9 of 25: Progressive Partying

Last Saturday night was party-hopping night for the McGlincheys.  Don't know what it is about the calendar this year, but events that normally don't coincide are ending up right on top of each other.

But that's okay.  When life hands you lemons, you make lemonade, and when life hands you conflicting invites, you McGyver a progressive dinner out of it.

Stop 1:  Our neighbors' open house.  Nice to actually see our neighbors.  Nice to ACTUALLY BE ON OUR STREET.  We parked in our driveway and walked over two houses.  Sad that parking in our driveway was kinda novel?

Neighbors had a jazz trio at their party, which I realize is not outside of the norm during the holiday season, but it's where the jazz trio performed that screamed, "This is an Arlington Heights party."  Like us, our neighbors have a carriage house that is entirely inaccessible by horseless carriages but is, instead, marooned at the back of the property line.  Unlike us, their carriage house is two stories.  (Once upon a time, ours had a second story, but then there was a fire, some time during the 1950's.)  Also unlike us, they don't utilize their carriage house for random junk storage but, instead, have turned the first floor into a microbrewery and the second floor into a man cave.  Except you can't call it a man cave if it's in the air, so instead everyone refers to it as "The Treehouse."  Their adult son lived in The Treehouse when he was in grad school and, as of this weekend, our Big Kid has inquired about rental rates.  "You know, not for now, but for in a couple of years - like when I'm fifteen."

Keep dreaming, kid.  (Actually, I fear that when he is fifteen the thought of foisting him off on the neighbors may be tragically appealing.)

If the Big Kid wasn't fascinated by The Treehouse before, he is really fascinated now, because that's where the jazz trio performed.  Why not?  Lots of performance space up there, it was out of the way of the traffic pattern, and they opened all of the windows, so the music wafted out and down over the rest of the party.  (It had been raining all day but stopped long enough for us all to congregate out-of-doors.)

They served pumpkin ale from the Wet Dog Brewery (AKA the microbrewery that the host and his next-door neighbor run out of the carriage house), and you had to go out to the carriage house if you wanted seafood.  I have no idea why, but that was the buffet dividing line:  meatballs and roast beef upfront, salmon and boiled shrimp in the back yard.

Works for me.

After the pseudo block party, we headed west to Friend Melissa's annual dessert open house.  We always enjoy her open houses, but this one was especially enjoyable because, over wine and desserts, Spouse and I determined that Friend Melissa's kitchen is EXACTLY AS WIDE AS OURS, and her island is placed roughly where our island will be placed.  Yup, you guessed it - the measuring tape came out, and many horrible kitchen re-enactments were staged.  It's okay - by the time we party-hopped over there, most of the other guests had gone, so we weren't in anyone's way.   They weren't in a hurry to kick us out, and the kids weren't in a hurry to leave, because they were upstairs with Friend Melissa's kids, staging an EPIC BATTLE involving, among other weapons, light sabers and a set of X-Men Wolverine claws.

Please enjoy these festive images of freestyle kid-centric holiday merriment with my compliments.

(Doesn't the above image just SCREAM "Merry Christmas"?  Okay, but you agree that it might inspire screaming of some sort, don't you?  Screams of terror, or screams of hysterical laughter - the important thing is, screaming definitely is involved.)

Thumbs up to a great night of progressive partying.

8 of 25: Improvised Cookie Recipe

Bought cinnamon M&Ms as an impulse purchase at the Super Target checkout.  Thought I might try baking cookies with them, utilizing the Toll House recipe.  Small problem:  I was one stick of butter short to make Toll House-type dough.  So I utilized what I had on hand (namely, Duncan Hines cake mix and cooking oil) and modified a cake mix cookie recipe.  Didn't particularly love the batter when I tasted it, and didn't particularly love the cookies right after they came out of the oven, but once they cooled I became a fan.

CINNAMON M&M COOKIES

1 box butter-recipe yellow cake mix
1 bag cinnamon M&Ms
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup dried coconut
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs, slightly beaten

Heat oven to 350 degrees.  In large bowl, combine all ingredients; blend well.  Drop dough by rounded teaspoonfuls 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheets.  Bake for 8-10 minutes.  Cool 1 minute; remove from cookie sheets. 

Yield:  at least 2 dozen, depending on how you define "rounded."

7 of 25: Merry Christmas from the Family

As my early Christmas present to you . . . please enjoy these awkward family photos.

Okay, pretty clearly the Little Kid got his mom's smiley gene.  Our eyes crinkle and our cheeks dimple.  The Spouse and the Big Kid are sort-of-smilers.  (And it's getting worse now that the Big Kid is a tween.)

