The Fort That Ate My Front Room

I’ve come a long way baby.

There was a time any sort of mess freaked me out. If you came over for dinner I would take and clean your glass before you were finished drinking.

Now I can hang, to a degree, with toys all over and various forts in each room. I really need to vent about this latest Count Waffle’s creation though-as it has now consumed every square inch of our playroom (aka the front room) and every pillow, blanket, toy in the house.

It has plumbing people. Tubes that used to be wrapping paper holders and a toy keyboard stand. While I applaud and encourage my son’s inventions, I need to draw the line somewhere. I’m thinking this thing can’t expand beyond the playroom. I’m also going to need to vacuum, eventually.

Cows Make Milk

My not-exactly 5-year old loves cows. He sleeps with a stuffed cow named Kaiser (that’s the name he came with, I swear) and begged me to take him to the county fair so he could see cows live and in person.

He likes their teats.

Go ahead-make the “you breastfed him too long” joke or the “a man who knows what he likes” as I’m over it. Whatever the reason, the boy really, really, really is udder obsessed.

Thus began my (and Nana’s) search for a stuffed cow with udders. It’s been a good year of searching, at least. You’d be surprised how many stuffed cows are out there, and how zero of them have udders.

Enter Sim from Utterz.com. I met Sim at Blog World Expo in Vegas and while I was *supposed* to be talking business, I was instead explaining to him how his company’s mascot, Bessie, would make my son the happiest little boy on planet earth.

Time passed.

I continued to use Utterz (if you haven’t yet, go check it out, it’s fun) and exchanged a few emails with Sim here and there.

Then a box arrived at my door, and my son’s world changed forever:

Barbie is One Sly Minx

I caved and bought that freaking Barbie and her 12 Dancing Sister Princesses Fairyworld Mermadia Utopia of Tutu’s and Fluff DVD.

Something in my GUT told me to say “no” but in case you don’t know there are three big storms coming our way and I need new movies dammit. I can only color and play cars for SOOOOO long people, come on.

As expected Princess Peanut donned her tutu and clapped and danced and was simply OVERJOYED at “Hi, I’m Barbie, I play Genevieve the oldest sister….” or some crap. Then it was a blur of songs and ballet shoes and gold dust and really bad CG (um, yes, I do know what bad animation looks like..hello…).

There was the much anticipated dancing and some inane plot about an evil step mother and a dying father and blah blah blah you know the story.

Mostly our first Barbie experience was harmless. I say mostly because I was slightly annoyed at the giggling over some cobbler boy (he makes the shoes, get with the program) and the rate at which my little Princess wanted to change outfits to twirl around in. But what really got me…was an unexpected interested in the movie by Count Waffles.

Mind you, he’s not even 5 yet and he’s very into “that’s a BOY toy not a GIRL toy” and “I don’t want PINK that’s a GIRL color”-yes, his feminist mother is so proud.

So when the Count wandered over to see what all the frufru was about and our little Peanut explained “Dat Barbie and DAT da Princesses and day daaaaaaaaaaaaaaace” the response was one I had NOT counted on:

“Wow. She really is beautiful.” And a glazed look fell over him and he sat down to stare.

Fuckin’ Barbie.

Slut!

Whore!

Tramp!

Trollop!

JEZEBEL!

I’ll take you down bitch. Stay away from my baby boy.

And with that I shall now commence hating every.single.one. of his future girlfriends.

2 Days Until Christmas, in case you didn’t know

2 days until Christmas! 2 days until Christmas! 2 days until Christmas! 2 days until Christmas! 2 days until Christmas! 2 days until Christmas! 2 days until Christmas! 2 days until Christmas! 2 days until Christmas! 2 days until Christmas! 2 days until Christmas! 2 days until Christmas! 2 days until Christmas! 2 days until Christmas! 2 days until Christmas! 2 days until Christmas! 2 days until Christmas! 2 days until Christmas! 2 days until Christmas! 2 days until Christmas! 2 days until Christmas! 2 days until Christmas!!!!!

I’ve heard that about 50 times and we just woke up about 4 minutes ago.

I love having children in the throws of the “Santa ages” of childhood but HolyMaryMotherofGAWD I’m pretty sure my son’s head is going to EXPLODE before he’ll ever wake up Tuesday morning.

