Santa was trying to be creative....

Christmas this year was a lot of fun. Catherine really seemed to be "getting" the concept of everything. She was excited about Santa coming and had learned some Christmas songs at school. I was worried that she would wake up at the crack of dawn to open presents but she didn't. She came down the stairs and went to the tree and got a huge smile on her face when she saw all of the presents there. She unwrapped her first present and said "I didn't order this!".

Santa must have a timeshare in Massachusetts...

When I was a kid there was such a mystery surrounding Santa Claus. He was this wonderful little character that only appeared when you were sleeping. Perhaps he was at the mall – but I did not have a mall nearby when I was a kid. I remember my father once dressed up as Santa on Christmas Eve and my mother woke us up to watch him walk down the road. We would listen to our radio on Christmas Eve as they reported where Santa’s sleigh had last been sighted.

My, how things have changed! It’s pretty hard to go anywhere in the month of December without seeing Santa Claus. (Sometimes even in November!) How can we even keep telling kids that he lives in the North Pole? Who would believe that? We have seen Santa at the following locations:

As we were driving to a Christmas party we saw Santa parachuting down from the sky to a party at the fire department in Dracut. Santa then appeared rather quickly at a party in Pelham. We saw Santa this past weekend at “tea with Mrs. Claus”. I had already explained to Catherine that Santa wouldn’t be there since he was so busy packing his sleigh. But there he was….. Santa will be at the kid’s school on Monday and then at my Christmas party on Tuesday. Most of these Santa’s don’t even look close to being real.

Santa also has to hand out presents at each of these events. What ever happened to waiting until Christmas morning? The kids are basically getting a present every weekend in December. I will tell you – it’s very difficult to reign them in after the holidays. Wouldn’t you be upset if all of a sudden you stopped receiving presents every day??

I miss the way Christmas used to be. We’d wait all year for the Christmas shows to be on ONE time. We’d try very hard to be good (for at least a couple of weeks) because Santa might bring Coal for our stockings. (No kid is buying that anymore). We were very excited to open one gift on Christmas Eve (which was always Christmas pajamas – a tradition that I’m keeping for the kids). And, Santa only visited on Christmas Eve…..

Is it just me?

Okay, I'm not a perfect mother but I'm also not STUPID! I had an interesting request this weekend. I was shocked because this was not the first time - it was the second time someone has asked me to do this.

The first time was last winter. We took Catherine to see Finding Nemo on Ice at the Boston Garden in Boston. We bought the super-duper expensive "VIP" tickets and ended up being right down on the ice. We were sitting next to a woman and her little boy. He appeared to be about three years old. She was trying to get her son to talk to Catherine, who of course was having none of it! After about 10 minutes she turned to me and said "I'm going to get some popcorn and he doesn't want to come. Can you watch him while I'm gone?". Seriously?? I do not know this woman. She does not know me and now I've been put in charge of babysitting for her. Being that we were in the super-duper expensive seats, she had to walk all the way up to the top of the section to get out to the food consessions. This took quite a while and I began to worry that she dumped him. He was cute enough but we had our hands full already and I didn't really know what to do with a boy anyway.

The second time was on Sunday. We took the girls to have "Tea with Mrs. Claus" at Smolak Farms in North Andover. The kids all sat at the long table and wrote letters to Santa and decorated gingerbread cookies. There was a little girl and a little boy (again about three years old) that was sitting next to Catherine. They were there with their father. We never spoke to each other at all. I was getting Catherine ready to leave because she was not interested in sitting on Mrs. Claus' lap. The father turned to me and said "I have to take my daughter to the bathroom. Can you watch my son for a minute?"

Am I crazy? Is this acceptable?? Because, I do not think it is. I told Bill all about this episode, looking for signs that he thought this was something he might do in that scenario. He passed with flying colors when he was just as shocked. Maybe I need to give myself more credit. I may forget to bring extra diapers sometimes but I have never asked a stranger to babysit my kids!

Scenes from a 5 year olds Birthday party

Boy 1: "fruit punch makes you STRONG!"

Boy 2: "I know, because it has fruit in it"

Thankful Mommy

We have a lot to be thankful for this year. We have a wonderful family. We are all happy and healthy. However, I am also thankful for the following:

• The parking spots reserved for families with small children. I wonder how long I can milk that one.
  
• Catherine’s trips to the naughty chair are getting less frequent. We will keep it around for Maddie. I have a feeling she will keep it warm quite a bit.
  
• The new play area in the mall. What a great idea! I do get confused about the shoes though. Is it just the kids that need to remove them? Or the adults too?
  
• Maddie feeding Abby from her highchair. Sometimes I get busy and forget to fill Abby’s dish. Next I will teach her to throw some food into the fish bowl.
  
• A market basket employee actually helped me put my groceries in the car last weekend (and I was alone – no kids). I have not seen that since I was a kid.
  
  Happy Thanksgiving!

Am I doing this right?

