Santa Claus is coming to town

Because we are cruel, unloving parents, this year was the very first time we took the kids to see Santa. Technically, I guess, Micah met Santa last year at a Havoc game, but WE didn't take him. He went with his best friend, Trey, and Trey's mom. I suppose we've failed at some crucial parental duty, but I'm having trouble getting too worked up over it.

Anyway, Trey's mom had the idea that this year we should go to Santa's Village in downtown Huntsville. It's actually set in Constitution Village, a working 1819 replica "village" that's part of the EarlyWorks museum complex, so it's got a lot more charm than your usual mall Santa location. So after a quick dinner at Steak N Shake, we all headed downtown.

It was unseasonably warm, like not-even-a-jacket-warm, but that worked out really well, since most of the attraction is outdoors. And it really was a neat place. There was a sleigh for the kids to climb in, an icicle maze, cookie decorating, reindeer to pet, a high school chorus signing, people dressed as bears or penguins or elves wandering around, and even a blacksmith. And of course, there was Santa.

Trey was the first one of our group to sit on Santa's lap, and he rattled off his two wishes with no problem. Micah, though, was completely distracted by a pile of toys to Santa's left and spent half of his time muttering in the opposite direction of Santa's ear. When I told him to talk directly to Santa, he then began rattling off a list that started with a CSX diesel locomotive, then moved on to every type of railcar there is. Santa cut him off about five cars in with, "Okay, a train set, then, right?" and then asked us if we knew about Southerland Station. Which, uh, yeah we do, but you're Santa, remember? So how about you stop putting in a plug for local toy stores because SANTA HAS ELVES. Work with me here, dude.

Aerin was just happy to see Santa, mostly because she really has no idea who Santa Claus IS. She requested that he bring her a Santa. And a snowman. I don't think he really knew what do with either request, so he ditched her pretty quickly in favor of the next kid, who had clearly memorized a toy catalog.

By the way, I love Micah's facial expression in his picture with Santa. Skeptical boy is skeptical.

Balance

I've been in a bit of a funk for the last two months or so, and I'm pretty sure it's mostly work related. I've been working five days a week again. My company is about to undergo a major reorganization that has everyone scared and angry. My boss is losing her position in the reorg and has pretty much checked out (understandably). The coworker I brought in as a partner on our municipal stormwater projects suddenly tried to take credit for the whole program and cut me out of it, and now I'm afraid to rely on her for anything. The looming workload is massive. The immediate workload is stuff I don't particularly like. Everyone's upset, everyone's feelings are hurt, and, holy shit, my office is a toxic place these days. And because I'm at work every day, the weekends are stressful, it's harder to travel to see family, our house is a wreck, the kids' attitudes are on a steady decline, and really, I'm just very unhappy at the moment.

So, starting this week, I'm going back to taking Fridays off. I'll have time to clean the house and plan the meals and do the shopping during the week. I'll be able to pack for trips and do the laundry and shopping before we go, so we're not all naked and hungry the rest of the week. I can work on decluttering the closets and rooms that are making me crazy. Maybe I'll even find the time to squeeze in the craft projects I want to do.

And hopefully I don't lose my job. Because as much as I hate it right now, I usually love what I do and would really like to continue to receive money to do it. Being the one professional in the office working a reduced schedule during so much upheaval definitely makes me nervous, but I'm hoping my work speaks for itself.

It's time to reset the scales on the whole work-life balance thing. We'll see what happens.

A Diesel Locomotive Birthday Party

So way back in September, I put together a birthday party for Micah featuring diesel locomotives. In case you didn't know, it is impossible to find diesel-themed party decor that isn't Chuggington-related. While there are zillions of adorable printables and party supplies for steam locomotives, Micah's heart belongs to modern diesel freight engines.

After a lot of searching, I found an illustration to use for the invitation. The graphic wasn't free, but it was exactly what I was looking for. After little time in Photoshop, voila. Invitation.

For the decorations, it was time to call in....Grandpa.

My dad is into model trains. He hasn't had a layout in years, but you'd better believe he still has most of his rolling stock. Actually, he's partly responsible for getting Micah hooked to begin with. It was HIS dusty old 1990 edition of Model Railroad Magazine that kicked things into gear and HE'S the one who bought Micah his very own subscription. So when it came time to start decorating, I asked my dad to dig into his stash.

There were trains and a lantern for the mantle.

And trains for the pass-through.

And teeny tiny trains by the cupcakes.

Since my sister got the food decorating skill and I emphatically did not, I wasn't about to attempt some sort of fancy train cake. Instead, I made train sign cupcake toppers using road signs I downloaded from the FHWA. And then totally forgot to photograph the backs, which said "Happy Birthday, Micah" and were also adorable.

Instead of lovingly crafting some sort elaborate table centerpiece, I poured a nice big glass of wine, got into the kids' craft paint and butcher paper, and made a rail yard for the food while Todd watched "American Ninja Warrior."

