Yuletide Greetings

The real countdown has begun. Christmas is in a mere three days. Shopping days have been reduced to two.
Today after daycare I will take Griffin and Bela out shopping for gifts for daddy and the caregivers. Brett and I have ruled out the notion of giving each teacher the equivalent of one week's worth of care. Such expected tipping was the topic of conversation on All Things Considered last week.
Split three ways, just for Bela, this would equal $70 each for Siony, Branden, and Leah. While they are certainly worth every penny, and we would love to make their merry days merrier, this is a wee bit excessive for our family.
I read something great in Body + Soul magazine yesterday about the wisdom of giving more than one actually has. Giving 'til it hurts is not very zen. In fact, I think the entire December issue discusses the Buddhist idea of attachment in relation to holiday giving. Attachment to the idea of the perfect gift is restrictive.
And perhaps it is why the shoppers at Target this Saturday and last were acting either crazed or dazed. Good manners seem to have fallen by the snowy wayside lately.
There was a great article about my favorite holiday movie, It's A Wonderful Life on nytimes.com this weekend. The movie airs Wednesday, Dec. 24 on NBC. The meaning of the film for moi is that if your children didn't exist, nothing else would really matter. Or something... This was also the feeling I had at the end of Break Up with Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston.
Griffin turned six last week. Besides a big birthday party with fifteen of his best pals at Jumpin' Jax Bounce House, we celebrated his actual birthday with lunch at school together and a Christmas Concert at the High School. I have lived my entire life to sit in the audience of a holiday program. Truly. I nearly cried with sentiment.
Bela is beginning to potty train. She has tinkled on the potty several times now and picked out Dora and princess panties. Woohoo! I can't wait to live without diapers.
Yesterday we went to visit Santa and I got to practice non-attachment. It was to be my last gasp at a holiday picture that I could send to family members, big and small, near and far. All day long, Bela asked about HIM, but when we finally got to the mall she cried and hid her face. I think the sight of the big man, talking and looking oh-so-real, freaked her out. It happens. This is the same Santa, however, whose lap she sat on at three months wearing an overflowing cloth diaper. We didn't even pay for the picture package that year...
I am blogging from my office which made this funny article strike a little close to home. Read this day-in-the-life of an office slacker. Very funny! Now back to work until lunchtime when I plan to go shopping.

40 Shopping Days Left

It looks as if Santa will NOT be bringing this lovely little home-away-from-home to our house for baby bling bling's magical day. :( Toys 'R Us has it on sale until next weekend, marked down from $500 to $249. However, I just realized that shipping & handling is also $249. And then there is tax. So, I guess we're back to plan a, which is to redo her room. The discount on Flor tiles continues through next weekend. I'm interested in giving experiences this year, rather than stuff. Brett thinks this is overly idealistic but he is signed on for a season of cutting back. Anyway, it is midnight. I'm going to hit the hay and read Last Child in the Woods. I'll update my facebook profile tomorrow!

Milk

"Juice, juice, milk" is how Bela says good morning, and throughout the day it is a constant refrain. So tonight I had heard "milk" for the umpteenth time and thought I would play a punk song from my misspent youth called, appropriately enough, "Milk" by Dahlia Seed. If you visit the blog Dead Vinyl you can listen to it. The kids had a TON of FUN dancing around the living room.

Griffin enjoyed the hockey clinic last Friday. Check out the photo that CCHA is using in the promotional email. Yep, that's my G! He looks like a toothless goalie, no? :)

I'm reading two great books right now: What Kindergarten Teachers Know and The Trouble With Boys. The premise of the second book is that school has become an inhospitable place to boys. The problems begin to be chronicled after fourth grade, when reading and writing slips below the level of girls, despite equal scores on IQ tests. The problems start much earlier, however, because of the ways in which boys learn. Another problem that the book addresses (I think, I just picked it up today so I'm not that far along) is the lack of male teachers. One of the advantages, in my opinion, of Eastminster is that both Bela and Griffin have (had) great male teachers. I know that it made a difference to Griffin, who asks almost every day when Brett (same name as his dad, what a coincidence) can come over to take care of him. I think it is really good for my kids, at least, to see men as nurturers. I think they are better off for this exposure.

I also just finished reading the eighth and latest book in the Number One Ladies' Detective Agency series. Mma Ramotswe is my hero!

Anyhoo, I went to a new yoga class tonight. The teacher's name is Vickey and I had hoped that she was my first-ever yoga teacher. She was not, but it was a nice class. Not an ass kicker, which is good. No OM, no pranayama. But she did get me to stretch in some new ways, and she kept encouraging us to stop resisting, which is a good lesson to remember. Anyway, if Obama doesn't win in two weeks, I am going to have to do A LOT of yoga.

