I'm No Lara Croft

I knew that letting the Monkey play video games would come back to haunt me, but I had no idea that it would turn like this. After the first couple of times I let him play some video games on my brother's XBox, I knew that I had created a little gaming monster in my 2.5 year old (He's four now). He was enraptured by the moving images on the screen that he could manipulate. I selfishly had put him in front of the computer and the game box to entertain him for a short time while I tried to get baby Puppy (one year old at the time) to take a nap or take a bottle.

Now, I know that sounds awful. But if you've ever had several small children all at the same time, you just reach your limit some days and are just completely depleted of any energy, fun ideas, or ability to entertain a crying or whining small child for any period of time. Computer games and video games became the Monkey's cocaine. He was addicted, enraptured, and able to play for hours at a time. He became flushed and agitated. Obviously, a BAD thing.

We tried to intervene and no longer allowed him to play games. It worked for the most part because the Spiderman Games, Tomb Raider Games, and the more complex (e.g. violent) games were on my brother's XBox at my mom and brother's house. Fortunately for us, my mom only lives near us part-time and when she returned to her "summer house", we didn't visit very often and there were no more games except for the occasional PBS computer game on my computer. Much more tame.

That is not to say that the Monkey didn't go through withdrawal each time. There was the crying, the sulking, the crying, even the petulant "I hate you" (painfully early to start that, no?). But then, the crying had started to subside a little and he's been asking about it a little less.

So, today we went to Target - one of our favorite places to spend money. It was just the Monkey and me as I had just picked him up from preschool. We happened to be looking at shampoo and conditioners in the shampoo aisle when suddenly the Monkey spoke.

Monkey: Mommy. You're not pretty.

Me: I'm not pretty? (I know - I repeat my kids a lot)

Monkey: No, You're not pretty. You're fat and not cute.

Me: I'm FAT? And NOT cute?

Monkey: You're fat and not cute. The Girl Game is cute. You're not cute. (Note: He refers to Lara Croft in Tomb Raider as the Girl Game)

Me: You think Lara Croft in the girl game is cute, but Mommy is not? That I'm fat?

Monkey: Yes, the Girl Game is cute and she can jump and swing on the bars and do cool stuff.

Me: So, if Mommy was skinny and could jump and swing on the bars and do cool stuff, I'd be cute? If I exercised a lot so that I could do that?

Monkey: Yes, then you'd be cute too!

Good lord. Is that what he's learned from watching/playing that game? At four years old, he's developed a completely distorted view of female attractiveness. Cute girls (Lara Croft) and non-cute fat girls (Mommy). I thought preschoolers were supposed to adore their mommies and think they are the most beautiful person in the world and want to marry them. Not my kid.

Dang. Don't ever let your preschoolers (or any age kids) play video games EVER! Evil.

Chores and Allowance

There is a parenting debate about whether you should teach your children that they should do chores simply because they are a member of the household or if they should get paid for doing chores. I think that allowances should be contingent on work performed for these reasons:

• Children should learn that you need to earn money. That it comes with hard work and dedication. That it takes effort to work, earn, and save enough money to purchase what you want.
  
  
• Children learn how to manage the money they earn.
  

To test my theory (although I won't be able to judge for sure if this works until my children are adults with savings accounts), I've decided to implement a chore chart for the Monkey and Puppy to following. The Puppy is not quite three years old; so, this really hasn't made any sense to him, but the Monkey is VERY excited by this idea.

We printed out a chore chart from Simplemom.net, cut out the chores, and pasted them on. Then the Monkey happily performed a variety of the chores in exchange for a check mark in the box (which he was allowed to make as well). Each check mark could be exchanged for a nickel or 5 minutes of playing a video game or computer game (redeemable only only on certain days and in specific quantities - e.g. 30 minutes).

Unexpected Things About Motherhood

• Going to the bathroom with an audience. Privacy who?
  
  
• That it IS possible to be this sleep deprived and still function.
  