He’s obsessed. He’s also truly, and honestly, to his toes worried Santa won’t bring him something because he’s been bad.Yeah, cue the “awwwwwwwwww.” I mean, I only torture him like any other good American parent would. “Santa is watching, don’t you dare hit your sister.” “Santa heard that lie Count Waffles and I’m pretty sure you’re on the naughty list.”

With panic in his eyes before bed last night he actually asked me if *I* thought he had been good enough to warrant a gift from St. Nick. “Oh honey, I’m sure you’re just fine…don’t worry,” I said immediately regretting it if only for the pure leverage it’s given me these past few weeks.

Terrible, I know. He’s 4.5 though, he’s in trouble all the damn time.

When I was a kid we had the house on Christmas morning where everyone was up before dawn and my parents made us lay there awake and wait for the sun. It was unlike any torture known to man. I would call it worse than waterboaring.

My brother and I would be in our beds, flat on our backs, with eyes as wide as saucers and stare at the ceiling until my Mom or Dad would say, “Ok.” We’d throw our blankets off and race downstairs as fast as our tiny feet could go.

It’s 2 days before Christmas and my son is awake a good 2 hours earlier than usual bouncing off the walls. It’s like he’s had 6 cups of coffee. Like he’s got Santa fever and the only cure is more jingle bells.

He’s an addict and I don’t think any of us are sleeping until he crashes in a pile of unwrapped presents in about 48 hours.

I think the excitement and joy of this age is one thing, the sheer insanity and uberhyper activity was something entirely lost on my parent brain until about a week ago when he began to twitch.

I guess many of you may lecture me about hyping this holiday and it being all about toys and gifts and gimme gimme gimme. In all fairness, you’re an idiot. I haven’t done anything more or less than most parents do this time of year and we’ve had plenty of talks about giving and kindness and gifts not being important.

That being said he’s just shy of 5-years old and the boy believes. He believes some magic, white-bearded guy is bringing him toys. The holy grail of childhood. For one day a year he gets to have a candy and cookie laced toy-fest and the only thing stopping him is his ability to whack his sister on the head with a balloon and piss off Mom with his lazy cleaning skills. He believes, and it’s freaking magic people. It’s that warm, fuzzy magic that only comes when you’re a kid and Santa is coming. The entirely pure and innocent joy.

As a parent I’ve actually thought long and hard about this whole thing (why yes, as a matter of fact, I do think long and hard about my parenting decisions) and I’m totally fine with it. There are only so many years of Santa belief and I don’t really give a damn if that makes you think I’m spoiling my child or teaching him the wrong lesson. There are only so many years of pure magic on Christmas morning when you wake to find gifts have just appeared under your tree. There are only so many years when you can’t sleep from excitement and wait and wonder with hope and some panic if that one special thing is waiting there for you on that one special morning.

It will all be gone faster than a blink and he and I are going to enjoy every insomniac moment of it, dammit.

In fact, I’m letting him have Christmas cookies for breakfast while we wrap gifts. Then, with any luck, he’ll crash from the sugar high and I can get some sleep.

Don’t Look At Me

…since I’m feeling spunky…

I think I’ll tell you what happened at dinner tonight, only because we’ve been talking about my daughter’s new toy.

My mother called us during dinner. This is nothing new, my mother calls at least three times a day. She asked what we were eating. She asked what the kids were doing at school this week.

So while scarfing down my crab cakes and caesar salad, I told her that this was the kids’ last week of preschool before break and on Friday their holiday-laced preschool lives would culminate in a celebration of Baby Jesus’ birthday. No, really. They do a birthday party for Jesus (as I learned a few years back) as this is the easiest way for the kids’ to understand the meaning of Christmas and it’s complete with a cake and everything.

So, before you start in on me: yes, I did send my kids to a Christian preschool. Mainly because it’s a really good preschool and they are pretty God “light” so we assumed anything they got out of it could easily be tamed at home.

Back to dinner. And the phone call.

Just as the words “baby jesus birthday” fly out of my mouth my 4.5 year old yells “BUT HE’S NOT REAL!”

