Falsies

This is going to prove how I  a) am easily influenced by others around me and therefore need to keep tabs on myself and b) should maybe not be left alone late at night.

Actually, it's okay to leave me alone late at night.

It's not okay to leave me alone late at night with new beauty products.

We (women) all know how it feels when you buy a new beauty product.  Okay, maybe a few of you don't care about beauty products at all and believe in "natural" beauty and I say kudos to you, you must be the type of person that can still look beautiful while tent camping after 3 days. If you are, please don't ever go camping with me because I disgust people like you. I actually wear foundation and a light lipstick when camping. And mascara.

Don't judge.

Anyway, when buying beauty products, it is normal to have the "I can't hardly wait to put this on my face!" feeling.

So let's go back to this weekend when I sent my husband on the Dad-Kid-Campout with the kids. My husband was quick to notice that whenever I talked about my friends and what we were going to do during the campout weekend, I always talked about us moms "sending" our husbands to the campout. Not "so and so's husband is going to the campout", but "so and so is sending (husband) and kids to the campout this year!"

This weekend I had a baby shower of a dear friend to attend. That would usually enter into the category of cramping my introverted "I get a weekend all to myself" mojo, but it was for one of my dearest friends who has been through a lot to get pregnant. I arrived in town for the shower about 45 minutes early and happened to spy a Target nearby. (I hear the collective gasp of my 8 readers!)

Whilst at the Target, I cruised through the beauty section.  (Note: I had already picked up a pair of very cute $14 sandals, dangling from my hands).  I could not justify purchasing new eye shadow, eye liner, or eyebrow pencil...because I just got those...but I could see myself getting...wait for it...false eyelashes. (There goes the collective groan of all 8 readers).

I could feel the false eyelash starter kit burning a hole through my purse as I sat through the baby shower. I could picture my husband coming home and saying, "Who is this mythological creature who has not only done my laundry, but also is tempting me with her beautiful eyelashes??" I could see myself at the upcoming work meeting- fully in charge, with gorgeous eyelashes. I could conquer mountains and manage my children better- all with beautiful eyelashes.

I had a headache driving home from the baby shower. It took me 3 hours to get rid of it.

It took me another 3 hours playing with paper art and watching movies to realize I hadn't even touched my false eyelashes.

Dilemma: How to watch movies and put false eyelashes on at the same time? (and after 2 glasses of wine and a carbohydrate coma, no less)

Not one to be deterred by the challenge of a beauty/movie dilemma, I grabbed a small lighted make up mirror ( I won it at my husband's work Christmas party! Huzzah!) and my false eyelash kit.

The instructions on the false eyelash kit were so tiny that women my age, who actually might need false eyelashes, can't read them without a magnifying glass or carefully placed sunbeam.

After trying to hold the words up to the magnifying mirror part of my make up mirror, then realizing the instructions were backwards (it's after midnight by now), I ran upstairs to grab my book light.

Book light carefully balanced on the table next to the make up mirror, I proceed to follow the directions which indicate that I need to open the eyelash glue and place a small dot on some foil (run and get the foil).  Unfortunately, although the picture on the instructions indicates that the glue just flows out of the bottle, I had to slam the glue on the tinfoil several times to get enough to make the recommended dime sized dot.

Next I take the tiny tweezers (that look like they could seriously do damage to your eye if you sneeze during this procedure) and pick up a teeny tiny group of false eyelashes that look like they come from a sugar pine tree.

I taught Outdoor Education for a year.

I dip the end of the teeny tiny grouping into the glue (not too much!) and then apply to the lash line (NOT THE LID) of the eye.

Thought: Aren't your eyelashes attached to your lid? Wouldn't your "lash line" be part of your lid?

As I pulled the tweezers away, I realized that the lash grouping had attached itself to the tweezers and not to my "lash line". Five more attempts did not prove much better.  After about 20 trials, I had managed to stick about four groupings as close to my lash line as I could and I had something that looked like longer, prettier lashes.

1:00 am. I begin to work on the other eye, only to realize that some of the lashes from my first eye have fallen off.

It's amazing how at 1:00 am a few groupings of lashes can look like a spider and although in your deepest intellect you know it's not a spider, the part of your brain that should have gone to bed a long time ago says, "Spider!" and so you jump and say, "Ee-yah!" or something like that and try and flick the spider (that once was false lashes on your eye) that is glued to your fingers off your fingers without much success.