  
• Vacations are no longer a vacation. They are just very long trips away from home that require a lot of packing.
  
  
• You can still take shower with three small children in the shower at the same time.
  
  
• It is no longer possible to take telephone calls when the children are awake no matter how engrossed in a movie or tv show they seem.
  
  
• That the advice for training children are similar to the advice for training puppies. Strict reinforcement of simple rules. Don't give too many treats. Consistency.
  
  
• The frequent invitations to things like Pampered Chef parties, USBourne Book Parties, and other party sales. Not really my thing so I'm suprised it is so popular.
  
  
• How difficult it is to find a good babysitter that is reliable, pays attention to your children, AND cleans up after themselves and the kids. Where have all the industrious teenagers gone?
  
  
• Relationships would be held together by the tenuous string of technology through things like Instant Messaging, Facebook, and email.
  
  
• That children can't entertain themselves for very long and will turn to MOM to fill those long hours of boredom with any number of strange crafts and activities designed to stimulate, educate, or at very least, occupy their tiny hands and minds. Activities not limited to building a paper Millennium Falcon, a Paper Mache Death Star, a Space Shuttle out of cardboard, and more.

Image by Paula Mills at paulamills.blogspot.com.

What is Church?

On Saturday night, I told the Monkey and the Puppy that we would be getting up early the next morning to go to church. The Monkey asked, What is church, mama?

Egads.

Well, Church is a place where we go to learn about God and think about the good things he wants us to do to help each other. Do you remember when we pray at bedtime? Remember that we thank God for the things in our lives?

His little face scrunches up. I don't remember, he says.

Mr Puffles interjects. Yelling, Church is the HOUSE of God!

So, incredibly helpful.

The Puppy yells out: I PRAY at bedtime! I like princesses!

So, we went to church the next morning. The church is a medium-ish sized church of unknown denomination (at least to us) on the edge of our neighborhood. Mr Puffles and I have actually been there a couple of times to cast our votes for various elections, but this is the first time for a service.

My mother and brother were there waiting for us as it was my mother's idea to attend. She's been "looking" for a church for us out here, and we've been to several that span from a large Protestant church with a maze of rooms and cooridors to a small, bare Vietnamese Catholic church where there it was standing room only and I couldn't understand a word of the service (although I spent most of the time entertaining a bored Monkey in the spooky, poorly lit church basement stairway). My mother and my MIL have both been very concerned about our non-religious lifestyle and Mr Puffles rather agnostic views. I think they're concerned the children will turn into heathens.

Once we entered, a pleasantly round, fatherly-type pastor greeted us and introduced himself. Apparently, my mother had told him all about us. We then shuffle into a nearby hallway and dropped off the baby in the dark nursery and walked the boys downstairs to the preschool church school area. They were shuffle-y and shy, but agreed to stay without us as they clung to one another and sat down in the preschool circle time.

Then, it was off to the service. It reminded me of the church I attended as a child and teenager in many ways. A lot of singing songs we didn't know from words displayed on the walls from a power point presentation with a "Praise Team". I don't know what happened to just singing hymns from the old hymnals. But I miss it, and I really don't like this Praise Team singing. I mean. Really. I DON'T know the song or the words and it's just sort of mumbling along. At least with the hymnal, you can sight read the music!

After the service, we went to pick up the children and they were sufficiently ecstatic to see us as if they had been separated for a long period of time. The boys even displayed lovely pieces of religious preschool artwork. Clever paste projects that said things like "God is speaking. Puppy is listening!"

Mr Puffles asked them if they liked Sunday School.

Yes, Monkey said. We liked it.

Do you want to go back next week?

Yes. Let's come back next week!

I guess that decides it. After trying different churchs for a few years, the boys have decided it.

PS. A few days later, we happened to be watching something on tv when someone mentioned Jesus. Monkey perked up.

Hey! He said Jesus. They talked about him in that school!

I guess it is working.

