It Was Wonderful Christmas -- Now Let's Get Over It!

Christmas has come and gone once again; and once again, I am so over it. All that anticipation for one stinking hour of flying wrapping paper, cats successfully tearing all the ornaments and garland off the tree, and kids squabbling over who got the best item out of Santa's stinking red hobo bag.

Yes, Toni and Nia are having a grand time with the dollhouse/townhouse and the Rockstar Makeover Vanity that has left my carpet with pink stains of fake hair color all over it. Nadia and Julian have been having a blast with their Guitar Hero and Beatles Rock Star games; though I could use less Metallica and more John Lennon at this point in time.

I think I made the mistake of buying Julian months of service on Xbox Live, cause he's been missing in action for two days now.

But looking back on it all; can you believe the lines we stood in, the parking spots we wrecked our cars over, and the hair pulling that went into that one freaking hour of holiday hoo-hoo and Merry Christmas-Ca-Ca!? Give me more of Aunt Willamena's Egg Nog, but minus the egg and add extra nog!

Okay, I'm having a Scrooge moment, but at least it is AFTER the holidays are over.

I still waiting to dismantle Christmas decorations from the house and pick up what decorations are still in one piece on the front lawn after all the gale-force wind we've have had lately has blown them into 4 different corners of the earth!

"Will someone please let that family in India know that that IS our light-up reindeer on their roof"?

This will all happen after me, and a few others in my family, rid ourselves of a nasty respiratory infection that blew in with the last big storm we had that was a tropical storm *wanna-be*. Thank God the holidays are over!

Uh, but wait, we still have New Year's yet to go. Great! The Universe had to remind me.

So now I guess I gotta get down to business and make that list of resolutions that get shelved in one of my office drawers and I find it, like, two years later. Then I'm all guilt-ridden cause I got to maybe, maybe, one item on that list.

Another parental, responsible adult, human being failure moment.

Add that to my other list.

So, to encourage myself to actually complete one of the 40-something New Year's resolution lists I've made in my lifetime, I'm gonna share with all of you so that all of you can nag remind to keep focused and get off my lazy butt stay on track of my goals for the year.

1. Finish book I''m writing.

2. Bring Nadia and Toni to a more harmonious point in their relationship.

They've declared war on each other and it's my job to draft up a conflictual peaceful resolution that they both can challenge agree on. Add "mediator" to my list of motherly job descriptions.

3. Fix the budget and actually stick to it for more than one three months.

4. Getting Nia through one whole week without the assistance of Pull-up's.... again.

Do less laundry goes on this line as well.

5. Spend less time on the computer. Bawhahahahaha!!

6. Start a business online that actually makes money and uses less time than I'm currently spending on the computer.

(Refer to above resolution)

7. Finally figure out how to use Dreamweaver without throwing something at my iMac during the process.

8. Eat more chocolate because I didn't meet my quota for this past year.

Drink more coffee because I did make my goal for last year; therefore, there needs to be an increased adjustment for this year.

9. Get close to finishing my book. (Notice I'm already back sliding on this one)

10. Read more books, and Facebook and Tweet less. Again: Bawhahahaha!!

11. Get back into school and finish off the last of my credits.

I decided on Dental Hygienist, which I'm sure will confused my SIL, Deborah, so much that she will be beating her head against a wall, while sucking down a Champagne Cocktail, trying to figure me out..... again!

12. Sell some un-needed unwanted furniture so my house will look less like a consignment furniture store and more of a home.

We do not need four, count them - 4, shoji screens in one room!

13. Finish my freaking kitchen. YES! I'm still working on that. Don't ask - blame it on a migraine.

14. Make more time for my neighbor for coffee and chocolate. Find time to visit Tara in Destin more often. Make connections instead of acting like a hermit in a crayon colored, toy-filled shell.

Actually live up to my Myer's Briggs test results for once for once in 15 a few years!

15. Make that revolving schedule of when each pod person I gave birth to can use the computer they got for Christmas. So far it is resulting in everyone wanting to be on at the same time. Not only are they forming a line at my iMac, they've started a new one at their computer as well.

I should add "Chaos Control" on this list as well.

16. Remember that if I'm not there for myself, I can't be there for anybody else. Bottom line!

Notice that I have listed nothing that resembles losing weight, exercising more, eating healthier, or seeking the aid of a therapist (which, maybe, I should have put the therapist one in there). I frankly believe that if I have not gotten the concept of those first three, there is no use in adding them at this point in my life.

