Time travel is apparently hard on relationships

I finally finished my latest Imaginary Book Club selection, The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. It was recommended by Christy although I have to admit several other people said they loved it, too. The book is about a guy that time travels and the woman that waits around for him while he does. Chick spends a lot of time waiting. He visits her as a kid so gets used to waiting on him from an early age. Most chicks don't wait this much. Except maybe that chick in Cold Mountain who was prepared to wait for Jude Law forever after one kiss and no letters from him for years. But I digress.

The plot of The Time Traveler's Wife is incredibly creative. Let's just get that out of the way first thing. Because it's complicated. All that time traveling and seeing people he knows at different times in his life and just keeping track of when the action in the book is taking place at any given time is complicated. Much love and respect for Audrey Niffenegger for thinking all that up and keeping it straight. Impressive.

Second, the book takes awhile to get into. All that time traveling Audrey Niffenegger gets much love for thinking up makes it sort of hard to immediately catch on to. I didn't get caught up in "I have to finish this chapter so I can find out what happens" until 300 pages in. That's a long time for me without really feeling involved.

Overall, I'd say it's good. But it's not my favorite. I think I sort of resented all that time the wife had to spend waiting. I appreciate time alone. I appreciate letting your husband have his own space and do his own things. But I couldn't play a waiting game my whole life. The uncertainty of not knowing when he'll be there would drive me nuts. I don't think I'd worry about him so much as drive myself crazy wondering. Wondering where he is and if he's okay and when he'll be back and if I should wait to go to the grocery store because maybe he'll be back and I don't want to miss him and Gee, this party is fun and all but it'd be so much better if my husband hadn't gone to the bathroom and never come back.

I'm not suited for that life. I know that about myself. Not being able to count on him would be unbelievably hard. I found it desperately uncomfortable to think about what it would be like to be her. And I didn't understand why she didn't want to adopt. Pregnancy is very special. But you can choose to love a child too. And that's just as special in its own way. I believe that.

The Imaginary Book Club is going to read The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls next. I'm excited because everyone says it's really good. I think I even saw the author on Oprah. Which technically means nothing whatsoever as far as the quality of the book itself but whatever.

Before I start that book I'm going to finish the 2nd half of It's All Too Much by Peter Walsh from that TLC show Clean Sweep. It's a how to guide for de-cluttering your life. I'm currently on page 91 wherein he is explaining why the sky won't fall if I get rid of the two boxes of beanie babies my husband's been trying to convince me to part with for four years. I'm not saying I'm convinced. I'm just saying I'm entertaining the subject. Although now that I've publicly confessed to two boxes of beanie babies in my garage perhaps shame alone will drive me to finally part with them.

Santa needs to step up her game

Working after Christmas sucks. It feels like everyone in the whole wide world is at home except me. But I only recently got promoted so I'm sort of last in line to get time off during the holidays. Which means I get to work the super lame-o week after Christmas. Apparently, I’m not entirely useless after all.

My least favorite thing about working the day after Christmas is how empty the office is. Some people like that. Because some people are nuts. I enjoy a little office chatter way more than I enjoy the best parking spot in the entire lot. Even when I’m working I like to keep my ears perked up for interesting conversations in the vicinity. You never know when someone will have something wildly inappropriate to say. And if it’s wildly inappropriate, it needs to be emailed to a minimum of 5 of your nearest and dearest office buddies stat.

Christmas was fun. I had several days off before Christmas which was fun squared. Saturday morning the newest 4 year old sat on Santa's lap and asked for bubble gum and a princess dress. Sunday morning it dawned on Santa that you’re actually supposed to produce the requested items. You’d be amazed how easily Santa gets lost in these little details. Whatever. She's new on the job.

Santa promptly dragged her lazy butt over to Target only to discover that there had been a run on princess dresses while she wasn’t paying attention. Santa would rather fling herself head first into a wood chipper than enter Toys R Us 2 days before Christmas so she decided to hit 6 other Targets instead. 7 Targets in one day should get you a prize or something. Like maybe a photo on the wall next to the returns counter. At minimum, Santa should have at least been able to score the correct sized dress. Instead, she had to settle for one she figured the newest 4 year old would be able to cram herself into without ripping the seams.

