I've been the absolute worst lately about posting on here. Almost every day on my to do list, I see the line about "blog" and at the end of each day I transfer over the item over to the new to do list I start for the following day.
The truth is there are so many things I want to blog about, so many funny stories and cute pictures to share.
For example, Isabelle's involvement in our meal prayers has increased recently. In fact yesterday, Jarrett got her breakfast and asked her to pray. Our meal prayer goes like this: Come Lord Jesus, be our guest, let these gifts to us be blessed. Amen. Upon Jarrett's request, Isabelle folded her hands, put her head down and said, "Good day, Jesus be our guest..." Jarrett, tried his best to hide his laughter and came straight to the bedroom to tell me what she said. We both started laughing and decided in the end, her prayer isn't so bad. At least she's greeting Jesus with a nice, warm welcome.
And onto the story I logged on tonight to share. Last night, in the spirit of the holiday season, we decided after dinner to take the kids out to look at Christmas lights. We've started a holiday tradition of driving around and looking at all the lights displays. Its just another reason why I love Christmas. I think part of the reason why I love Christmas is because I dream about it for 10 months out of the year. In those 10 months I have plenty enough time to forget about the stress of transforming the house both inside and out, of the money spent on gifts and the fighting between the kids that seems to be constantly present. I forget about all the whining and complaining that Santa didn't bring somebody an I-Phone, I-Pod, I-Pad or a Samsung Galaxy you name the generation. I forget that all the work of preparing for Christmas morning is over in a matter of minutes and all that's left behind is the mountains of wrapping paper Mom and Dad get to clean up. Oh, it truly is the most wonderful time of the year right?
And that leads me back to last night. Our goal was to have one of those picture perfect evenings that are portrayed in the movies. The one where the kids, all right next to each other, sit quietly in the back of the car and stare out the window in awe of the wonderful lights they see out their window. As mom and dad sit in the front of the car, holding hands, and sipping on hot chocolate, the family joins in a perfect unison to sing the most challenging of Christmas carols. Yep, that's what I pictured when I proposed the idea.
Here's how our evening went. After spending 20 minutes loading everyone into the car, Dad decided he needed to run to the bathroom before leaving. Back in he went as I looked back to see Michael decided he wasn't going to wear shoes (even though we told them we may get out and walk around to look at lights). So I threw him back out of the car to get shoes. Knowing it wasn't a full family event without bringing the dog, Jack paced back and forth in the van wondering why Jarrett wasn't in the car and almost begging us not to take a car trip like the last one we did when he came with us (to Iowa).
At this point, Isabelle, who was napless yesterday, was screaming for something even she didn't know what she wanted. All she knew was that she was ticked off to be locked in her car seat in a car that wasn't moving. Meanwhile Gabriel and Michael were horsing around in the back seat, and started fighting because one had more blanket than the other. Then I yelled at one of them to move up a seat so they couldn't touch each other. This was even before the van left the confines of the garage. Finally, Dad came out of the house and got in the van. Literally as we backed out the driveway, on our quest to go look at Christmas lights, Gabriel said, "Dad can you turn on the DVD player so we can watch a movie?" Yes, yes he did do that. Restraining myself from jumping over two rows of seats, keep in mind Isabelle has been screaming at the back of my head for 20 minutes while Jarrett was inside, I firmly reminded Gabriel the whole intention for our evening drive was to LOOK at Christmas lights. NO, we are NOT watching a movie.
Finally we left our neighborhood and turned onto a main street. Michael chimed in, "Hmmmm, I didn't know Walgreen's puts up Christmas lights? Now that we've seen the lights, now can we watch the movie?" Actually Michael those are the normal lights Walgreen's has and I'm pretending like you didn't just ask to watch a movie.
At this point, Dad hooked up his I-Pod and put on Church hymns instructing everyone not to talk and to just listen to music. Isabelle, still screaming at this point, even though the car was now moving, saw Dad's electronic device and said, "Mom- I need to ask you a question." This has become the prerequisite to her asking to play on some sort of I-phone or I-pad. Without a pause she said, "Mommy, I need to play on your phone." To which she was shot down just as quickly as her brother. Look out your window Isabelle!
I turned to Jarrett and said, let's make a note next year to just do this ourselves. After making it almost through our first neighborhood of lights, Isabelle frantically said, "I have to go potty!" Never mind the fact I took her before we left home. If you count the time she had sitting in the car waiting coupled with the fact that it was after dinner, the timing of her announcement was just about perfect. I knew we had less than 2 minutes to get to a toilet. Jarrett ripped out of the neighborhood, right in front of on-coming cars, while I begged Isabelle to hold it. Seeing a Starbucks, just about to close, we turned into the parking lot and "crashed" (Jarrett's term) the car into a space right by the front door. I raced Isabelle inside the coffee shop and to the bathroom. Thankfully we made it in the nick of time and a minute later we were leaving. Not having brought any cash with us, we were just going to drive around, I for some crazy reason, felt the need to announce to the two barristas and a romantic couple (the only other people in the store) who must have been on a date inside, that my daughter was going to pee her pants and I'm sorry but we needed to just use your bathroom. Yes, as my mouth spewed out word after word, I knew the situation was just getting worse. I finished telling them how I used them just for bathroom and turn to leave the store, wishing I was invisible.
Getting back into the car, determined to make the event a fun, memorable holiday excursion our children would remember for the rest of their lives, I buckled Isabelle in and jumped back in the front passenger seat. "Whew", I said, "I'm so glad she didn't pee in the seat. Can you imagine?" tossing a rhetorical question out into the universe. Michael, must have taken my question literally and said, "Yeah, I'm glad she didn't pee in her seat because then we would have had to go home and that would have really pissed me off." Insert major gasp here, followed by Jarrett looking at me, I looking at him and thinking did he just say what I think he said. YES!
I flew around in my seat, and Jarrett slammed the reversing car back into park. With two parents heads swiveled around in their seat, Michael realized he must have said something VERY wrong. Honestly clueless about the fact that he said a swear word, he quickly said, "I'm sorry for what every I said. What did I say that was wrong?' Ten minutes later, after the Starbucks open sign was switched off, our van, yes the one filled with the mother and child who used them for their potty, left their parking lot with one child newly schooled about the use of a certain vocabulary word.
Deciding we had had enough "fun" for the evening we drove by one more house and called it a night. As we pulled into the driveway, still Christmas music playing in the background, the song, "Its the most wonderful time of the year" started playing. All I could do was laugh and say, "Yeah, its something like that isn't it.
Until next time,
Angie
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