2:00 am.  I finally packed up my failed attempt at beauty and went to bed.

The next morning I found that 4 of my lashes on my right eye were way longer than any other of my lashes and they were securely fastened to my lash line. I wore those lashes like a badge of beauty honor for the 2 hours that I took to take a leisurely shower, clean the kitchen, and do a load of laundry.  Then I removed them because I realized how ridiculous it looked.

I had to remove them following the instructions using the eyelash remover solution. Which poured out of it's bottle like water.

I also whitened my teeth with whitening strips. Those worked out okay. Except for the strip that is stuck to the carpet that I can't seem to remove.

Superhero? Super kid.

I was an Outdoor Education teacher for two years. I was a summer camp counselor for 2 summers. I taught in a classroom for 11 years. I have been an Education Specialist with a Charter School for the past 4 years.

I don't say this to brag. But I simply to say, "I've seen it all". And no, I probably haven't seen as much as the educator who has been in the classroom for 20 plus years, but I feel like I have seen it all.

I know what the initials ODD, GATE, IEP, RSP, SDC, ADD, and ADHD mean. I know how to spot signs of Asperger's or Autism. I know when to deal with an angry parent or student, and when to run away. I know how to make phone calls regarding bad grades, bad manners, bad upbringing, bad lunch, bad whatever.  I've melted parents like cold, hard butter on a hotcake with my sweet words of reassurance. Yeah, I'm that syrupy.

I have buzz words, techniques, books, and websites that I can pull out of my back pocket.

Until last Thursday, I was that Superhero.

Now I'm the "on the other end" Superhero. And it has driven me to tears. And to my knees.

I'm just being honest here, and it hurts to be this honest. Because now I have THAT kid.

And it's not just that he got kicked out of Day Care. As my husband said, someday we will look back on this when Ian is older, and laugh and tell him how he got kicked out of Day Care. We will look on it like a badge of honor, almost. As in, "I know I run a company now, am a great boss, and make enough money to send my parents to Maui every year, but would you believe I got kicked out of Day Care??"

And I will tell him about all the times he scared the heck out of me by throwing his head against the floor when he got upset when he was an infant. Or how he threw his head back so far when he was screaming when we were holding him that we were afraid we would drop him.

Or how he would throw things.

Or how we can't let either of his grandmother's watch him by themselves because we are afraid he would cause them injury. Or break something. Or just really freak them out.

And then there was that one time when the babysitter was watching him and he got so upset he took off all his clothes, threw them over the second floor banister and yelled, naked, "YOU'RE BREAKING MY HEART!!"

But then...

There are the numerous phone calls that I have received over the past several months. The increasing desperation in the teacher's voice as I am told about all the screaming fits, the throwing chairs, and the scratching of arms as she tries to hold him down.

And I don't blame them for kicking him out. I really don't. He totally deserved it.

His teacher is on the "older" side.  The kind of "older" side that when she receives an injury it actually causes bruising on her arm.  And she called me the day before he got kicked out and said on the phone, "I won't give up on him."

I guess when he scratches enough to cause bleeding on another teacher's arm and throws a chair in the direction of other little day care kids, that negates the whole "I won't give up on him" line.

But, oh, how it hurts. 

Of course, his sister is in 7th heaven because it wasn't her. And I know she is thinking "I look pretty good compared to him", because that is what I used to think every time my brother did something stupid.

Oh, good. Now my parents are mad at him. That takes the pressure off me for awhile.

And this is what makes me angry...in my thought process. And now I can see how other parents were angry. It's not the teacher's fault that my three year old couldn't follow the routine and rules of day care. It's not the teacher's fault that my son might have ODD or a sensory processing disorder, or whatever the special needs flavor of the month is.

BUT...

I was never invited to observe in the classroom. I never saw what words the teacher used with him, or what tone of voice. And I know, as a teacher, you can't cater to every kid all the time and sometimes your patience wears thin and you say things you don't mean, or you use a tone you know you shouldn't use, or the bubble of words above your head suddenly bursts and comes out of your mouth.

I once told a class they were going to drive me to drink.

I once put a big L on my forehead in desperation when I was on recess duty. A kid said, "Did she just call me a loser?"

But still...why couldn't I observe what he was doing?? Maybe I could have helped. And I didn't ask if I could because everything about the place said, "No parents allowed past this point".