Insane - yes! Lack of common sense - no!

This list is just in it's beginning stages, so I am sure that I will add, like 50 more manic changes resolutions before it's finalized, notarized, and locked securely in a shoe box in the top of my closet because all my office drawers are crammed already with useless knick-knacks and old kid's projects that I can't bear to part with.

Should have added clean my stinking office drawers to the list as well.

Like I said - it's still a work-in-progress. It should be done by...... 2011!

Did You Know That Toilet Training Involves a Blender?

I was gonna write about how crappy my life has been of late, but who wants to hear that stuff when the holidays are just around the corner. No one wants to be the first Bah Humbug of the season. So instead, the powers of God sent me in the direction of Nia instead. It still amazes the power that a child can have over a situation.

Lately I have been having issues with Nia going to the bathroom when she needs to. You know the look; walking with her butt stuck out a mile while holding herself and stubbornly proclaiming "I don't HAVE to go!".

This has resulted in more accidents and excess laundry than I care to admit. So the other night I came up with a clever parenting technique; fabricate the situation to my favor in order to get the desired results. In other words:

I lied!

Nia was prancing around in the back yard the other day and there that butt went. Then she started dancing around while holding herself, and there was nothing Princess-cy about it!

"Nia, go to the bathroom.", I requested

"I don't HAVE to go!", she insists.

A few moments later after watching her do more squatting than dancing (it was quite weird looking at this point), I insisted again: "Nia, GO to the BATHROOM!".

"But I don't HAVE go!!", she yells back.

The whole back and forth thing is starting to get redundant and it's getting on my nerves at this point, so suddenly I have a clever idea of tricking the child into going.

"Nia, come here. I need to check you eyes a minute cause I can tell by your eyes if you have to go.", I say while glaring over my sunglasses.

She slowly walks towards me in that semi-duck position and I reach over and pull down her lower eyelid to her left eye.

"Yep, you gotta go Nia. The yellow spot in your eye is showing up and THAT means your bladder is full.", I barely squeak out without laughing in her face.

Not wanting to argue with medical science at that point, she promptly heads into the house and goes to the bathroom.

"Problem solved!", I say smiling to the hubs who is giving me that "Shame on you", look for lying to our daughter.

Well tonight, I was faced with the exact same challenge. Sitting outside and enjoying the mildly cool air while sipping my fav Pinot Nior, Nia comes outside and soon she has that butt stuck out again while drinking a glass of water and... holding herself.

Yes, it WAS a site! How she didn't pee all over herself while drinking the water is beyond me.

"Nia, go to the bathroom.", I half patiently say cause I'm like relaxing and I really don't want to go through this whole "go to the bathroom circus" again.

"But I don't HAVE to go.", she says while bouncing up and down the steps.

"Nia, your butt is stuck out and I KNOW you have to go!", I really insist this time.

Something in my voice suddenly makes her stop short then she slowly turns around to me and pulls down her eyelid and asks: "Is that yellow thing in my eye?".

Nearly busting out laughing I replied "Yes it is!".

As she opens the door to go into the house to the bathroom she turns to me and says:

"THAT means the blender is FULL!"

There's A Midget In My Soup!

Every since I discovered that I CAN cook without tossing $50 worth of steaks in the garbage cause not even a knife would cut through them, the kids have found their love of the kitchen as well. Nia has been no exception.

It all started when I was pregnant with Nia and was bedridden for quite a long time with morning sickness combined with a nasty bout of pneumonia. Food Network was my choice of TV shows to zone out on for several weeks. What I learned in those weeks completely changed my life in the kitchen.

Because of it, I am left with four Sous Chef's who are determined to do exactly what I do, when I do it. It creates a hell of a lot of chaos in the kitchen sometimes. Yes, I HAVE tried alternating days they can help me; there is still borderline pandemonium at times as everyone wants to do what I am doing.

A lot of times, I just let the kids create on their own recipes, and experiment in the kitchen to instill that healthy dose of independence in each of them so that none of them come to me at the age of 35 and ask me to make them scrambled eggs in the morning cause they can't figure out how/where to crack the egg and if turbo-high is the setting they should put on the stove in order to cook them.

Plus I want them to know what is actually in the food they are putting in their mouths these days.

