’tis the season

Ooh, little St. Nick

by mayberry on December 6, 2011

So tell me, does St. Nick visit your house? He never came around when I was a kid. We had to wait for Santa to drop by on December 24 like everyone else. But it seems that here in the frozen North where we live, most children are accustomed to a little pre-stocking of the stocking. When they go to bed on December 5, they put out their shoes or socks (I’ve heard both) so that St. Nick can fill them with treats. Apparently we can attribute this to our state’s German immigrant roots, although it should be noted that my mother is twice as German as I am and her mother was born and raised in this state, and yet St. Nick dissed us every year of my childhood.

For our kids, this all started when Jo was in kindergarten. We arrived at school on the morning of December 6 and saw that one of her gym shoes was missing from the shelf above her hook. I started to grill her about how on earth she managed to lose one shoe, but then noticed that every shoe on the shelf was missing its partner. It turned out that St. Nick had grabbed them all, stuffed them with goodies and brought them into the classroom.

From then on, well, it seemed that we would need to open our doors/chimney to the jolly old elf each December 5, because why would he skip over our house only to visit everyone else in town? (This also means we’re four for four on trips to Walgreens at 9 p.m. on that same night. Things that make you go ho-ho-hmmmm.)

*

P.S.: I also wrote more about holiday slacking in this guest post at Diets in Review.

{ 4 comments }

The pants are here

by mayberry on December 24, 2010

So now it’s a (Christmas) party.

Hope you have a very merry Christmas and/or a happy weekend!

{ 6 comments }

Santa has a dilemma

by mayberry on December 14, 2010

Jo is eight and rushing headlong toward nine. For Christmas, along with a “mackbook” (no) and a “snugie” (also no) she has asked for an American Girl doll. It would be her second one.

I can justify the expense of the doll: She really does play with the one she already has, both alone and with friends who have their own dolls. This would be just about the only thing we’d buy for her this holiday. And Opie’s one big gift is actually a nice piece of BlogHer swag, so cost=$0.

If we don’t get her the doll, we’ll probably get something like an iPod  shuffle.

I’m leaning toward the doll because this is surely the last year she’ll ask for something like this. We have the rest of her life to buy MP3 players and gift cards and clothes.

But is it silly to buy something that she’ll love for a few months and probably forget about by next Christmas? WSSD?*

*What Should Santa Do?

{ 7 comments }

Gratitude

by mayberry on November 26, 2010

…is playing the Telephone game with two mostly deaf 90-year-olds. Seven people, four generations and every one of us crying with laughter.

…is breaking out the pumpkin pie two days before Thanksgiving, because why not?

…is going to an old school Italian joint for pizza and porketta sandwiches that will probably appear one day on Man vs. Food.

…is being home again safe and sound with the weekend ahead of us.

{ 2 comments }

Add an hour, add a day

by mayberry on November 7, 2010

Yesterday I was supposed to go on a day trip with an organization for which I volunteer. I’d been gone overnight a week earlier, I had a really tedious, time-consuming project to finish this past week, and I have another short trip planned for the end of this week. The thought of being gone for half the weekend was making me queasy, possibly even migrainey, so I begged off. I spent most of Saturday congratulating myself for this decision.

First, though, it was the usual skating+Starbucks with Jo. The barista has mastered three-fifths of our order by now and we are confident that she will get the whole thing down soon. Jo brought home three sample-size paper cups and then set up a Starbucks in her room for her American Girl doll. She used a small wooden chair for a table, two round dollhouse rugs for plates, carefully ripped tissues for napkins, and two toy megaphones (wide end up) for chairs.

Then we attacked the Winter Stuff Drawer. We have a set of huge (about 3′ deep by 4′ wide) built-in drawers in our downstairs hall. The bottom one is full of all our scarves, hats, gloves, mittens, earmuffs, and so forth, plus the odd baseball cap and summer sun hat. We took everything out and started over, getting rid of all the mateless mittens and outgrown hats. We sorted everything by wearer and upgraded our system of inside-the-drawer boxes and bins.  When we were done it was a Thing of Beauty. And it better stay that way.

In the afternoon I actually sat and watched a football game for the first time this season (I used to plan my entire weekends around “College Football Gameday”) and got through some of my big backlog of magazines. (I’m coming for  you next, Google Reader.)

And then! This morning I used my extra hour to run! This is pretty much unprecedented. All you mamas of little kids: there is hope. I slept 8 hours, worked out, showered, and dressed well before 9 a.m. Another thing of beauty. Maybe I’ll do it again next fall!

Edited to add photo of The Drawer for Kara:


It’s not as good as a locker area or mud-room, but it does house all our winter gear (for the whole family) except coats, snowpants, and boots. The drawers above hold wrapping paper/ribbons; DVDs; and CDs. ALL OF THEM. And then there is a cupboard above with shelves, which holds board games, Wii accessories, some cookbooks and magazines, and some art supplies.

**

Over on the Reviews tab: a sweeps where you can win books for a school library.

{ 3 comments }

Fab Five

by mayberry on April 4, 2010

On your fifth birthday, you hunted Easter eggs and wore your new frog boots to church.

During brunch, you sweetly sang “Two little blackbirds sitting on a hill…” Then you sang it while accompanying yourself on the ukulele. Then you sang it while accompanying yourself on the drums. Then we said “Enough singing.”

You played with your Lego Star Wars X-Wing fighter allllll day, except when you were making movies, starring Zhu Zhu Pets, with your sister. (But one of your favorite presents was the giant cardboard box that came in the mail from Grammy.)