Santa’s efforts were rewarded Christmas morning when it became apparent that the newest 4 year old firmly believed the princess dress would be there. After opening many presents that did not contain a princess dress I suggested that she didn’t get one. She explained to me that it must be in some other box. She even suggested that it was behind the Christmas tree where we couldn't see it. Because she asked Santa for it. And that meant Santa would bring it. Luckily, she did.

Santa's not perfect but she's learning. Next year, for example, we'll be visiting Santa earlier. To hell with saving fun stuff like that until right before Christmas. Santa needs lead time to locate stuff. And my kid's like a loose canon anyway. Three weeks ago she swore she was asking Santa for a plastic pony. Last week it was going to be a plastic zoo. Anything could pop out of her mouth when it's showtime on Santa's knee. Santa doesn't have a magic wand. Santa needs time. And free shipping from Amazon.

Next year Santa's also going to do more wrapping before Christmas Eve. Granted, Santa did a good job planning ahead to get the "some assembly required" kitchen set together ahead of time. But other items required paper and they weren't going to wrap themselves.

Santa's also going to attempt to designate some "Santa only" wrapping paper. You know, so Santa's paper isn't the same as Momma and Daddy's paper. Santa's husband actually had that revelation mid wrap job. Mid wrap job using assorted rolls of paper. Furthermore, the wrapping was occurring at the dining room table just down the hall from the newest 4 year old who had only gone to bed 5 minutes before and was most likely still awake.

Dude, this Santa stuff is complicated. Who knew. It's a good thing we've got another year to work on stepping up our game.

The boy in the box

My 18 month old is no longer 18 months old. He’s two now. Big old two. Big old I don’t need you anymore I’ll be off to college next week and don’t call me I’ll call you two. Sigh. For his birthday I toted him and his chubby cheeks down to the mall for photos. He held it together long enough to get a couple nice shots:

Since he has a Christmas birthday I subjected him to a Santa suit too:

That suit is 100 different kinds of cute. Don't believe me? Try this on for size:

I die a little every time I see him in it. Sort of like how I die a little every time I look at the fugly homemade birthday cake I made him:

My husband thinks it’s a wonderful Cat in the Hat cake. Which is awesome except I wasn’t going for Cat in the Hat. It was supposed to be a candy cane. Only I ran out of red food coloring which made the red sort of pinkish. And it started leaning immediately. And then the Leaning Tower of Cat in the Hat fell over. Twice. I’d like to say it looked significantly better before it fell but whatever. The fall didn’t help.

The Ding Dong looking thing next to it was for my husband who prefers chocolate icing. I had some extra cake so I hooked him up. I’m good to that man. In return he told me the cake looked good. That's love, people. Give and take.

The birthday boy also got presents. Presents his father hijacked for a test drive:

And then we took him to the aquarium. The kid loves ducks. The aquarium has ducks. That’s called, doing him a solid. The aquarium also has a jaguar which makes little or no sense to me but it’s pretty and seems to like my son. Here he is preparing to eat my baby:

My husband did the dishes tonight

Something's missing in this picture

We had a burst of unseasonably warm weather last week so the newest 4 year old decided shirts were optional:

In the driveway no less. Classy.

Never fear, our 18 month old was in the vicinity to save the day with cuteness of unparalleled proportions:

He's saying hello to the neighbor's light up snowman. Seriously, I think my ovaries just exploded.

Life Lesson #4: Gasping for breath gets you waited on at the emergency room

I talked my mom into getting a real Christmas tree the year I turned 16. We’d always had fake ones prior to that. I remember thinking real always seemed better. More Christmas-y. And it was. For the whole 2 hours I got to enjoy it. Because two hours after I wound the lights and tinsel round and round that monster, giant red welts started appearing on my arms and legs. And shortly thereafter I started having trouble breathing. We had to make two trips to the emergency room. The second time my breathing had gotten so bad I just sat down on the floor by the door after I couldn’t stand anymore and there were no chairs. And then they rushed me in the back. Because gasping for breath gets you waited on at the emergency room. Handy tip for life.

My husband likes real Christmas trees though. I’m pretty sure he couldn’t believe his luck when he discovered my allergy. I think he was busy telling me how much he likes icicles instead of tinsel garland. So I asked how you were supposed to get all those icicles off the tree when it’s time to put the tree away. Then he explains that you don’t put a real tree away so it’s not a problem. And so the issue became clear.