Again, Mom and Little Kid are cooperating, and Dad is actually cooperating.  Big Kid - not so much.

This one isn't bad of Big Kid and might have been a favorite if Little Kid wasn't so intent on standing ramrod straight.  "Look at me!  I'm on a box!  I'm almost as tall as my mother . . . WHEN SHE'S SITTING DOWN!"

This sums up the boys pretty well.  Little Kid says, "Look at me!  No, seriously - LOOK AT ME, because I'm waggling my eyebrows at you in a comically adorable way."  Big Kid says, "Please don't look at me.  And, also, can we please go home now?"

We settled on this one.  Little Kid is doing his cheesy (but sincerely cheesy) thang, and Big Kid is sporting his patented "I am twelve and therefore way too cool to be into this" look.  In other words, it's an accurate depiction of our boys at this particular stage.

I'm a big fan of realism.

The photographer also attempted (somewhat foolishly) to get a shot of just the boys.  This one would have been cute if Big Kid's big melon (made bigger by the Justin Bieber 'do) wasn't casting a shadow on the Little Kid's face:

Midway through the shoot, the Little Kid decided to adopt the Big Kid's non-grin, meaning that we got a lot of images like this:

We went with this one:

Photog even managed to get a picture of the 'rents, and it ALMOST looks like we're happy. (Believe me, we weren't - photos were taken in the middle of a particularly bad "house week," lots of added stress, and then family photos on top of all of that. What's the phrase? Fake it 'til you make it? Well, it worked, because we're in a much better mental place, collectively, and now we have this memento of a darker time that we can laugh at, EVENTUALLY. Still a little too soon.)

We're on a roll, in terms of actually getting photographed together - also had our picture taken at the "65 Roses" wine and food event benefiting Cystic Fibrosis:

Yes, it looks like I'm knocking on his chest.  I have no idea what that was about.  Hiding a sloppy manicure?  Spouse's expression clearly says, "Let's get the red carpet thing over with, so that I can start eating and drinking and bidding on silent auction items that I don't actually need."

That's two - count 'em, TWO - photos of us posing as a couple, in a span of two months. This is unprecedented.  Hoping to continue the trend.

Merry Christmas from the family.

6 of 25: Gaming the System and Getting My Wrap On

The boys' wish lists this year are tres boring and consist primarily of LEGOs, LEGOs and more LEGOs.  However, I am pleased to announce that, over the last few days, I have made that boring LEGO-centric list my beyotch.  As soon as I saw the TV ad for Toys R Us's "buy one, get one 50% off" LEGO sale, I was online, with three tabs opened in my browser:  TRU, Target and The Wal-Mart.  Question number one:  which items were exclusives to one store or the other?  Question number two:  of the items that were not exclusives, who had the best price, and what ordering strategy would allow me to take advantage of all three store's loss leaders plus TRU's BOGO gimmick?   Took me forty five minutes, but I soon had four items locked and loaded with TRU (WITH free shipping, thank you very much) and three more items en route to my local Wal-Mart via "site to store."  Total spent on seven LEGO items (including two big-ticket sets):  $300.  Total saved:  close to $100, not counting Upromise savings.  (One of my goals this year is to do all of my online ordering via Upromise links, because I think that there's poetry in saving money for my kids' college education IN THE SAME TRANSACTION in which I spend money that could be going to their college education.  Thus far, between JC Penney (new barstools for the kitchen, identical to Pottery Barn's at half the price, with free shipping to boot), TRU and Shutterfly (EIGHT PERCENT contribution to the kids' 529 plans - killer!), I believe that I have squirreled away $15, and it's only the beginning of the shopping season.)

I am wrapping gifts this year using way-cool retro wrapping paper that I got at Tuesday Morning.  The kids are getting sock monkey wrapping paper, Spouse has a Santa motif and I have Christmas trees:

I created a little gift-wrap station for myself, utilizing the extra (rented) end table that doesn't fit in the living room:

Gift wrap station doubles as holiday linen storage - that's the happy-accident holiday tablecloth folded under the polka-dotted bowl o' gift tags.  And, yes, that's a polka-dotted BATH MAT under the tablecloth.  I bought two of them at The Wal-Mart because they were $4 each, they were festive, and I thought that they would make good camouflage for and/or help to protect rental furniture items.

Rolls of gift wrap are in a bucket that will eventually be a gift - but, for now, it's my gift wrap bucket, yo.

(Photo taken as the Thanksgiving decorations were being boxed up to be returned to storage - hence the "Harvest Queen" guarding the wrapping paper rolls.)