A Typical Day

• 4am: Miss Piggy wakes up. Lay down with her on guest bed (in her room) to give her a bottle.
  
  
• 4:45am: Put baby back in crib and slip back into my bed.
  
  
• 6:30am: Wake up to hold up covers for small Puppy or Monkey standing at my bedside drinking water out of my water bottle. Go back to sleep.
  
  
• 8am: Get up with boys and baby. Make breakfast. Feed children. Feed dog. Let dog out. Turn on email and check first days emails.
  
  
• 9:30am: Take shower with kids and bath time for Miss Piggy.
  
  
• 10:30am: Go to work out OR do load of laundry.
  
  
• 11am: If this is not a work out day, wash dishes and give Miss Piggy an early lunch and then down for a nap.
  
  
• 11:30am: Feed Puppy and Monkey. If it's a Monday or Wednesday, this means preschool. So, pack snacks and bottle for Miss Piggy. Pack wipes, diapers. Puppy and Monkey get socks (this can be a turning point for lateness - finding socks), shoes, jackets on.
  
  
• 12:30pm - 2pm: Preschool for the Monkey on Mondays or Wednesdays. So, the Puppy, Miss Piggy and I wander around Target or the grocery store until it's time to pick him up. Other days, I work on the computer - answering emails, completing client requests, making phone calls, pay bills. Time is interrupted with getting milk, changing laundry, breaking up fights.
  
  
• 2:30pm: Miss Piggy wakes up. Bottle, snack time for all. Vacuum, fold laundry, pick up toys. Make beds. Monkey, Puppy, and Miss Piggy promptly climb into beds and jump around.
  
  
• 5pm: Start dinner.
  
  
• 6pm: Mr Puffles arrives home from work! Yay! Feed kids. Feed husband. Feed dog. Feed self. Pick up bottles and food thrown on floor. Tidy up kitchen - sometimes I wash dishes depending on how messy it is or just save it for the next day.
  
  
• 7:30pm: Bed time for the kids. Monkey and Puppy go first. Miss Piggy goes last. Brush teeth. Change diapers. Pajamas.
  
  
• 8:30pm - 11pm: Back on the computer. Check email. Answer emails. Work on client projects. Read blogs. Facebook (huge black hole of time - and I don't even post anything on my page - just checking other peoples!).
  
  
• 11pm: Watch the news. Go to bed. OR if there is a client deadline looming, get a cup of coffee, snacks, and turn the channel to Law and Order to get ready for another 2-3 hours of work until 2am. Ugh.
  

Then, I get to start it all over the next day! Every day is a little bit different with preschool, grocery shopping, Target, visits to Grandma's, and other random excursions. But this is the general order of our day. Most days, I feel like I'm so busy, but get little done. The DOG has been shedding - so, some days I vacuum 4 TIMES a day!!

*Illustration by Paula Mills @ paulamills.blogspot.com.

Princesses Don't Wear pants!

A few weeks ago, I noticed that every time the Puppy was left to his own devices, he would quickly remove his pants and would be seen running about the house without pants. Since the temperatures outside where not very summery, it was odd that he would choose to be so naked all day long.

So, the battle of wills began and I would chase him around the house (or my mom's house because he did not discriminate over locations when he chose to remove his pants) and try to get him to redress. He would staunchly yell "NO!" and run away. Bribes like candy and special treats were the only way I could get him to put his pants back on for something important - like leaving the house to go to the store or to preschool.

Was he too hot and didn't like the stuffiness of wearing pants? Finally, I asked him one day as he ran past me without pants.

Why do you keep taking off your pants?!?

He stopped. Princesses don't wear pants.

Silence.

Princesses don't wear pants?

Princesses don't wear PANTS.

And you're a princess?

I'm a princess!

I guess you're right. Princesses don't really wear pants do they?