This is going to shock a few of you out there. I’m not perfect at this mommy thing. No really, it’s true. I have still not been able to pack perfect diaper bag. I am always missing something. I don’t always brush Catherine’s teeth at night. I forgot to send her with an item for show & tell last week. We don’t belong to any playgroups or participate in any sports. I even forgot to bring my camera with me to the hospital when I was having Maddie. (Okay, so I was in labor three weeks early and went from 0-7 cm in under two hours. I think I get a pass for that one) Catherine’s baby scrapbook album stops at the age of 9 months. I am the mommy at the birthday parties that doesn’t know anyone else.

The wonderful thing about this is that kids don’t expect perfection. They love you with all of your faults. They still say you’re beautiful when your hair is a mess and you have baby food all over your clothes. They don’t mind when you haven’t had time to make a home cooked meal. (In some cases they prefer canned pasta….something I never understood). At the end of the day when I’m feeling so much “mommy guilt” there is nothing like Catherine saying “I just love you soooooo much!” Perfection is overrated anyway.

Happy Birthday!

So my baby is turning one on Sunday. I know we've heard it a million times before but the years really do fly by. One year olds are such fun. I think that has to be my favorite age so far.

• They can't talk yet which means they can't yell at you.
• They think you are the funniest person they've ever met (or at least they pretend - either way its okay by me)
• They are fascinated by the smallest things - such as new shoes. This will keep them busy while you eat or read the paper.
• They LOVE baths
• They squeal when they see you
• They will wear whatever you put on them

Happy Birthday Maddie!!

Fall back

"Don't forget to turn the clocks back tonight. You get an extra hour of sleep!" I would like to know who actually gets an extra hour of sleep. It certainly was not me. Kids do not understand the concept. Actually, Abby wasn't really buying it either. Bill and I do not look at turning the clocks back as a nice thing. In fact, we call it "the longest day of our lives".

Catherine and Maddie both woke up at 6am - which would have been 7am to them. On a normal day that would have been great. Maddie was up in the middle of the night as usual. And so began our longest day. It's amazing what one little hour can do to your internal clock. I was hungry for lunch by 10:30am. I forced Maddie to take her morning nap and even wondered if we could get her to take three naps!

Bill & I decided that in order to get through the "longest day" we would each have some time to ourselves. Bill's alone time was in the morning. He took his truck to Sears to have new tires put on. While they worked on his truck he went fishing. My alone time was later in the afternoon. I was lucky enough to score food shopping as my adventure. Ugh!! It seems that a lot of people DID sleep late as they were all in the store late in the day. There were lines to get into the next aisle. The deli...oh, the deli! I grabbed my ticket and saw that I had #35. They were on #5!! I spent a good amount of time during the longest day in line at the deli.

We did survive the longest day but I really could have used that extra hour of sleep!

Tricking a 4 year old

Catherine has REALLY been into fashion lately. She is very picky about the clothes that she wears and tends to refuse most of my suggestions. She spent much of the summer telling Bill that she did not want to wear turtlenecks. These turtlenecks that she was referring to, however, were actually polo shirts. Now that the weather is getting colder, turtlenecks are back on for discussion. My mother decided to buy a few new things for Catherine to wear to school. She is very creative about getting Catherine to do something. My mother had a talk with Catherine about the shirts one day while I was work. I was told that she had agreed to wear them.

Last night Catherine and I were having our usual discussion of what she'll be wearing in the morning. I told her that she could wear her new dress. She told me that she did not have a shirt to go underneath it. I said "Yes, you do. Remember that Meme bought a turtleneck for you?". "No, she didn't!".
"Yes, Catherine, she bought a new one the other day and you helped pick it out".
She replied "Mommy, thats not a turtleneck - that's a CHICKENNECK!!"
She went to school this morning in a lovely patchwork suede dress, tights, black flats and a pink chickenneck!

Monkey see....

It's amazing what kids pick up at such young ages! Recently we were in the supermarket and we saw a neighbor and her son in the same aisle as us. They said "hello" and we went on our way. This particular aisle was very busy and I was searching for a can of diced tomatoes (why do all of the diced tomatoes have seasoning in them already? I just wanted PLAIN). I finally looked down at Catherine and saw that she was holding up her middle finger in front of her face!! I was horrified because I had no idea how long she was doing this and how many other people had seen her. I calmly said "Catherine, can you please put that finger down?". She said "Mommy, do you know this finger can talk?"!!

I spent the whole ride home grilling her about where she learned this. She insisted that she had made it up. She will be a wonderful secret-keeping friend one day! Finally, when we got home she told me that the boy next door taught her. She is now forbidden to play out in the front yard.

Where to start?

Well, at the beginning, of course! My name is Jen and I am a mother to two beautiful girls. Catherine is 4 (or 4 1/2 as she constantly reminds us) and Maddie is turning 1 in a couple of weeks. I have a wonderful husband, Bill. A dog, Abby. A cat, Tigger. Oh, we have a fish too - Kipper. He was not my idea. We both work full-time and things certainly get hectic. We love our little girls and how they make our life so interesting. Motherhood is such a learning process and I still have so much to learn!