Oh Christmas Card, Oh Christmas Card

Oh Christmas cards. You are so complicated!!!

Argh!!! I love, love, love the idea of Christmas cards. Some years I send them. Mine always come ridiculous late. If you are watching the mail, just give up...go get your shopping done. I am so sorry and I truly vow to do better and get more proactive next year with planning. I aspire to be "those people." I have all these constraints though, see?

First, I have a compulsion about making sure that the photo we include looks wintery....that means I want to wait until its cold outside. And then of course as soon as its cold outside I get ridiculously busy and so then the first chance I get its Thanksgiving. I almost always end up taking a shot right after Thanksgiving when we are out cutting our tree. This always seems like such a perfect idea but really its more like when The Grinch gets a "wonderful, awful idea..."
There are caveats:

1. I always want people to look nice and people just want to tromp around outdoors and look scruffy.
2. I sometimes make people take off their coats for the photo and its invariably friggin' cold this does not make for good facial expressions. 
3. I am living on borrowed time trying to rev up enthusiasm for portraiture when the boys would all much rather be hacking away with the handsaw on our family tree. 
4. One picture can never, never do it. "One more time for Mommy now!!! Cheese boys!!!" 
5. It is at this point a very close shave to get the cards made, ordered and addressed in time...not to mention mailing them out! EEP! I'm The Duchess of Late...every Christmas.

What to do? Last year I told myself I would start fresh and live outside the box. I planned to skip Christmas cards and instead make and mail out Valentine cards. Seemed perfect. Turns out there was no world outside of that box. Heh. I procrastinated my ass right out of any yearly greeting at all. There was nada ever printed. I live in shame.

This year I couldn't get the boys to cooperate and although I got a nice shot of A and I, I had a zero luck with the boys. The shots are all like this: 

I am now planning to mail out paper cards....genuine, old fashioned paper cards that I bought in the grocery store in the buy-one-get-one-free rack. They will come in real envelopes and they will have holiday themed artwork on the covers. I will sign our names inside one just for you and if all the stars align....the pictures I took in the yard today after I finished raking with be tucked inside, a little momento of how insane cards and photos and holidays really are. The next time you are having your portraits taken...think of me, I can promise it will elicit jolly expressions.

I No Eat

I was standing in the kitchen when I heard a scuffling, mousey kind of noise behind the pantry door. I froze and listened, wide-eyed...hoping that it wasn't rodent visitors. Please no tiny, naked tailed, scuttling, creepers, clambering all over the shelves leaving me tiny poop gifts between the canned goods!!! Please! I tip-toed towards the door, and then....a thought occurred as I stood flinching on the threshold, listening with my hand on the knob.

"Pom? Is that you?" The scuffling stopped. Silence.

"No Mama!" He called....and then when I came around the door he informed me: "I no eat yo poh-teen powduh!" No mice. And no worries...he didn't eat my protein powder. Good to know. Guess we're good to go. Tee hee!!!!

Summer Fluff

It's a fluff day. Summer needs those. It's essential. I am spending time I don't have reading the ever so fluffy Tao Of Martha. It's hilarious and over the top and ridiculous and I am quite addicted. I spent naptime with my feet on the dashboard at park, reading more of it hungrily while the boys snoozer in their carseats. So delicious.
As a result I am now planning a Martha Stewart inspired backyard clambake to celebrate the golden end of summer.
Now that dinner is over (pesto chicken, cheese cubes, sauteed garlic summer squash and a cold melon soup) I am in the office positively giddy about watching Mama Mia with A as soon as he is done reading bedtime stories. I have been dying to see it for years and am sure cravings for The Medditerranean will result. Bring it on! I am in the mood!

Poetry Friday: A Laundry Poem

Today, a laundry poem that I chuckled while writing, because I am working on my own mountain between attacking the last of the last of the moving boxes. And we all need a little touch of comic relief + heroism now and then, don't we? Sometimes it is just the thing.

Joan of D’ark and Dirty

Laundry is the great monster

Mommy wrestles; her eternal foe.

Every day, long tentacles flailing from the

Hamper, dripping ooze in the form of

Socks and spotted onesies, by the pound.

She hacks at it, vigorously sorting its many limbs

Into piles: whites, darks, reds.

She rises periodically from the latest fray,

Ceremoniously mounting the stairs,

A badge of crisp pillowcase on her arm.

She strategizes the endless new advance,

Not faltering in the face of the grim smells

Of covert hand grenades the enemy leaves

Moldering in the depths of the diaper bag.

We are polished, lest the monster take our very skins

And admonished sternly of his wily ways

She sprays over us her protective elixirs:  

Tide (jumbo, extra concentrated)

And Shout, in little rhythmic squirts.

Laundry sometimes roars and beats Its chest

Rattling the floorboards with the throaty,

Conquering cry of a monster that has

Boldly taken our last dish towel to his bowels.  

But, Mommy rallies with a Monday morning war cry.

There is a great clanging of machine lids and

The sound of lusty Patsy Cline yodeling from the basement

And before we know it, Laundry is only a simpering

Trio of washcloths and a single pair of underwear

Slinking there behind the dryer hose.  

Kid Cutenesses

Today a little random kid quote sharing:

• The other day at lunch, (I had served carrot slices) Ru was nibbling away at his carrots and then suddenly he said..."Mommy! Look! Lily pads!" And he held up a tooth sculpted slice triumphantly. Cute, cute man. 

• On a recent Tuesday I propped an automatically locking side door of our church open with a rock so I could duck out and in again with kids. I stuck the rock in and then Dee knelt down and removed it. I put the rock back and then he took it out again and finally I said, "Dee! Leave it there! I need it to keep the door open!"....and he looked up at me and frowned and said "Mommy! That rock says ouch!" And I collapsed into giggles.

• Ru has a cousin named Nycteris (pronounced NEK-tur-iss) which you need to know for background info. He was zooming around one day, buzzing and said "Look Mommy! I'm a bee! I fly around and I find flowers and I drink from them when I'm hungry. I drink that...that...what's it called? Nycteris?" Tee hee...Nycteris' mommy liked that story.