The Small One walked by several times as I was affixing gift tags to gift boxes, and.  He.  Did.  Not. Say.  A.  Word.  Barely even broke his stride.  Finally, I had to say something:

"PJ, aren't you curious about what I'm doing?"

"Nope, AND I haven't noticed that so far you have wrapped 8 gifts, and 5 have my name on them, and only 3 have my brother's name on them."

Wow.  Kid's got eyes in the back of his head.  Santa had better be careful.

5 of 25: I Elf the Apartment, Part 3

Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, I give you . . . the improvised tree.

So much for my concerns about the tree looking barren, huh?  By the time I added all of the not-quite-ornaments to the actual ornaments and worked in the mittens and paper snowflakes and paper chains, we were at capacity fairly quickly.  Except that, after the tree was initially pimped, I wasn't terribly pleased with the results of my pimping.  And then something happened while I was at work.

Specifically, MAX happened.

Remember how, a few weeks ago, PJ pulled a piece of furniture on top of himself because, back at the house, things are anchored to the walls, but they aren't anchored here?   Yeah, same deal with the tree.  We started tethering it to a plant hook in the dining room ceiling when Maine Coon #1 was still young and spry and enjoyed some recreational tree-climbing.  That served us in good stead when Maine Coon #2 - Max - came along.

Apparently, Max thought that the tree was tethered, because he climbed it like usual - and then, also apparently, he rode the sucker the heck over.

E-mail from the Spouse to my work desktop:

If a tree falls in an apartment because Max takes it for a ride, and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?

I did not see this e-mail until I was heading home for the evening.  Called Spouse from the car and asked him to level with me:  just how bad was it?  Because I wanted to be prepared.

He assured me that only a few ornaments were knocked off - roughly enough to fill one of his ball caps.

What he failed to tell me was that:  (1) the ornaments that were left on the tree had gotten displaced in transit; and (2) when he put the tree back (scooting it further back into a corner), he rotated it a half turn, so the bare spot that I left in back was now on display.

Oh, and the ornaments that had fallen off could fill one of his ball caps - and about ten more just like it.

Initially, I considered taking everything off and starting over.  It seemed like an easier proposition in the long run - and, also, I had decided that Spouse (rather annoyingly) rotated the tree to a better side (the thing isn't exactly symmetrical anymore, after years of Maine Coon abuse), so rather than push the bare spot to the back, I really needed to move now-obscured ornaments from one side of the tree to now-on-display space on the other side.

But I started puttering, and things started to take shape again, and - wouldn't you know it? - the tree actually looked BETTER after receiving the Max Treatment.  I guess the impact pushed things that were on the ends of the branches back to the interior, but however it happened the darned thing just looked more pulled together after being physically assaulted by a twenty-pound cat.

So there you go.

For your viewing pleasure:  a montage of ornaments and sort-of-ornaments from the improvised tree.  The soft sculpture ornaments were made by Parnell's grandmother and my mother.

Also for your viewing pleasure:  a photo of the dorgi dog, sprawled out next to the tree and getting in my way while I worked.  I think he was excited that, for a change, MAX was the one in trouble.

Really, I promise you, he was excited.  This is his excited face - when he is laying down.

Spouse was bound and determined to prevent Max from playing Tree Rodeo a second time, so he left the house just as I was putting dinner on the table, mumbling something about "sandbags" and "you can heat up some chili for me when I get back."  An hour later, he returned with THIS:

Nope, not a sand bag.  This is a Gold's Gym 20-pound adjustable conditioning vest.  We had discussed getting one for the Big Kid, for purposes of helping him get into shape for swimming season.  And now he owns one - except he cannot use it until after the holidays, because, until the end of December, said weight vest is wrapped around the base of our Christmas tree, camouflaged by a tree skirt.

Spouse is somewhat of a genius, wouldn't you agree?  It's a gift AND a holiday disaster prevention item.

I put a few of the family felt ornaments on a tinsel tree that I bought for the dining room table as a total impulse purchase.  I have always been enamored of tinsel trees, and every year I am mocked by six or seven of them (full-sized ones), clustered in the front window of a neighbor's house. Now I have my own, scaled-down version, and I [HEART] it.  It spoke to me when I saw it at the Montgomery Street Antique Mall, and the ridiculously reasonable price spoke to me even more.  I love the way that the light bounces off of it and makes it look like it's illuminated when it isn't.  It is totally getting a place of honor in the new kitchen next year.