Photos to Come

So, it's been nearly a month since my last Jolly Mama post. I haven't actually been busy, just taking care of business. Last night, for example, I baked cookies for Bela's classroom (she is Star of the Week) and made green "alien" Jell-o for Griffin's last day of aftercare. I'll pick both kids up at 3:30 henceforth every day (until today, Griffin was at Eastminster on Wednesday and Thursday while I waited an appropriate amount of time to go pick them up) and Bela will be home on Fridays. It's rather sad to say goodbye to Griffin's teachers, and I know that enrollment is down, but I'm also quite pleased that my November bill is only $601. I am also now all signed up to volunteer in Griffin's kindergarten classroom. He loves kindergarten, especially art class, where the teacher said that he "lights up." Life is good. A few other quick highlights before my bathing beauties come out and expect a good night story: Griffin may have a little crush on a young actress named Miranda Cosgrove from a "tween" show called iCarly. Check out her adorable MySpace page. She was also the little sister on Drake & Josh and was the smarty pants girl in the movie School of Rock with Jack Black. Griffin is going to a hockey clinic tomorrow night. I'll take lots of pictures! He had to write an essay about why he likes hockey in order to be selected. His said that he likes the cold and he wants to be a winner like the Red Wings. :) Last Friday, Brett, Griffin, and I went on a "date" to see City of Ember, a fantastic movie! Bela's made her way out to the couch now. She has a blankie and a baby doll. She has developed so much personality and her language is taking off. And, although they can turn on me in an instant, I have been impressed recently by how nice they are to each other. Specifically, Griffin circled some books that he wants from Scholastic but he also circled books that he thought Bela would like. Then this morning Bela snuck some cookies off the counter from the batch for her class. Not just one, but one for her and one for her brother. :) I found a great website today called babble.com which was linked from an NYTimes story about "unkindergarten." It's one of those "where have you been all my life" sites. Two things about me: since I'm not going to work tomorrow I might stay up to watch what David Letterman does to John McCain tonight and my three favorite catalogs are Boden USA, VivaTerra, and Chasing Fireflies. Okay, Griffin is asking me 101 questions while he does his homework. Time to go. He's got to finish it before he can play a video game. !Egad! He loves Lego Batman.

Overheard

I am still sitting at the breakfast table. Griffin and Bela went to my room and are jumping on my bed. I just heard G say to B, "This is fun. We should do this more often!"

Milestones continued

And, of course, the biggest of all milestone news, Bela turned 2 on Monday. She now wants to sleep in a big girl bed, drink cappuccinos, and her favorite gift appears to have been money. :)

Milestones

My new job has officially begun and I'm home today on my first unofficial sick day. Just before breakfast this a.m. Bela Simone coughed, then blew chunks everywhere. I don't think she has the stomach virus that has afflicted so many first graders already. She's just got a snotty nose draining into an empty stomach but legally/ ethically I couldn't take her to daycare. I wonder how many other parents actually follow the rule that says a child cannot come back to daycare/school until 24 hours from the last vomiting/diarrhea episode.
Anyhoo, much has happened since my last post. I finished reading the Audacity of Hope, finally! Obama rocks. The last portion of the book talks about the struggle of mothers in this day and age. His understanding is rooted in his wife's experience as a working mom, but he also acknowledges the struggles that stay-at-home moms have (particularly, to paraphrase, that they get no respect). Not, however, that working moms always get the respect they are due, but I'm not ever going to be in the mood for the mommy wars.
I had my first "away" trip to go to a conference in Rochester, NY, last week. Bela, Griffin, and Brett did fine without me. Sure, I was missed. And for my part, I felt like I was wilting (kind of like what happened to Elliott when E.T. was dying) but Angela gave me an Advil and I was all set. Best of all, I did not come home to what one of the Manic Mommies did. Check out the video under "When Mommy Goes Away on Business." Hmmm. It appears that in my hiatus from TJM, Blogger has made some changes. I hope that the above will actually turn into a link.
Quickly, because I hear Bela waking up and I still have to do some work for today, my other milestones: I quit the neighborhood association recently. I began to realize that I was not doing things for myself and since Sarah Palin and Rudy Guiliani don't think community organizing is a worthwhile pursuit, I'm now doing things that are totally self-indulgent. (That's tongue in cheek, I really could not care less what the GOP spews). Take last night, for example, I went to a yoga class that was AMAZING! The teacher, Shiloh, understood breathwork, used the sanskrit terms for the postures, manipulated students into deeper expressions of the postures, AND led us in the sound of Om!! Then I got my hair cut at a fancy pants salon ... and I bought product.
Time to go!