Instead of a cake, you asked for parfaits. This turned out to mean chai tea concentrate, milk, strawberries, whipped cream, chocolate syrup, and red and green sugar crystals in a glass. With a piece of cinnamon-pecan roll on top to hold the candles.

You rode your bike to the playground so you could go on the spinny merry-go-round. Later you biked to a different park just so you could roll down the sledding hill.

In 10 days you’ll attend kindergarten orientation.

Just don’t run too far too fast, okay?

{ 5 comments }

Elite Eight

by mayberry on April 3, 2010

I don’t think too many (white, Midwestern) 8-year-old girls sit down to a homecooked Indian meal on their birthday and eat it with gusto.

I don’t think too many eight-year-old girls accidentally open their younger brother’s birthday present and really wish they could have those boys’ size 5 plaid Bermuda shorts for their own.

I don’t think too many eight-year-old girls give away 99% of their Easter candy, cheerfully, because they can’t eat it thanks to their recently installed orthodontic devices.

I don’t think too many eight-year-old girls want to spend part of their birthday building a Lego spaceship with their uncle.

Then again, I don’t think too many eight-year-old girls are as great as you are.

{ 4 comments }

Feeling foolish

by mayberry on April 1, 2010

I truly am grateful for

  • A big work project
  • Two children celebrating birthdays
  • The opportunity to fix my child’s crooked jaw and teeth
  • A holiday featuring yummy food, fun traditions, and one of my favorite hymns
  • Family coming to visit
  • Days off from school
  • Stunningly amazingly beautifully gorgeous weather

I would be EVER SO MORE grateful if all this were not happening simultaneously.

{ 6 comments }

Just so you know I am still alive

by mayberry on December 26, 2009

… a meme, found at Swistle.

Eggnog or hot chocolate? Hot chocolate.

Does Santa wrap the presents or leave them open under the tree? Mostly he wraps them, especially when he is also visiting our niece at the same time. (Because her daddy thinks Santa should wrap and why would he wrap for only one out of three kids?) (Also, here is the SIL #fail of this trip: Requesting that our kids wait to open their Santa gifts until their cousin arrived from the hotel where she was staying. At 1:30 p.m.!) (Request: denied.)

Colored lights on a tree or white? Colored, but I have given in to my husband’s preference for white. (See additional tree-decorating guidelines.)

Hang mistletoe? No. But I still remember the giant, fake ball of it my mother used to have.

When do you put your decorations up? Outdoors: If there is a warmish day somewhere near Thanksgiving, grab it. Otherwise, first or second weekend of December. Tree/indoors: I prefer the second weekend in December.

What is your favorite holiday dish? Here at the Laws of In, homemade pierogies.

Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? Here, all of them (except for Santa’s). At my house, only one on Christmas Eve, the rest in the morning.

How do you decorate your Christmas tree? See link to rules above. This year, our tree was very finicky and it took a long time to secure it in its stand. While they were waiting, the kids drew ornaments on colored paper. So those are prominently displayed. Also this year, Jo took extreme pride in being permitted to hang up very fragile ornaments herself.

Snow: Love it or hate it? I like it while it’s falling, and I like it lying prettily on the ground (but not the roads) for Christmas, but basically I hate it. (Answer stolen 100% from Swistle.)

Can you ice skate? If by “ice skate” you mean “remain upright and locomote forward while wearing ugly, rented boots with dull blades attached” then the answer is Yes!

What is your favorite holiday dessert? My grandmother’s pumpkin bars with cream-cheese frosting.

What is your favorite holiday tradition? Listening to holiday music. When I was a child, we used to have Christmas Eve dinner at my grandmother’s, then go to church, then drive down a nearby street on which the neighbors collaborated to depict the 12 Days of Christmas with wooden cut-outs.

Candy canes: Yum or yuck? I prefer them in the form of peppermint bark.

Favorite Christmas show? The Grinch.

And you?

{ 8 comments }

Not coming soon to a mailbox near you

by mayberry on December 15, 2009

It’s a bloggy tradition — the unsent holiday letter!

Dear friends and family,
If you’re in the mood for something really ho-ho-ho and fa-la-la, you should probably just go ahead and recycle this and move on to the next envelope in your stack. Because really, what good can I say about a year that started with (a) a dead baby and ended with (b) a 6-week-long (and counting) migraine?

When I wasn’t crying about (a) or (b), I was putting on a chipper face and working on my fitness site and other freelance projects. I learned that three days of child care during the summer months was not exactly sufficient, and also that attempting to work during a vacation at my parents’ house was a lousy idea. Yep, I am blessed to work for myself and from home but I am also here to tell you it isn’t always a picnic.

Jeff weathered some pretty big storms at work and came out on top. He also decided to take my attempts at Shredding and raise them, to the tune of a 50-lb.-plus weight loss. I am super-proud of him. However, I believe I deserve half the credit due to the volume of laundry his workouts generate.

Jo was on-trend this year. She grew a pretty impressive set of vampire fangs thanks to the loss of several baby teeth. She made amazing progress in reading, swimming, ice skating and watching every episode of “iCarly” ever shown on Nickelodeon (multiple times).

Opie? Well let’s just say his biggest accomplishment of this year involves tighty whities and leave it at that. He has also developed an unpleasant obsession with the phrase “punch your booty.” He’ll totally be ready for kindergarten in the fall!

Our dog Folly is still with us, trying to protect us from the mailman and the puppy next door. The kids are still waiting for her to die so they can get a kitten.

Bah humbug,

Mayberry Mom

{ 12 comments }

← Previous Entries