Here's the tinsel tree in all of its glory:

And here's a close-up of some of the ornaments. I have a thing about crocheted snowflakes, and I supplement my supply of "true" (separately crocheted and starched) snowflakes with doilies that I repurpose as snowflakes. The tiny doily snowflakes on the tinsel tree are actually a crocheted doily runner (also from the antique mall) that I cut into individual rounds:

So now we are enjoying an embarrassment of riches in the tree department. Here's hoping that the novelty has worn off for a certain feline and that Max leaves them alone for the duration of the holidays.

4 of 25: I Elf the Apartment, Part 2

Apparently, I did something right - in this life, or perhaps a past one - because, when I broke the seal on the Rubbermaid-totes-o'-mystery, I discovered that:

• Everything in the totes color-coordinated with the random stuff that I had pulled together using craft supplies, and everything sort of went together thematically;
• A lot of stuff (for example, these giant tassels that I normally hang off of furntiture in our dining room) looked like Christmas ornaments if you squinted at them; and
• The two-gallon zipper bag that was on top of the totes-o'-mystery contained a tree skirt and the holiday tablecloth that I was bemoaning having left behind.

I separated out twenty or so items that could be pressed into service as ornaments, and then I went to town with the rest.  Here's the mantel:

Remember the harvest decor that I said I found a way to utilize?  Yup, wrapped 'em to look like presents.  Needed heavy things to anchor the boys' stockings and also some filler for the display shelf in the entry hall (photo to follow).  The stack of "gifts" under the Santa and reindeer conga line (top right below) are actually some books that I brought with me to the apartment and already finished reading.  The blue one, I believe, is "The Social Network."  Which is appropriate because, you know, Facebook is blue and all.

Present above the mantel . . . is the painting that was hanging above the mantel, wrapped to look like a present.  Once upon a time the painting was a present, and now it's a present again.  [Hums "Circle of Life" from Lion King.]

I could only figure out how to anchor two of the stockings from the mantel, so my stocking and the Spouse's are hanging off of the weird chair-shelf objet that I seem to drag from dining room to dining room.  Wine rack recently relocated to this wall to make room for the two new barstools that I bought for the house but decided that we should enjoy while we're in the apartment.  (There's a bar counter off of the kitchen that the stools service just perfectly - the kids now have their breakfast there.)

Here's a close-up of the chair-shelf-thingie.  Star on the top is our tree topper, which I did not feel like putting on the actual tree.  So now it's a chair-shelf-thingie topper.

My quilt scrap-and-stryofoam cone project is in the alcove in the entry hall, displayed (along with a only-sort-of-scary Mary Engelbreit Santa head and some Santa candlesticks) in front of gifts that - you guessed it - are wrapped Thanksgiving items.   (The square package is a turkey canvas that I painted that reads, "We Give Thanks for Unknown  Blessings Already on Their Way," and the rectangular package is "Pie Fixes Everything.")

I was also pleased to discover some Christmas photos lurking in frames (I have a habit of layering multiple photos in a frame and rotating through them as the seasons change, so, sure enough, when I looked in these, I found Christmas photos hanging out in back).

Gittings Santa, taken at Ridglea Country Club, what? - four years ago?  Yeah, based on my haircut and hair color, I think that's right.  (Sometimes I wonder what it's like to be a man and to look  SUBSTANTIALLY THE SAME IN ALL OF YOUR PHOTOS.  Looking at photos of me over the years is like looking at a montage of identity changes from "La Femme Nikita.")

Here is a photo of me and my frimily posing in Santa hats:

Yes, I know that we look like Realtors.  It's part of why we like this particular shot.  On account of the cheese factor.

Leaving out the tree for now, but photos to follow.  Initial plan was to buy a smaller tree, but here's the thing:  I'm a cheapskate, and I'm also an artificial tree snob.  I have to have a certain color, and it has to have a certain fullness, and the whole thing just needs to look REAL.  So, at the end of the day, I couldn't justify spending what it would take me to get happy about a new fake tree, and since I refused to skimp there was no option but to bring our real fake tree over from the house. Only problem is, it's a fairly substantial tree.  Not super-tall, but really, really full.

Armed with paper chains and snowflakes, two small boxes of heirloom ornaments, and a pile of random junk, I had my work cut out for me.

3 of 25: I Elf The Apartment, Part 1

So - full disclosure - I never truly accepted the possibility that we would still be displaced at Christmas.

Hence the fact that I brought all of the Halloween decorations with us to the apartment, and all of the Thanksgiving decorations, but only a handful of Christmas items.

The kids' Christmas clothes made the move, but logic behind that was that we would take holiday photos in November, just prior to returning to the house.

Yeah, November pictures didn't happen.  And we didn't return to the house after Thanksgiving, either.