It was interesting to realize that he'd thought about this. Really observed the princesses that he'd seen on the DVD movies that we owned - the Barbie Princess movies, Sleeping Beauty. He had examined carefully the Barbie that he'd gotten from Santa for Christmas (Yes. My 2 year old Puppy asked for a Princess from Santa.) And had thoughtfully concluded that Princesses didn't wear pants. And if you were going to pretend that you were a princess that you shouldn't wear pants either.

Bathroom Blues

It seemed like I couldn't get a chance to go the bathroom at all this afternoon. Every time I started to walk in that direction, someone small and stinky detoured me with requests to fix the volume on the TV, get a chocolate milk, or read instructions on the TV so that the Monkey could press the correct button to advance to the next page in the video game introduction.

While I was telling the Monkey to press the "A" button, I mentioned aloud: Hmmm. I am NEVER going to get a chance to go to the bathroom!

Monkey looked at me and squished up his face in contemplation.

Mommy. If you squeeze your penis and squeeze your body really hard, you can hold your pee in and not pee on the floor!

Hmmm.

That was very helpful.

New Blogger Template

Hi. I had to change my blogger template temporarily because there seemed to be something wrong with it that prevented anyone from leaving comments! So, here is a temporary one that I found FREE at http://www.giselejaquenod.com. It's a bit cutesy for my personal taste, but the Puppy really liked the picture of the cake.

Cake!

Client Meetings & Puddles

I used to occasionally host client meetings at my home office. These meetings weren't the optimal situations for conducting business, but were often my only option for short notice meetings or meetings for certain times of the day. Usually, the meetings are interrupted affairs, but we are able to accomplish our major objectives. This is a story of one of those meetings.

A couple of months ago, I hosted one of the meetings at my dining room table. I had carefully cleaned up the house, put the baby down for a nap, and popped a movie into the DVD player to entertain the Monkey and the Puppy.

The clients arrived and I ushered them into the dining room and we started our meeting discussing their marketing objectives and projects. We were interrupted intermittently by the Monkey asking about things and the Puppy bouncing about. About fifteen minutes into the meeting, suddenly the Puppy appears at my elbow.

My penis doesn't fit into my pants.

Excuse me?

MY PENIS DOESN'T FIT INTO MY PANTS!!!!

I glance at the Puppy to realize that he has pulled his diaper and pants down to his knees and has exposed his privates to me and my clients whose faces are now frozen in shocked suprise (i.e. eyebrows raised very high). He is sporting a tiny erection that apparently no longer fits into his pants.

Please put your penis back into your pants. (I now wish we have taught them alternative names I could use in font of other people.)

WHAT???

Please put your penis back into your pants!

The Puppy dutifully pulls his pants back up and disappears into the living room. I turn my attention back to the meeting; my clients luckily laugh at the incident and are not phased by my toddler's deviant behavior.

Ten minutes go by and the Puppy reappears at my elbow. I glance at him from the corner of my eye.

Mommy. I peed on the floor.

What? Why did you pee on the floor???

I look at him now and understand why he peed on the floor. His little penis is poking out the top of this diaper - caught in that position when he pulled his diaper and pants back up. He points to a puddle on the living room floor and I suddenly have an image flash across my mind of my Puppy and a little fountain spurting from his body onto the floor.

Err. Excuse me. I say to my clients. I will be right back as I go clean up the puddle.

Did I ever mention that you should NEVER try to have professional client meetings with a toddler present?

To Start School Early or To Not Start School Early

I had been thinking about having the Monkey tested to start Kindergarten early. It has been on my mind since he was a toddler, because he has the special joy of having an early October birthday. With the traditional cutoff date for age qualifications sitting at August 31, he almost always has to wait a year to start activities like soccer and baseball. A very frustrating thing for him. He's also very bright though introverted which makes the decision more difficult because then you wonder if he really IS ready for school.

Mr Puffles has been rather non-committal about my whole dilemma or lack of dilemma in his eyes. He sort of sees the Monkey as perfectly ready to start school. The dilemma lies more in whether or not I want us to pay for private school (Montessori) or just to put him into public school.

