I did it! *phew*

This post officially marks the end of NaBloPoMo. In a way I am relieved not to "have to" write every single day. I feel like I'm generally a pretty good blogger—I write frequently enough throughout the year and used to (in the days before Benjamin) write nearly every single day—but not being able to not write when I'm either "too tired" or "have nothing to say" was a bit of a challenge. I'm happy to have it off my plate so that I can take some time off blogging and focus on a few other things on my to-do list, such as:

1) Writing the Christmas poem
2) Finishing edits to my mom's dissertation
3) Getting Andrew through finals week (which includes a fair amount of editing)
4) Attacking some problem areas in the house
5) Preparing Christmas gifts

I only have so many hours in the day that aren't entirely eaten up by the demands of little ones that I can only get so many things done that require me to not be filling their needs. This month blogging took precedence  Next month I expect that blogging will occasionally take a back seat while I do other things with my precious "my" time.

It's not that blogging is a burden, really, it's just that some nights I really should have just done the dishes and gone to bed instead of writing and then doing the dishes and going to bed. December is an especially busy month, though, which automatically increases the blogging burden.

I'm glad I do it, though.

A Pathetic Wednesday

We had a super lazy day today, which is probably why I'm doing all these massive picture dumps. Miriam woke up with a kink in her neck and refused to get off the couch all day long (she got up twice to use the potty—that is all). The poor little thing was miserable and I totally empathized with her because I remember getting a few killer kinks in my neck back when I was around her age. They were debilitating, tear-worthy, and horrible. I remember borrowing my dad's neck brace a few times, which I'm sure looked ridiculous (I also do not recall why he had a neck brace), to help hold my head up because the pain was awful.

Smiley guy

Benjamin has a lot of different smiles, here are but a few of them. And, yes, he's usually about that wet—he's really, really drooly.

I've been trying to capture this last one for a while—it's his toothy grin...but without the teeth. It cracks me up!

The Park, in pictures

On Monday I took the kids to the park while Rachel was at school (which is a long way to say that on Monday I took Miriam and Benjamin to the park).

If you shove a blanket and a front carrier in the swing with Benjamin he's big enough to swing by himself!

Never were there such devoted sisters

It's a rare thing for our girls to play nicely together, so today you get some pictures of them playing nicely apart.

First up is Rachel with her Littlest Pet Shop train:

Working is more expensive than not working

Shortly before Benjamin was born I interviewed for a job that I didn't get. It turns out that was a huge blessing in disguise because I couldn't have worked this summer. I just couldn't have. End of story.

I was just offered that very same job today—asking me to let them know my decision as soon as possible so that I could be cleared to start work on Monday. It was tempting—to work from home a couple of hours every day—but in the end we declined and here's why:

• It requires early morning hours; we're traditionally night owls... And though Benjamin slept through the night (a full eleven hours!) for the first time ever last night I'm pretty sure it was a fluke.
• It pays less than what I've ever been paid since graduating from college (and only 75 cents more than my last job in college).
• It would require Andrew keeping the kids out of my hair, which he's totally capable of but...
• Andrew gets paid twice as much (as what I would be earning if I took this job) at his side job so it would not be cost effective to have him be the parent while I work because do you know what we could do instead? He could work and I could parent and magically we'd earn twice as much money. Ta-da!

In the end it was a no-brainer. My contribution to the family's income will remain being a stay-at-home mother. And I think I'm okay with that, though it's still mystifying that it's possible for me to work and lose money...

Today I learned about cigarettes

This was Rachel's journal entry for Saturday, November 24:

"To day I lrnd a baot sigrres."

She proudly displayed it to me while I was in the kitchen. I slowly sounded it out while she attempted to hold her journal steady in mid-air (something she always fails at because she's a fidgety five-year-old). "Today I learned about...cigarettes. Awesome. Ummmm... Do you want to write a little bit more," I prompted. "Maybe say where you learned about cigarettes or what you learned about cigarettes."

