The Christmas Sugar High - Detoxing the Preschoolers

Over the past couple of weeks my kids have been partying like mini rock stars. Late nights, missing out on naps and living off of things like sugar cookies and candy canes have become the "norm". With a large family and numerous holiday parties, it's been hard to stick to our typical daily routine of grilled cheese sandwiches and at least an attempt at rest time. It's been fun (for them). Okay, it's been fun for me as well, but guess who gets stuck paying the price during the aftermath of it all? Me. *SIGH*. That really hasn't been fun.

It started the day after Christmas when I stuck to my vow of "NO MORE SUGAR" and "You guys are definitely taking naps this afternoon. No ifs, ands, or buts!" I mean seriously, this Christmas craziness had to come to a screeching halt at some point. What better day than the one after Christmas. It's over and my kids were slowly starting to come down from their chocolate Christmas tree, cookie, candy cane, holiday colored gummy bear high. That high, turned into an all time low. . . fast. They spent that morning crying, fighting over their toys, and throwing fits on our family room floor. It was so bad that I secretly confiscated the chocolate Santa's from their Christmas stockings and hid in my room for a few minutes. While my kids duked it out, I ate their Santas. It was a much better choice than the alternative of whipping myself up a dirty martini at 8 AM and attempting to deal with the madness that was going on around me. That's another vow that I've promised to stick to . . . never become a stay at home mom alcoholic. If I stuck to my guns that morning, I'm pretty confident I'll succeed.

My in-laws phoned my husband that morning while he was at work and asked if we'd like to join them for dinner out. My first thought was yes! No cooking, no cleaning and I can get out of the house . . . YES! My second thought, the realistic one, was that there is NO way I can bring my kids out like this. I made a deal with my kids - no more tantrums, no more fighting and if they rested during nap we'd meet their grandparents out for dinner at our favorite dinner spot. (The place that serves bottomless bowls of popcorn.) Besides one sword fight using fairy princess wands as their weapon of choice, the afternoon went smooth. The crying and fighting over everything came to an end, and they both had a decent rest time. A Christmas miracle! We made it out to dinner and we had been doing good with our no more sugar kick! Until, while out doing errands, the lady at the bank handed my kids lollipops at 10 AM this morning. Whatever. I believe that everything in moderation is okay. They just better not expect me to fork over sugar cookies for dinner. Not happening.

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All I Want For Christmas

I want the sore throat and cold I've been battling for the past few days to move onto its next victim. (As long as it's not my kids, or husband.) Actually, I don't wish it on anyone. Blah. Moms should not be allowed to get sick.

I  want a minimum of 7 hours of sleep a night. That means no loud singing, no creeping out of your room and turning on every light in the house at 3 AM, but most importantly, don't sneak into my room and stand beside my bed and stare at me. I can hear you breathing, and I know you're there, even though sometimes I pretend I don't. Seriously, I go to bed after Jeopardy is over . . . (When did I turn into my mother?) Anyway, 7 hours of sleep shouldn't be that hard, and now that I put bells on your door I have a jump start and I'll know when you're coming. No more creepin'.

Last, but not least - if you're going to have an "accident" on my kitchen floor, please don't pick up the poop and blame it on the cat.


Love, Mom 

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The Christmas Miracles

The past few days have been go go go. I'm actually surprised I'm finding the time to sit down and write about it, or the time to breathe for that matter. The hustle and bustle of the holidays always seems to stress me out. I feel as if Thanksgiving to Christmas is an entire month straight of pure craziness. If you asked me a week ago, that's exactly how I'd tell you I felt - crazy, stressed, anxious, how am I ever going to get all the stuff that needs to get done, done? Not today though. This past week has not only been productive, but fun!

It started when I broke my promise of never taking my kids shopping by myself again. My oldest was desperate for some new shoes for the holidays, so I ventured out on a rainy day, a day that I just didn't want to be cooped up indoors. This shopping trip was phenomenal. Not only did we get new shoes, but we left the store with zero temper tantrums, from either kid. Amazing! I was so impressed by their good behavior that I told them that if they each took a good rest during nap time that I'd take them to visit Santa that afternoon. That's just what we did. I picked up my mom and we went to visit the best mall Santa around. One that usually comes with a long line of hyped up kiddos. Not the case that late afternoon. We only had to wait behind four other families! Again, amazing! My girls were very excited to see the big guy in red, and happily smiled as they sat with him. We were able to get a great picture! (One that did not include me like last years Santa's pic.) Last year they were a few seconds away from nervous breakdowns and I had to jump in the photo at the last minute. Needless to say, I was beyond pleased that I missed out on this photo op.

Speaking of pictures, I declared one day this week to be holiday card photo shoot day. My kids were not thrilled but the candy canes I gave them first thing that morning definitely helped. The sugar high later was a bit of a different story, but all and all I had a few decent shots. My mother-in-law designed a great card for me, and I got those bad boys printed Friday and spent the night addressing lots and lots of Christmas Cards. That tedious task is done! Did I mention, I even found time to bake two dozen cookies with my kids and eat a whole dozen of them? (I shared the other dozen with my husband and girls.)