Why wasn't I given notice? They could have told me that they were documenting incidences so that they could kick him out. Instead, I was told they were documenting incidences to help us with information to give the counselor we were going to take my son to see. I wasn't given a "if we have this many incidences, than this will happen" type of speech. I was given a "come get him and don't come back" phone call.

Harsh. This is my baby we are talking about.

And now I get it. And that is why I am a different type of Superhero. I wish I could say that I was the kind of Superhero like Linda Carter as Wonder Woman, because then I would be so intimidatingly gorgeous with an invisible jet and a rope of truth...

I digress again.

I am the Superhero with the swollen eyes because I've cried myself to sleep about my son. I am the Superhero who has gained 5 pounds because of stress eating. I'm the Superhero who has gotten very little sleep over the past week because all of a sudden I was stuck with the "I HAVE to work! Now what do I do?" questions running through my head. (Another Day Care? Not an option. I can handle getting kicked out of one...barely. Two would kill me). I am the Superhero that interviewed five potential Nannies in a 6 hour period and prayed that one of them will see how awesome my son is.

Because he is. And I'm crying as I write this.

Stupid Day Care. They don't see what he is like when he comes to you at 6:30 in the morning, throws himself on you, smiling, and says, "Mommy! Wake Up! The sky is awake!"

They don't see how he can count to twelve...and then jump back to seven.

He knows all the words to "Let It Go" and "Do You Want to Build  a Snowman?"

He knows what a heart looks like.

He says "I love you" just because. He giggles when you pinch his little rear end.

He will only eat yogurt and Dinosaur chicken, but he can scream the ABC song at the top of his lungs.

At night, he can't go to sleep until my arm is wrapped around him.

He freaks out when he can't find me in the house.

He is not afraid of getting dirty, heights, squirt guns, monsters, or pirates. He is afraid of spiders. If you ask him how big a spider is, he will stretch his arms wide and say, "this big".

He demands your eyes are on him when he talks, not on the iPad, computer, or Facebook.

He could care less if laundry is in a neat pile. He sees it as an "opportunity to throw caution and clothes to the wind".

He knows how to beg for a donut.

I am a Superhero because I gave birth to this kid. And he is mine. Well, really, he is God's. But we get to borrow him for awhile.

And I am a Superhero because now I get it.  And I wish I could go back and apologize to all the parents that I talked to about their kid who was badly behaved. I want to tell them that I know how bad it hurts to hear those words. I want to tell them that it hurts for days afterwards and you want to scream at the person who told you your kid wasn't good enough because they Just. Don't. Get. It.

But I do. I get it. And I am in the club of Superhero women.

So my first idea for a blog since …forever…hit me at 10:30 pm and I was too tired to do anything about it then…all my good ideas probably got sucked out of my head by my pillow…

But here it goes anyway…

The other night my 3 year old son asked if he could take one of his wooden train cars into the bath tub with him. I stopped buying bath tub toys a long time ago because I found out that empty Johnson’s baby shampoo bottles are just as entertaining in the tub. I said no because I happen to be a teacher and know something about what happens to wood in water, but my son (not a teacher) has no clue and therefore thought I was just being mean.

Now here is where I should interject that my children have the gift of being a tattle-tale. Thank goodness they usually reserve that gift for each other. 

As parents, we have written filed all the typical parent responses to tattling on invisible 5 x 7 index cards in our brains.  If you were able to look in my brain under the file “Respond to Tattling” you would see the following statements written on my index cards:

·         I can’t hear tattling. Try to tell me another way.

·         Was it on accident?

·         I have an idea. Don’t touch each other.

·         I mean it. Don’t touch each other.

·         Honey, Mommy will take care of your brother/sister. You worry about what you are doing.

·         Knock it off

My husband has downsized his file to one card.

·         Knock it off

I’m exaggerating. I don’t know what his card says. If he’s in the room when the tattling starts, I leave to let him deal with it.  I don’t hear what’s on his card.

Anyway, back to the bathtub…

No wait…let me clarify something else. (This is what happens when you don’t blog for awhile, you pretend that no one cares if there is no fluidity- is that a word?- to your writing)

I don’t understand tattling because I didn’t grow up with it. I was an only child until I was sixteen. When my younger brother came along, my main concern was whether he was mistaken for my child.  I once tried to tattle tale on him and it was so lame, that I even sounded awful to myself.

Anyway, my son figured out quickly that tattling to Mommy about Daddy, or tattling to Daddy about Mommy would get him nowhere.

