This time around it was one of the pub style tables where the table is the height of a bar with taller bar stools, which I found very uncomfortable to sit at. The bigger issue was that when Ethan sat down (I should say climbed up) at the table and put his Bionicles down to play there was a big scramble to put something down over the distressed wood top to that his plastic pieces wouldn’t scratch it. What they put down was newspaper. Yes, like he was dog.

This is just a glimpse of the things that happen when we visit. We come home feeling extremely normal and maybe it’s good therapy.