Unlike Dwayne’s, my swearing days are scheduled more frequently than once a year.

Like, when Wesley takes the scarf I am knitting for him off the needles.  Three times.  I thought his bottom wouldn’t handle a third time but he was up for the challenge.  He also cut the yarn.  The final time, I ripped up his scarf myself as I am.  Done. With. Him.

Or when Kyla puts her tea in the refrigerator at a precarious tilt and it spills all over the shelves when I get the milk out. 

Or when the sturdy wood towel rack in the downstairs bathroom is found on the ground with large holes left in the wall and Wesley and Piper blame each other.

Don’t forget when Wesley locked a kitten in the cat carrier again after several warnings, threats, and corrections forr doing this several times previously.  Again, I must move this item out of his reach instead of relying on his obedience to a very clear rule.  I. Am. So. Done. With. Wesley.  And I am running out of spaces in the house that he truly cannot reach.

Or when Piper takes 2 days to clean her room, and still doesn’t finish it and then whines and promises to do better with one more chance when I take away her CD player, to be returned when she really, truly has cleaned her bedroom.

Or, after stating several times that there would not be powdered sugar for their French toast, still hearing in a super-whiney voice, “but I want powered sugar”.

Or every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday at 12:20 I say, “Put on your shoes and coats and get in the car—we’re going to preschool!” and Piper and Wesley still don’t put on their shoes, coats, or get in the car.  F0ur months, my friends.

And every single one of these things happened just today. 

And by “periods”, they mean “children”. 

 

[Mom, dementors are the ghost-like magical creatures that literally suck the joy and happiness out of a person until s/he is either comatose or dead.  You’d know this if you’d read past the first chapter of Harry Potter. Seriously, what do you do with your time?  Just stand in your kitchen doing the happy-dance to celebrate not having young children anymore?  Because someday, I want to join you.  And I am sincerely sorry for every annoying or destructive thing I did from the time I was 18 months to 18 years.]

Usually, National Swear Day coincides with the day after Thanksgiving.  Due to calendar adjustments, it came late this year.

Last night, you would have heard this conversation in our house.

Me:  Hey, Babe, it’s National Swear Day tomorrow.

Dwayne:  So we’re going to get a tree?

Me:  Yep.

Perhaps because most things in our household that cause frustration can be traced back to Wesley, the boy fell asleep right before we got to the tree farm and stayed asleep until Dwayne tapped on the window and pointed to the tree-equivalent of a 38-point buck he had bagged with the girls.  It was too big to be baled so the elves just strapped it to the minivan with twine.  It didn’t take us more than a mile down the road to seriously question…well, just about everything.  And by that, you know I mean that I questioned my husband’s sanity, wisdom, common sense, and vision acuity.  I believe Dwayne began questioning those as well as we tried to shove it through the front door.

How exactly is this Wesley’s fault?  Well, usually I am the one who wants a tall tree, and we always come home with a tall tree.  However, as I am the one who puts on all the lights and helps the kids decorate it (and then reverses the whole process a month later), I manage to exercise a little restraint.  And usually I can count on Dwayne being the voice of reason because he’s the one who has to get the tree in the house and standing upright.  (This is where the swearing usually comes in.)  But Dwayne and I didn’t use our team magic to pick out this tree.  I was knitting in the car while Wesley snored and Dwayne was thinking that this little 7-footer wouldn’t grow another 5 feet in the distance between the field and our living room. 

To give you some perspective, at its tallest point, our ceiling is 14’.  I realized that I moved the tree a few inches away from the apex and now the angel is touching the ceiling.   It took the Little Giant ladder a lot of work to get the lights on all around.  It took Dwayne a trip to Target to buy me enough lights to light the thing up.  As we were trying to stand it upright, it started to tip and I could barely keep it from crashing to the floor, but I did because I knew it could crush the children underfoot.

As I type this, I realize that the tree must have a name.  I’ll give it a big name until Piper comes up with something else.  So ladies and gentlemen, I give you….

Sasquatch.

 

Dear Mom, Dad, other beloved friends and family,

We are forced to uninvite you for Christmas.  We can either fit all of you….or the tree.  And the tree ain’t moving.

