The never-ending christmas!

December 22: Christmas I. Gifts from Grandparents Flecker, Aunt Toots and Great-grandma Flecker.

December 24: Christmas I 1/2. Presents from Nessa & Sandy, and Great Grandparents Schablow.

December 25: Christmas II. Presents from Grandparents DeCarlo, Aunt Carmela & Uncle Steve.


December 28: Christmas III. AKA the Puetz family Christmas.

This year was, in a word, ridiculous. I can only hope that we aren't setting his expectations too high.
I remember the story my high school English teacher used to tell about her childhood Christmases: they got an orange. and one present. and some pocket money.

I feel...strangely guilty that we're able to do this much celebrating. I know that we're really lucky to live when and where we do, and to have so many lovely people who care for us the way they do. I feel like there's not quite enough words to tell you all how much I appreciate all that y'all do, how much I appreciate the way you make Adrian's face light up, how loved I know he feels when he's around you all.

It was a bad day

Yesterday may possibly have to go down in the annals as a day not to be repeated.

Everything was fine up until 5:45pm.
Then the shit hit the fan.

Adrian and I are sitting at the dinner table and he's got ants in his pants and can't sit still. And to add to his antsy-pantsy dance, he decides to use his fork as a drum stick and the plates & table as his drum kit. Not acceptable. This is a standing house rule. I give him 3 warnings then take away the fork. Woe unto those who shall deprive him of his cutlery! 20 minutes of sobbing and hysteria over a stupid fork. We replaced the "big boy fork" with a baby fork and hustled his tushie to bed.

Then a few hours later, Jack decides that it is time to supplement his meals with a mouse. He brought said deceased rodent into my house and tried to eat it off the dining room floor. Mama don't play that.
For those of you who don't know Jack there are two important things to note: firstly, he is a cat. secondly, he never catches his own rodents. He finds ones that have been pre-caught. And in Jack's mind, rodents are without expiration date. There have been rodents that are so far past living that...lets just say that the circle of life can be really gross and wriggly.

Then (it gets better!) at 12:54 am the smoke alarm goes off! I groggily haul my butt out of bed and yank it down off the wall b/c it is not the regular beep-beep-beep of the smoke detectors of old, but more of a beep. beepity-beep. beep. And ours is a new fangled smoke/carbon monoxide doohickey. I'm trying to read the instructions on the back and it's happily chirruping away, and I read the line: if the red light is flashing, get out of the house & call the fire department. I flip the mamajamma over and sure enough the red light couldn't be happier about being a red light: look how i blink! So first I call the fire department, then I wake the weensy ones and haul them out to the car to wait for assistance. Poor Adrian is so confused and cold, i stick him in the car w/ the heat running & a blanket--Fiona is all snuggly in her bunting and could care less. The paramedics arrive, check the house for CO and declare it safe to reenter. Turns out I should probably just change the batteries. And if I hadn't been woken from a dead slumber I probably would've figured that out on my own.
So now I feel like a giant ass for having called the firefighters, and woken the babies, and I was hoping for one of those undo-buttons to miraculously appear in front of me, but no such luck.

And where was Aaron for all of this?
At work.
He misses all the fun.

Because...I said so.

How-dee.
It's been almost a month since I said hi-do. And that means that very few of you know of the failure of project: family dog. Huge flaming failure. Which is a pity, because what a sweet dog! The main problems with the doggie arrangement were as follows:
1. Dog was an unexpected gift. (kind of like an unexpected pregnancy, but with more legs. And a tail.)
2. Adrian could not, would not follow the doggy rules. He really enjoyed getting the pup all riled up and then complained when the pup did puppy things, like pulling on clothing.
3. Aaron was quite ready to make my life more complicated than necessary by acting like an overgrown toddler in response to having a dog thrust upon us.

So what did we do? We returned the dog to the gifters and said find him a new home. Which they did in less than 8 hours. And now sweet puppy is pampered in a toddler-free home. I still miss his buggy eyes and sweet temper, but it's also nice not to have to repeat the rules OVER AND OVER AND OVER again to a 3 year old who doesn't want to hear or obey.

What else is new? Adrian has developed some kind of anxiety, which he copes with by chewing the back of his hands. If I knew what was making him anxious I could fix it, but I've only got suspicions, not concrete conclusions.
Fiona rolls! And sits! And shrieks--mostly at Adrian. She'll be 6 months on the 14th...and she's still a joyful bundle of baby. She's an excellent sleeper, never grumpy--even when she was producing more mucus than should be allowed by law. When that girl gets a cold she really over does it with the congestion.
And now we are awaiting giftmas. It'll be a veritable Bacchanal of toys for tiny people. I'm not sure how I feel about the tide of stuff...but I am grateful that so many people want to make this a wonderful time of year for the tiny ones.