Todd painted up some boxes to make coal cars for a bean bag toss. Micah requested they be blue and red.

We went diving in the construction dumpster next door and made a railroad crossing sign for the driveway. I spent more time than was necessary mouthbreathing over the lettering, and STILL couldn't line them up correctly. Surprisingly, no wine was involved on this one.

Grandpa and Pops put down some train tracks outside. (I unfortunately forgot to get a picture until a week later when Todd was about to pull them up.)

And for another activity (that it turned out only Micah and Aerin were interested in), I printed off coloring pages from a railfan site.

Then it was time for a party!

Micah had a blast, and I think the other kids did too. Mission accomplished!

Dress from Grandmama

I am now thouroughly buried in preparing for Micah's birthday party next weekend and the stormwater conference a coworker and I are planning for October. The birthday party has somehow morphed into something with a lot more people than I had initally planned, so I'm scrambling a bit. The conference is something we've never done before, and we're inviting people from ten different cities, two counties, ADEM, ALDOT, and whole host of citizen groups. I'm a little stressed, is what I'm saying.

In all the confusion, I realized I forgot to post these pictures from a while back. My mother made Aerin a beautiful dress, and I wanted to show it off a bit. I didn't manage to get any good pictures of the details, but the fabric has just a simple little pattern of scattered white flowers and it has a little pocket with just a touch of lace. I also love how the hem turned out. It's pretty and girly, without being too frilly. The perfect little dress!

First Day of Kindergarten

Today we left the nap roll at home, packed up his brand new backpack, and took Micah to his first day of kindergarten.

Because he doesn't turn 5 until September 12, he isn't allowed to attend kindergarten at the public school. Alabama is totally inflexible on that cutoff, so our only options were to have him repeat Pre-K or to do private Kindergarten/First Grade at his current preschool. Back in January, we asked his Pre-K teacher about having him repeat and she was pretty emphatic that NO, no he needs to move on. Her opinion hadn't changed by the time May rolled around, so here we are.

He's in a class with nine other children, some of whom are first graders and some of whom are kindergartners. He only knows one child, although he's met the teacher outside of school a few times. It's a straight-up for-real kindergarten class, with writing and math and weekly homework. They have pet geckos, assigned show-n-tell days, and are rewarded for good behavior with pennies. There's a bathroom pass, and he has to walk across the hall to use a full-size toilet (I foresee several accidents until he starts remembering to go pee BEFORE it's an emergency). He has work binders that we decorated with pictures of diesel locomotives. He'll be doing projects and taking field trips. They're throwing around terms like Fry words and DIBLES (both of which I had to google). It's kindergarten!

We've received a lot of well-meaning but critical commentary on the whole thing, none of which takes into account that 1) he only misses the cutoff by 12 days and 2) both his father and I were 4-year-old kindergartners, so we're well aware of the potential concerns and difficulties. We're both pretty confident that he's going to be fine. And once he starts reading...oh man, this kid is going to have a blast.

I'm very excited for him, but (like so many other parents this morning) I'm struggling a little with the feeling that time is going by too fast. Part of me wanted to keep him behind, just to keep him small a little while longer, just one more year. But that wouldn't be right for him, so this morning I smiled and took his picture and cheered him on.

Then I tucked his bear lovey into his backpack pocket, because he wanted Lubby there today so he could "talk to him a little bit about kindergarten." And it was a nice reminder that he's not grown up yet. There's still time to be little.

Flashback

9 Days:

2 Years:

Around the middle of July we finally took the side off Aerin's crib, officially turning it into a toddler bed. Last week, I caught her climbing up her changing table, so we immediately moved it out of the room and replaced it with a low shelf for her toys and books. She's definitely not a baby anymore.

Looking up

Last night, at Rosie’s, Aerin got her foot caught in her chair.

“Hep me! Hep me! My foo! Hep my foo tuck!”

I immediately unhooked her foot where she’d gotten it wedged between the bars, and she went back to eating.

“She told us!” I said to Todd. “She didn’t scream. She didn’t come unglued. She TOLD us!”

This is a huge turning point. Only a few weeks ago, getting her foot caught would have escalated into an all-out screaming fit faster than we could figure out what was wrong. When the girl is happy, everyone in the room knows; she is LOUD in her happiness. When she is hurt or angry, everyone within a five-block radius hears about it.

Things have been difficult with Aerin, that’s no secret. Some days it seems like we butt heads every five minutes, and the constant conflict has been so incredibly draining. Her temper, her stubbornness, and her sheer volatility are more than a match for me, and I admit I am not the best mother for a child like her. She needs someone with an even temper, the patience of a saint, considerable free time, and maybe more than a touch of hearing loss, NONE OF WHICH I HAVE. (Although give her another few months, and she’ll take care of the hearing loss.)

Last night, when she told us, clearly, what was wrong and what she needed, it was like the sun peeking out after months of storms. “Oh my god,” I thought, “we might have an actual human being here.” Suddenly, I feel like we might make it. It’s not over, these hard times, but maybe, just maybe, it’s about to get a little better.

