Quick 7 Friday Takes Saturday

#4

What? I’m so confused. I was up till 1 making cupcakes for Sienna’s party today (and if I don’t also tell you that the Ogre was up till 2:30 decorating said cupcakes, I’ll be in trouble) and then up at 6 to bathe the kids (because no kidding, I literally couldn’t remember the last time they’d been bathed. When I realized that I made the same appalled, disgusted face you’re making right now) and get them ready for Sienna’s birthday party this morning.

And then I spent 2 hours at the park in the cold (literally, COLD!!!!!!! Gloria, Alleluia!) wind with Linc strapped to me and seventeen 6 and 7 year olds running around, hitting pinatas, eating cupcakes, and accidentally drinking each other’s sodas. (Dear other parents, I apologize if all these kids all come down with the same illness just in time for Christmas. I forgot the Sharpie, and the baby was crying. For the record, my own kids are healthy but children are basically walking petri dishes so you never know.)

Then I came home and collapsed in front of the computer, because I’m a blogger, not a normal person who collapses in front of the TV.

#6

The kids hit the pinata. They each got three turns. We didn’t do it the smart way, like, “hey kid who’s name I’m redacting to protect your privacy, take three whacks”. No, we did it the stupid way, like, “hey everyone line up, girls before boys, and then take one turn each, but first spend an excruciatingly long time planning your angle of attack and then make sure you examine the pinata for at least 90 seconds afterward to see if you made even a hairline fracture in it.” After 20 minutes I handed the stick to the Ogre, told all the kids to back up, and then laughed kind of maniacally when he hit it so hard that it flew off the rope and landed on the ground, still mostly intact, with the candy trapped safely inside.

Then I stopped laughing because holy sh*t, if you ever want to see a bunch of kids LARPing The Walking Dead, just throw a pinata full of candy on the ground. Our neighbor actually waded into the hoard and picked it up to try and open it, and honest to God, I thought he was going to go down hard like the poor horse dumb Rick rode into Atlanta.

#2

My teeth hurt. I’ve been doing all this dental stuff to fix my pregnancy-induced gingivitis, but still, they hurt. I think it’s just my new reality. I’m Calah, I love martinis and wine, I watch too much TV, I have an angry baby and my teeth hurt.

Ibuprofen and I have become pals, though. I think I’ll buy him a friendship necklace for Christmas. You know, the kind where I have half the heart and he gets the other half? Because I’m not complete without you, oh prescription strength ibuprofen.

#7

There’s this thing happening in our house that is totally destroying the “winter wonderland” aesthetic that I haven’t even a little bit tried to create. I’ll show you:

WTF? Right? Who makes a stocking that points left? And please be advised that this particular stocking is single sided (honestly, who does that either?) and that I’d just turn them all around to match the dyslexic one but the Ogre’s stripey stocking is also single-sided. So I just did this. And it bothers me.

It bothers me even when I’m in the other room and I can’t see them, because I know that stocking is hanging there, backward, ruining the freaking harmonious Christmas motif I have going on in the sitting room.

#1

Don’t believe I have a harmonious Christmas motif going? Here, I’ll show you:

Behold our Christmas tree. It has ornaments on it. And lights, but I didn’t turn them on for this picture because the plug was ten steps away plus on the floor, and that sounded like a lot of work for a photo op of a tree. Note that the top is bare. That is because I wanted to put this on top:

but the Ogre said something about Christmas spirit and how we’ll have to change it on Christmas day or whatever. Personally I don’t see what’s more Christmasey than an angel eating people and the Doctor saving us (there’s a Christ metaphor in there somewhere, I know it…Dr. Curtsinger could have found it, God rest his soul). But even that wouldn’t have deterred me, until the Ogre said, “hey, I found a tutorial! Tell you what, if you make it, we’ll put it on the tree.”

The tutorial called for terrifying things like glue guns and modeling clay and a bowl of water, all of which are manifestly outside my crafting comfort zone. So I gave up on the idea and now we have no tree topper.

But you can do the tutorial for me if you want to make a tree topper today, overnight it to Florida, and make me the happiest Whovian in Whoville!

Or I guess you could keep it. Anyway, here’s the link.

#3

In case you’re wondering, and even if you aren’t, my crafting comfort zone is composed entirely of things you can stick together with icing. I’m happy there.

To highlight this point, I’ll show you what the Ogre did to make our sitting room more Christmasey. We got the tree and he trimmed it and then said, “want these trimmings to decorate with?” I looked at him blankly and said, “I don’t understand.”

He rolled his eyes and said, “never mind, I’ll do it.”

#6

For the record, my contribution was finding and putting out the Nativity set. Yeah, maybe we lost Mary and baby Jesus in the move, and maybe the figures are so similar that I can’t remember which is Joseph and which is the shepherd, and maybe Sienna’s paper Advent wreath is one more Advent wreath than we’ve ever had ever, but hey. You can’t win them all. Or I guess any of them. Or what is them? What am I even talking about?

I know lots of people, my husband included, like decorating with greenery. I know it’s a thing. I personally don’t like it. I like flowers and holly berries and all kinds of other things, but when people put holly (real or fake, or in our case, Christmas tree clippings) all over the house, mostly I think it looks like someone brought the yard in and dumped it all over perfectly good furniture. Like someone (not my husband, obviously, but a mythical, hypothetical person) said, “hey, honey, I’m not sure what to do with these weeds I just pulled, but I’m going to put them on the bookshelf you just dusted and arranged because it’s festive.” Um, thanks?

#1

Here’s the rest of my contribution to the festive sitting room:

I know you can’t tell, but that laundry basket has tape and ribbons in it. The tool box has stuff to make Christmasey stuff in it (actually I have no idea why it’s on the table). And there’s a tube of wrapping paper sticking out from behind the laundry basket. See, that’s how you do festive. Christmas-themed chaos is the way to go.

Liam apparently takes after me on the Christmas decorating front. Here’s his contribution:

An angel ornament whose skull and back he bashed in in a fit of toddler rage.

Actually I think he was just playing with it and dropped it.

But still. It looks like someone took a bite out of it:

#2

Am I repeating numbers? What is happening? I feel like I’ve been typing forever. I’m gonna go take a nap.

Go see Jen for more quick takes!