So, I have decided NOT to start him early. I certainly believe that he could handle the curriculum, but I think that his introverted personality might make him struggle a bit more than necessary in addition to being one of the youngest if not THE youngest child in his class. The Monkey is certainly very mature and focused, but his introversion doesn't make him a confident child.

Of course, waiting a year won't make him an extrovert, but I hope that he will continue to gain confidence in his own wonderful skills and knowledge. Besides, he will have many more years to sit at a desk.

The Roar of the Hippopotamus

When I was putting the Monkey to bed, I sat down on the Puppy's bunk. Monkey was shimmying around and babbling about something. Suddenly, I asked.

Does Mommy snore?

Monkey gets a funny, embarassed look on his face. Like a HIPPOPOTAMUS!

A hippopotoamus?

Monkey laughs. Like an ELEPHANT too!! You're like a giant elephant, Mommy!

Great.

The art of blogging

During dinner, Mr Puffles told me that the blog of Petite Anglaise was based on a book.

I said, No. The book is based on the blog.

Then he said, Well. Your blog is based on her book.

No. It's not.

Well, it's inspired by her book.

To answer that. No, my blog is not not based on her book OR inspired by her book. But her book did inspire me to go back to writing in my blog. I've actually tried to write in a blog for several years hoping to keep a diary of sorts to record the antics and stories of our life for my children. Unfortunately, I've always found it difficult to generate content for my blog even though my children did enough strange and squirrely things on a daily basis that one would assume that I had plenty of fodder for my diary.

I think that my main problem was that I had difficulty in developing a style or way of translating those thoughts across the pages of an online blog. The very qualities of being online and accessible to eyes other than mine made it difficult for me to write freely because it no longer felt like a secretive letter or entry to myself where I could mumble out loud the thoughts of my mind. It seemed that it required more structure than that. I tried writing as if I was writing letters to my children or writing a note to myself, but they all seemed wrong. So, I let my blog sit unattended for some time.

Then, I happened to pick up this book at the library called Petite Anglaise. I had read the jacket before checking out and had assumed that I was picking up a bit of mommy-lit. I had recently finished Odd Mom Out as well as Mrs Perfect - both by Jane Porter and was looking for something else that was a fast and easy read. However, when I was driving around in the car and sharing my book booty to Mr Puffles, I saw that it said "Based on a True Story" on the cover and I AM a sucker for true stories. This book was actually based on this woman's blog! Interesting! Of course, I was compelled to visit and read her blog as well!

The whole experience was fascinating because Petite Anglaise was well-written and fulfilled all that mommy lit promises with a little bit of sex, a little bit of drama, and a story detailing the ins and outs of life as a working wife and mother. But it was also a bit voyeuristic, because even though it read like a novel, it was really the actual recollections and thoughts of this young woman. I loved her writing style and the way she could turn a phrase. Perhaps it was her British voice with snippets of French tucked into it that made it so appealing, but whatever it was, I was hooked!

Later, reading her blog, I saw that her blog posts were similar in style and content as her book. That even as a blogger, she carefully crafted her posts as mini-essays to her "readers" even before she realized that she had any! Thus, she did inspire me to begin blogging again with both her style and content.

So, Scruples No Regrets was reborn out of the ashes of my previous blog.

The Luxury Nursery

I was sitting in the doctor's office waiting for my appointment (I won't go into detail but I was there waiting for almost an hour!) and happened to read an article about Jennifer Lopez's baby nursery in one of the many parenting magazines that I browsed while waiting. The article criticized J Lo's luxury baby nursery as a death trap with curtains billowing over the cribs, candles and breakables on tables, and suffocation hazards decorating every surface of each crib.

As a person in the design and marketing field, there was probably quite a bit of styling involved in that photo shoot, but even so, as a first time mom, I'm sure that even J Lo might have gone a little overboard on the baby stuff. Even non-celebrity first-time moms are seen loading up on all sorts of gadgets and decorations for the baby's nurserys in the hopes of making it the cutest and best nursery possible.