On some level, I guess I thought that, if it became relevant, we would go up into the attic and retrieve what we needed.  But - small problem - the house is lacking a floor, so going up the ladder into the attic is a bit of a problem, unless you are a fan of climbing a ladder that is floating in space because it has no floor on which to rest.

We weren't completely out of luck.  I brought two slightly-bigger-than-shoebox-sized Rubbermaid totes with us that happened to be in one of the boys' closets.  Didn't look in the totes, but I knew that they were Christmas-ish.  Along with those came a two-gallon-sized storage bag that I thought held the family stockings.

Yeah, stockings weren't in there.  Fortunately, they were in a credenza in my office.  You read that right.  Here's the deal:  know those parents who, when they travel without their kids, take separate airplanes on the theory that, statistically, there's little chance of both of them crashing, so someone's bound to survive the trip?  Okay, so I do that with the Christmas ornaments.  The heirloom ones (things that the kids made and things that our mothers made) are in a credenza in my office, along with the stockings, on the theory that, if there's a fire, the fire suppression sprinklers will save them.  The rest of the ornaments are split in half, and half go up into the attic, and the other half go into the carriage house (again, on the theory that if one structure burns, perhaps the other one won't).

No, I haven't been diagnosed with OCD, but I do have my suspicions.  Thanks for asking.

That meant that I had access to two small (shoebox-sized) containers of ornaments (the truly meaningful ones) and, technically, I also had access to whatever was in the carriage house.  However, I wasn't too jazzed about digging through the carriage house, given that - until very recently, when progress finally started to be made on our home - hanging around the old homestead hasn't exactly given me the warm fuzzies.

So I gave myself a challenge:

Take the money that I would usually spend in any given year buying new Christmas decor, apply that to craft supplies and Elf the Apartment.  Decorations would consist of whatever I crafted and whatever was in the four totes and one two-gallon bag.

Hit a couple of craft stores and Tuesday Morning and purchased, among other items, ribbon, wrapping paper, scrapbook paper, a couple of fat quarters (you know, those squares of fabric scraps that you use for quilting), a ball of blue yarn, a styrofoam cone, some straight pins, a bunch of mittens from the dollar aisles at Joann and Target, some yarn-wrapped ornaments (also from the Target dollar aisle), a handful of tinsel snowflakes from Dollar Tree and a package of foam snowflakes from Wal-Mart.  Oh, and a couple of blank canvases.

I promise that it all makes sense when you see it.

And then I got to work transforming the apartment, which started out looking like this:

I utilized some of the fall-colored and -themed items, like this fabric-covered box and this turkey canvas, for my Christmas decor (I promise that that will make sense, too):

Then I got crafty.  My first project:  a tree, using scraps cut from the fat quarters, straight pins and the styrofoam cone.  Here is said tree at the halfway point:

And here is the finished product.

The Big Kid helped me for a couple of minutes, and then he announced that he wase bored and walked away, never to return.  I think he was frustrated by my insistence on controlling the overall pattern and ratio of blue-to-green-to-red-to-pink.

ADHD meets OCD.

Next I got to painting.  Plan was to recreate some canvases that I painted several years back (and that are packed who-knows-where), in colors that would match my selected colors.

They turned out really well.  So well, that I decided to make them my auction item for one of my Woman's Club groups, where they went over so well that I am now obligated to paint three more.

But I did keep this one:

After the painting party came the paper-snowflake-and-mitten-and-chain-making party.  The kids helped with that project.  The Little Kid enjoyed making snowflakes and cutting out traced hands, which he decorated to look like mittens.   In the meantime, the Big Kid assembled a bazillion feet of paper chains.  Clearly, he inherited my OCD tendencies, as he insisted on assembling the chains so that they would demonstrate a continuous pattern whether you looked at them from the side or from above.

I wasn't really sure what we were going to need in the way of decorations (on account of how I hadn't opened any of the four totes or the two-gallon bag year - that was also part of the challenge, to wait until the last minute to see what we were working with), so we just made stuff until we got tired of cutting, taping and gluing.

So how did we do?  Stay tuned for Part 2 of "I Elf the Apartment," which I may get around to typing later tonight - or not.

2 of 25: The Ubiquitous Holiday Card

So I bought the boys matching green-and-white gingham button-downs and had them monogrammed in red, intending to snap some pictures over the weekend for holiday cards. And then the following things happened:

• The rainy, cold weather moved in;
• I had to bring a truckload of commercial leasing work home with me;
• While plowing through said work, I opened Shutterfly in a window in my browser and finished putting together our annual family calendar between lease paragraphs;
• In perusing through our family photos, I made note of the statistically significant number of shots featuring our family near a body of water, our children being goofy, or our family near a body of water while our children are being goofy;
• In proceeding to the "Order" page, I made note of the many cute holiday photo cards available at a 30 percent discount now through December 4th; and
• I decided to just go with it.

