Post - Christmas Wrap-up

Or is it more of an Unwrap-up?


The kids let us sleep in until 6:15am, and they were done opening presents by 7. Everyone appeared to be pleased with their gifts. Here's what they listed as their favorites.

Beeb:

Firefly phone
MP3 player
The Care and Keeping of You book
Dance Dance Revolution Xbox Game

Pie:

Build Your Own Lightsaber
Imaginext Castle
Fantastic 4 Xbox Game

Tito:

Thomas Train Water Tower Set
Thomas Train Jammies


We were enjoying a semi-leisurely morning (apart from having to take every single gift out of their respective boxes and play with them for about thirty seconds), until it was time to get ready to leave for Chez Inlaw. I'd been pretty relaxed about it up to then, and even when the pressure was starting, I thought I handled it rather well. Of course, I was wearing my Power Panties.

I had even managed to acquire the gifts for us to present to my in-laws, which is never an easy task. I made FIL the white chocolate fudge he likes (only because I didn't have time to make the artery-clogging toffee that uses two sticks of butter), and I got MIL a small garden statue that I thought looked like R when he was a little boy. Everybody else thought it looked like Pie. For some reason, R's side of the family fails to see the resemblance between Pie and ME. Of the three kids, Pie's the one who looks the most like me as a kid. Beeb is, without question, the one who ACTS the most like me.

Anyway, we got out to Chez Inlaw at noon and the kids opened presents right away. The inlaws gave each grandkid a tin with $100 in $1 bills inside. Tito was first to open his, and my foot-in-mouth of the day popped right out:

"Oh, cool! You can go to the strip clubs!"

Every Christmas should have a strip club reference in it, dontcha think?

We finished opening presents and moved on to a yummy lunch of stuffed pork tenderloin. The lunch was delayed slightly when Tito locked himself in the bathroom and R, FIL and I tried in vain to get him out using the little key that you have to stick in the itty bitty hole. Eventually Tito figured out how to turn the lock and let himself out, but once again FIL displayed his complete lack of patience when Tito plaintively asked if he would be stuck in there forever. FIL's response?

"This is ALL YOUR FAULT. You did this to YOURSELF."

Tito will be four on Friday. Don't try to comfort the poor little kid or anything, FIL. Thank God Tito didn't panic. FIL might have killed him.

I should mention that even closing the bathroom door when peeing is a fairly new concept to Tito. On Christmas Eve Day we had brunch at Aunt Huggie and Uncle Prickly's house and Tito went right into the bathroom and went potty with the door wide open. Then he and I had a little talk about potty manners. I guess he got the concept of privacy and took it to the next level.

I should also mention that we don't have locks on any doors at my house for exactly this reason. We changed all the doorknobs after Pie locked himself in the bathroom and climbed up onto the sink and got his big belly stuck over the top of the sink and couldn't get down. It was so pitiful. I had to find the screwdriver and take the doorknob off - R was at work so I had to follow his instructions via text messaging.

So back to the story - Lunch was really good. My only complaint? There wasn't enough of it. It would have been fine if we'd only been there a little while, but someone suggested opening one of the other grandkids' board games. At about 2pm, R, his brother, his sister and his nephews began the game.

FOUR HOURS LATER, they were still playing.

Imagine trying to keep two hyper nine-year-old girls, two preschool boys and a toddler occupied.

In ONE room.

Of a MUSEUM.

FOR FOUR HOURS.

I was keeping my kids and the Aldikids busy in the downstairs living room. They didn't get a whole lot of toys, so there weren't too many ways to entertain them. It was getting dark, so they couldn't play outside. I couldn't turn on the TV (Grandpa doesn't like that), and they had to be quiet because MIL was trying to rest. Apparently, sometime after lunch, MIL came down with the icky funk that we all endured a few weeks ago.

About halfway into the Four Hours in Hell, I was privy to a rather graphic description of MIL's condition from FIL. He casually mentioned that "it was pouring out of both ends" and that she had not only "changed clothes several times" but also made a mess on the bathroom carpet "y'know... with her poop".

Yeah, he shared that colorful tidbit with Just Me. I'm clearly the favorite. Aren't I lucky? Part of me wondered if he was subtly trying to get me to volunteer to clean the shit up. I sure as hell didn't fall for it.

So Christmas is, thankfully, over and now I get to hang out with the kids until January 3rd. God help us all.


The good news is that Auntie Yettie is in town! Yay!