He also likes lots of ornaments. I don’t. Or rather, I don’t like lots of generic ornaments. He wants to buy large packages of shiny balls. I only want to hang ornaments from childhood with a parent’s handwriting on the bottom or new ones I buy each of us each year to commemorate things. I like the idea that every single ornament tells a story and that over the years our tree will fill up and tell the story of our life together. I don’t see any point in anything extraneous on there. Even the first year we had a big tree and there were only 20 ornaments. Even our tinsel, popcorn and angel on top are old. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

My husband yields to my minimalist decorating ideas in exchange for creative control of the outdoor decorations. In yet another example of how that man picks up where I leave off, he actually likes decorating the outside of the house whereas I just view it as work. Specifically, that man loves Christmas lights. And tossing some nets of lights on the shrubs is insufficient. The trees and walls require lights too. And one day he went out for milk and returned with a gigantic pre-lit wreath to cover our front door. Last year the cord on the wreath wasn’t long enough to reach the waiting fire hazard we use to plug everything in. So the cord kept the screen door pulled open about 2 inches the entire month of December. But it was lovely from the curb. And isn't that what counts?

This year I’ve already been called outside in my pajamas in the middle of the night to discuss the lights with him. I believe it was last week when he was brainstorming forming a tree shape by draping an extra strand of lights from the light post in front of the house. His concern wasn’t so much, “Do you think that’s too much?” but more of, “Do you think I have enough lights to do it?” I seriously love that man. Someday, when we move to the new house I secretly shop for on Realtor.com while I’m at work, we’re going to attempt to produce one of those ultra crazy yard displays choreographed to music like in the Budweiser commercials. My brother doesn’t know it yet but he’s going to be working the boards. For that matter, he’ll probably be the project manager and chief engineer. I’m mostly going to be standing around drinking a Dr. Pepper and thinking up more work for them. Christmas decorations are fun when you're a team.

Just because the movie is called 101 Dalmations doesn't mean you actually need that many in your yard

Christmas lights are one of my favorite Christmas traditions. As a young lady, I often dragged my mother out to ride around looking at them. I seem to recall sticking the dog in the backseat every year too. Please ignore my mother when she tries to tell you we followed a bus going on a lights tour one year because riding the bus would have meant leaving the dog at home. What kind of idiot would do that? The woman is full of lies I tell you. Lies.

I subject my husband to the Christmas lights tour these days. He's a pretty good sport about it as long as we hit a Krispy Kreme drive through at some point. And as long as I don't try to convince him to go to exceptionally crowded neighborhoods on Christmas Eve. I once did that. The highlight of our evening was the Burger King drive thru after we made a u-turn.

This year we actually saw lights though. Our favorite display was Santa kneeling next to a manger. I'm not even sure what that means. I guess they want to be sure we know they're religious but that they still appreciate Santa. So Santa's praying to the baby Jesus. If my husband didn't have such a lead foot, I might have gotten the camera up in time to document it.

Some houses were hard to miss though. For example, I guess these people really like the movie 101 Dalmations:

I'm not saying it's not a good movie. I'm just saying it's a lot of dogs and the movie's getting kind of old. But I respect their enthusiasm. And I wish they lived next door to me. Although not nearly as much as I wish these people lived next to me:

On top of all the inflated crap in their yard, they've staged a mass lynching in their tree:

You just know that tree display is legendary in the neighborhood. I imagine it started several years ago with one stupid windsock. Then everyone they knew started giving them old crap they didn't want anymore to add to the collection and now it's just all kinds of out of hand. There's so much going on in the tree you almost don't notice the Department Store-esque window display of stuffed animals. They forgot to post a sign to tell us how many of them came free attached to a box of Russell Stover candies but I still love them.

The human equivalent of a Honda Accord

The dude next to the dude trying to get my friend’s phone number at happy hour last night guessed just looking at me that I drive a Honda Accord. My husband thinks he saw me park my car. But this guy came into the bar way after us. What’d he do? Watch me park and then linger in the parking lot for 30 minutes just to throw me off his trail? Not to mention, was he lingering in Wonder Woman's invisible car? Because the parking lot was empty when I got there.

