The Present

At our house there is a birthday season that runs from October to January. Thing #1 ends out the season with her birthday being in January. Unlike other moms that have the task of planning, preparing, and throwing a party with dozens of other crazy small humans, we go to Disneyland. The annual passes have practically paid for themselves. We celebrate everything there and I mean everything. So as long as I can convince my children that going there is better than a normal birthday I am going to use it. So when it came time for the Wild Thing's Birthdays and even my own, we went to the happiest place on Earth. My only job was to get one gift. For Thing #3 it was a tub of Lincoln Logs, for Thing #2 a horse with a carrying purse, and for Thing #1 a Rapunzel Princess Dress to wear at Disneyland. So of course I wait til the week of her birthday to buy the dress and of course I bought it online. Not my smartest moment, but I thought since I had paid the "special shipping" charge which is code for "Oh snap, I totally waited til the last minute to get a gift", I thought it would arrive on time. Yeah, I am that mom. So for the whole week, I was on STAMPS.com checking the status of my shipment. I even called the post office in hopes that it would arrive before our Saturday departure for Disney. So throughout the week, Thing #1 has been getting birthday packages. It seemed as though every few minutes there was something at the door. This goes on for two days.... Finally, on Friday we had received two packages and none of which were the dress. I had accepted the fact that my poor planning cause Thing #1 to be potentially without a dress. Then the door bell rings just after 5 PM. I was so excited I ran to the door only to find that it was Thing #2's jacket she had left back in Texas. At the risk of having to reveal my blunder, I quickly ran to Wal-Mart in hopes of finding a dress. In fact 364 other days of the year, I would find a bazillion dress up dresses. This day, NOTHING!!!! And its getting later. I run through the girls section and the only thing I can find is the Christmas clearance section. Luckily, I see a dress that potentially looks enough like the new version of Alice from Alice in Wonderland. All that to say, she went to Disneyland as a smaller version of new Alice and not Rapunzel. She had a blast and when we got home on our door step was the stinking package I had been stressing over all week. My husband had a good laugh and Thing #1 was all like, "Awesome, I get two dresses!" To which I respond, yes. Like I totally planned it that way....Next year, I am just giving them all cash.

Quiet Time

There is no such thing as "quiet" in a house full of animals and children. Especially if your house happens to be filled with three Wild Things, a Dane-o-saur, a gremlin, and three little pigs. For the next week and a half all the Wild Things are out of school for winter break. Winter break makes me appreciate the semi quiet time I do have when the Things are in school. All that to say, they are HOME. For those of you who don't know, I recently went back to school to finish my last couple of semesters online. This so far has worked out well as long as I can do my work while the Things are at school torturing their teachers. It being winter break I am less than focused on my studies. So what do I do, I sent them off to "play". I do this daily hoping for some different results, but it never fails. Wild Things are going to do what Things do best...cause trouble and make noise. So on Wednesday of this week I started doing my homework and I sent them off to "color" when all of the sudden I hear from the crafting corner of my house where the colors and paper are, "Yep, it needs more glitter. I think you're right, just dump it!Yeah, glitter it up!" Glitter to me is microscopic sparkly stuff that was invented by Satan to drive parents insane. Once you unleash it, it never goes away! Plus, I am not even sure where the glue and glitter came from. It's like it appeared from that mystical land of stuff that makes your parents wig out. It appears, makes messes, I have a cleaning nervous break down, and it goes away. After that and henceforth I declared our home be glitter free...I only hope to abolish the use of glue as well. Again today I had homework and the Wild Things had set off to "play quietly" so I could finish before the weekend. "Quiet" turned into a make shift bedroom band of what appeared to be either a Native American drum circle or African drumming! There is also singing, but not the angelic voices one might hope for...no the Things want to be rock star veterinarians, so there is yelling, and wailing. As a bonus feature Dane-o-saur started chiming in with his wailing and moaning. The door bell rings and guess what is delivered, a Justin Bieber guitar/piano.(Thanks Auntie E) Guess what it does!? Yep, now the musical stylings of Bieber has joined the dying cat sounds of the Wild Things, with the painful moans of the Dane-o-saur and I am seriously trying to complete my homework. Normally I would be more chill about stuff, except for today I ran out of Dr. Pepper. So I am going into withdrawal at this point as well. Towards the end of what can only be described as the most eclectic sound one will ever hear, I finally give up on doing homework and scrounge up whatever syrup like drink I can find, the only thing I have is grape juice, and I sit back and enjoy the show. However, if they really are in the per-stages of forming a garage band I am definitely going to need to stock up on two things: Dr.Pepper and ear plugs!