They all do pretty well in the cooking, baking, and cutting department. As I said previously; Nia is NO exception. I was making tacos last night and she was adamant that SHE dice the tomatoes. She knows what dicing is now at a ripe old age of four, and luckily, she knows the proper knife to use that will ensure all her fingers stay intact till she hits kindergarten next year,

No sudoku knives for this girl yet!

Well, lately, she has been getting into making her "culinary concoctions". She's been taking a few of the leftover scraps of veggies normally tossed out, and using them instead to make her own pretend soup.

Things escalated fast after a couple of days of this cause night before last, she took scraps, spices, beef broth, kosher salt, and the peppermill that she's addicted to these days. She also added some torn pieces of bread, more spices, and several star anise.

Mmmmm...... beefy licorice soup! Always wanted to try that.

Before I knew it, Nia had plopped that brew into a pot and sat it on the stove and, in true Nia style - put her hands to her hips and firmly said "Cook please."

"I" had now been demoted to Sous Chef in my own kitchen.

Well, Julian was left to clean the kitchen after dinner that night as Nia's "soup" simmered on the stove. After baths, brushing teeth, fighting over who got to play Poptropica on the computer, and begging everyone to get their things ready for school the next morning - the soup was........

for - got - ten.

Needless to say, it bubbled to a dry hump of ca-ca on my stove. Nia was in tears that her "creation" had been ruined by her brother cause he didn't watch it for her while he cleaned up. She promptly turned around with those hands on the hips again and screamed "YOUR FIRED JULIAN!", in true Trump style!

Well this morning, she decided to make a go of it again before I had to take her to Pre-K. She snagged a fresh pepper that had just been picked from our plant outside and began to cut it in bite sized pieces. The next thing I knew, she had pulled the chair to my spice cabinet (which is rather large and still growing), and proceeded to choose her flavors of the moment.

This was gonna be one spicy morning.

There was no star anise, but there was plenty of chili powder, onion powder, whole peppercorns, garlic, some celery seed, and half a bottle of white pepper thrown in that bowl; and less she not forget - Emeril's BAM spice! She decided midway that it needed to be a salad instead as she swiped a few pieces of lettuce off the cutting board that Julian had left after making himself a BLT for breakfast this morning. The leftover tomatoes went in as well.

After noticing that half my bottle of white pepper (which is not that cheap these days), disappeared in her mixing bowl, I had to put the brakes on. See, I value my spices because without them, most recipes taste like, well..... crap! They are my babies, and after watching Nadia and Julian dump $100 worth into a mixing bowl with some mud and water when they were three, I have vowed to watch over them more carefully; like behind lock and key if I could.

Luckily Nia didn't throw too big of a tantrum when I laid down the big "NO MORE!", on her flavorful nosh. She quickly switched into "TRY IT!", mode which I was highly resistant to do, but I finally succumb to because, after all, she's my cute little four year old with lot's of spunk!

Translation: Trying to avoid a major meltdown before school and I have to explain to her teachers why she looks as if she has been crying for a month because the top of her outfit is completely soaked with tears, and her eyes are red and swollen.

DOWN THE HATCH!!

My God! I thought someone had taken a torch to my lips, tongue and upper palette! Actually, the torch would have been much kinder than what I had just laid my mouth around. After tasting this, I was afraid that I would never again be able to enjoy the taste of anything other than "numb with a dash of bland" again. That hint of lemon she had thrown in hit at the last moment after everything else was burning down my throat taking esophageal tissue with it! Talk about insult to injury; like salt on a wound; like freaking glass in my eye!

"Mmmmmm Nia - this is SO YUMMY!", I proclaimed as tears streamed down my face.

"Mommy - are you crying?"

"Oh, I just got a gnat in my eye sweetie.". Cause we were sitting outside at this point cause the "fumes" of the spices were burning my nose, which should have been a damn hint NOT to try this.

"Do you LIKE IT!", she gleefully squeals as I take a second bite.

"Oh Nia, you can cook with me anytime since you did such a good job.", I say knowing that a part of me is lying through my spice encrusted, burning lips. I was just hoping she wouldn't notice that part of me.

After a glass (a BIG glass), of milk, a couple of capfuls of mouthwash in an attempt to cool the incessant fire in my own palate, it was time to take the midget chef to school.

As we were entering the school, Nia solicits in her own unique perky spirit; "Mom am I a good cook?"