Over the weekend we spent a day with my dad and step mom. We got our Christmas tree, and my kids got spoiled. A nice lunch, a trip to a toy store, and $48 trip to the candy store. Pricey, I know, but that was only because my husband said that he really liked the look of some dark chocolate turtle candies that my father insisted on buying. We brought them home and I secretly had them for breakfast the next morning. We spent the rest of the day putting up our tree and decorating the outside of our house. The biggest miracle of all was when I dug out our Christmas lights and all of them worked! I didn't even have to spend the usual two hours trying to untangle them. The only thing that's left on my list is a few more presents to buy, and to lose the extra five pounds I've packed on from eating cookies, candies and chocolate Santa's.

I got this . . . bring it Santa!

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I'm Sorry I'm Late . . . I Have Kids!

For as long as I can remember I've been punctual . . . maybe a little too punctual. I was the person that you could count on to show up when l said I would, if not earlier. You wouldn't know that though, because I'd most likely be driving around the block a few times to waste a couple minutes. I was actually given an award in high school for always being on time. Pretty cool, huh? Actually, pretty dorky when I think about it now.

Back before my stay at home mom days, when I had a full time job, I had a bit of a commute and allowed myself plenty of extra time to pick up a coffee on my way in. I'd also calculate in the fear of bad traffic. Phhhhhttt, what a joke.  Most mornings I left before the birds were chirping, and I'd arrive to work a half hour early. I didn't get paid to be there early, so I'm not really sure why I continued to do this day after day. Probably because arriving early was far better than the sudden sense of "OH MY GOD, I'M GOING TO BE LATE." That happened once, during a blizzard, when most normal people would have just banged in with a personal or sick day. I wish I had calculated all those wasted half hours of being early for work into some sort of extra sleep category, 'cause maybe then I'd be a little more rested for what was to come . . . KIDS! See ya later, punctuality.

Don't get me wrong, I really try my best to be on time for things, it doesn't always happen though. Here are a few reasons why:

• Breakfast time is more often than not similar to watching paint dry. Somehow my kids manage to sit there and pick at their plates for a very long time, but when they finally decide they're done most of the food is still there. It's like magic . . . but with food. One second you see it, an hour later it's still there! (I wish I could have pulled off that type of magic with my kids leftover Halloween candy.) They play it off like they're eating and I don't interfere, because I actually think they are eating, but they're not. They're pretty slick. I'll usually find some minuscule bites nibbled off of a cereal bar, or a half eaten grape. They usually do this during lunch and dinner too. Apparently, eating food that you're not really eating takes a long time. Sometimes I wonder why I even offer them meals, and often question if they are living off of the water and toothpaste they eat during teeth brushing time. Needless to say, I try to plan play dates around the meals that they take forever to eat, but don't really eat. "Sorry we're late, friends. It took a really long time to eat those two Cheerios and that blueberry this morning."
• One thing that causes the drill sergeant mom in me to come out is getting my kids up, fed, dressed and out the door in time for 8:30 AM preschool drop off. Thank God this only happens two days a week because these mornings make me feel like a crazy person. First off, my kids always decide to sleep in on school days . . . never on weekends, never on home days, only on school days. This forces me to wake them up, and let me tell you, it's not always pretty. Just this morning (home day) I received my payback. I was woken up at 5 AM by singing . . . very LOUD singing. It was as if I were at a Katy Perry concert, sitting right next to the speaker as she sang her latest hit, Roar. (Except it wasn't Katy Perry, it was my three year old, it was 5 AM, and it was indeed a home day.) This was not a pretty moment for me and I swear it would have been fine if it were a school day. But no, I have to drag them out of bed on school days, as they clench their blankets and beg me not to. (This has got to be some sort of Murphy's law.) After dragging my girls out of bed, I'll attempt to give the whole mealtime thing a whirl. Usually after a half hour of me watching the clock and them pretending to eat I'll tend to rush them along as they lick the syrup off of their uneaten waffles then, I'll usually praise them for eating a strawberry . . . or something. I'll rush to get them dressed, brush their teeth and do their hair. Remember I have girls, getting them dressed and doing their hair is often a project. The tooth brushing part is a piece of cake since they live off of, I mean live for toothpaste. After all of this is done, I'll bundle them up and get ready to head out.
  
• The other morning as we were about to head out the door my oldest informed me that she had to go to the bathroom. While I was assisting her, my youngest hid the car keys in one of her fathers shoes, she then informed me that she had to use the potty too. After that I got their coats back on and realized that my keys were missing. When I asked where they were, I got silence. I said something like, "Well, I guess we'll just have to take naps all day since we can't go out and do anything fun." The response from my two year old resembled a bunch of fake sneezes, "A SHOE - A SHOE". While I began questioning if those pretend sneezes were real sneezes, my oldest said that the keys must be in a shoe. Bingo, found them! Time to go! Strapping my puffy coated kids into their car seats is never fun and often time consuming, but it's got to be done. And we were finally off . . . only to get two minutes down the street and have to stop for what seems like 100 wild turkeys s-l-o-w-l-y crossing the road. We totally would have missed that giant flock of birds if someone didn't hide my car keys.

Therefore, I'm sorry I'm late . . . I have kids.

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