Santa Photos Gone Wild

I'm sure the whole visiting Santa thing is very puzzling to children. I mean, the guy is supposed to be in the North Pole packing his sleigh full of dolls and nerf guns. Instead, he is hanging out in Fred Meyer, plopping crying children on his lap and laughing his jolly Santa laugh. Simultaneously, he also happens to be at the local mall. And the mall across town. And on the street corner downtown. Why, he even paid a special visit to Grandma's house. To add to the confusion, St. Nicholas stopped by our Church's Christmas festival. He looked more like a fancy priest than a Santa Clause and promptly disrobed in front of all the children when the last tot left his lap.

Luckily, Jacob doesn't think there is anything fishy about seeing Santa wearing a maroon suit and grey beard at Fred Meyer and then seeing him 30 minutes later in a bright red suit and white beard in front of Annie's Pretzels at the mall. Phew. I have one more year to come up with a plausible explanation for that one.

Even though my children have had their fair share of Santa this year, I really wanted to get photos taken at the mall so that I could order a photo ornament for the tree. I have one from last year and I think it might be fun to get a new one each year.

So after work today, I brought the kids home, shoved some snacks down their gullets, pulled out Ryan's nearly-too-small Santa outfit, and shucked them both into the car. By 6:15 we were off to the mall. Yeah, I know. What was I thinking heading to the mall on Christmas Eve eve. I knew there would be a line, but I guess I over-estimated my patience and how quickly the snaking line would move, and under-estimated how many children still needed to visit Santa.

It was insane.

The line nearly wrapped around the entire Santa-set-up and moved at a snail's pace. Ryan wanted to be held nearly the entire time so I spent a good amount of time juggling him and my heavy purse while trying to keep Jacob from causing too much trouble. Five minutes into our adventure, my hand holding Ryan's rump felt sopping wet. I set Ryan down and saw urine literally dripping from my hand. Five beads of urine fell from my hand to the floor. His diaper had gotten twisted and he soaked the entire front of his outfit. I set him down, right in the middle of the freaking line, and changed him on the mall floor. And washed my hand with a baby wipe approximately 5,000 times.

I continued to hold Ryan, clutching his pee-covered Santa body against my own. I prayed that his pee would dry before we reached Santa. Not only would the pee spot not be ideal for the photo, but I would feel kind of horrible setting a pee covered baby on his lap (but if the pee dried and Santa had no idea, then there would be less opportunity for him to judge me).

Catching snowflakes.

As I held a squirming Ryan, Jacob joined a group of three boys who were standing as close to the gate that surrounded Santa land as possible. They were catching fake, falling snowflakes in their hands and tugging at the fake snow that covered the ground. (They were also trying to shake the trumpet-playing reindeer who was standing guard nearby but I am trying to maintain an aura of plausible deniability about that, especially since a chunk of the reindeer's tail mysteriously went missing).

Creepy reindeer playing the piano.

I swear I looked down at my phone for one second (with one hand because the other had a death grip on heavy Ryan who was slowly slipping in the direction of the earth's core- friendly reminder to self: do more lifting at the gym).When I  looked back at Jacob he was holding an empty, smashed soda can and trying to catch falling snowflakes in it. Upon further questioning, I determined that he had found the discarded soda can near the garbage can and was trying to catch enough snow to make a snowball (duh, mom). The good mom that I am, never missing an opportunity to dash the hopeful dreams of a young boy, I jumped right in and totally ruined that fun.

As the clock ticked away and the line moved painfully slowly (literally, my arm was about to fall off), Jacob suddenly announced that he had to go pee. I thought about making him wait, until he grabbed at his crotch and started to do the OMG-dance. I know that dance well. I've utilized it many times. With my hands full of a 25 pound baby, a 25 pound baby's special blanket, and a large purse, I desperately pleaded with the people around me to hold my spot before I grabbed Jacob's hand and walked him quickly to the other end of the mall (where the restrooms were) and back.