"Sure Isaboo, you did a great job this morning!", I say with lips still singeing.

"Well, it's because I learned everything I know from you!", she sings back.

I'm gonna try to take that as a compliment at this point.

I think.

The High Cost of Getting an "A"

Toni has a science project due this week. They've been studying the solar system so, well, that's what her project has to be about... duh! After hemming and hawing over what she wanted to do for like.... 2 weeks, she came to the exciting conclusion that she wants to make a comet smashing into Jupiter.

I thought we could make a simple model of planets in orbit, but that was waaaay too boring for her. She's a bit like her brother in the smash 'em up department, and if she could get by with blowing a planet up in her classroom; well, that would make her year at school.

After brainstorming some design ideas we decide to hit Wal-Marts at 7:00 p.m., because after all, it HAS to be done at the last minute. That's how my kids do everything right now; at the last possible freaking minute so as to have me running around and losing the last few hairs left on my head and completely freaking out that my kid is gonna get an "F" in this thing.

Our list was simple:

1/2 of a small styrofoam ball

1 medium sized styrofoam ball

1 package of glittery pipe cleaners (they now call fuzzy sticks ?????)

1 can of flat black paint

1 small container of spray on glitter (cause we gotta have sparkly stars in the background)

1 small package of crushed shells (cause we have to make the comet look like a dirty snowball, cause that's what it looks like, right?)

1 pair of pajamas - Doh! That's not part of the project, but Toni need a warmer pair so it was added to the list, but won't be glued to the project - hopefully.

I get to the register and the the whole pile of junk rings up to $32.38! What the hell did I just spend $32.38 on??? The pajamas were only $7.00, so that didn't really make a big difference. So I just paid $25 some odd dollars on a project so that my daughter can get an "A" on her science project.

Why do I feel like both my daughter and I are getting scammed here by both the school system and Wal-mart's? Are they in cahoots with one another?

"Good morning Wal-Marts, this is Ms. So-In-So at Gulf Breeze Elementary."

"Yes, good to talk to you to again sir."

"Listen, we have another science project coming up for our third graders that I want to let you in on."

"Yeah, it's a doozy so there will be LOT"S of items you can mark up a few cents on this one."

"Yes, I'm sure it WILL make your Arkansas headquarters happy to hear about this, that's why we like to keep you informed of such events like these."

"Yeah, good project I have here - it's about the Solar System. The WHOLE Solar System!"

"What is that? Oh yes sir, it will cover BOTH the craft departments and the kids science kits cause I'm sure there will be plenty of parents that won't want to make anything from scratch and will prefer those cheap boxed kits instead."

"No, no, no - I don't expect that you will keep them cheap under these circumstances. It's too good of a project!"

"Oh yes sir, it WILL be a perfect time for parents to do some spontaneous shopping with Halloween and all. I've got these kids all wigged out over this project. They'll be screaming for mommy and daddy to buy everything in sight in order to get one of my 'A's'!"

"Now, do I still get that special discount for letting you know about this?"

"Oh thank you sir, and please give my regards to Arkansas."

"Buh, Bye!"

"Huh - what's that? Oh, oh yeah - Go Dolphins!"

This is the only way I can explain how a ten dollar project costs me over $30 in order for my 8 year old child to pass the project and my not receive a massive letter campaign from the teacher and the school for not participating.

My parenting and my financial common sense brain cell tells me that I think Wal-Mart could have made a "school project" campaign that rivals the "school supplies" campaign back in August.

"At Wal-Mart's, we've marked your favorite items down so that no school project cost more that $10."

"Save Money - Live Better "

"We Won't Leave You Filing For Bankruptcy After Your Child's School Projects."

Now THAT'S a slogan I can live with!

To add insult to injury, I still have a kid at home who is completely stressed out about whether her project will "look" good enough against all the others as if it is unacceptable unless it says "Juicy" on the back tail of the comet as it's swirling towards a day-glo orange Jupiter!

When did peer pressure get passed on to science projects? Have I missed something in the 10-20-whatever years it's been since I was in high school?

Anyway, on top of all the filler school supplies at the beginning of school like, copy paper, paper towels, hand sanitizer, the janitors first month wages; I also have to dig deep in my bare pockets for all those required science projects so my kids an pass onto the next grade without severe black marks against their permanent school records.

At this rate, I think private school might have been cheaper after all.