Michelle's Madness

It's certainly been a crazy month. The first week was spent preparing for Logan's 4th birthday party, which was on the 7th, which is the day before his birthday. Once the party was over I felt about a gazillion times better, and I could focus on preparing for Christmas and for our trip to the snow right before New Years. Or at least I could focus on sharpening my procrastination skills by avoiding preparing for, well, anything.



But then the Christmas shopping had to be done, which always sucks in December. Usually I try to do most of it in October and November, but really, I just didn't give a crap this year. Grinchy, I know, but tough shit, it still got done. The weekend after Logan's birthday party, the boys spent the weekend at Camp Gramma's, and Brian and I took that opportunity to do most of the shopping for the boys, as well as put up the tree, wrap their presents, and make a crapload of yummy, death-by-chocolate fudge to share with our co-workers and the boys' daycare center staff, who apparently devoured it all that day, much like years past. Oh, the sugar high! The indigestion! The Maalox chaser!



And speaking of Grinchy:





So now Christmas Eve is finally upon us. The boys and I baked cookies for Santa today, chocolate chip M&M and chocolate chip with toffee chips. I just know my husband Santa will love them. Tonight my dad will be here to spend the night, and in the morning, the present opening melee will begin, (not so) bright and early I'm sure.

I finally got around to elfing the boys. Actually, I've tried many times over the course of the month, but whenever I finished editing Jacob's picture and tried to save it, I would get an error message, something along the line of the server sucking ass and "fuck you, try again another time, sucka!". The boys think it's hilarious, though not quite as charming as last year, when they asked me to repeat it over and over and over and... well, you get the idea.

Besides the gift shopping adventures (um, hello, bitches in Target, when you are walking directly at me, why don't you at least pretend someone else exists on the planet and move a little, mkay?), we kicked off our holiday celebrations with Jacob's holiday show at school. All the first grade classes did a nice little program with songs and little skits. Jacob's class did the ABC's in portions throughout the show. Jacob and two of his classmates had the letter G and their line was, "G is for the goose, which you all know is fat." When I asked him to say his line for me the day before the show, he got all exasperated and said he was tired of practicing it. He sounded just like a teenager. Yeah, I can't wait for that shit on a daily basis.



He was super excited to have us both there, and he was actually singing and participating for most of the show, though he wasn't doing the arm motions along with the rest of the kids. He got bored toward the end, with about 2 or 3 songs left to go, and he stopped singing altogether. But all in all it was a huge success, considering past performances. Case in point, Pre-K graduation:



We were the only parents there whose child flat out refused to participate, choosing instead to sit in a chair behind the rest of his classmates, looking grouchy. Oh yeah, it was a very proud moment indeed. I felt like yanking him out of that chair and selling him to the gypsies. Or leaving him there, going home, moving, changing our name, and letting wild dogs raise him. But alas, we didn't, and we were richly rewarded more than 18 months later with almost full, though not always enthusiastic, participation in the holiday show. Score!

Then came the Hanukkah celebration at my mother in law's house on the first day of Hanukkah. It was a fun filled day of latkes and presents for the kids. Brian and I cooked all the latkes. I smelled like latkes for 2 days. Seriously. It was making me freakin' hungry!


Some rum and coke to enjoy while cooking. Hey, it was almost noon!










Utter freakin' deliciousness

The family descended upon the 3 big batches of latkes and sucked them all down, without too much grunting and belching. All of the kids (ours and their cousins) were less impressed by them, which leads me to wonder who the hell do all these kids belong to? But that just meant more for the grown ups. Yay!

Present opening time was less joyful, as Jacob was not pleased with what he received. Actually he was downright pissed off that he didn't receive the Star Wars Clone Trooper Voice Changing Helmet and the Star Wars Clone Trooper Blaster. (Shhhh, don't tell him, but Santa got it for him. And he may actually get it if he's not a total little shit again. He'll be fucking stoked!)

Logan did an excellent job of lighting the menorah, and I'm thinking next year we should start doing that here at home, so they will become more familiar with the traditions their dad was raised with.



And now we are barbecuing a tri-tip and I'm making (more!) latkes for Christmas Eve dinner. A little schizophrenic, I know, but I don't give a shit. It's my Christmas Eve and I want latkes! It's good to be the grown up sometimes!

Merry Christmas all. I hope you all enjoy your time with your family and that your loot doesn't suck!