After our 10 minute detour (and one purchase of a dozen chocolate chip cookies), we arrived safely back in our spots in line only to discover that some kid had unplugged the one cord that powered the entire Santa Land. Santa Land looked like downtown Bremerton, dark, lifeless, and possibly hiding a meth-head around the next corner. It only took 15 minutes for a vigilant mall cop to arrive and PLUG IN THE FREAKING CORD. Seriously? I could have done that. At least that extra 15 minutes gave my children extra time to eat four cookies each. Dinner, bam!

Washing down a cookie dinner

As we neared the finish line, Jacob kept wandering off to a nearby phone kiosk. I promptly told him not to touch ANYTHING. Apparently the air i the mall is very thick and it takes sound 30 seconds to travel 15 feet because he touched approximately ALL the phones before he shoved his hands in his pockets and stomped back to the line. That's when Jacob found another troupe of children to harass and instigated a cotton ball snowball fight. Ryan saw that they were having fun and, for the first time all night, wanted down to play. I was just about to tell Jacob to stop throwing fake, cottony snowballs at the other children when he pitched one right at a Christmas tree and knocked down an ornament.

I breathed a huge sigh of relief when the kids changed games. But quickly sucked in another tense lung-full of breath when I realized the new game was "let's-kick-each-other-in-the-shins-over-and-over-again." Ryan was the instigator this time. He would go up to Jacob, kick him in the shin and giggle. Jacob would laugh, then kick back. Then Ryan would kick the kid next to Jacob. The kid kicked Ryan back. They were giggling but I new that would be short-lived. I instructed Ryan to stop kicking and his response was to walk over to me and kick me right in the leg. This caused an uproar of laughter from the parents around me but did nothing to discourage Ryan from kicking.

The kicking did not stop. I approached the kids and was about to threaten some major time out when Ryan plowed into Jacob, knocking him and another kid onto Santa's red carpet.  Before I knew what was going on, the three of them were right in the middle of a wild game of pig pile. I stopped them, of course, but not before snapping some incriminating photos.

Right about here is when I wished I had a shirt that said "I'm just the babysitter."

I know it sounds like my boys were horrible, but seriously, they waited in that line for an entire hour, wearing uncomfortable Christmas swag, in the middle of a mall (so many things to touch and places to run), right at bedtime. So considering all that, they did pretty well.

And the pictures....

Well, aside from the creepy, laughing Santa, they turned out pretty good. Forgive the quality, they are pictures of pictures (my download code isn't working).

And from these pictures, you can't even tell that they were causing so much trouble.

Phew, another year in the bag!

Lights: House & Zoo

Our Christmas lights aren't the fanciest. But I sure do love pulling into the street in the evening and seeing the glow of our house.

This house is the source of a lot of emotions right now. Mostly bad. I'm trying so hard to love it. But this tiny little sardine can is draining my patience, my tolerance, and my bank account (our sewer drained backed up this weekend-yay for surprise and expensive home repair projects that are becoming way too frequent for this 103 year old house). This house is probably the biggest reason why I am not getting my third baby. It is also why I cannot begin the process of becoming a foster parent (which I feel so strongly called to do). And we're kind of stuck here for the foreseeable future.

Some days, I just want to walk away from it. I literally want to exit the front door and never come back. But I can't.

 So, I wrapped it up in Christmas lights instead.

 

This is our entryway/living room/dining room. The kitchen is behind the wall with the bookshelf. Two other rooms and the bathroom are crammed off to the right. That is my entire house. 

At least it's pretty - when it's not filthy and littered with toys that have no place to go.

Lucky for us, we spend a lot of time outside.

Last Friday evening, we packed up the kids and went on an impromptu trip to Zoo Lights. I was exhausted from working all week but we decided to suck it up. It's just not Christmas without Zoo Lights.

 We saw Mt. Rainier.

Not quite sure how the polar bears migrated to the Pacific Northwest. Maybe they rode on Santa's sleigh?

The kids were bundled up in their finest jackets and whatever other warm accessories we could find.

For some of the displays, I was a teeny bit more excited than the boys, as evidenced in this picture:

My husband pushed the stroller ahead of me and walked way too fast. But I still stopped for a minute or two here and there to play with the shutter speed on my camera, even at the risk of getting lost/separated.

