Skip to main content

I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas

Apparently the best laid plans of mamas are much like those of mice and men. Last night was no exception.


We've been sucked into the polar vortex. It's freezing. It's hard to get out of bed and all I want to do is drink hot chocolate. We're already jamming Christmas tunes in the car. It's that cold.


It's so cold, in fact, that on the way to school yesterday I told Pumpkin I was already thinking about getting back in my jammies. So I made big plans for the Browns to get home from work and get in jammies, light a fire, and have grilled cheese and chili while we watch Christmas movies.


So, I got home. We took baths. We were in jammies before 6 PM.  Hubby made grilled cheese and chili.  Holiday Inn was on Turner Classic Movies. The scene was set for my perfect cold night in.


The girls, of course, had other plans. They were berserk. They couldn't get along for more than two minutes. They wouldn't eat. They were tired. They were hungry for anything other than what we had. They wanted to watch "Doc Doc Stuffy" and not "mama show." They were crying on or off. I wanted to scream. Hubby forgot milk at the store. The dog was shivering from cold and possibly fear. Bug touched the glass front to the fireplace.


Sheesh.


But then amidst the drama, every time Marjorie Reynolds would dance with Fred Astaire the girls would stop mid-squeal and start twirling around the room, bending, leaping, and arabesque-ing as though they were at the Holiday Inn with Bing and the gang. Bug would look over her shoulder back at the television to make sure she was getting the moves right. Pumpkin was more confident in her own style.


All I could do was embrace the insanity; and the fact that in the middle of it, there are always moments of sweetness and hilarity that make it all worth while.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Hello! The Phone is Ringing So I Say Hello!

I’m not sure what I expected, really. I guess I thought that when Pumpkin officially crossed the one year threshold into toddler-hood that things miraculously got easier. I had a little parenting-confidence and puffed my chest out just a little as I slowly toddled with her, grasping onto my index finger, to the doctor’s office for her one year appointment (see video for an idea of how slow slow is). I sat proudly in the “well baby” room (a place we haven’t spent much time) remembering the days I sat in that same room crying, looking frantically around for a spare diaper and praying they wouldn’t call her name before I could unhook her from her carseat (which took a long time back then) and changed her diaper. One year later here I was. We had come so far. I was proud of us and I looked at those new mothers with a little knowing pity. In all my one year of wisdom, I sat there glowing with the realization that the hard times were behind us. I didn’t have a “baby” anymore, I had a toddle...

Good Night, Sleep Tight, Don't Let the...WHAT?

As many of you know, when Pumpkin was first born I was a frantic mess. Every time she inhaled, I timed it and then Googled it to make sure it was "normal." I did not have time to nap, even in those early exhausted days, because I was constantly checking the Internet to make sure that both she and I were doing everything "right." Unfortunately, I realized too late that the Almighty Internet is a wealth of knowledge...and of useless crap. Anyone who wants can post anything they want on the Internet. Take this Blog for instance - I have no particularized knowledge about anything maternal, but I could start writing exclusively about how if your child is not snorting five packets of Kool-Aid each morning, she is doomed to be a terrible speller. Of course this is not true (or at least there is no scientific evidence to back it up), but I could write it here and, based on my writing about my own "experience" some new mother would be at Sam's stocking up on t...

Back to Work

I'm calling this blog "Raising Pumpkin" because Aaron calls our little girl Pumpkin Head. I started this blog for several reasons, one of which is to keep my mother-in-law up-to-date since she lives 1000 miles away. Another is that as I came into the office this morning near tears and frazzled, one of the ladies said my woes gave her chills and that I needed to keep a journal to remember all these things that I would laugh about one day. This is that journal. I hope it can be both an outlet for me as a mother/wife/daughter/sister/friend/lawyer and also bring some comic relief to these days when I just want to scream. So this was my first week back to work...and even though it was a short week, oh how long it felt. Day one was met with tears and nausea as I dropped Pumpkin off at her first of school. I was so worried that she would wake up and not know where she was. Aaron assured me that it wouldn't matter because she never knew where she was. So much for comf...