Things no one tells you about parenting
You never wake up in the morning thinking, “I’m going to have to stick a magnet up my child’s nose today to retrieve a stuck toy.”
But such is the life of a parent. Let me start back at the beginning.
Mikaela received a Dog Trainer Barbie set for Christmas – complete with a Barbie-scale dog and its accouterments. Including tiny, raisin-sized things meant to serve as both dog biscuits and poop, depending on which end we’re talking about. Fun stuff. (See photo below.)
Anyway, the little poop/biscuit pellets are magnetized, and Barbie has a magnetic pooper scooper that she can pick them up with. How clever. Jay mentioned that he’d like to have been at the meeting where this concept was pitched to management.
So, Mikaela has been playing with this playset a lot. Last night after she went to bed, she suddenly started screaming hysterically. Jay and I both ran into her room, and it took us a couple of minutes until we were able to decipher what the problem was … she finally pointed to her nose and said something about a toy being stuck. We got the flashlight and peered up there, and there it was: one of those magnetic pieces of poop, wedged.
We tried various methods of getting it out, finally getting a stronger magnet out and shoving it way up her nose. Thankfully, it worked. Can you imagine the stories the ER doctors would’ve had to tell … I’m sure they’d have had a good laugh. Thankfully it didn’t come to that point. And thankfully we can laugh about it now! Heaven sakes… what will this child do to give me gray hair next?
Womens’ Christmas Brunch
Our church recently had a womens’ Christmas brunch, an annual affair that has church ladies dusting off the fine china and men waiting tables. The outreach event includes food and entertainment, and each of the 24 tables is hosted by a different lady (or group of ladies) at our church – and boy, do we go all-out to make everything look nice. It really turned out to be a lot of fun.
I was accosted …. uh, I mean, approached, by a lady in our church, who started the table-hosting conversation with, “so I hear your spiritual gift* is hospitality.”
After hearing about the table-hosting (in this case, hostesses decorate the tables and supply the china, napkins, stemware and flatware) opportunity, I countered that I have no china, no silver and no linen napkins. And I certainly have no crystal. “No problem!” She beamed – “you can use my extra set!”
I tried several times to politely extricate myself, but it was not to be. I wound up being matched with a woman who had all the china – but no ideas on how to decorate the table. Well, I might not have fine china, but I can usually squeeze some creativity out in a pinch.
I went to Michael’s arts-and-crafts store and spent about $22 making an arrangement that probably would’ve cost me $50 or more if they had made it … yay for having that floral-shop background, huh?
Pictures of our table:
So, the day came, and the other lady came in and carefully arranged her beautiful china and I plopped my centerpiece in the middle of the table. Not much of a contribution! Hopefully I can find some Christmas china on sale before next years’ event so I can do a table myself.
The day after I decorated, we had the brunch. I was pleasantly surprised to find out the ladies seated at my table were the ones in my often-neglected-but-lovely playgroup. I’m sure the person in charge of seating had something to do with that. It was great fun catching up with everyone, and the food, skits and music was very nice.
Here are some photos of some of the other tables at the brunch:
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* for those of you not up on Christian-ese, the Bible says that there are different spiritual gifts (I Cor. 12:1, 4-6), and then goes on through the rest of the chapter to outline different types of gifts, talking about how each of the members of the church function as if they were different members of one physical body – there need to be hands, eyes, feet, etc. – all this to say, God has given each of us roles we excel at, some mundane, some in the limelight – but all integral for accomplishing the church’s role of spreading Christ’s message and caring for our neighbors.
ha.
Me (sorting through dirty laundry): Mikaela, what is your Snow White costume doing in the dirty laundry? Did you pee on it?
Mikaela (pondering): mmmm … probably.
Church small group Christmas party
We had our church small-group Christmas party/potluck on Tuesday night – the adults did a “White Elephant” gift exchange, and the kids did a book exchange. It was crowded and chaotic, but fun. Our host snapped some pics:
… the last one is of me wearing my gift: a lovely crocheted scarf. Sure beats the lame gifts I brought! Oh, and a side note: everyone is henceforth banned from taking photos of me from a low angle. Not flattering.
