Category Archives: Holidays

AKA: travel.

Happy Baby Daddy Day

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Today is the day that families around the world are supposed to worship thy father by giving him a day of leisure, pampering him with beer and meat flavored treats, and overall providing him with an opportunity to live life like he did before everything was hijacked by the chaos loving warmth of children. The reality of this holiday has been somewhat skewed by the Hallmark Corporation. Instead, Steve and I have both realized that this is an opportunity to reflect on all the aforementioned items listed. And, it has only taken us 4 years to figure this out.

This being the case, Porter is nursing some strange malady that had him throwing up all afternoon and evening Friday, graduating to some intestinal discomfort yesterday, and today is complaining that his mouth hurts. We are just pumping him full of ibuprofin and parking him in front of an endless stream of Pixar/Disney. Stella is, well, Stella – need I say more? Yes? Perhaps you should spend some time reading THIS ENTIRE WEBSITE. Let’s just say it would have been nice if Steve could have opened just one of his own Father’s Day presents. Just one.

In our eternally evolving parental wisdom, we have figured out that this day of honor and relaxation isn’t a single, pre-determined day, but rather a take-it-when-you-can-get-it hour or two here and there. Which is why I feel supremely proud that yesterday, Steve was able to find a quiet afternoon of tv watching and beer drinking while Stella and I spent the day in town and Porter took an extended nap.

So to my dear husband, all I can say is, you’re welcome, and Happy Father’s Day. Yesterday.

stella, porter and steve

If you hide it, they will come.

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So, Easter turned out to be your usual affair. Eggs. Chocolate. Chocolate eggs. And, the sad realization that not one, but both of my children would sell their souls to the devil for a single Hershey’s kiss. You’ll notice as you flip through the Easter morning pics that both of my children have a faint brown line encircling their mouths. Then you will look more closely and realize that it is not even light outside yet. By 11:30 Porter was already sleeping off his high fructose corn syrup bender and Stella was on her third round of easter egg hunting – insisting that she hide them, then we hide them, then she hide them again. Then she dropped the basket and all of them broke and we were finally given a reprieve – not to mention enough hard boiled eggs to eat egg salad for the next 2 weeks.

We ended up the day in Trinidad with friends, more eggs and some amazingly temperate weather.

All in all, Porter’s only real interest in Easter involved the consumption of candy. You’ll notice that he kept himself a safe distance from all egg dying activities, and when it came to the egg hunt, he stopped after the first egg he found – choosing to sit down and harvest and eat all the chocolate within.

When I picked him up from school today the teacher who leads circle time said that she asked all the kids if they got to gather easter eggs yesterday. My son’s response? He stood up and yelled CHAWWWWW-CUT!

Come join the fun! It’s Natalie’s New Year’s Pity Party!

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I know you are all sitting around waiting for me to finally get my butt in gear and post the sordid details from Holiday Season 2007. And you know what? So am I. I have most of the photos off my card, and have been loading them onto Flickr, set, by tedious set. However, based on the current reading on the Walston Motivation-o-Meter, a -5 isn’t really going to get you much. At this pace, it is probably going to be St. Patrick’s day before I get around to telling you about the obscene meal Steve concocted for his birthday dinner (hot dogs, wrapped in pastrami, smothered in 100-Island dressing, covered in a slice of cheese and toasted under a broiler), or until I am able to recount the steady stream of gift opening and food digesting that defined Christmas.

But the truth of the matter is that along with recovering from the holiday, and everything that entails, Steve and I both have had a hard time embracing that perky new year’s outlook. For both of us, work has been very emotionally draining, causing us to come home each day and threaten to quit everything and finally open that kitchen store. Neither one of us has been able to get back onto our exercise routine, and our commitment to quality parenting has been marginal, at best. Cereal for dinner, anyone? It hasn’t helped matters that we are now at week 14 waiting for a very expensive new bed frame that was supposed to have been delivered in 6-8 weeks. Follow that up with this little gem from Tuesday, and I guess you could say that although we are 9 days into our new year we are just not yet feeling the 2008 love. And have I mentioned the 7 consecutive days of storms that have knocked out the power twice?