The light technicians recreated the Tacoma-Narrows bridge.

And a creepy tiger.

Ryan looks so handsome in this picture. I love that guy.

And this guy is simply hilarious although not so easy to wrangle away from any item that might be used as a playground. I present, Jacob the hermit crab:

The next picture was taken especially for Ryan. Jacob has a small stuffed shark that is most beloved by both boys. In fact, they fight over it constantly. Most mornings I wake up to the sound of Ryan yelling, "Sharky! Sharky! My Sharky!" I can usually get a sense for how the day is going to do based upon Jacob's response. (If he shares, then we are usually in for a good day.) I

Ryan was very excited to see a real-life shark.

Jacob was just excited to be set loose at the zoo. He must be doing a happy dance here.

One final pose before everyone (including me) got crabby.

Everyone Is Either Screaming Or Crying: It Must Be Christmas!

My husband is many things. He is a good man. He works hard. He's very responsible. But he's not exactly the leader of the fun parade (I'm not even sure he is IN the fun parade).

He is very frugal, which automatically takes a lot of "fun" things off the table (helicopter tours of Seattle, owning a pony, spending a week on a dude ranch learning how to be a cowboy, hanging out in a hotel for a week just because I love hotels). He is also a liberal, which takes even MORE fun things off the table (gun fights, sky-diving with George W., growing a chin-strap beard, Nascar, ATV races, and, in fact, anything that uses any environmental resources at all- we have a three sheet of toilet-paper-per-pee bathroom rule.). And, I' conservative. So at least we will always have fun political debates where we call each other names and accuse each other of trying to ruin the country.

So you can just imagine that our holidays are ton of fun.

First step is usually acquiring a Christmas tree. It's usually cold. There's a lot of walking involved. Then there is the (mostly) friendly annual tree debate (fir or noble). And then we are off to `schlep the kids around a gigantic forest full of weird strangers wielding handsaws. This time Jacob wanted nothing but to run and hide in the trees. Ryan hates anything to do with Christmas (lights, Santa, etc) so I can only imagine that his refusal to nap on the car ride over is due to some philosophically opposition to Christmas trees. He cried and begged to be held the entire trip. These things are exactly why doing things "as a family" makes my husband crabby and twitchy. And then there's me: determined that everyone is going to have fun damnit and make some good family memories.

"Look at all these trees!" I exclaimed. "Isn't this fun!?" As I said that, Ryan was clinging to my body screaming his eyes out and my husband was yelling at Jacob to put down the handsaw or else he would single-handedly cancel Christmas for the next five years which set Jacob into a giant tantrum. At that exact moment, a stranger approached. Seeing the camera slung over my arm, he asked if we would like him to snap a family photo.

"No." My husband immediately snapped.
"Yes please!" I returned.
I always win.

My boys, pretending to have fun. Very good fakers.

Also: go Seahwaks!

Jumping.

Quality Control checking to make sure Dad is doing a good job.

Dad needed a little break.

Somehow, we all survived. With a tree in tow. And all children and fingers accounted for.

As the tree was getting set up in it's stand, my next task was to tackle the Christmas lights, for both the house and the tree. When it comes to Christmas lights....well, it never comes to Christmas lights. At least, not so long as my husband is concerned. In the six years we have been married, I've had to do the Christmas lights every year or go without them. This isn't bad, except for one thing: me. I kind of suck. I'm lazy. I take short cuts. I'm much more inclined to throw away a strand of lights than try to find the culprit-burned-out bulb. In fact, I'm SO lazy that this year I finally bought an outlet timer so that I don't have to go outside and walk the two feet necessary to unplug the lights at night (we can't leave them on all night because....see above about my husband being a frugal liberal).

But still....the lights got done. I only got three splinters in my finger and dropped the f-bomb two times.

