Christmas Past

Who's more excited to play with the Matchbox car garage?

All I Want For Christmas Is Summer

One day into winter, and I am counting down the days until it's over. I am not a winter person. Not only do I hate the darkness, the coldness, the driving in snow, but I also hate winter parenting.

Me parenting in the summer: "Good morning, children. Here is a bottle of sunscreen, a box of popsicles, and the backyard. I will see you at bedtime."

This is how I parented this morning. Parker announces, "Mom, its good snowball snow!" I find three coats, two pairs of boots (the third is missing), socks, mittens, and hats. I begin dressing each child. McKay whines at me that she doesn't like wearing the hood on her coat because it makes it difficult to talk and that her gloves don't match. Deacon whines at me because I'm not getting him dressed fast enough. I yell, "Everyone stop whining! I can't handle it!" I shove all the kids out the door. They play for approximately five minutes. Then I hear a banging on the back door. In tramps three snowy, wet children who leave snow puddles around a five foot radius of carpet and dump a load of wet laundry on the ground. "We're cold. Can we have hot chocolate?" Five minutes later hot chocolate stained shirts are added to the laundry pile. "Now what are we going to do today, Mom?"

Summer please come early this year.

Naughty or Nice?

This morning Parker asks me, "If you are on the naughty list do you still get the presents from your family?"

"Yes."

"So, basically you just get coal in your stocking and no presents from Santa."

"Yep."

"Whew. I can live with that."

"Are you concerned about being on the naughty list?"

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure I am. I bug my sister everyday."

He's got a point. "You know there's four days left until Christmas. You could repent."

A light flashes in Parker's eyes. "Hmmm, repentance....."

Exercise

Today I am biking along on my exercise bike, when for no apparent reason, Chris comes over, starts pushing buttons, and bumps my resistance level up from a one to a two.

"Aaaaagh!" I shriek. "Not a two! Move it back! Move it back!"

"I don't understand how you exercise. I thought the point of exercise was to strengthen your muscles and burn calories."

"No. My point is to ride the bike for exactly fifteen minutes while I multi-task scripture reading."

"But don't you want to make your workout more effective?"

"No. Go away. You're sweaty."

At which point, Chris tried to give me a sweaty hug. Luckily I had my scriptures to block him, and they ended up all sweaty instead of me. Talk about the word of God being a shield and a protector.

Chris does not get Kodie exercise. He has never sat on the couch and just watched the exercise video, hoping to flatten his stomach through osmosis. He never went to a yoga class like I did, and after twenty minutes decided to take a rest on the mat. "Are you o.k.?" a classmate asked me. "Yeah, I'm just waiting for an easier yoga move." He never went to a step aerobic class and when the instructor let the class take a water break, actually just walked out of the class. He never skipped enrichment, because the class was on fitness, and he would rather lay in his bed in his pajamas reading a book and eating peanut M&M's.

However, he did just walk in the door from taking Parker to school and announce, "I stopped at Maverik and got a hot dog for breakfast. It was good."

I love that man.

Being Married to a Davis Man

Yesterday I got Deacon's hair cut. I went to pay, and they were having problems with their credit card machine. "Do you have cash?" the clerk asked.

"Yes," I said, "but that's good daughter-in-law money, and I'm not spending it on a haircut."

"Good daughter-in-law money?"

"My father-in-law gives me money, I believe, as payment for staying married to his son."

"Really?"

"Yes, Davis men spoil the women in their lives. I think they are amazed that not only did we pick them, but we also stick with them."

Now I may not go to work everyday, but I do have the job of being married to Chris, a Davis, and that is its own special job in itself.

Have you ever seen a Davis man sick? Specifically, my Davis man? Let's just say its a good thing I deal with the childbearing aspect of the marriage.

Chris: "When I'm gone, I want you to use the insurance money to pay off the house. Wait, better yet, get me the insurance guy's phone number. Maybe we can increase our coverage."

Me: "You have a cold. You need a Sudafed."

Chris: "A Sudafed won't help me now. Kiss me one last time."

Me (kissing him on the head): "Here's a Diet Coke."

(An hour later) Chris: "I feel much better. Your love must have cured me."