Although we are feeling like we have started the new year with a thud, there have been some moments to help me keep perspective that not being able to return a pair of shoes isn’t exactly the end of the world. Like, finding out that a childhood friend died over the holidays. She was just 35 years old. She had been diagnosed with a partially in-operable brain tumor during the summer between our freshman and sophomore year, and continued to battle with it’s various complications throughout her life. Although we had not maintained a friendship through our adult lives, it was still painful news to hear. I felt especially sad for her mother, who had also recently lost her husband. Parents should not ever have to outlive their children.

Also, for the first time in recent memory, I can recognize and appreciate that all four members of our immediate family are simultaneously illness-free. No colds, no throwing up, no mysterious coughs and/or persistent runny noses, no ear infections, no sinus infections, no croup, no reflux, no antibiotics, no prescription antacids. After spending the last 4 years living with one, then two little germ factories – susceptible to any virus within a 10-mile radius – I realize the true miracle of this phenomenon. Now, if we could just cure The Angry.

I am sure that slowly, we will begin to find our 2008 mojo, and we can begin to focus on the important things, like how I am going to accrue the remaining 6 purse points to buy that yummy brown leather bag I have been eyeing since before Christmas. [You can imagine that this system – devised and scored by Steve – is rife with corruption and irregularity. However, I am confident that I can prevail.]

Now, if you’ll excuse me, it is time for me to go get on the treadmill…which is exactly why I am instead going to get a giant bowl of ice cream and sit on the couch and watch the E! Channel.

No Christmas, Just Carnies

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Considering we have spent pretty much every day since Christmas trying to figure out how to assimilate the hulking pile of Christmas largesse into our living space in a way that doesn’t involve just piling it all up in the guest room, I have had nary a moment to sift through photos and organize my thoughts. I think – after building a new bookcase and an entire set of shelving in the mud room – we are almost able to put it all away. It has always been like this; we have things organized in such a way that adding one new item requires moving everything else we own into a new configuration — and you know how much Steve loves that. So you can imagine the swirling tornado that erupts each holiday season after Stella’s Birthday, Steve’s Birthday and Christmas. Next year? Perhaps a family-pass at Therapy Hut.

In order for us to sort through the remaining details like getting me a card reader for MY NEW MACBOOK!!!, I won’t be posting much for another couple of days.

Here, instead, is a photo set I found buried on my old hard drive while transferring all my data to MY NEW MACBOOK!!! last night. It is from last August when Steve took Stella to the fair.

Enjoy, and I’ll see y’all next year.

Ulcers the Elf

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For whatever reason, Christmas this year has been what I can best describe as disorganized. And I’m not talking the can’t-find-my-car-keys type disorganized, but rather the can’t-find-my-car disorganized. The holidays are usually hectic, and usually, at some point my stress level reaches a critical mass, and I begin a passive-aggressive rant, enumerating the list of undone things to a flinching husband. And, for any who are keeping track, this year that day came on a Wednesday. This last Wednesday, to be exact.

I usually get this out of the way much earlier in the season, right around the time that I manufacture a self-imposed 24-hour deadline to get Stella’s party organized, make all my online purchases, have the Christmas cards made, cure cancer AND clean my house. And for my husband, the first sign of danger is that I am actually verbalizing my anxiety. Out loud. Not just with despondent looks and heavy sighs. The only thing worse than a stressed-out internalizer, is a stressed-out internalizer, externalizing.

An unintended upside to this precipitous drop in the joy of the holiday is the realization that my husband is composed of equal parts, hotness, humor, OCD and awesomeness. After collapsing from complete physical and emotional exhaustion at 8:30 on Wednesday night, I woke up Thursday morning to find that he had gone out, bought groceries, made our Christmas candy, started the laundry, re-checked all shipping ETAs, straightened up the house, loaded the dishwasher, come up with some reasonable ideas for the remaining person whom, heretofore, had not a single gift yet purchased for them, because they do nothing but eat sleep and work. (You know who you are, Scott Walston)

Instead of appreciating him for his ability to rise to the occasion when I most need him, I tend to incessantly needle him about his compulsive behavior, flair for the dramatic and inability to multi-task. In reality, he is the one who puts up with my disaffected, stoic self, and picks up the pieces when my control-freak cape begins to fray around the edges. And if I could wrap this appreciation and put it under the tree, I would. Because that would mean one less gift I would have to stress about tracking online.