Three Stooges and Booger Picking in Church

Taking a sensible picture with the Three Stooges takes lots of Tylenol and tranquilizers!

I seriously kept waiting for one of them to poke the other in the eyes and then the third one slap the offenders' noses while making that distinctive Three Stooges noise! You may be ooing and awing over this but let me promise you that the "sweet factor" was in the negative zone. They were head butting each other!

Then, I became the target. Even though those ornaments are plastic they sure do sting when lobbed at high speed and close proximity! It was all fun and games until they purposely started beaning me in the head!

I can't even begin to caption this picture. The closest I could have come would have been Dumb, Dumber, and Dumbest at this point in the photo shoot. (By the way, did you know those monkeys had real names? My kids at school did a worksheet about things found in pairs and triplets and they had to look up their names. Hmmm... Just random food for thought).

I finally finished the Christmas card and ordered them. They won't be here until January 3rd but at least I can put a big Sharpie line through "Design / order Christmas cards" on my list!

Then, there was the live nativity. Annie was not thrilled with the animals and ended up going nuts when the baby Jesus screamed at her. (Who knew it was a real baby? None of my children would have EVER laid still in a manger in the cold quietly)!

And then, there's this. Geez. My dad was in the "line up" when Grant received his new rank at the last ceremony. Grant actually shook his hand and then reached up and bear hugged him. Wow. I'm sure no one sitting around me understood my sudden emotional melt down.

So, this is what I can tell you so far to catch you up. Christmas has been different this year. I've had LOTS of firsts over the last couple of weeks such as eating alone in a restaurant (I sat with my Kindle like a nerd but I really enjoyed it), bought a complete outfit at Old Navy (I can now wear tops and bottoms in sizes they carry - haven't EVER been able to do that), ok'd a final draft of a divorce document (words don't even begin to cover this one and I still find myself in shock and feeling a little dirty - ok, no lectures needed, that's how I'm FEELING whether it's right or wrong - the thought of having to say that I'm divorced and use the word ex to describe him... I don't know...), assembled a bike (you can add to that one that I also learned how to correctly use a ratchet), paid off a credit card (all by myself which means I'm down to student loans only now), and survived a week of finals with middle schoolers. Those are just a few firsts I've had that I'll put on the record.

When I've had some time to let my thoughts settle to the bottom of the fish bowl, I'll fill in the blanks. But, for now, I have one child with the croup and coughing horribly and one who is alternating between vomiting and having blow out diapers. Tired, yes. Exhausted, yes. Fit for the funny farm, definitely. Content, absolutely.

For the first time in months, I'm finding myself content. This is the journey I'm on despite how I got here or whose fault it is that I'm here. I'm going to walk this journey to the best of my ability and avoid as many pot holes, poo piles, and detours as possible.

So, that's the serious side of life right now. Consider the rest of this entry the end credits where they show bloopers...

• Our church doesn't have a nursery yet so Annie has to sit with me. This morning, I tried to corral her in my lap to keep her from dancing to the reverent Christmas hymns that the students were singing. She straddled my lap, stuck her finger up her nose, pulled out a treasure, and proclaimed, "Look, I found a booger!" I shushed her while trying not to laugh and then she forcefully said, "I have more. Get them, Mama!" Oh yeah! Add Booger Police to the list of jobs now. Where's Mike Rowe and Dirty Jobs? Between changing the diapers tonight and the boogers, the episode he could have shot in this house wouldn't have been able to be aired.
• While stuck in traffic yesterday, Annie asked Dasha what the yellow sign was on the side of the road. The sign said, "Blind Drive." Dasha told Annie that the sign meant you had to be careful because they taught blind people how to drive in that area. I didn't even begin to try to undo her instructions. (The side of me that keeps taking me out of the Mother of the Year category wanted to say, "Yes, baby. And, here's YOUR sign!)"
• Since Dasha's finger has been broken and taped / splinted up, she has to be careful how she picks things up. I caught her in the bathroom using her teeth to pull the TP off of the roll. Come on, now! I'm so thankful that I caught her at that point in the process!
• I've been selling some items on Craigslist that haven't gotten used in a while and each time someone comes by to pick something up, Annie says, "Craig is here!" That was amusing the first time but then she handed me one of her famous lists and told me that it was Craig's list. Oh boy.
• And then, there's Grant. He has simply become a comedian and he's going to get me in HUGE trouble! I can't help but laugh at him! As I was driving into my parents' neighborhood, two squirrels refused to get out of the road. So instead of turning them into someone's easy dinner, I stopped and waited. Grant quickly started providing dialogue for the squirrels. "Hey, look Bevis! What's that big white thing rolling toward us."... OK, so the whole thing went on and on but by the end, I was laughing so hard because he'd driven the conversation in a manner that the squirrels ended up as extras in the song Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer. Ok. So, it's not as funny when I type it out here but I had a serious Depends moment and he's just full of these off the wall comments that are mildly inappropriate but so darn funny that I have a hard time not laughing!

So, I'm now going to head to bed since this simply entry has taken me nearly three hours to write! I've changed bed linens once, cleaned piles o puke twice, and redistributed cough meds once. (And changed out a load of linens, scrubbed carpet, and prayed fervently that I wouldn't succumb to the desire to hurl, as well. I don't do puke)!

Hopefully, over the next two weeks, I'll have time to get my thoughts together and documented here. I'm not due back at school until January 2nd and I've already turned my edits into the magazine for January so I'm kinda sorta a free bird (minus getting ready for Santa and such). Yee haw!

Good night, all!