So when I said “no” to the toy in the bathtub and tried to explain that it would get ruined, my son got a very defiant look on his face and said to me, “Well, I am mad at you now. I am going to tell your mother!”

I’m still scratching my head trying to figure out who taught him to say that.  I am thinking back to all the times I left him alone with my mother and whether or not they began to plot the day he would be able to say that to me.

Because the thing is, my mom can be a very scary woman. You do not want to make her mad. Ever.

So if anybody threatens to tell my mom anything I’ve done, I sort of started to seize up and break out in a rash. Even if it is a three year old doing the threatening. The rational part of me began to tell myself that my mother lives a 5 hour drive away and that my son can’t drive, or operate my iPhone. I think.

I did what any person under that kind of threat would do…I interceded by telling on myself to my mom first. I texted her. That I wouldn’t let him have a toy in the tub. That I tried to tell him the toy would get ruined.

And then I told on my son.

 

 

Camping Mommy Style

My husband and I decided to camp again as a family this summer.

We both agreed that true camping means sleeping in a tent and having a campfire.

In the interest of true camping, I created a Pinterest Board called "camping" in which I downloaded every campfire recipe you can think of.

I didn't use a single one.

Instead I stuck to my old stand by of expensive cheese, wine, and delicious crackers.  And take out. We only camped for three nights, but my real personal challenge was on night #2 when I realized the restaurant I wanted take out from (the best nachos on the central coast) was closed on Tuesdays.  I had to settle for the second best nachos on the central coast. My husband told me I was doing a really good job of roughing it.  I proved how well I could "rough it" by eating the leftover cold nachos for breakfast the next day while sitting on the aerobed in the tent. This was while my husband left in the van with his computer to go find a coffee place with hot breakfast sandwiches and wifi, leaving me with 2 young children and only a forest to entertain them. I figured I was the camping champion of the day because not only had I consumed cold nachos for breakfast, but I had NO COFFEE until my husband came to pick us all up at 9:30 am.

Confession time: the only camping we have done as a family so far has been no farther than a ten minute drive from my parent's house.  I set a simple "real camping" goal for myself because of this: I will not take a shower at my parent's house while camping.  Last year, while camping near my parent's house with our family AND some close friends, I failed miserably. Not only did we raid my parent's house for a home cooked dinner, but I took a shower while we were all there. 

This year, I actually took a shower on the campsite.  Part of me felt silly because I was using up time in the camp grounds shower while people were waiting. I could have saved some camp hot water by going to my parent's house I reasoned, but my daughter insisted on showering on the camp grounds.  Apparently this was some sort of rite of passage that she felt she had to do. Unfortunately, right before I had gathered our shower gear and flip flops (ALWAYS wear flip flops in a shower when camping), my daughter skinned her knee for the first time. Not one to be thrown off course, I threw my wailing daughter into the shower with me.  Everyone within a five tent radius could hear the howls of my six year old as she watched the blood drip from her knee and felt the sting of shampoo drip over her eyes.  It was an experience only smores and glow sticks could improve.

Since our first shower experience was so successful (not), I decided that the only way to stay clean was to go to the water park in Paso Robles.  I had already been there twice with my kids, but my husband had not had the pleasure of baking in the sun while watching his children frolic in the kiddie pool for awhile until forcing them to "float" on tubes down the "lazy river".  The children and I had developed a routine of playing in the kiddie part and then floating down the lazy river, returning to the kiddie pool, then lazy river...you get the idea.  With my husband around we could actually branch out to the "wave pool" on our tubes. I love the wave pool. I could have stayed in the tube and rode the waves for the rest of the afternoon. My toddler son was the same way. Every moment a wave would lift his tube up he would yell, "Whee!" and "This is fun!" My daughter said in a quiet voice, " I don't feel so good."

"What do you mean?"

"My tummy hurts."
"Seriously? But this is so fun."

"Mommy..." and then she made the face. You know, the chipmunk hold-your-breath-and-puff-your-cheeks-out face.

I think I said to my husband something like, "Head toward shore" or "abandon ship" or "abort mission" and we found ourselves scrambling to get out of the wave pool.

Sad that my only thought was, "She'll never make it on Space Mountain. How is she going to ride Space Mountain?"