I noticed that a friend of Mr Puffle's had posted a picture of his new baby's nursery on his page - proud of the custom mural he had painted on one wall of the room. I browsed through the rest of the nursery pics and noted that each item was carefully places and everything looked neat and orderly. On the changing table, on both sides of the changing pad, I could see little baskets filled with tiny diapers, diaper rash ointment, lotions, and wipes. Ah. First time parents. Only parents who have gone through this before would know that after a couple of months, your beautiful wiggly baby will be fascinated by those same bottles and tubes and crinkly packets and you have just put them in grabbing range (or kicking range) of their little hands and feet.

I remember carefully placing diapers into a little basket on the changing table. That was four years ago. Now the changing table has stacks of diaper boxes on either side because both Puppy and Miss Piggy are still in diapers. Rash ointments and lotion bottles are stashed on the window ledge - just out of reach of wiggly and curious hands. A lovely picture of cranes on a Chinese scroll has been removed from above the changing table and sits tucked behind it against the wall. Carefully staged baby rooms have turned into romper rooms for toddlers and preschoolers. Toys clutter the floor and stuffed animals lay in strewn about the beds and floors like victims of an attack.

Happy chaos.

The Family Bed

I was telling my mother that my oldest and middle children always seem to end up sleeping in bed with us. Mr Puffles had suggested simply telling them to go back to bed, but I was horrified and said that I could never reject them like that because I had been especially sensitive to that very specific thing as a child myself.

So, most nights, I wake up in the dark hours of the morning to the soft scrunch of feet on the carpet to hear a small voice say "Mommy? Can I sleep with you?" And I always lift up the blanket and let Monkey or Puppy scramble into the bed. Usually this is blissful for the child to be sandwiched between mom and dad in a snuggle of warmth and attention.

One time, Monkey had snuck into bed with me after Mr Puffles had already left the bed and snuggled down with me. I had my eyes closed and heard a little voice say "Mommy! You're snoring!"

"Oh. So sorry." So, I rolled over assuming that would do the trick.

Unfortunately, I drifted off quickly and woke to hear my Monkey give out an extremely annoyed "HMMMPFT!", fling off the covers, and stomp off back to his bed.

I guess co-sleeping does have it's pros and cons for everyone involved.

The End of the World

One of the other mom's mentioned a funny thing the other day in preschool. Actually. We were in Parent Ed which is a monthly required class for the parents of the preschool where Monkey attends. The class is less a class and more of a support group for parents of preschoolers. Apparently, parents of preschoolers require a forum for support and help as much as person trying to quit smoking or drinking.

So, the teacher leading the group asked how everyone's Winter Break had gone especially with all the snow and unusually bad weather. Val, one of the two other mothers, hung her head and confessed that her husband was sure that the year 2009 would bring some sort of disaster and had been going to the grocery store on a daily basis to build up their stores of canned goods. Then, she shook her head and said, "And he shops like a man! He has bought all these high fat canned foods with hydrogenated oils and preservatives! No vegetables! No protein! I told him we can't live off food like this!"

I just imagined the cans stacked deep in her condo pantry and remembered the bunker described in The Road. After reading that book, I had also worried that we didn't have enough canned goods or bottled water stocked up for an emergency. I worried that the Miss Piggy would need dry milk. I worried that we didn't have a generator or alternative power sources. I recalled the emergency plan of where to meet Mr Puffles if he was at work or some where other than home with me and the kids. It seemed crazy that someone else's husband was so worried about a potential disaster, but only until I remembered that I feared the same things but was just less organized about it.

The Road

So, I have been reading a lot of mommy-lit recently. In my defense, I didn't actually realize that there was a whole genre called mommy lit. And I admit I am a bit embarrassed to be reading it. Although, I suppose I shouldn't be embarassed about reading stories about mothers with a mother's perspective. And even though I dug into each novel with relish, I did realize that these books were a bit like reading a glamour magazine. Fun. Fast to read. But filled with fluff most of the time.