To which, my always thinking husband GAFFFAWWWFS at very loudly. A very Santa BELLY laugh which has the kid grinning from ear-to-ear and me giggling because it was so crazyily inappropriate and everyone at the table was now laughing.

Yes, my son exclaims that Jesus is NOT real and we all cackle.

My confused mother on speaker phone is going “what? who’s not real? what? what did he say?” and we’re giggling too loudly to hear her.

The Kaiser then tells Count Waffles that is the BEST joke he’s ever told and HIGH FIVE! To which I reply…woah, but that is NOT a joke we’re going to tell at school, ok? They won’t think that’s funny at school. In fact, a lot of people won’t think it’s funny that you don’t think Jesus is real.

To which my smartass kid says “but he’s NOT real.”

To which my husband high fives him again.

To which I roll my eyes and tell my Mom we have to go.

So yeah, go ahead and be offended. This time though, yell at the Kaiser, not me.

p.s. Yes, I’m fully expecting a note home from preschool after Friday’s party.

Dear 8lb 6oz Baby Jesus,

A few years ago my brother-in-law and sister-in-law gave us a nativity scene for Christmas. It was made in Poland (I’m Polish) and it’s very nice. I store it right next to the Bible we also got as a gift. Because anyone who knows this royal family knows we would just love nativity scenes and bibles as gifts….cough cough.
The past few years at Christmas I’ve actually unpacked the stuffed nativity (they are like stuffed dolls) because the kids have found them fun to play with, and we’ve had family over who may or may not notice we may or may not be displaying said nativity that was thoughtfully picked out.

Princess Peanut likes the donkey, the lamb, and of course the Baby Jesus. She hasn’t ever played with Joseph or Mary or the angel. Don’t ask me where the wise men are…apparently they were not present at this particular birth or the Polish nuns who sewed them got tired.

Lately we’ve been playing with the donkey, the lamb, and a puppy dog . They talk. They go on little trips to other rooms together. They pretend to eat fake food. All well and good.

Enter Baby Jesus.

Suddenly the donkey and lamb have been labeled “bad sisters go away!” and the puppy and Jesus have formed a bond. The Baby Jesus gets to walk the puppy (using one of my headbands) and Jesus tells the dog “you’re such a good puppy” and so on and so forth.

Somewhere along the lines puppy stayed in the other room and only Baby Jesus (with or without his manger, depending on her mood) has been clutched in her tiny hands. Baby Jesus had breakfast with us this morning. Baby Jesus came to the mall. Baby Jesus is the new Elmo that must be carried at all times.

Of course Baby Jesus also needs to eat, and since Mom is catching up on a million things around here what with the recent illnesses and all, a cup or two of milk might remain on the table longer than need be.

Enter Princess Peanut feeding Baby Jesus milk while Mom wasn’t paying attention.

I heard something about “here you go baby” but wasn’t really listening.

About 20 minutes later I found Baby Jesus floating face down in a bowl of milk on my kitchen table.

“Honey, let’s not feed the baby your milk, ok?”

“But Mama...she was hungry.”

Cue brother-

“That’s a BOY, not a girl!”

“No it’s not! It’s a girl!”

“No, it’s a boy!”

So now I’ve got a Baby Jesus floating face down in milk and two kids having the argument I like to reserve to really piss off some right-wing fanatics.

I fished Baby Jesus out of the milk, and at the kids’ request he was towel dried and bundled much like they are after a bath.

My youngest then put him in his manger, hooked my headband back around the neck of her puppy dog, and proceeded on a walk around the house.

“Do you feel better after your bath my little girl? I’m so glad…here puppy, let’s have some peanut butter…”

We’re so going to hell.

Message To YouTube

On behalf of the League of Maternal Justice breastfeeding montage “banned” by YouTube, I give you my Message to the Asshats at YouTube. Apparently they prefer this over letters to the editor, so here goes…

and I’ll have you know I did this quick video despite this from the other day:

and THIS today: (look familiar?)

Yup, different kid, same couch. This one came with bonus hives!

I Hate Winter

And preschool germs

And cold weather

And kleenex

And cool mist humidifiers

And vics

And inhalers

And prescriptions

And popcicles

And night sweats

And a sick Mom and sick kid and trying to take care of him and me while we both lay in bed

And everything else…

Fuck Winter