I mean, really, nothing says our family more than this does:

Photo calendars for the grandparents: ordered. And, along with them, our holiday cards. Done, and done.

1 of 25: Mother of the Year

One day of December down, twenty four to go until Christmas (hence the "1 of 25" above).  And, boy, did I start out the month with a bang.

Wednesday night, the Small One placed into our hand a photocopied invitation to the "First Grade Second Six Weeks Awards Ceremony."  They started having these once-a-six-weeks programs when he was in kindergarten.  By my count, we have skipped seven in a row.  In case you couldn't tell from the immediately preceding sentence, I have a very ambivalent relationship with the once-a-six-weeks awards ceremony concept.  I feel roughly the same way about them that I do about "PARTICIPANT" ribbons.  Do we really need to pat our children on the back for showing up?  "Yay, you  made it through another six weeks of school."  Isn't that sort of expected?

Not that I have a better relationship with the end-of-year awards ceremony concept in its current incarnation.  Back in the day, if you were the best student in multiple subjects, you got multiple awards.  That's not the case now, in this time of the PARTICIPANT ribbon.  No, if the same kid is the best in, say, math AND in science, we pick one of those subjects out of a hat, give him that award, and give the other award to someone who came kinda close.  Okay, I'm on board with the general notion that no one benefits from getting a swelled head early in life.  Lots of cautionary tales of folks who peaked too early and all.  But let's not blow sunshine up the patoot of the kid who came in second but gets treated like he was first.  Kids being kids, he's probably all too aware that he didn't come in first (because no doubt my older child - I mean, the theoretical child who actually came in first - lorded it over him), so give it a different title. 

I would like to suggest the "You Were in the Ballpark Award."

I did not express these thoughts out loud when the Small One looked up at me with those soulful Antonio-Banderas-as-Puss-in-Boots eyes and asked, "Mommy, will you come to my awards ceremony?"  No, I said, "YES, I will come to your awards ceremony," because I am well aware that the Small One's parents are prone to yada-yada'ing over his academic career.  As in, his brother brought home straight A's yesterday, which was notable because he is on the fastest of fast tracks in his middle school magnet program, so it was a cause for celebration that shining atop the pile of A's was a high A in his ridiculously accelerated math class. 

The Small One also brought home straight A's, but this did not merit as much (initial) celebration.  Thanks to the Big Kid, we are used to seeing straight A's on elementary school report cards.  In fact, we saw them 36 times in a row during Big Kid's elementary career.  So the Small One making straight A's is sort of expected.

But that's not fair, is it?

So I told him that, YES, Mommy would be at his awards ceremony.  Then Thursday morning dawned, Spouse took the kids to school (offering chauffeur service to the Big Kid who didn't want to wait for the bus in the cold) and I started puttering around the apartment.  Said puttering included photographing our Christmas decorations for an upcoming series of blog posts (which I shall title "I Elfed the Apartment" or some variation thereof).

I was so busy photographing Christmas decorations that I kind of forgot about the awards ceremony.  I remembered it halfway through my shower.  And then I thought a four-letter expletive beginning with F.

For a minute, I thought about not even trying to make it.  But then I said, "No, Self, you MUST go to the entirely pointless fake awards ceremony.  You PROMISED."  And so it is that I left the apartment Thursday morning with wet hair, dressed only a little bit like a bag lady.  But - points in my favor - I left wearing makeup, deodorant, AND PERFUME, and both of my shoes matched, and I remembered my cell phone AND MY WEDDING RING.  I left the house at precisely the moment that the ceremony was supposed to start, and (thanks to my uncanny ability to navigate back roads) I pulled up at the school only 10 minutes late by my car clock (which means I was 8 minutes late in real time - clock is 2 minutes fast, and I have decided that I like it that way).

Fortunately, nothing ever runs on time in elementary school.  I ran into the auditorium just as the Small One's class was filing in.  I caught his teacher's attention, she caught his, and he looked up at me and simply beamed.

And I cried the first happy tears of the official Christmas season.  (Okay, I didn't actually cry, but my eyes got noticeably watery.)

I believe that my efforts merit me a "You Were in the Ballpark Award."  Don't you agree?  And I am actually happy that I attended, because - in addition to making my child's day - I discovered something of critical importance during the course of the awards ceremony:

Every child gets an award.