Brrrr
I headed out this morning to take the Gabriel to school and noticed that I was on empty. Oh, it’s Murphy’s law … the coldest morning in recent history, and my tank’s on empty. I got out to pump, and could only stand 7 dollars’ worth. Any more and I swear, I’d have frozen to death. The wind chill is 25, I found out upon arriving home.
I just can’t handle cold weather. I’ll take long hot summers over long cold winters any day. But unfortunately we get cold days here too. Maybe we could get a winter home in Mexico … ha.
My hubby
After a recent promotion, Jay has submitted his resignation for his second job. He’s going to start giving drum lessons again, as well … so we’ll be rolling in the dough. LOL. Well, something like that.
THANK YOU, Jay for all your sacrifice for our family. You worked from dawn until well after dusk each day … but now I’m so looking forward to being able to spend more time as a family again! I’ve missed you!
Christmas cookies
We made and decorated Christmas cookies last night. That’s always a fun, messy time together. 
Christmas festival pix
We went to a really great Christmas festival Saturday – it had horse-drawn carriage rides, live music and dancing, the usual carnival-type games and food, as well as a “Bethlehem Village” that was set up to look like it did in Jesus’ day; here are some of the pix:
Oh, holy cow ..
This is the audio equivalent of watching a train wreck. Cover your dogs’ ears! And it just keeps getting worse …
Gross
We were at Garden Ridge recently and the kids had to go to the bathroom. As Gabriel’s not old enough to go in the men’s restroom himself, I let him go in the women’s room with Mikaela and I. When we walked in, Gabriel sniffed and said, “It smells like the cafeteria.”
I guess the lunchroom food hasn’t changed much since my days in school.
The fam
From our Thanksgiving trip. L-R: my nephew Josh (15), my sister and brother-in-law, my niece Rebekah (18), my niece Lauren (22) holding Clover the malti-poo, my dad and mom, me, and Jay. Of course, that’s Mikaela and Gabriel in front.
We’re Back
I am back from my trip! We got in from our Thanksgiving trip early in the a.m. on Monday; I decided to let Gabriel skip school that day so we could all sleep in. It was nice. I spent the rest of the day trying to clean, unpack and do laundry.
Yesterday was Jay’s birthday, so we were busy celebrating it – and putting Christmas decorations up. Today he had to go back to work after 8 days off – I know that’s got to be hard to get back in the swing of things after that long! Unfortunately, his break could have been much better. He’s had bronchitis for over 2 weeks now.
Anyway, our trip was nice! We both had a really nice time, as did our kids. But for some reason, the drive there (to Birmingham) through east TX, Louisiana & Mississippi seemed much shorter than the route back through TN and Arkansas. So, like I said – we drove in to Birmingham, spent the night there Tuesday night, then drove to the Knoxville, TN area to my sister’s house on Wednesday. My kids are at a fun age to be enjoyed by family, so we had a pretty fun time. One of the days, we went to the Knoxville Fantasy of Trees, where the kids did Christmas crafts, rode a carousel, and got to see lots of beautifully decorated trees and gingerbread houses – all to benefit the children’s hospital. While there, we also baked Christmas cookies and had “early Christmas,” with the kids opening their gifts from my parents and sisters’ family. Oh, and my sister fattened us up all week with her ridiculously wonderful cooking.
We stayed in Knoxville until Saturday mid-day, then drove to the Nashville area to see my sister & brother-in-law and their daughter. That evening, we had a sitter come over so we could go out to celebrate Jay’s birthday. We went to McCreary’s Irish Pub in Franklin and had fish & chips … it was fun. Our friend Eric, who we haven’t seen in forever, got to go with us – although, we missed his lovely wife who couldn’t make it because of a cold.
Sunday morning we got up and drove back home. We started out at 9:30 a.m. and made it home at 2:30 a.m. It was a long, long, hard day. It was rainy, which made travel very slow. I don’t ever want to see Arkansas again.