Summer so far

Visiting splash pads

Picking strawberries

Splashing at home

Traveling to visit family

Being superheros in Target

Reading books until we fall asleep

Slip n slides for grownups (and kids)

Getting new haircuts

Getting kissed

Fourth of July fun

And the occasional botched jump into the pool

Monday couldn't come soon enough

I can make it sound like our weekend was a good one. A morning spent at the Botanical Garden. Playing outside with the hose. Cinnamon rolls for breakfast. Watching fish at the pet store. Friends coming over to play. Jumping up from dinner and running outside to see a beautiful rainbow. All these things actually happened and it makes it sound like we lived the kind of weekend you might see on Pinterest.

In reality, let me just say that no parenting awards were earned this weekend.

Todd decided late Friday night (after a less-than-encouraging update) that he’d go back to Tallassee on Saturday to visit his sick grandmother. I already had plans that we were all going back to the Botanical Garden Saturday morning, but I encouraged him to go. What I disagreed with was taking the kids. I have very strong feelings on taking small children on long road trips just to visit unresponsive people, and by "visit" I mean look at the person, get freaked out, and try to eat goldfish off the hospital floor “oh my god put that down NO SPIT IT OUT NOW.” I convinced Todd to leave me with both children and make the 7-hour round trip by himself. (And since he got stuck in a massive traffic jam on the way back, that was the best decision for him ever.)

So there I was. Outnumbered, with two children who were, for various reasons, being total assholes.  In a house that had passed “messy” about four days before and advanced to “nightmarish and definitely unsanitary.” It was bad.

I tried. I really did. And things were good that morning! Jessica met us at the Garden and helped me wrangle both kids. We saw butterflies, touched turtles, splashed in water, played in a giant sandbox, and generally had a good time. And with Jessica’s help, I didn’t lose Aerin even once.

No, it was lunchtime where everything went downhill. And stayed there. And kept digging.

Lately, I’ve tried to eliminate shouting from my discipline techniques. I prefer things like time out, or taking toys, or dumping a tantruming toddler directly into the baby cage crib and shutting the door, really ANYTHING other than yelling. But ooooooh did I do a lot of shouting this weekend. Also, shrieking, angry sputtering, and death glares.

Like when I discovered Micah using my camera bag (and the SLR, lenses, and video camera in it) as a stool. The only words my brain could formulate were, “GO AWAY. BE SOMEWHERE ELSE. NOW.”  I’m not sure it was intelligible, what with the gritted teeth and all, but he took off and was quiet for a whole five minutes, so I guess the meaning was clear.

Or like when Aerin spent a solid hour whining at me and yelling at her brother, and I finally just gave up.  I ordered pizza, took her room and put her in her crib, went back outside, told Micah to enjoy playing in the hose but not to talk to me, and surfed the web on my phone from the back of my truck until Dominos showed up 30 minutes later.

By the end of the weekend, we were all just DONE with each other. No one liked anyone anymore.

On the upside, I didn’t beat anyone, the house was eventually cleaned, and the children were only a bit neglected. If I couldn’t be nice, at least I didn’t do any lasting harm, I guess.

I forgot to mention...

Micah graduated from Pre-K on May 17th. Next year, he officially starts Kindergarten.

What not to say

After the EF-4 tornado hit Harvest on April 27, 2011, there was a house on Stovall Road where the survivors erected a hand-painted sign with the words, "GOD SAVED 6 PEOPLE HERE." It sat across the road from where a man died.

It's been two years, and that sign and its implications haven't stopped bothering me.  At the time, I wondered what the family of the man who died made of it.

Personally, I'm pretty sure God had nothing to with anything that happened that day. Some people were just in the right place, others were in the wrong place, and it was all horribly arbitrary. If I had to go further, I'd say that geography, wind patterns, home selection, home construction, the National Weather Service, and probability did most of the saving that day. Regardless, there is never a situation where, "nah, God just likes me more than that 6-year-old crushed by her house," is an appropriate response.  Even if you truly believe the dead would have been saved too if they'd prayed harder or gone to church more or "just listened to the Lord" when they bought their house or left work that day or whatever, it's just not something you say out loud.

Every time a disaster comes around, I just want to tell people, look, if  you think God reached out His hands and saved you, fine. But if you feel compelled to say it....don't.  Just don't.  Especially not while they're still uncovering the bodies of children.  If you have to say anything, stick to "I was lucky."

In the Garden

I am sorry to say that, up until this weekend, we made very little use of the Huntsville Botanical Gardens. I did a summer work project there back in college and I've visited as part of a professional function. Todd even took Micah a few years ago, but we've never been as a family, unless you count Galaxy of Lights.

Saturday, we finally took the plunge and purchased a family membership. And even though it was chilly and wet, we had, as Micah said later, "A BWAST!"