There are two types of awards:  Perfect Attendance and Excellent Conduct.  Some kids get both, but everyone gets at least one.

Do the math, people.  Attendance is a constant.  Either you were there every day, or you weren't.  So you either earn a Perfect Attendance award or you don't.  But if everyone gets at least one type of award -

THAT MEANS THAT EXCELLENT CONDUCT IS A VARIABLE.

I am now convinced that, if my "talks at inappropriate times" youngest son misses at least one day of school in each of the next four grading periods, he will "earn" himself four consecutive E's in conduct. 

By default.  Because if he doesn't get an E, then they won't have a certificate to hand to him during the fake awards ceremony.

This is not information that I had in my possession prior to actually attending a fake awards ceremony.  So, see, there is some upside to being a PARTICIPANT.

I'm not saying that I'm going to let my kid skip school.  But, with cold and flu season coming up and all - you know, I think a few absences are inevitable.

I shared my theory with Spouse when he showed up for the fake awards ceremony many minutes after I arrived.  (So many minutes, in fact, that I had had time to swing by the front office, log into the computer and claim my "Visitor" badge, which I demurely pointed out to Spouse when he arrived:  "BOOYAH!  I GOT HERE EARLY ENOUGH TO GET A VISITOR BADGE!  HOW DO YOU LIKE DEM APPLES?")

He was impressed with my powers of deduction.  And also with my badge.

I picked up more parenting points Thursday evening by accompanying both children to Movie Night at the elementary school, where we enjoyed a showing of "Cars 2" in our pajamas.  (Well, the Small One wore pajamas.  I wore my sort-of bag lady clothing from earlier in the day.)

All's well that ends well.

Kid Stuff: Slippery Vixen

The scene:  I am heading south to the apartment, and Spouse and the kids are heading north on the same road.  Spouse and I are on the phone, discussing who is likely to arrive first, who should park in the garage, etc.  Twice, he opined that he and the kids would arrive before me, given that I had to make my way through a typically nasty road construction-related traffic snafu.  I checked out what was ahead of me and reported that things didn't look that bad.

I was unaware that, from the perspective of one of the backseat passengers, the gauntlet had been thrown.

I got home first and pulled into the garage with Spouse hot on my heels (tires)?  Doors opened, Spouse literally (LITERALLY) fell out of the driver's side laughing his patoot off, and the seven year-old burst out of the backseat hollering:

"YOU SLIPPERY VIXEN!!!!  I CANNOT BELIEVE THAT YOU BEAT US!"

Slippery vixen?

Spouse assured me that the phrase did not originate with Spouse but, rather, with the seven year-old - hence, the falling-out-laughing part.

I have been called a nimble minx before, but never a slippery vixen.

Postscript:  Yup, Google confirmed it.  It's a Phineas and Ferb reference.  God bless P and F for making us laugh even when we aren't in front of the TV tuned into their show.

The Event: The McGlincheys Move to Europe

Okay, we're not moving to Europe - but our kitchen is.  Or, more precisely, Europe is moving into our kitchen.  Bringing with it induction cooktops and convection ovens.

After many hours spent staring at things in home improvement showrooms, we have determined that we are not a double oven family. What we are is a “single oven with two microwaves, one of which also has true European convection and infrared broiling” family. When I started to think about it, I very rarely need two ovens, but there are tons of times when I wish I had two microwaves. And if one of those microwaves also bakes and broils . . . sold.


Item on the left: Jenn-Air oven with multi-mode convection and professional handle. It’s ridiculous how much I love that professional handle. They make the same model with a normal handle (like the one on the right) that would allow this item to blend in with the other items in close proximity – but I don’t care if the professional handle clashes, because everything about it is amazingly right.  It feels good in the hand, it's a substantial weight, the ratio of the weight of the handle to the weight of the door is exactly perfect.  Everything just balances, dammit.  So I'm getting my handle, overall aesthetics be damned.

Dad approves of the Jenn-Air (and a similar Kitchen-Aid model that I don’t like as much, BECAUSE IT DOESN’T HAVE THE PROFESSIONAL HANDLE), because it is capable of doing complex math calculations in its little oven head.  You program in the regular temperature and time and it converts to convection numbers.  I'm not entirely sure, but it's possible that it will even do your taxes for you.

The kids like the Jenn-Air because IT SINGS TO THEM. I am not making that up.  Opening the door powers up the onboard computer, and the computer plays a happy little chime to let you know that it's awake and ready to cook things for you.

Did I mention that it has a "Favorites" feature - not unlike Microsoft Explorer or Mozilla Firefox?  You can bookmark your favorite cooking times.

