Tis the Season

What is it about the holiday season that makes your normal happy go lucky people turn into complete monsters? Or those who have relatively predictable moods turn into a 9 month pregnant woman in summer heat?

Personally, I love the holidays. I love when the brisk autumn wind comes blowing in because then I know, three months of absolute chaos and fun are about to begin.

The kids' excitement on Halloween. Each child in his or her costume that, if old enough, took hours of contemplation to decide on (I'm always interested to know why that child picked that particular costume.) You can hear their laughter echoing through the night along with "Trick-or-Treat". Pumpkins line porches and send off an eerie glow with jack-o-lantern faces carved in them.

Good friends and family gathered around the table for Thanksgiving; the drone of chatter while they are complimenting on this dish or that and the laughter from the latest stories or events happening in their lives.

The day after Thanksgiving, the holiday lights come up. Festive music is played over the radio. Soon you start seeing cars driving around with trees strapped to the tops. Families gather around to decorate the tree, hang stockings, and bake holiday goodies. The kids anticipation start to show as the days get closer to Santa coming.

Then on to the New Year. How each person is going to bring in the next, their resolutions that they swear they are going to keep this time may be posted on the fridge to remind them of what they want to work on during the year. Laughter and drinks are passed around until the countdown to midnight.

And as quickly as it came, another year is gone. Everybody falls back into the same old routines they had back before the frenzied bliss began.

This is definitely my favorite time of year!

Good Days and Bad

As with everything, there are better days than others of motherhood.

Some days in the office Logan is fussy and unmanagable. Others, like today, he played quietly with his toys.

Last night he decided to pour 6-7 loads of liquid laundry detergent on the floor. He knew he was in trouble the moment I caught him because he started to cry as soon as I did.

Today, Logan was all smiles, playful, and loving. We spent the morning chasing each other around the house and playing other games. It has been snowing so we tested out his new snow gear. We even took our time coming home from work so we could play a while in it before it got too dark.

Whether the days are difficult or easy; this is just another stage in all of our lives that we will remember in the years to come.

Negative Four

Negative four - that is the temperature outside right now as I write this. It's funny how when I was a kid living in Alaska, I never seemed to be cold. Maybe the 50 below temperatures froze my memory of those days. I do remember having the beginnings of frostbite on my fingers a couple of times; but not much else besides ice skating, sledding down the piles of hills that the snow plows made, and just plain lots of kid fun.

Yesterday was not so cold, 15 degrees with 20 mile an hour winds. I had to take Logan out and meet the guys to give them some paperwork before heading to the office that afternoon. We had bought Logan a new pair of snow boots; I looked down at him, a big smile on his face as he trudged through the snow. And then it happened. He tripped and fell face first into a pile of white, wintery, bitterness. I felt so bad! My poor little boy with his face and hands red with cold (the wind was not helping the situation), screamed until I got him back in the house and warmed up.

It's amazing to me how little cold weather gear there is around here (of course it's not Alaska.) My husband and I had to go to three different stores just to find snow boots. And the gloves, thin knit ones (for adults and kids.) Apparently the only place to find any good outdoor gear is REI and though I love shopping there, I felt they were too expensive for little boys who outgrow their stuff in a week. However, I was ready to break down and spend the $35-$50 it cost for toddler snowboots; until I found a pair at Target.

Thankfully my mom, having four kids and living in Alaska, is an expert at kids cold weather gear (and finding it); and has mailed Logan a thinsulated pair of mittens with some other cold weather needs. I think until they arrive, we will be spending most of our time playing indoors.

Dinner and a Blood Sample

Last night we ate dinner at our Balloon Fiesta friends house. The mom is a nurse and has the ability to look at a couple drops of your blood to see how well you're eating, if there are any problems, etc. A talent that apparently hospitals and doctors frown upon because it allows the patient to know what to do in taking better care of themselves; instead of the here's your system and a long list of drugs to take to cover it scenario that doctors seem to like to give us.

So after dinner and dessert, she took my husband and myself to her "lab" (the den in their house) pricked our fingers and put two drops of blood from each on a slide. Everything was so fascinating. She showed me where a virus was dying off (my cold I had a week ago)and where my white blood cells wrangled up any other existing virus to fight the bad guys off.

Though I snack on carrot and celery sticks and have vegetables everynight with dinner, my "cookie cutter" blood cells show I am still not getting enough veggies in my diet. To aid my grouping and gapping in my white blood cells; a cup and a half a day of red raspberries, watermelon, and/or pomegrante.

For an hour she scrutinized my blood and told me the good things I am doing and what I could work on. On the way home, my husband and I compared notes - what he needed to work on compared to me. Some are similar and some are not. We discussed what to change to make ourselves more healthy and have decided to slowly start working on these changes.

I hope with these improvements that we are making in our diet, we can impart on Logan the importance of health and that you really are what you eat.

The Magic of Toothpaste

Having a toddler around, you never know what they are going to get into. My latest findings have been permanent marker all over my sewing machine and the bookcase at work. Being a little bit obsessive compulsive, I can not seem to concentrate on my sewing with black ink scribbles covering the area. The same goes for at work. However, the work situation was more of "get rid of the evidence before the manager walks in and sees what Logan had done."

In a frantic I cruised the web for what gets permanent marker out; the result - toothpaste. Not toothpaste in the form of a gel, but plain white toothpaste. With scepticism, I smeared the white goo over the black marks on my sewing machine, waited for about 10 seconds and rubbed with a sponge in circular motions. The marks were gone! I couldn't even tell that my sewing machine had been black.

And the result was the same when I brought my travel sized tube of toothpaste from home and worked on the bookshelf at work. No evidence what so ever of a little boy having fun with a permanent marker.

I think toothpaste is now a permanent object in my bag.

Naturally Born

Some people are naturally born at certain things. Whether it be sports, music, or even motherhood.

I always knew that I wanted to be a mom. In my head I would have a hallmark scenario with my family at a fall picnic or decorating the Christmas tree. However, I have discovered that no matter how much you prepare, you are never ready for the true aspects of motherhood.

Don't get me wrong, I do not consider myself a bad mother; but I am certainly no June Cleaver either. And I absolutely do not consider motherhood a bad thing. I love being a mom, some days I love it more than others.

I never expected it to be easy, but I wasn't ready for how hard motherhood is (especially in these early years - I am not ready to even think about how the teen years are going to go.)

All I know is that I love my little boy unconditionally. And in the end isn't that what matters most?

Trunk & Treat

I think I was the most excited about getting Logan all dressed up and out trick or treating for Halloween.

A couple of the local churches were having trunk and treat; cars park in the parking lot and you trick or treat out of the trunk of them. Some folks really went all out decorating their trunks with carved pumpkins, candles, witches, and ghosts. One church gave hay rides and both had a carnival which we did not attend.

Logan dressed as a bumble bee; a costume I believe to be too sweet for him. His dad and I joked that a goblin or gremlin would have been more appropriate. However, Logan was a hit of the night. Parents would joke for him not to sting them or say they don't have anything sweeter than him. One parent and his son approached us and asked to take Logan's picture, "because he looks so cute." Of course Logan had no idea about what was going on or why people kept putting things in his bag. Still, he squealed in excitement as all the other kids ran around dressed up too.

A tradition we have on Halloween is to watch "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown", but after the excitement and cold of the night, none of us could stay awake for the whole 25 minutes.