Me: "Either that or the Sudafed I ground up and stuck in your Diet Coke."

Also maybe not all Davis men, but mine would starve if he wasn't married to me. His bachelor diet of Wendy's and corn dogs attests to this, as does his current cooking abilities.

(True conversation, occurring approximately three weeks ago.)

Me: "I'm going to be gone at lunch time today. Could you please feed the kids Mac-n-Cheese?"

Chris: "How do I make that?"

Davis men's OCD tendencies would drive lesser women insane.

After having been married to Chris for several years, I walk into the closet to notice he has taken down a pile of new laundered and folded shirts. He is unfolding them and refolding them.

Me: "What are you doing to those shirts that I just folded and put away?"

Chris: "I am refolding them. I didn't like the way you folded them."

Me: "Grrrrr."

There are some job perks of being married to a Davis. They like strong women.

(Conversation occurring yesterday.)

Me: "What would your life be like if you had married the doting, supportive type of wife?"

Chris (teasing): "I don't know. Infinitely happy?"

Me: "You're supposed to say you would be a big wuss if you hadn't married me."

Of course the biggest perk is how much they absolutely love and adore the women in their lives.

Chris: "Do you know how lucky I am to have you?"

Me: "I love you, too."

Chris: "Hey, you didn't say, 'Yes, yes, I do' like you normally do."

Me: "At this point that goes without saying."

Pucker Up

If you've never spent an afternoon reading a book while ignoring your children and housework, then you are missing out on one of the best ways to spend an afternoon. I was spending one such glorious afternoon today. After three hours of reading, I was down to the final three pages of my book Mitch Albom's Have a Little Faith. I am at the point where Mitch is delivering the eulogy at his rabbi's funeral, and I have tears streaming down my face. I am completely involved in this book, so it takes awhile for my brain to register a peculiar sound. The sound seems out of place. It is the sound of water. Water being swooshed. Like someone is violently cleaning the toilet. And wait a second. Only Deacon and I are downstairs. I realize Deacon must be using the toilet brush to clean the toilet. A good mom would have rushed to the mess, but I only had three pages left, so I decided to pretend I didn't hear anything. I continue reading and with two pages left, Deacon wanders into the living room, toilet brush in hand, toilet water dripping on the carpet. Now even a book-obsessed mother like myself would normally jump up to rescue the living room floor, but I pause. I notice how cute Deacon looks holding the toilet brush upright, and I'm thinking, he is such a little Davis. One and a half and already cleaning the toilet. My thirty second reverie is broken by Deacon's next action. He looks over at the toilet brush, sticks out his tongue, and gives it a lick.

Good thing I have a meeting tonight, and Chris is putting the kids to sleep. Chris can give out the goodnight kisses tonight.

School Days

I volunteer in Parker's classroom every other Friday. I love it! Usually I have to hurry back after my volunteering shift to pick up my kids from my friend's house, feed them lunch, put Deacon down for a nap, etc., etc. But today Chris was watching the kids which meant I got to eat hot lunch with Parker.

Parker had a lot of instructions for me. "Hold up one finger to the lunch ladies for lunch choice one. Don't get the orange cream milk. It tastes like gross melted ice cream. You don't have to get the carrot sticks. You squirt the ketchup on your tray right here."

I think Parker really needed his mom to eat lunch with him, because he had a rough day at school yesterday. During PE he collided with another boy from his class, hit the gym floor hard, and ended up with a black eye. I was trying to console him about the eye. "I think it's pretty manly to have your first black eye," I told him.

He looked at me disbelieving, "Mom, men get black eyes from fist fights and football, NOT PE!"

I taught McKay's preschool class yesterday. I have a group of three other moms, and we each teach one Thursday a month. My biggest battle is keeping this all girl group out of the princess dress-ups and princess dolls. (You can see I failed yesterday.)

We were doing an art project, making paper plate wreaths. I noticed one girl was really getting into it, and I said, "Wow, Kiana's really going to town."

To which McKay responded by a fury of green leaf gluing. "Mom, look at me. I'm going to town, too."

Natasha looked up, puzzled. "Where's town?"

Deacon. Deacon's not quite to the school stage yet. Here's hoping for a football scholarship.