Christmas!

We had a wonderful Christmas weekend filled with family and food!  We spent Christmas Eve relaxing before heading out to an early Mass that evening with my sister. 

(Michaela was so excited to see Mary!  and Joseph!  And Baby Jesus!  and Santa brought a present to Baby Jesus!)

After Mass, we headed down to my mom's grave to set up some luminarias.  I didn't take a picture, but if you've never seen a New Mexico cemetery on Christmas Eve, it is beautiful.  There are thousands (I'm not exaggerating in the slightest) of luminarias covering the entire field.  My mom's were by far the cutest! :)

Then we drove through a few local hotspots for Christmas lights and luminarias before heading home and calling it a night.


The presents after being set up on Christmas Eve by Momma & Daddy Claus

Christmas day was also very relaxing.  My dad stopped by early in the morning for some coffee and breakfast and then stuck around to see the kids open their presents once they woke up.  The kids then spent the rest of the morning playing with them.  The favorites so far have been Michaela's tricycle and Rafael's basketball hoop. 

 

Sustenance comes before all else!



The gift opening aftermath.  What a mess!



They loved that tricycle!



I mean really loved it!  Can you see Rafael's little arm sticking out in front there?

A friend stopped by for as visit during naptime and I left him playing video games with Phil while I went to visit my sister for a bit.  I ended up down the street at my Grandma's, where my sister, dad, aunts, and cousin were all hanging out.  We ate a delicious lunch of posole, tamales, turkey and all the fixings!  After that, I went back home and we returned to church for Mass again (yes 2 days in a row!  Friday was the Christmas Mass, we still had to go to the Saturday vigil Mass for our Sunday Obligation).

On Sunday, we went over to my sister's house for our big family celebration.  My brother-in-law is a firefighter and was working Christmas Eve and Day, so this was the only time to do it.  My sister (who doesn't cook) completely outdid herself cooking up posole, tamales, red chile and homemade tortillas for our Christmas feast!  It.  was.  amazing.  We spent the entire day hanging out and playing Monopoly while the kids played/napped/crafted.


Hat & mittens from Tia & Tio



Fingerpaints from Tia & Tio



I put out some craft stuff to keep the kids occupied while we played Monopoly



...and put Rafael in the baby cage...parenting at it's finest folks!

We got home way past the kid's bedtimes, but we all had fun and it was an awesome day!



All that matters...

This is the reason I wake up in the morning.

This girl.

This boy.

These are my priorities and everything else is just extra.

I shouldn't be losing sleep or going on crying jags or drinking uncontrollably because of a few bullies and some misplaced words.

All I can do is pick up the pieces, fix what I can fix, and move on.

And remember that this is why I'm doing it.

Comments are closed.  I don't need anyone sympathizing, and I certainly don't need anyone's negativity.  I just need to vent and remember what really matters right now.

Kids squared

When Philip and I first got married we wanted a football team of kids.  At least ten, but more if that's what we got.   Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha....ahem...excuse me.  I start laughing maniacally every time I think about our youthful optimism and...well, plain crack smokin' craziness in thinking that we could handle 10 children.  After Rafael came along I was so exhausted I decided never to have any more children EVER.  Then I cracked and realized I wanted more and so we agreed on 4.  4 children and that is it, because, well, Philip is a teacher and it's not like we're rolling in money.  Also, because at some point I would like to have my body back to myself and have a career.

Anyways, when I start doubting whether or not I can handle 4 children, all I have to do is watch my sister's kids.  Yesterday, faced with being cooped up with 4 kids, a super messy house, and a lack of desire to clean said house while they were running underfoot making more messes, I decided to take advantage of the beautiful day and we headed to the zoo.  (Thank goodness for zoo memberships is all I can say - $3 for 1 adult and 4 kids?  Yes please!).

Everything was going fantastic as the 3 older ones happily swarmed around me and Rafael sat contentedly in his stroller staring at all the animals.  We even managed to get through the huge play area of death and stuck children without any incident.  And then around the chimpanzees, an area ridiculously remote from any bathrooms, my 5 year old niece contorted into the pee dance and yelled "I have to go pee RIGHT NOW!"

Great.

So off we were, running through the zoo as fast as we could in some ridiculous parody of that scene in Home Alone 2 where they are all running through the airport as fast as they can.  I kept looking wildly around searching for children who were lagging behind or getting distracted by one of the animals.  Michaela looked like she was about to pass out, so I ran to swoop her up in my arms so that we wouldn't have an accident, and OHMYGOD why in the world would I ever attempt to do such a horrible thing as pick up an independent two year old!  She screamed bloody murder so I after dragging her for a few yards, I put her back down and let her "Walk by meself!"  Thankfully we were finally within eyesight of the bathroom by that point so I told my niece to run ahead and go in without us.  I gathered the other kids up and we walked at a normal pace to the bathroom and miracle upon miracles, all 3 older kids went potty in the bathroom!  Yay!  Piece of cake.

Seriously though.  What sort of crack was I smoking to think I could handle that with 10 kids?

Walking!

Rafael took several steps across the room the week he turned one, but I think he scared himself because he promptly refused to even stand up on his own after that.  On Saturday, he finally started walking again!  He's so proud of himself!

No, they are not twins...

because if they were twins, then the kicking screaming tantrum that the girl is throwing right now would be completely age appropriate.  I would not be trying desperately to quiet her in a much more patient and kind manner than I would be if we were alone because ohmygod the entire store is staring at me and I don't want anyone to report me to social services for being too harsh with my daughter.  Why oh why oh why does she do this?  I never hear of other children her age doing this.  Do they?  Do the parents just have the common sense not to tell everyone about it?  All I know is that if I was like this as a child, I have a whole new respect for my poor parents.

P.S.  Please please please tell me it's ok to leave my daughter in time out in her room for a couple of hours so that I don't kill her.

Pee Pee in the Potty...then the Bathtub...

Michaela has secretly been using the potty for the last few days.  Wait wait wait.  Let me rewind.

For several months Michaela has asked occasionally to sit on the potty so that she could pee.  Every single time I would stop whatever I was doing and go in there with her and watch her sit on the potty, but she would never ever go.  Every.  Single.  Time.  So finally I got to the point where I just told her to go by herself.  I knew she wasn't going to pee, so I didn't even bother going with her.

The last few days she has been asking to go much more frequently but I just assumed it was because we've been telling her so often that she is going to be potty trained when daddy is home for winter break.

Except today right after she said that she went potty ("Oh good job baby girl!  That's awesome that you are practicing to go potty even though I know that you don't actually go!"), I had to go to the bathroom as well.  As I was in the bathroom, Michaela ran in and said, "Look mama I went potty!" and pointed to the bathtub.  Confused, I looked in the bathtub and saw some liquid.  Some liquid that I thought was just an overturned bottle of shampoo for the past few days.  (Yes, we haven't given the kids a bath in 3 days.  Yes it's gross, we simply have been away every single night and it just hasn't happened!)  Then I looked back at her little potty and saw a tiny drop of liquid there.  The lightbulb clicked.  That huge puddle of 'soap' collecting in the tub with the drain closed was not soap.  It was pee.  Probably from the last couple of days.  Gross.

"Michaela, did you empty the potty full of pee pee into the bathtub?"

"Yes mama, I cleaned up my pee pee!"

Suffice it to say, the bathtub got a thorough bleaching and Michaela got a huge hug, and M&M, and a thorough lesson on how we dispose of our pee pee into the big potty.