Her amendment reads:

"I went to the Duke Hom Sed. Sigrres r bad."

That just about sums up our Saturday. We made it to the Duke Homestead and Tobacco Museum. I'm not sure what I was expecting but it certainly wasn't what I got. The whole museum seemed confused about whether it should laud or lambast the tobacco industry. It was almost awkward.

We got there just in time to watch the introductory film which went on and on about the farming, harvesting, curing, and auction of tobacco and how those things have changed through time. It talked about how cigarettes were "invented" and how they got better and better and better but then...we discovered tobacco causes cancer. So the city quickly changed its name from The City of Tobacco to The City of Medicine. The end.

I suppose it's justice that a large chunk of the Duke Endowment goes toward medicine since many people paid the Duke family money in order to poison their bodies. We, also, can thank the tobacco industry for our education, if nothing else, since Duke University was funded by the Duke family with tobacco money.

The Waltz of the Snowflakes

Andrew is very strict about the window of opportunity for Christmas celebrations. Under his regime we can ring in the Christmas season as soon as Thanksgiving dinner is in our bellies. He's a veritable scrooge about any holiday revelry before the pumpkin pie has been sliced. No Christmas music—no humming, whistling, or singing any song with even the remotest ties to Christmas. No Christmas stories. No Christmas shows. No asking questions about the names of Santa's reindeer. No drawing pictures of elves. Nothing of the sort.

For years he's been chiding me for whistling Jingle Bells a few weeks too early. And for years I have been bringing every bit of pre-Christmas Christmas to his attention just to get his dander up. I even have a song I sing when I spot Christmas lights that are turned on "too early." Do you want to hear it? It goes like this (sung to the tune of Jingle Bells, naturally, in order to add insult to injury):

"Christmas lights! Christmas lights! Christmas, Christmas lights!"

That's about as far as I've written because Andrew inevitably interrupts me screaming, "Stop! Stop! Stop!"

I'm not sure how much the pre-Christmas season actually bothers Andrew, but he's certainly been pigeon-holed into the role of Christmas Season Enforcer and the children and I sure do enjoy flaunting the rules to get him to throw a "fit."

This year he was the first one to break the Christmas rules when he "accidentally" allowed the girls to check out a Christmas story before that was "permissible."

Next, our friend Crystal and her kids sent us a package with Andrew when he came home from Indiana (he stayed at Crystal and Jason's house). The goodies were in a huge stocking that the girls simply couldn't resist climbing into.

The Thanksgiving Slide

Last week a friend sent an email announcing she had a little slide that she wanted to get rid of. I happened to be nursing Benjamin in my rocking chair (which doubles as my "office" chair) and heard my email ding. It took maybe a nano second for me to write back to her, claiming the slide.

I thought it would make a great Christmas surprise and my plan was to get it from my friend on the sly and hide it in the shed until the big day.

But on Monday night while the girls and I were eating dinner there was a knock on the door.

"Just keep eating your dinner," I told the girls. "I'll get it."

In child-ese that translates roughly as, "C'mon, guys! Follow me to the door and then push your way outside to see who/what it is!"

I peeked through the peephole and saw a cute pregnant lady standing next to a slide (instead of the masked madman the paranoid side of me sometimes expects) so I opened the door a crack to tell her that I was going to keep the slide a surprise. Somehow my two little girls managed to wedge themselves  outside and started jumping up and down with excitement.

I thanked my friend and then ushered the girls back inside wondering how on earth I was going to salvage the surprise I'd been planning for Christmas.

"Maybe they'll just forget about it..." I wrote in a hopeful IM to Andrew (who currently only has one late night Monday class left this semester (we're not talking about next semester)), but I forgot about object permanence.

Benjamin bubbles

Reflux is only one of the reasons Benjamin can usually be found soaking wet from the waist up. This is another reason:



Benjamin has recently discovered the very wet, fun syllable "bllllgggggggrrrrrb."

His dry shirts don't stand a chance against his gurgling baby talk.