Gotta Love the Holidays*, 12/20/2003

Have I mentioned how much I H.A.T.E. this holiday? Well let me officially tell you; I do.

Tonight is my office Christmas party. I've got a sitter for the BoyChild. The GirlChild is going to her BFFEIS's house to spend the night.

The last time we left them with a sitter together, we came home about 9:30 to a frazzled looking sitter. She said, "I had a little trouble getting them to bed." When we went upstairs the GirlChild was in the BoyChild's crib with the BoyChild. The crib was in the middle of the room and they were both pretending to be asleep. From what I learned, they hypered one another into a frenzy and then took it out on poor BabySitter1.

Those two may hate one another when the Husband and I are around, but give them a common enemy and they are a wicked team. I guess that's what being siblings is all about.

Needless to say, she was busy when I called for her to come and sit with them for this party. I wonder if that's just coincidence?

I got another teenager to agree to come; she must not have heard about the horrible time the other one had. BabySitter2 has stayed with the kids before and also works in childcare at church. She is also the daughter of the GirlChild's religion teacher.

I decided to avoid another incident like the other night (the BoyChild is all hyped up on steroids as it is) and sought another venue for the GirlChild for Saturday night. The Baba and GranMa are having a party of some variety but they asked the GirlChild to come. The GirlChild had other plans (Baba and GranMa's is becoming passe it seems) and she and the BFFEIS's decided she should come spend the night there. As I was dropping the GirlChild off at school the other morning, the BFFEIS's mother stopped me and asked if I needed the GirlChild to spend Saturday night with them it was fine with her. The children are taken care of tonight and hopefully no one will be hurt.

We got the tree decorated last night.

The Husband and the GirlChild put the tree up and got the lights on it last Sunday. We put the decorations away and left it to be decorated another day after the BoyChild got up and was obviously sick and requiring lots of attention.

It appears we'll have to place all the decorations higher than the BoyChild can reach. He takes them off, keeps (and breaks, which really takes some doing since they are mostly those plastic Hallmark ones) the ones he really likes and throws into the tree the ones he thinks aren't worth getting into trouble over.

The stockings are hung on the mantle and I think make a lovely balance. Mine and the Husband's are facing one way and the GirlChild's and the BoyChild's are facing another. The Husband has hung a little needlepoint bag with Santa stitched on the front in between the two sets.

Kind of like the cobbler's children having no shoes, I don't have a stitched stocking yet. I finished stitching the BoyChild's sometime last summer and haven't stitched a stitch since.

I feel chagrined about that since I have a friend who is waiting for one for her second child who is a little younger than the BoyChild. I've started it, and probably got it half finished, before I hit this stitching drought. I've thought about seeing if I could find someone to finish stitching it for me. I know there are people who do that, but I've never done it and I'm avoiding thinking about that right now. I think it's sort of back to that "I can do it all!" sort of mentality. Like Scarlet O'Hare, I'll think about that tomorrow.

It's not that I don't want to. Or that I don't enjoy it. It just seems like I'm too busy and tired. Dealing with the GirlChild's various problems has been physically and emotionally exhausting. I think I've worked at least one day of every weekend since before Thanksgiving. The BoyChild is becoming more and more active as he gets older. And someone (usually more than one someone) in our house has been sick since the first of the month.

No Christmas cards will be leaving our house this year. Last year we did the kids with Santa picture Christmas cards. Before that I think we'd done the GirlChild's Halloween picture for our Christmas cards. We intended to have a picture we had taken of the kids last fall made into our Christmas cards [it is a truly lovely photo] but we've not had time to follow up on that.

We've not gotten anything for each other or for the kids. The Husband wanted to do that tomorrow afternoon, but we just learned the GirlChild has basketball at 3:00 so we'll have to see whether that will work. I was a strong advocate of the Husband doing the shopping one day in the morning next week, alone while the GranMa kept the kids, but that suggestion didn't meet a warm reception.

The Husband got a Christmas Bonus from his school this year; an advantage of working for a charter school. Not a lot of money, but enough to make us smile. It will probably be better than anything anyone at my office gets.

The only bright spot in all this is we are suppose to go on vacation the week after Christmas.

The BoyChild is awake and making noises.

Peace,
M&Co.