That night, we walked around the campsite. I have to confess that while my husband admired the beauty of the surrounding trees and such, I was checking out the décor of other campsites and considering what I could buy with next year's camping budget.  It feels like a competition, looking at other's decked out campsites.  Some people actually decorated their outdoor tables with flowers and fancy table clothes.  Others played music out of RV's fancier than my house. Some showed evidence of real meat grilling on campfires.

I told my husband, "I think next year I'll buy an EZ Up and get some rope lights for atmosphere."

"That's not camping", he said.

"What? The EZ Up?"

"The rope lights. That's not camping."

We walked around some more. I wasn't going to press my luck, because it was my husband who didn't even smirk when I pulled out the air mattresses to sleep on (not real camping?).  I was thinking that more light and covering to enjoy the fancy cheese and wine I brought camping would be nice. 

"We could do lanterns, " he said out of the blue.

I thought a moment. Lanterns with those little fake tea lights would be pretty atmosphere and seem more campy. "Okay," I said, "lanterns would be better."

We walked along in peace once more, enjoying the last of daylight.

"Look at that HUGE, fancy motorhome!" I shouted, pointing to a nearby campsite.

"That is really big," said my husband.

"Not real camping," I said.

The next day my daughter got up and asked for a Pop Tart for breakfast.

Now that is real camping.

Salve!

When I first started homeschooling, I had dreams of grandeur. I pictured my daughter being able to recite Shakespeare at the age of six.  I pictured her composing her first piece of music at the age of 7. I pictured a genius. Someone who could read chapter books by the end of kindergarten and had multiple languages under her belt.

If you have that kid, don't even come near me.

The truth about homeschooling lies more somewhere in between. Somewhere between days where I can barely squeeze a math page out, and days where she's reading at a second grade level. Between days where she can count by fives before I've even taught her, and days where she can't read a word because she doesn't feel like looking at the letters.

 I can count the number of art projects we've done this year on one hand.

I can count the number of times she's had a music lesson: 0.

I can count the number of times I've screwed up this kinder year of hers: 2, 462.

And yet, I wouldn't trade it because of days like today.

Today, I pulled out the SECOND Latin Language Program I've purchased this year. If you homeschool, you know why we chose Latin as the first (and maybe only) foreign language for our daughter.  If you don't homeschool, you'll think we're nuts.

Just to clear the air- we are nuts.

But my daughter wanted to start the book and sing-along CD "right now". Even though I purchased it for next year.  And she doesn't understand why I sort of freaked out a little and said no at first, because she doesn't get that if we start now I have to REWRITE THE WHOLE LATIN LESSON PLANS for the beginning of next school year and I am a little obsessive compulsive when it comes to lesson plans.

I decided to recite my new mantra. "I'm a tree. I can bend."

It isn't really my new mantra. I don't really have a mantra. If I did, it would be something like "More coffee makes me happy", not this silly tree nonsense.

But I decided to be wild and throw caution to the wind and I opened the workbook to the first page. I put the CD on the stereo.

Two harmonic voices began singing a song about "here comes the teacher" and "hello" and "good-bye". We sang the words in Latin.

My daughter decided the music was a beat she could dance to.

We danced. We sang. I looked at the workbook.

And then I realized we had been singing the "classical" version of Latin, not the "ecclesiastical" version.

Side note: this is typical of us.  I tried to learn Italian through CDs a few years ago. My daughter was about 4.  She actually followed along pretty good and was saying, "Bona Sera" with the CD and "Arrivederci!" like a true Italian.  But the CD went right from teaching common pleasantries and greetings to "Can you help me find a Taxi?"  We gave up.

The classical version of Latin is not my style because it pronounces the 'v' like a 'w' sound and I have enough trouble getting the vowel sounds straight, so please try not to switch consonant sounds on me too much. Thank you.

So I forwarded the CD to the same song, only in the "version" that I wanted, and we tried again. But by this time we were giggling so hard, because when you think about it, the word "discipuli" in Latin is pretty hard to pronounce because the 'i' can sound like an 'e' and the 'c' is actually a 'ch'.

And there are two different versions of that word.  All I can think is thank goodness the next level doesn't start until third grade.

I am determined that we will learn these songs and go on to read books in Latin, or at least turn a clever phrase or two to impress those who would otherwise sneer at homeschooling.

"Omnia Fortiora Si Dicta Latina."  Everything sounds more impressive when you say it in Latin.

Put the Baby Back!

When I got married and we celebrated our first Christmas together, I realized that something was missing.  A Nativity set.

