Together
Posted: December 26, 2012 Filed under: Romgi the Enigma Leave a commentI mentioned before that Jarom and I were planning on doing a joint Christmas present this year. We ended up getting a memory foam mattress pad, but it cost so much less than I anticipated that we had money left in the budget for more gifts. Jarom had the idea that we’d each take half of what was left and get at least one present for us together, and one for the other person.
Guys, this is brilliant.
In addition to the mattress pad, we got a new (completely luxurious) shower head, a new rice cooker, and a replacement can opener (ours was so broken that it took me 15 minutes to open a can of tuna last week). These were things we needed, but hadn’t bothered upgrading yet – and they were lovely surprises. Both of us looked into the best models available, so we have really nice new things. I liked that we each bought joint gifts, so there was the excitement of unwrapping a mystery item.
We talked about it afterwards and decided to do Christmas this way every year!
Alone
Posted: December 21, 2012 Filed under: All's Well That Ends Well Leave a commentLast night we went to Jarom’s work Christmas party. His parents had generously agreed to watch our kids, and when we got there, we found out they had also generously agreed to let one set of cousins spend the night because the other set of cousins was arriving from California that evening. I’d brought pajamas for my kids in case we were out late and they needed to get to bed, but we left in such a hurry – without indicating that this was the pajamas’ purpose – that Jarom’s parents, reasonably, assumed that our kids were also spending the night.
So they did.
They also generously agreed to watch the kids all day today until Jarom got off work and went to pick them up. That means that I had no kids last night, and NO KIDS TODAY.
At all.
I took advantage of this by sleeping until 1pm, with a pleasant interruption in the morning of my buddy Megan bringing me cookies. Yes, I will gladly stumble out of bed for that! No one minds my hot pink sweat pants, right?
Now I’m debating possibilities for this afternoon. Finally make ornaments for the Christmas tree? Finally do more laundry so I have other pants, besides the sweat pants? Finally clean the kitchen (again)? Tackle the ketchcup mess on Evan’s carpet? (I hope you’re friends with me on Facebook and you saw the picture. Yep, it was gruesome.)
I do feel obligated to be productive, since this is the chance I’ve been waiting for – no kids, plenty of sleep, lots of time to get things done.
Many thanks to my in-laws for making this day so lovely and beautiful!
Threats
Posted: December 20, 2012 Filed under: Dangerous Book for Boys 13 CommentsI didn’t sleep well last night, so I’m (extra) grouchy today and short with the kids. In response, they’re (extra) belligerent. O the joys of parenting!
A friend suggested recently that I tell Evan he would lose out on Christmas gifts if he kept being naughty. I had tried the “Only nice kids get presents” line, since Evan has decided that Santa is real – I might as well use this logic while I can. Unfortunately, Evan is also quite certain that he’ll get presents no matter what. I didn’t take this approach very far, because I couldn’t really bring myself to make Evan have such a miserable Christmas morning (my friend said to give him presents later in the day, if he was good). But something has to be done about Evan’s ongoing refusal to listen to me.
(He did have one really good day this week where he listened every time, and yesterday started out ok – but he got ornery by mid-afternoon.)
This morning we were talking about stockings and Evan told me that Santa puts toys and candy in them. I reiterated that only good kids get stuff in their stockings. And Evan still flatly refused to do what I asked him to. Now that the moment is passed, I realize I should have put him in time out, but instead I warned him that he’d have an empty stocking on Christmas if he wouldn’t listen. He threw an extra-ornery “No! That’s not what will happen!” at me and stormed off to his room.
At the moment I feel obligated to follow through on this. I’ve already bought stuff for his stocking and I know he’ll be missing out. But I’m considering offering him some chances to redeem himself between now and Christmas – starting with getting dressed this morning (the thing I asked him to do in the first place). What are your thoughts? Make him an offer, or give him an empty stocking? Or am I horrible for even considering leaving his stocking empty?
Jarom
Mika
hilleries 