When I came inside, it was time for the best part- decorating the tree! I clearly instructed Jacob not to put any ornaments on the three until I got the lights and the ribbon on first. I only had to remind him of this one instruction fifteen times, each time I caught him trying to place a rebellious frosted pinecone into the no-trespassing Area 51 of the un-ribboned and un-lighted tree. One lengthy time out later, and I set him loose to decorate to his heart's content. Ryan is still not a fan of the tree. He thinks the lights are "hot" and screamed in response to each of my attempts to get him to put an ornament on the tree.

By the time the tree was decorated, five ornaments had been broken. Good thing 70% of our ornaments are homemade salt dough forged into pathetic renditions of angel, reindeer, and stocking shapes.

As I hung up the stockings and set up the nativities and Christmas candles, the boys tackled the sacred tradition of "Sweep Up All The Rogue Pine Needles." And we embarked on a nearly month-long journey of trying to share our tiny home with a Christmas tree. Even without a giant Christmas tree in the middle of our living room/entrance/dining room, our 950 sq. ft. house with it's four residents and all of their crap greatly resembles a can of sardines. With the Christmas tree, taking up every precious inch of extra floor space, it's.....um....cozy. Cozy is simply code for "it's so crammed in our house, we have to step outside whenever we need to take in a breath." That may be a slight exaggeration. But not by much.

After 70% of the needles (I gave up on the rest) were swept up, we were finally done (except for the five empty rubbermaid buckets marked "X-mas" which will probably litter the house for the next three weeks, instead of finding their rightful place in the creepy basement). I made some hot coa-coa so that we could sit in the living room and enjoy the results of our hard work.

We leaned back, side-by-side, gripping our mugs and staring happily at the glowing tree, which was in steep competition with the glow eminating from my husband's violent computer game just four feet away. We watched the twinkling lights in short-lived peace, which was only occasionally interrupted by the sound of blood and guts splattering the screen nearby. A smile spread across my face as I finally got to enjoy the wonder of Christmas through the eyes of my young boys.

And then Jacob spilled his hot coa-coa in my lap and began to cry. Ryan screamed repeatedly, "Mess! Mess! Mess! Mess!"  My husband looked away from his virtual fist-fight just long enough to yell, "Jacob, clean that up! No more hot chocolate for the rest of your life!"

Ahhhh, the magic of the holidays.

Four Days Of Freedom

Just got back from Reno. And it was GLO-RI-OUS. 

Despite my pre-trip worries, I had a really good time. Surprisingly, I didn't miss the kids AT ALL. This was in stark contrast to last year's trip to Vegas during which I pouted and whined and felt incredibly heart sick after just 24 hours away from home. Not this time. 

I had completely forgotten what it is like to be child-free. It is completely amazing. I went to bed when I wanted. I woke up when I wanted. I went to the gym when I wanted. I went for a walk just for the sake of going for a walk in a second's notice without having to pack a diaper bag, make sure everyone was fed, or put on three sets of shoes and jackets. I ate dinner when I wanted, WHERE I wanted. Want to go to a bar? No problemo! Want to eat dinner at 9:30? Ok! I got to pee ALONE! I got to do things on a whim. Whatever my little heart desired, I could make it happen in minutes. 

Reno itself was a lot of fun as well. So much preferred over the intense, hectic crowds of Vegas, where you are constantly running into throngs of scantily-clad 21 year olds, where sin is forever parading in front of your face, and the pressure to join in the debauchery is non-stop. The creepy men who spend way too much time grooming their facial hair were still present. But there were less of them. And it was easier to escape their drunk, desperate, and gyrating groins. Even more importantly, it wasn't too overwhelming or intense that I actually felt safe wandering around the city on my own. My one attempt to leave the casinos on my own in Vegas ended with me running back through the casino doors after a scary stalking incident. 

So when my friends decided to spend all of Friday and all of Saturday sitting around a smoky black jack table, I grabbed my purse and went looking for adventure. (I don't gamble...actually, I hate gambling) My friends literally stayed inside the three connected casinos for four whole days without stepping out for fresh air once! Gross! 

