Merry Merry!

Thought I'd update periodically. To share the JOY!. My mom is painting a rocking horse, meanwhile there are piles of mail catalogs, magazines and boxes of xmas decorations spread from dining room thru entryway into living room. It's an adventure!

I'm going to commence the annual "Hiding of Stuff I Don't Know What To Do With" pre-Christmas extravaganza. Hey, that's a good status update.

Other issues include "Canned Green Beans or Frozen", "Is carrot cake Christmas-y enough for dessert?" and "How the Swiffer Duster Makes a Great Toddler Toy". "What time should Gammie come over on Christmas Morning", "How Much Gin Will Gammie Be Allotted", and "Will the local Stafford Doctor give us anti-biotics for our pending Bronchitis Episode?" Stay tuned...

Every year I find parts & pieces of these vacuums behind furniture and under tables. Also, the dirty swiffer dusters. They are everywhere. Someone will get an idea to dust a small area, do it, and leave the dirty duster there apparently to mark the area as "dusted". I just took a couple of Ritalin and am getting ready to peel a big pile o' potatoes. Meanwhile, the house is looking festive, there are garlands and lights accentuating the mass chaos. As a toddler, Grace is infinitely entertained by objects she finds laying around the house.

Also, Goma wants to leave Santa cheese instead of cookies cuz she refused to buy cookies since she was going to make cookies. Now there's no time to bake them. Actually, one of Gammie’s staff bakes some rocking chocolate chip cookies…. I took Grace over there after church in her Christmas Dress to say hello to Gammie and load Santa’s plate with cookies. Grace really likes to ride on my grandmother’s Hoverround. And she has LOTS of stuff to touch, move, drop, bounce, hide, or flush. It’s a wonderland.

Oh, and yesterday I heard my dad wandering around upstairs singing “Itsy bitsy spider”, and was singing “down came the rain and washed (insert name of family member most annoying at that moment) out.”
All by himself.


Christmas day dawned at 9:30 when Grace finally woke up? WTF? We rushed downstairs to see toys galore waiting for
G. Both of my parents looked like they'd been hit by trucks. My mom kept falling asleep in her recliner and then would snap awake, say something irrelevant, and drift off again. During her brief periods of consciousness, she watched Grace open stockings and check the mantle to see if Santa had sipped any milk or eaten some cookies.

When Gammie came over my expert skills at wheelchair manipulation failed me and I almost tilted her completely off the side of the ramp. It was scary. Gammie was in her big white sunglasses, decked with her jewelry and her new bejeweled Christmas sweater that I bought her, and took it all in stride.

Grace had fun, though. She got a tent and a pink scooter with helmet and pads, and Tag Jr, and a gob of other random toys. I didn’t think Grace would be interested in the scooter, but she immediately got on it and started playing. It’s PINK! of course. I got some clothes, some dishes, glasses, washcloths, a PERFECT BROWNIE pan, and other odds and ends.

Gammie wanted to be sure to come over early to watch Grace open her stuff, but she actually talked to herself and unwrapped her own stuff. Later she fell asleep in a recliner and for real? She bitched and complained OUT LOUD in. her. sleep. It was amazing.

The bassett hounds and the beagle and the cat all had a blast playing in Grace's new tent. They enjoy it. Dinner was great... normal? NO discord... somewhat unusual. Everyone must have had their meds in sync and at maximum efficacy.

This afternoon Grace and my dad were looking at the Christmas tree and talking about all the ornaments. Apparently the beagle hid a sneaky poop behind the Christmas Tree, so Gopa told Grace it was “Reindeer poop”. She’s enthralled with all this Santa shit.

I spent all day running around picking up wrapping paper, hiding the xmas candy, being annoyed at the dogs, helping Grace with her toys, fetching coffee, baking the ham and the potatoes, playing with Grace, and attempting to download the complex story accompaniments to the Tag Jr reading system. Now instead of me reading to her, she can run this little thing that sort of looks like a "Pedi-Egg" over the pages and it reads to her. Eventually at about 5:30 pm Grace had a complete breakdown, and I finally had to just put her upstairs in her crib to chill. She took another long nap through dinner, now she's up at 9, watching Kai-Lan and eating Peanut Butter On A Spoon, which is the only thing she's willingly eaten in the past 2 days besides candy canes and chocolate.

Also, we have waaaay too many christmas outfits... Grace has had more outfit changes per day than Cher. She's wearing a new thing every 2-3 hours, round the clock. I have to wake her up at 3 am to change into the next super cute pair of xmas pj's. There is a life size Santa that stands on my parent's porch each year. Every year, I try to do something to the Santa that seems appropriate. For a couple of years he held beer cans and cigs in his hands. One year he held a bottle and a diaper. This year he started out with Kleenex and hand sanitizer, now he is laying on the wicker lawn furniture couch that is out on the porch. He's taking a nap, apparently.
(I'm glad he didn't burn up in the fire like the snowman did that one year.... the one that my dad left in a twisted and charred pile of Christmas cheer on the lawn that year at Christmas.)

The annual airing of the grievances was a non-event, so either we all got it out before getting together, or we’ve all just given up and accepted our little family such as it is. Grace's arrival puts everyone in a happy frame of mind. She loves visiting here. She asked yesterday if this was her house, too.

The aftermath... Yo Gabba Gabba is on. Grace is sleepy, rubbing her eyes, and curled up next to me on the couch. Ginger is sound asleep in her recliner, and George is halfway sleeping and halfway watching Yo Gabba Gabba. The dogs are scattered about the house with their dog stockings. (oh yes, they do.)

Flashes back to childhood... my mom got Grace an Elmo jack in the box, and I heard her giggling to my dad that I am afraid of jack in the boxes. Apparently she thinks that's funny. What EVER. They startle me. I can't stand the suspense.

Also, watching Kake Man and Toy Boy on Wichita's channel 10 last night made me very happy. I love Santa's Workshop. I'm kinda bummed that we're missing the big blizzard... we have barely any precip here. I think it may be just now starting to snow.

We got nothing but wind and cold. We're wrapping up Christmas 2009 with Yo Gabba Gabba and chocolate cake. After Grace was in bed, I drove to Pratt (30 minutes away) to get within range of Amazon’s “Whispernet” so that a couple of books I’ve been wanting could download. Sucks to be out of area. However, I plan on spending as much time as possible over the next day or two reading “Mennonite in A Little Black Dress”. Life is good, and don't you forget it.