Having a Nativity out during Christmas was something my Mom did every year.  I can't tell you why for sure, because it's not like my parents went to church, but I think there was something soothing and peaceful in the tradition of having that little Nativity set on display every year. Plus it was really cool art.

So when my husband and I celebrated our first Christmas together, I knew that in the spirit of the season, I wanted my own Nativity set.  Something that would be in the family for years to come.  Something that my children would grow to love and expect every year. 

The problem is that all the Nativity sets I wanted were really too expensive for our budget.  In my mind, I couldn't justify a purchase like that quite yet.  Not until I had a family.

The search for the Nativity set took a different turn after my daughter was born.  I joined this Mom's group at church and one of the sessions around Christmastime was titled (appropriately) "How to celebrate the true meaning of Christmas with your family."  There were a bunch of experienced Mom's talking about how they had found a Nativity that was "kid friendly" so that their children could play with the pieces and the parents could talk about the Nativity scene and Jesus' Birthday.  It all sounded great to me and so I went off in search of a "kid friendly" Nativity. 

Here's the problem.  And here is where I am a little snooty when it comes to the whole Nativity thing. 

To me, Nativity scenes are a work of art.  I have seen some so beautiful that they make me want to weep (and that was before I saw the price tag).  So the idea of purchasing a Veggietales Nativity scence where Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber were some of the key players hadn't quite grown on me yet.  Neither had the Fischer Price Little People Nativity where all the characters looked like they were short and fat.  Seeing as my daughter was only 9 months old during this Nativity hunt, I couldn't rightly justify purchasing anything that I wouldn't be okay with her teething on.  You see my delimma?

I finally settled for a Nativity set I happened across in a nearby Christian bookstore.  The price tag was right, the characters were sort of this rubbery/plasticky material that wouldn't break, and the box even said the set was "kid friendly". 

The first year we had the Nativity set, my daughter didn't play with the pieces so much as throw them across the room.

The second year we had it, when she was almost two, her throwing had better aim.

By the time she was almost three, she had learned to play with the pieces.  She had conversations with the animals in the stable and told the donkey, "Happy Birthday." 

And so it went, my daughter slowly progressing toward playing with the Nativity and understanding the Christmas Story.  Last year, as I was putting the Nativity set away after Christmas, I couldn't find the baby Jesus.

"Where's baby Jesus?" I asked my family.

No one knew.  And I feared that my one year old had swallowed him whole.  I watched his diapers for a week waiting for the baby Jesus. Nothing.

I eventually had forgotten that the baby Jesus had been lost from the Nativity set until six months later when I found a wise man hanging out under the couch.  I didn't even know he had been missing.

"I found a Wise Man!" I told the five year old and set him in my "junk cup" on the kitchen counter so I would see him for the next six months and not lose him.

"Did you find the baby Jesus?" my daughter asked. I can't believe she remembered he was missing.


Now here is the part where you think that I could just put the Wise Man away with the rest of the Nativity set, but you would be sorely mistaken because I don't go into my garage.  Ever.  It scares me.
And since the Nativity set was packed away in the garage, the Wise Man got to hang out in the "junk cup" for six months.

So here comes Thanksgiving and I'm thinking, "I have a Nativity set with no baby Jesus. This cannot be."

I break down and buy the Fischer Price Nativity set with the short and fat Joseph and Mary and the chubby baby Jesus that lights up and plays music when you press on the manger.  I do this because I have a two year old son who can throw farther than any of us combined.

I put up both Nativity sets.  The missing baby Jesus Nativity set is on display because it now has sentimental value to me.  I look at the donkey and think of how my daughter told him "Happy Birthday".  I look at the empty manger and think of how it will be filled in our hearts on Christmas morning.

And I look at the Fischer Price one and think that it's sort of cute and the light up baby Jesus kind of grows on you. And the pieces are easy to find because they are so fat.

I spend the majority of my evening collecting Nativity pieces that have wandered throughout the house ("Where did you take Mary? Have you seen Joseph?") and putting them back on their perspective tables. 

Tonight, as we were decorating the Christmas tree, while my two year old simultaneously removed decorations from the tree, I found the missing baby Jesus in the ornament box.

"Hey! It's the baby Jesus! Look!" I shouted.

"Hooray!" my daughter yelled, and she put him in his rightful place in his manger bed.

"Wook!" my son cried and ran off with the baby Jesus and the camel.

"You bring that baby back!" I yell after him.