So, I picked up this book on the Recommended Books shelf at the library. I generally browse there because the kindly librarians spread out a variety of new books on the shelf. And since, I am barely reading as it is - it gives me a chance to pick up something in the 90 seconds my children will allow me to browse the covers.

I've been looking for books for Mr. Puffles as well. He's the kind of person who reads clever novels and enjoys a bit interesting science although science fiction is a bit annoying and fantasy novels or anything with a space ship on the front is a bit of a horror to him. Anyway. I saw this book called The Road by Cormac McCarthy with a recognizable actor on the front and when I read the back, I thought "Ah. A post-apocalyptical novel. Hmmm."

And so, it went home with us in our Book bag. I meant for the book to be for Mr. Puffles, but after a few days, I couldn't stop myself and I started reading. I am one of those awful people who reads the end first - but in my defense, I almost always go back and read the whole book. I just can't stand the suspense.

This book was simply amazing and heartwrenching at the same time. Although, I didn't cry or anything so pitiful; I could not put this book down despite the cries of my bored and neglected children. Thank goodness Mr. Puffles was home for the holidays to distract them and give me moment to bury myself in this book. I haven't read a book this compelling in a while that made me feel worried and tense at once. I can't give away the details for those who might not have read it yet, but I did ACTUALLY read the second half of the book TWICE because I just couldn't believe the ending and somewhere in my mind I hoped that if I read it again, maybe things would turn out differently.

Resolutions

If I were the kind of person to make a New Year's resolution, I think that I would make something along the lines of organization. It's not like my house is filthy, but I definitely am not a meticulous housekeeper. Most guests are greeted at the door with apologies for some mess here or there. If I have clean kitchen counters, then there might be some nastiness lurking in the bathroom or messes in the bedrooms. And the office only enjoys an organized appearance perhaps once a year as it ends up being the catchall for all those items I try to clean from other areas.

Admittedly, I am not an organized person. The same lack of order and habit prevented me from being a smoker! I could never remember to pack my cigarettes and if I did, I rarely remembered to actually light up. But alas, that lack of order and habit makes it difficult for me to conquer the piles of mail and clutter crowding my flat surfaces.

I actually didn't think things were going so badly. I thought our 100-year old house was starting to look cute. Cottage-y. Blue-green walls give it a summery beachy look and new floors and baseboards and crown molding finished off the cottage style. I even got a new kitchen this year with much needed cabinet space for me to stash all those things hovering about in boxes before. But whenever we take pictures in our house, I come to the sad realization that it IS quite messy here. Oh my. Piles of papers and books and toys clutter the backgrounds of our happy family photos - and it doesn't seem to matter which room we're in. It's all the same.

I would hire someone to organize me, but I know I can organize it. It's the maintenance that's the problem. I would need a live-in maid to keep me in line or at minimum, an assistant. That's what should be my New Year resolution. Hire an assistant. That is - if I were the sort of person to make Resolutions.

I LIKE Coal!

There is one good thing about Santa Claus. My husband, Mr Puffles, and I use him on an annual basis to whip our children into reluctant observers of our arbitrary rules. During the Holiday Season - when someone gets out of line, we quickly mention "You know. Santa is watching. You'd better be good or you might not get anything for Christmas!"

So, this method usually works for our eldest, Little Monkey, because he is the sort of child that listens and follows the rules and is horrified by possible punishments and restrictions. This does not work quite as well for the Puppy, our second. Deep into his terrible twos, he is resistant to our attempts at behavior control.

So, Christmas Eve went like this!

You'd better go to bed! Or Santa won't come!

I don't like Santa!

You'd better go to bed or you won't get any of the toys you asked for!

I don't want toys!

Santa will bring you coal instead of a horsey!

I WANT coal! I LIKE coal!

Who says that? I LIKE coal?