I think he just flat out guessed. And I think that means I look like the sort of girl that drives a Honda Accord. My husband does not see the problem. He thinks it makes perfect sense that I look like a Honda Accord driving girl since I am in fact a Honda Accord driving girl. I pointed out how being mistaken for a convertible driving girl makes it seem like you’re fun-loving and a Jaguar driving girl might look sleek and refined. Only I’m a Honda Accord. Practical and nice but sort of unobtrusive. And my car seat covers come off so you can wash them. I’m starting to think I need to reevaluate my life.

Proud Christmas pajamas fruitcake

My mother is an avid reader of this site. Mostly my mother is an avid fan of her grandchildren and likes when I post photos of them but I suppose she enjoys my writing, too. Anyway, my mother wants to see a photo of the Christmas dress I bought for the newest 4 year old. For that matter, so does Joy. So I trudged over to eBay and located the listing photo. Here it is.


Although it’s way cuter in person. The collar is fake brown fur. And I didn’t pay $9 for it. I know I said I did. Because I thought I did. But eBay says I paid $7.48. And just like that, the dress got that much cuter.

Upon discovering that I spent a whole $1.52 less than what I thought I had, I went ahead and shelled out for cute personalized Christmas pajamas for my son. He’s a Christmas baby. I feel a deep abiding obligation as the mother of a Christmas baby to deck that child out in the cutest Christmas pajamas ever every single year. No excuses. In fact, I almost had “Christmas Baby” stitched on the butt of the pajamas. Because he is my Christmas baby. And I’m a raving lunatic. Luckily I reigned myself in at the last second.

I got the idea for the personalized pajamas after someone commented and suggested I check out the Red Envelope monogrammed pajamas. She got her whole family matching ones which she described as cheesy but I think sounds awesome. Much like the pajamas are awesome. However, I’ve decided to save button down pajamas for when my kids get older. Because I’m not sure if I've mentioned it or not but I plan to buy my children new Christmas pajamas every year until the end of time. And every year needs to be different because, again, I’m a raving lunatic. I'm saving the simple red button down look for the difficult teenage years. Don’t bother pointing out to me the crushing blow that’s in store for me when my children eventually rebel and tell me they don’t want to wear the Christmas pajamas anymore. I suspect my husband will end up slipping them cash to change their minds. I hope he remembers to tell them to pretend they like them.

I’d buy my husband Christmas pajamas too if I thought he’d wear them. I happen to know for a fact he’s not a Christmas pajamas kind of guy though. He is, however, a funny Christmas T-shirt kind of guy so I’m happy decking him out in those instead. My husband in turn buys me a new pair of Christmas pajamas every year. And by “buys me” I mean he wraps them. Although this year he bought them himself so I have to give him credit for being ahead of the game. Except then he left them laying out on the counter and the newest 4 year old showed them to me. And then I tried them on. And now the surprise factor is sort of gone. But it’s the thought that counts. So he remains a keeper.

Half baked but free at last

I have spent the last two days trapped in a black hole of work related training. Just to make the first day of training extra horrific the heater in the room ran amok and it was 100 degrees in the room. Or at least that’s how I remember it. I fanned myself so much I'm convinced I have carpel tunnel and will require workers comp.

On top of attempting to bake us to death, the training ran an hour long. Since I’m sorta new, I felt obligated to stay. But in my heart I was plotting a coup. When I finally got home last night, my husband wanted to know if I ever took care of the speeding ticket I recently got. I asked him when he thought I did that. I generally sleep at night. That doesn't leave a lot of room for running errands. Although I did have a spare three minutes this morning but I opted to use that time to simultaneously brush my teeth and use the bathroom. Not to mention I’ve also been responsible for our two kids in the morning. My husband normally handles the kids in the morning but he’s been going into work early this week. That left me watching the sun rise the last two days as I got everyone up and out the door. Makes for a long day. And a speeding ticket still sitting on the kitchen counter. Whatever.

On the bright side, I got the newest 4 year old the cutest dress ever for Christmas. $9 on eBay. Including shipping. Check it. My ovaries sort of ache when I look at that dress. Which is odd since it’s from The Children’s Place. Not that there’s anything wrong with The Children’s Place. I just rarely end up aching when I shop there. Smiling, yes. Purchasing, yes. But very limited aching.

