At my kids' suggestion, I scaled the tower of boxes in our garage in search of the Holy Grail.
I did find a pile of mouse droppings, but no Christmas box.
"We're going to have to have a Charlie Brown Christmas tree this year," I told them, throwing up my hands in defeat.
"What's that?" they wanted to know.
The story about the degenerate tree and homemade ornaments raised everyone out of the depths of depression.
My vision of making ornaments with my children included a warm fire, Christmas carols, and a group hug.
I spent half of the appointed hour locked in the bathroom counting to ten.
No one told me that when you include the price of pain and suffering, it costs more to make ornaments than to buy them.
"Is it going to kill you to attach your paper chain to your sister's? Really? Is it?"
"She isn't copying you, and if she is, who cares?"
"If you tell your brother that his ornament is ugly one more time, I'm not going to let you make the next one."
"If you can't share the paint, I'm going to take it all away!"
It was not one of my better moments.
"Mom's in a bad mood," my daughter announced when my husband came home from work. She shrugged her shoulders and looked confused.
A few minutes later, our cat pulled the popcorn garland off the tree and dragged it up the stairs.
I was in the bathroom counting to 100 when my husband threw it away. Or else I would have taken a picture.
*****
Have you entered the Shabby Apple Dress and Ring Giveaway yet? If not, get going!
Posts
15 comments
REALLY???? No one has commented on this one??? Oh my goodness...cracking up over here cause it's the same discussion here...on a daily basis...I homeschool our 4 kids so I have WAY more time to be "in a bad mood"...absolutely hilarious cause it was like reading my words in print :)
"seriously, just stop talking..." it just has to be said sometimes :)
When I tell my kids to stop talking, they take it as reverse psychology and start yelling to have the last word. I've found that the only thing that shuts them up is to feed them.
As for making homemade ornaments, I leave that to their schools. There isn't a big enough bottle of wine...
Haha :) Your blog makes my day :) I was probably just as bratty as your kids were to my Mom...I hope my kids won't be as bratty as I was :D
My children have really fun and bonding times with me making things like Christmas ornaments. That's just in my mind though. In reality they just make messes whine and I find myself telling them it's movie time! Who wants microwave popcorn?
Assign each child a different type of ornament? Then no one can copy, complain about uniting chains, or say how ugly (maybe)?
I enjoy reading your blog because of the one-liners at the end!
he he, I was waiting for the closer to be that 20 min later the cat was throwing up bits of popcorn....!!!
We haven't set up our tree yet. I can hardly wait for my kids to argue about who gets to hang up what!
I would like to enter the giveaway but I can't. It makes your select an option and I don't have an acct with any of the options in the dropdown box.
I tried making a popcorn garland. Once. Never again. I can imagine your frustration at having it thrown away immediatly :)
The other day my daughter spent all afternoon painstakingly painting suncatcher ornaments from a dollar store kit. The next day we went to hang them on the tree and as we picked them up all the paint cracked and flaked off as soon as we touched them. Needless to say she was very frustrated.
I had to give my daughter a sad lesson about the reality of dollar store items... :)
Oh, that so sounds like life at my house. I've tried to do everything myself to avoid these beautiful moments, unfortunately I've begun feeling guilty. My children need to have these wonderful childhood memories of decorating the christmas tree and making Christmas cookies, right?
This makes me laugh. As a fairly new mommy of 2, I more than often have an unrealistic vision of the way I'd like to have things turn out. Thanks for reigning me back into reality and reminding me to enjoy the humor that will inevitably come. :)
I love all your posts, but this was among my favorites (besides that email from that man who wrote to tell you are a horrible person -- that was my true favorite).
I might just find this one good because I am typing/surfing the Internet from my spare room because I could no longer handle the sound of my children bickering while working on paper gingerbread men. Their crunching on snacks and "working" on their art projects was putting me in a FOUL mood, so I retreated to give myself a break.
Glad I'm not the only one!
Just reading this made me have to go to the bathroom and count to ten. It was like a PTS symptom from my own craft endeavors with four. It is almost like you were a journalist embedded in the troops reporting the war that ensues whenever I undertake anything like this. You got some direct quotes.
You made me feel like micheal mclean never could. (So you've got that going for you.) "I'm not alone/Say it one more time...I'm not alone"
I just love the 'time out' in the bathroom. Some nights, when demand as a referee for me is high, I feel like the bathroom is my spa...I love the lock on that door!
I think you are wonderful! I just love reading your blog. (Although sometimes it scares me, because my kids are only 4, 2 and 2. ) ;)
Post a Comment