Yeah, I'm fairly sure that the thing also does taxes. 

The heating element is hidden (so nothing drips on the burners), and there is the most amazing insulation around the door. Seriously.

The Kitchen-Aid has the same insulation, and - as noted above - it also does the conversion thing.  But it does not chime, and IT DOES NOT HAVE THE PROFESSIONAL HANDLE (which is weird, because the professional handle is offered as part of an oven/range combo, but not in the wall oven).  I am afraid that I will end up with the Kitchen-Aid, because Spouse is on a streak of finding amazing deals on Kitchen-Aid appliances, and Spouse is in charge of purchasing.  (This is what Spouse does best.  His skills at finding stuff that fell off of trucks would put any mid-level Mafioso to shame.)  If I end up with the Kitchen-Aid, I will still be happy - notwithstanding its lack of chime, professional handle AND Favorites button, and did I mention its odd cobalt blue interior?

Okay, I really want the Jenn-Air.

Item on the right: bad-a** Miele microwave oven with true European convection and infrared broiling.  It does not sing, but if it did, it would sing "Deutschland Uber Alles."  Miele is just a bit smug about its products, in that smug German way (Miele's tag line:  "Immer Besser," which translates into "Ever Better"), but with good reason:  they totally rock. 

And I totally want this oven in my kitchen.

Regular oven is going on the bottom (but not too low). Miele microwave is going on top, and in between (at kid height) we plan to build in a traditional microwave (the kind where the door opens outward; the Miele model opens down, like a regular oven), so the kids can pop their popcorn, etc. The Miele is possibly too complicated for child use, although part of my reason for selecting this model is that you switch from micro to convection to broiler using dials, and the options surrounding the dials are spelled out in big, clear letters.  In other words, it's somewhat more idiot-proof than the convection microwaves with the panels, which scare me, because you could brush up against the wrong button and accidentally cause Armageddon if you have the wrong pan inside.  This one has dials.  (When I typed that, I did so using my best Nigel Tufnel voice in my head:  "This one goes to eleven.")

My kitchen is going to be amps on eleven.  If it ever gets finished.

Kid Stuff: Pumpkin Boy

PJ was "Pumpkin Boy" from the get-go.  Two weeks before his arrival, in a fit of boredom, I donned a tube top and sweatpants and my spouse painted my stomach to look like a jack o' lantern (using orange and black Halloween grease paint).  I literally bellied up to the bar (well, the kitchen countertop), and we cropped the tube top out of the photo, so all you see is a ginormous pumpkin belly.  That photograph is in his baby book, next to the ubiquitous "first photo" taken of him by the hospital photographer.  Given that it was Halloween, we thought it appropriate to dress him in orange coveralls and a matching pumpkin hat.  Not seen in the photo:  the long john-style trapdoor in the back, labeled (appropriately enough, for an infant) "Trick or Treat."  (Gallows humor; not many treats coming out of that end, to be sure.)

Fast forward seven years.  PJ LURRRRRVES pumpkin EVERYTHING.  Coincidence?  I say nay.  Starting in early October, the fridge was stocked with pumpkin-flavored milk, and we had a carton of Dreyer's pumpkin ice cream in the freezer.  When his actual birthday arrived, he eschewed all of the vanilla and chocolate cupcake varieties at J Rae's in favor of . . . pumpkin spice. 

And then it was Thanksgiving week, and a few days before the big day PJ noted the large can that had been placed at his eye level in the pantry:

"WHOA.  MOM.  You have PUMPKIN PIE IN A CAN?!?"

Um, no - yes, I see that there's a picture of pie on the can, but the contents of the can are the contents of a pumpkin pie.  There isn't an actual pie IN THE CAN.

Harumph.  PJ thought that this was false advertising.  He brightened when I assured him that Nana would be bringing a pumpkin pie to Thanksgiving.

Later that day, acting on a tip from a Facebook friend, I bought a carton of Blue Bell's Spiced Pumpkin Pecan ice cream.  We tend to avoid Blue Bell (yes, I know that them's fightin' words in Tejas), because Dreyer's has less fat and calories.  But Facebook Friend said that the Blue Bell pecan variant was the bomb diggity.  She wasn't lying.  I whipped up a batch of pumpkin spice cookies and surprised PJ with a "pumpkin-squared sammie."

Needless to say, I won major parental points.

We ran out of pumpkin spice cookies before we ran out of Blue Bell, so as of today we have moved on to soft-baked gingersnaps, which add a whole layer of flavor and dimension to PJ's new favorite dessert.

Gotta love Pumpkin Boy.