On the downside, I keep getting outbid for cute Christmas pajamas for my 18 month old. What’s a girl gotta do to get her some extra dorky Santa pajamas in size 18-24 months? Christmas is less than 2 weeks away. We’re getting into dangerous “will it get here by Christmas?” territory. I may have to start wildly overbidding like everyone else. Because my baby needs Christmas pjs. It’s a tradition. Last year, the newest 4 year old even asked Santa for some. I love that. Almost as much as I love that she asked Santa for chocolate for her father and bones for the dogs. Talk about aching ovaries.

Useless is unacceptable

Yesterday was a difficult day. Work in general has been kind of difficult. Since getting moved to an entirely different division 2 weeks ago I find myself slightly bitter. Mostly because I got shipped to another division where I don’t know what I’m doing. At all. Pretty much every single person that works here knows way more than me. Because it's not hard to know more than someone that knows nothing. And sitting in meetings feeling clueless sucks. In my last position, I was considered an expert. Talk about a fall from glory. What the hell.

I placed a teary eyed phone call to my husband during lunch yesterday like any good professional girl. You know. Because professional girls don't cry in meetings. They wait until they get to the bathroom. And then they take the last stall so no one can hear their sniffles. Although, honestly, I rarely cry about work related issues. Because that would require caring. I'm just too laid back for that. Yesterday's work related crying was pretty new to me. It left me feeling particularly delicate so I headed to my car. And an ice cream cone from McDonald's.

My husband being level headed and significantly more sane than me yesterday calmly listened to my incoherent blubbering. Then he talked me down from the ledge by calmly reminding me that I was sought out for this position because they think I have the ability to do it and that I'll be an asset. He also mentioned he thinks I can do anything and blah blah love you blah. But I still feel lost. And useless.

I ask lots of questions. And I listen and take notes. But I’m still in left field. And everyone else has been here for years. So I'll always be the least knowledgeable. Not that it’s a competition. Because I know it’s not. But it bugs me. It's bad enough I don't get to be popular anymore. But useless is just so unacceptable.

This is what happens when your 4 year old has limited access to television

I found the newest 4 year old doing yoga with Denise Austin the other night. She put the video in and turned it on herself. I think I was in the bathroom at the time. Either that or I was busy cooking meth in my backyard drug lab. Whatever.

She actually popped into the bathroom to tell me she was going to play the video. I seem to recall chuckling figuring she'd be disappointed by the lack of farm animals. I forgot to factor in that our kid is wacky. She gets that from her father. She's also a very bad housekeeper. Would you just look at how messy she lets her living room get? It's like she was raised in a barn or something.

My NaBloPoMo goals were met

I had 3 goals during NaBloPoMo. The first was to finish. Check. The second was to not blather about television everyday. Check check. And the third was to not write about how I didn’t have anything to write about. No matter how tempting it was. And believe me it was. Several nights I was tired and ready to go to bed but didn't have a topic yet.

I think that’s part of what makes it challenging. It forces you to actually sit down and write something despite that. And then it forces you to actually hit publish and let other people read it even though you know it’s not that great. I tend to like to read and reread and edit my writing until the end of time. That’s just not a reasonable way to operate during NaBloPoMo. But that’s good. You learn to roll with it. I'd totally do it again next year.

My energy burst from last week has ended much as I expected it to. I’m back to being tired, lazy and bitter. At least I wear it well. My Christmas tree is not up. There are 4 loads of laundry sitting in front of our washer. And our oven is broken. On the other hand, I did get to catch up on several seasons of Project Runway that I had missed. So it’s difficult to view the weekend as a total loss.

We also took our 18 month old for a haircut. Or at least the kid I like to describe as “our 18 month old.” Because, technically, he’s less than a month away from turning 2. Which makes it seem like maybe he’s not 18 months old anymore. But that makes no sense whatsoever inside my head.

Here's the kid everyone claims will be two years old in 3 weeks before the cut:

And here he is minus the pretty baby hair:

Don't bother to tell me how much better he looks. I know. But there's something about cutting off baby curls that always makes a kid look older. My heart does not enjoy the missing baby hair. My heart was prepared to cling to the baby hair for several more years. I'm in mourning for the baby hair. And maybe the baby years too. At least his chubby cheeks are still intact. I shall keep them forever. Or at least until he goes off to college and starts forgetting to call me.