Love,

Denise

Sure, it’s from the South Whidbey Record, but Piper and I got our picture in the paper.  I’m singing, if you are wondering why I look like that.  You say warbling, I say singing.

Tree lights up holiday season in Langley

Denise N. dances with daughter Piper during a Christmas song at the Langley Tree Lighting on Saturday, Nov. 30 at Langley Park. They were joined by other dancing children, including Rose Hess, far left, Elleanor Hamblen, Vivian Hamblen, and about 100 other merrymakers. The Langley Chamber of Commerce event included holiday and Christmas music led by four performers, a short recital from the upcoming “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” play at WICA and a visit from Santa and his alpaca-deers — alpacas with faux felt antlers — named Kaiser and Silverado. Langley’s holiday tree at the park on Second Street and Anthes Avenue is lit with soft blue lights. Other events are scheduled, including a holiday parade through downtown Langley on Saturday, Dec. 7.

— image credit: Ben Watanabe / The Record

I should have known it was coming, because Wesley has been amazingly pleasant, cheerful, cooperative, and helpful for 24 hours. 

So when Dwayne, on his first sick day in almost four years (hint: vasectomy after Wesley was born), picked Wesley and Piper up from afternoon preschool, I should not have found this so shocking. [I certainly shouldn’t have found it funny.]

Me: What happened in preschool today, Wesley?

Wesley: I was really sad for a little while.

Me:  You were sad?  What happened?

Wes: A boy looked at my work.

Me: A boy looked at your work?  Then what happened?

Wes: A boy looked at my work and he said I did it wrong.

Me: And then what?

Dwayne: [coming up the stairs] He stabbed him.

[Awkward pause while I vacillate between laughing and wondering  what the punch line will be.]

Dwayne: And then Wesley punched him.

[Deciding on laughter, because even Wesley wouldn’t stab a kid and then punch him.  Right?]

Then I realized that Dwayne wasn’t kidding.  A kid had looked at his work, told him he was doing it wrong, so Wesley took the  paper “poker” and stabbed this kid’s hand. And then hit him.  I actually can’t quite picture it without doing a weird Ally McBeal thing where I superimpose Wesley’s head on Nikita doing jujitsu.  Then Wesley made it worse for himself by not apologizing.  He spent a really, really long time in time out. 

I  believe that of  the last four years of preschool, this may have been the first time I’ve not been there for pick up.  This was the perfect day to miss.  Thanks, Fates!

 

 

PS “Calvin” was on my short list to name Baby Omega. 

…because he was at the craft fair as well. It was a horrible craft fair—the worst combination of homemade and poor taste.  They will never be able to sell that many coffee cozies.  But they had a really good soup for lunch, face painting, a friendly Santa, and hay rides for kids.

Clearly, Wesley has a thing against Santa.  He will investigate from safe place, decide he wants a candy cane, go up to Santa, hide his head against my leg but reach out behind him fully expecting Santa to put a candy cane in his outstretched palm.    All that to say, I haven’t gotten any Santa pictures with all three kids.

 

All the kids were delighted with their face painting, but Kyla needs a new word.  Elated?  Ecstatic? Ecstatickelated?

The island has an [over] abundance of deer and rabbits, and the kids came back from the hayride having counted 17 bunnies on the trip.

How was fair, kids?  Did you enjoy it?

 

Really?  That good?  Oh, even better!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving feast at my parents’  (Thanks, Mom!) and then we headed off to the cabin for the rest of the weekend.

We had to bring the kittens this time since they are still too young to be fed to the coyotes left at home alone for three days.  They are cute and significantly less trouble than children, even if they do make me wheeze.

 

There were so many great things about the Holiday kick-off on the island, but our favorite was the tree-lighting in Langley on Friday night.

Yep, one single tree in a tiny park.  Okay, so it wasn’t so much about the tree.

 

It was about the “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” actors performing a few songs from the upcoming play.  It was the Shifty Sailors bringing out the accordion and guitars and leading a crowd through a dozen songs.

 

 

 

 

It was definitely running into the few friends we’ve made on the island, and then meeting more new friends.  And it certainly was the rein-alpacas (yes, Kyla, those red antlers are real. Certainly. Just like those elves.) bringing in Santa to our favorite small town.