"Baby Yesus!" my son yells back at me.

"I'll go get him," my daughter sighs and takes off after the two year old who is waving the baby Jesus in the air as if to tease us.

I got distracted by ornaments after that, and it wasn't until the children were finally deep asleep in bed that I thought to go look for the baby Jesus again.

There was the baby Jesus.  Lovingly placed in between Mary and Joseph. My daughter had placed him in his rightful spot with the Wise Men and Angels looking on.

Lately, it is in the quiet moments of my heart that I find I get the most meaning out of Christmas. Sure, I love the making presents, and wrapping presents, decorating, and lights, but this year it seems I feel the happiest just staring at those little Nativity scenes by the light of the Christmas tree. I find my heart kneeling down in front of the manger and simply absorbing the beauty of a baby born in a stable.

My moment was broken by the realization that the manger has gone missing.

Poetic License with a Sewing Machine

So this is how it starts.

I go out shopping with my Mom and she says, "Oh, I have to take you to this one place..." and then adds one of the following hook lines: "It's so cute." "You'll just love it." "I thought of you."

And just like when I was thirteen, I'm blindly following the only woman who really taught me how to shop, my Mother, into some place that will be my downfall.

A few months ago I followed my mother into a shop that declared the clothes weren't really clothes, but "wearable art".  I ended up buying a blouse that cost me about a day and a half worth of my paycheck.

It is art. I just want you to know.

Now it's art with a small spot on it that I'm hoping a dry cleaner can get out.

So last year my Mom does that "let's go shopping" thing with me and I end up in a store that makes napkins.  Well, napkins and cute little aprons. Mostly napkins.

"They make napkins," says my Mom, "Aren't they great?"

For the record, my Mom owns like 457 napkins and placemats. She doesn't even own that many shoes.

I tell her, "They are great."

And then I say, "You know, I used to sew. I could do this.  I could make us napkins. I just need a machine."

My Mom says, "You could make napkins and sell them."

My daughter says, "Can I get this apron? I need this apron."

Four sets of napkins and one child size apron later, I'm daydreaming of my own napkin business.

The only problem is I don't have a sewing machine and I haven't used one in over twenty years.

Fast forward to Mother's Day of this year when I tell my husband that Costco has a sewing machine on sale.  I hold out the coupon to him and say, "This is what I want for Mother's Day."

"It's not very romantic," says my husband. (He always says that).

I proceed to tell him all the amazing things I could do if I could just have this sewing machine.  I tell him about mending clothes, adding ruffles to things, and yes, making napkins.

I get the sewing machine.

It sits in the box for two months until I finally get up the courage to open it.

"Wow," I say to my husband.

I find a video online that shows me how to wind a bobbin and thread my machine. I watch it three times.

"That looks scary and complicated," says my husband (who has an IQ of over 150, mind you).

"Yep."

I dive right in. I buy thread and material and start making this "strip blanket" that I saw on Pinterest. Basically, it's a bunch of strips of material sewn together that somehow become a blanket.

After day one of my sewing strips of material together, I decide to fortify myself with goodies by going to Trader Joe's. 

Who should I bump into at Trader Joe's, but the woman who ran the Costume Shop for the Theater Department I was in during college.

"This is fortuitous," I tell her, showing that I am a college graduate by using big words, "I just bought a sewing machine."

"Oh, dear," she says, "Do you want my phone number?"

Apparently, she remembers how I sew better than I do.

I take her number.

I also tell my friend who designs and sews costumes for a living that I bought a sewing machine and I might be needing her help.

"What can you sew?" she asks.

"Flat things," I tell her.  "Blankets. Tableclothes. Napkins.  Straight lines."

I finish the blanket for my daughter. It looks better than I thought. I have to admit, I feel a thrill in knowing that I did it without anyone's help. Well, except the online lady who told me how to wind a bobbin and thread a machine three times. The strips of fabric are crooked and according to my daughter, the blanket already has a hole somewhere. So what? I made it.

"Can you make me a Nemo costume?" my daughter asks.

"I don't think so. I can make you a napkin."

"I don't want to be a napkin for Halloween."

I still haven't made a napkin. I've made part of a tablecloth and I've made a curtain to go on the play room closet.  I contemplated a Halloween costume for my kids, but how many Halloween costumes are out there that only require one to sew straight, flat lines?

Anyway, if you see a bunch of people dressed like napkins for Halloween, chances are it's my family.