On Friday I walked a couple miles to the University of Nevada campus. I explored a planetarium there and then wandered around the town until I found myself in a giant arboretum/museum with dead, stuffed polar bears and shrunken human heads. I spend a solid four hours alone, in quiet, walking in a strange, new place. It was so calming and peaceful. It reminded me of my college days in Chicago where I would randomly hop the L and take a day trip in a new neighborhood of the city. 

University of Nevada-Reno

College sidewalk chalk

Planetarium

Saturday, while the girls gambled some more, I hopped a shuttle to the airport and rented a car and drove out to Virginia City on the promise of seeing a Mark Twain Museum and an old-timey, one-road country town. I picked up my rental car and head to the open roads, navigating and commanding my compact-class vehicle all alone. I cranked up the radio and enjoyed the gorgeous scenery of SR 341 as it led me up and then down a windy, two lane mountain road. It was so gorgeous. I felt like an adventurer. I felt so free. 

SR 341

Just me and the mountains

The little town was quaint, touristy, and cute. Just my kind of destination. I walked around old-time saloons built in the 1800's and, for some reason, passed up the chance to drink a sarsaparilla at the bar. Still kicking myself. The Mark Twain Museum lived up to my hopes. It occupied the bottom level of an old wooden building that used to house the local newspaper where Mark Twain worked and refined his writing. The top part of the building (main levels) had burned down sometime in the 1800's but the bottom level had made it through the fire. I walked on the original wood floor where Mark Twain had walked. 

Small city in the mountains

Me and the Twain.

I sat on his chair.

I stood near his personal desk. 

It was amazing. Well, for a history junkie like me anyway. When I recounted my trip to my friends, they seemed less than impressed. Apparently, I'm the only one who comes to Reno to see Mark Twain.

In the evenings, we gussied up, hit the lounges/bars, and danced our hearts out. Aside from an occasional beer, I'm not a huge drinker. I usually only drink on special occasions. Even then I'll only have one or two glasses of wine and call it quits. This weekend, I drank more alcohol than I have in the past three years put together! Ugh. My body is still in full detox mode. I did learn one valuable piece of information: eight shots of fireball is my absolute limit. I had only planned on one or two but, for some reason, I felt so cool sitting at the bar, throwing back a shot, and slamming the empty glass on the counter. Apparently, I convinced the guy sitting next to us to take off his shirt so that my friend could tweak his nipple. I only vaguely remember this. But...there are pictures.... Damn pictures.

There were glamour shots. 

And then not-so-glamour shots.

 Amazingly, I was able to run out my hangover the next morning and felt just fine after that. 

My favorite part of the trip, however, was Sunday morning. A couple of us got up early, landed a table at the sports bar, and watched our beloved Seahawks play on the giant big screen TVs. Knowing that we would be in Reno for the game, I packed my jersey. Ok, to be honest, I've worn this jersey every night for the past 10 days. No way was I going to leave it behind. I placed my first bet of the trip, a $5 wager that the Seahawks would win. We did. And I earned $4.33 from that very risky bet. It was so fun to be so far from Seattle and yet cheer side by side with Seattle fans. 

Big winner

We sat next to some 49 fans and exchanged taunts the entire game. One of them bought me a surprise shot of fireball which was delivered to me with a taunting note on the napkin. We ended up striking up a conversation. He turned out to be a lawyer (same kind of law I used to do) and we chatted about lawyer things and Seahawks. It's almost pathetic how talking about nerdy lawyer things turned out to be one of the highlights of my trip. I should probably fess up and admit right here and now that the only man I danced with in Reno was a 60 year old man who introduced himself to me as a "polka champion." As we were shaking our hips to Robin Thicke (in a very tame way), we chatted away about healthcare reform....and that, my friends, is how I do clubbing. (Last year in Vegas, a guy dressed in a yellow M&M suit hit on me at a restaurant....we ended up having a heated debate about politics- I just can't turn it off the nerdy.)

As much as I enjoyed my four days of freedom, I was very excited to get home at 1:00 am on Monday morning. I woke up a few hours later to the sound of my boys giggling loudly as their feet pattered across the floor. The hugs that followed were worth the price of gold. 

Sometimes, coming home is my favorite part about vacations.