Shops were open past 4pm-it was quite a ruckus!  We bought knitting needles at the yarn shop and a gluten free cupcake at the Commons.  Yeah, we know how to party in Langley!

And Dwayne came up with the best way to wrangle Wesley.  It was about the happiest he had been all afternoon.

‘Twas the week before Christmas season,

The weather was warm,

The pumpkins were still out,

But gosh darn, now so are my Christmas lights!

 

 

But more decorative than a bunch of LEDs is a Wesley in dinosaur jammies, with a beret on his head and rainbow butterfly wings that flapped as he ran up and down the driveway playing with his sisters.  I tried to take a picture of him in my heart, as my MP3 didn’t do a great job.  And I need something to sustain me as he drives even his father to the End of Patience.  (Yes, it’s a real place.  I’ve been there lots.)

Our downtown offered business trick-or-treating and professional photos.  I finally downloaded ours and actually really like it. 

 

I’d Photoshop Dwayne in, but I’m already a month behind on blogs. 

Yeah, yeah, we all know I am an introvert.  But in the last few years of being a stay at home mom, I have developed from a run-of-the-mill gosh-I’d-like-some-alone-time sort to a full-fledged will-you-&#$!ing-leave-me-alone curmudgeon. 

So when my birthday came smack dab in the middle of a three-day weekend, I decided that I needed to go to the cabin.  Without kids.  I NEEDED TO GO TO THE CABIN WITHOUT KIDS, repeated the curmudgeon.

So I went. I left after tucking the kids in bed on Friday night and came home to kiss them goodnight on Sunday.   

I didn’t get to the cabin until pretty late that Friday, but decided to exercise my birthday prerogative by rearranging all the furniture that night.  Since I brought my coursework with me to complete that weekend, I wanted the desk right next to the stove.  I wanted things to be clean, organized, decluttered, and most necessary, cozy.  All so I could get a lot of studying done. 

Ta da!

 

Okay, so you can’t see much, but now there’s a reading corner and the desk is more usable. 

 

So immediately I set up my computer and…played Spider Solitaire.  (Not to worry, I really did finish that course over the weekend.)

I finished patching, retexturing, and painting the bathroom wall.

 

And did a few other little projects.  Even tackled the wet grass that had gone unmown for two months.  Oops.

 

And after issuing several invitation to friends to come over (sans kids), Rochelle was able to join me and I got to go for the long beach loop walk I’ve been wanting to since we first got the cabin a year ago.  I love good friends and solitude, and the best of the former doesn’t negate the latter. Thanks, Rochelle!

I woke up on my birthday to a quiet cabin.  I didn’t have to get up to feed anyone.  No toys were left for me to step on the landing, no broken crayons left all over the floor, no toilets left unflushed or opened packages of oatmeal strewn from the cupboards to the table.  I didn’t have to ask anyone to get dressed (you know, that thing we need to do every morning?) or get on shoes or to buckle up. 

One of the best things about the weekend was driving into town for wi-fi and cocoa, passing the church we go to on the island where an older man was cleaning the parking lot and thinking to myself “If I didn’t have kids and had the blower in the back of the car, I’d stop and help him.”  And then realize that I didn’t have the  kids then, and I had brought the blower to the cabin to clean off the deck and had put it back in the car.  I stopped and blew off the other half of the driveway with him in less than thirty minutes.  That’s how awesome the weekend was.

Next year, I turn 40.  Dwayne and I are thinking about celebrating big together on October 9, exactly half-way between our two birthdays.  Which means next November 10th, you will probably find me alone at the cabin.  I can’t wait!

 

*   *    *    *

PS  I reached Zen in those 48 hours, and totally lost it by Monday morning.

..but it’s still driving me crazy!

 

We knew this would happen.

 

 

I was away most of the day helping a friend with a house project.  It was a decent day and Dwayne wanted to finish up the building season by getting a last section done on his walls and cleaning up for the winter.  This meant open season for the kids.  We both knew the house would be a disaster whether or not Dwayne worked outside, so he might as well make progress. 

 

 

But this is what I came home to…in just one room.  Piper, when she does not want to clean, can take a room so bad that you can no longer see the floor—and then make it worse. 

Sigh.