So, I got a portable docking station for my iPod so that I can listen to my playlists when I’m moving around the house, picking up the assorted crapola that comes with living with people other than yourself. I’ve got my playlists named by what I’m usually doing when I listen to them or what kind of mindset I’m trying to get into. For example, I’ve got one called Dean’s List that I listen to when I study. It’s exclusively classical music, Tchaicovsky, Mozart, Bizet, that kind of thing. I can’t study with music that has lyrics because then I start to sing along and then I start writing things like, “It’s Britney, bitch,” instead of median nerve of the brachial plexus. And yes, I do listen to Britney Spears, but it’s not like I own ALL of her CDs. Anyway, you get the idea. I have is called, Size 8, that I listen to when I’m dying a slow and humiliating public death running at the YMCA. I have a Casino Royale playlist of all James Bond theme songs. And then I have another one of the leftover stuff that I can’t categorize into anything called AlphaBits. Yeah, I don’t get that name either, but it stuck.

AlphaBits is my go-to playlist when I’m at home and need some background music over the incessant toddler chatter about Disney Princesses, who really is Cinderella, why Co-dizz has to be the Beast, how come there aren’t any more Fruit Snacks and whether or not it’s time to watch Wonder Pets on Noggin. Pretty tame stuff on AlphaBits — no Uncle Luke, no Black Sabbath, nothing that would get a parental adivsory label on it. Just some feel-good music, like Eye of the Tiger. I mean, c’mon, who doesn’t get all Rocky-fied when they hear that song. I hear the opening bars and feel like I might just could get the vacuum down from the laundry room and actually DO something! Might. Just. Could.

Turns out, Mo-dizz is not immune to force of that Survivor powerhouse. Now, if I could just get her to pick up the crayons and puzzle pieces in between verses. . . .

And no, she didn’t get those moves from me.

So, school is back in session for me and I have been spending any and all me-myself-and-I time up to my eyesockets in the books. Or maybe I should say, up to my orbicularis oculi. Yeah, it’s pretty serious.

I’ve taken to getting up at 5:30am in order to catch a quick shower, and then study until 7am when I get the girls. I study whenever they are asleep or supposed to be sleeping. I see all components of the cardiovascular system behind my eyeballs and am constantly amazed how pervasive information about regulating heart rate, blood pressure, blood volume, and heart health is in our media.

In between all of this, I have somehow managed to make dinners, breakfasts, and lunches. I have bathed little bodies, washed inordinate amounts of laundry, put gas in my car, read innumerable pages of Shel Silverstein, Richard Scary, and friends innumerable amounts of time. Of course, “Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout” is one of my favorites, so I can’t complain on that one.

Somewhere in there, I took Mo-dizzle out to get her hair done — in a salon — just like a grown-up — for the very first time. We went to BestCuts and Miss Vonnie was outstanding in making Mo-dizz feel comfortable. I totally expected her to put Mo on a stack of phone books and lean her back over the sink for a shampoo, but was pleasantly surprised (and relieved) to see Miss Vonnie use a spray bottle and assorted hair accoutrements after draping Mo in a kid friendly drape and booster pillow.

Mo had an inch taken off all around, and no, I didn’t save the little hair scraps for her baby book. Shame on me, right? Then, after perusing several volumes of Dudley Q Hair Designs, we decided to have Mo’s hair braided into some zig-zag cornrows. All in all, about an hour and a half in the chair with the promise of some popcorn from Target (she’s so easy), and Mo-dizz was good to go.

Sitting in the chair, getting the ‘do done!

Our first trip to the hairdresser and I can’t really complain. Excellent service, on time, great price, happy kid and I don’t have to do any hair for at least a week. Popcorn from Target for everyone!!

Morgan got her hair “did”!!

I didn’t see that movie, but I feel like that’s what we have going on at our house recently. Mo-dizz is adamant about wearing a dress. . .every. . .single. . .day. Sure, it’s not totally unreasonable, but I feel like, we don’t live in 1898, so you can wear jeans and cords and *gasp* shorts, too! You don’t have to ride side-saddle anymore, either!

The dress wearing wouldn’t be such a big deal if several things were to fall into place:
1. She would actually agree to wear ALL of the dresses in her closet at some time or another. Nothing is more frustrating that trying to wipe caked on crap off of Co’s butt in one room while negotiating the merits of a turtleneck dress versus peter pan collar shirt-dress in other with a very pushy 3 year old.

2. She would be okay with leaving the Cinderella costume from Halloween in the dress-up box instead of putting it on top of the dress she is already wearing. I’m all for accessorizing, don’t get me wrong, but double dresses? And mixing Fall Forrest from Gymboree with Disney Princess Cinderealla Blue? Somebody call Stacy London!

3. She would rotate a skirt into the mix. To me, skirts and dress? Ultimate sisters, if not cousins of the non-enclosed leg family. No haps with Mo. It’s either a dress or, well, a tantrum.

Throw Christmas and two very indulgent grandmothers into the mix and you’ve got extravagant dress-up clothes I don’t even think some members of royal families are privy to. For example, back in August, a neighbor gave me a catalog for a place called Chasing Fireflies, which is a pretty upscale children’s clothing boutique. Mo-dizz flipped through it and settled her sights on a Queen of Hearts Costume. DH, in his infinite wisdom suggests that we purchase the costume for her for Christmas. Let me just throw in the fact that said costume retails for $98, with crown, scepter and neck piece sold separately, of course. Call me cheap, but I just can justify that for a 3 year old. But, I figure, if it’s for Christmas, well, one big gift and a stocking ought to be alright.

Mo talks incessantly about the Queen of Hearts Costume, telling one and all how that is what Santa Claus is going to bring her. She talked about it at school, at Sunday School, at home, at Target, all over the place, even when we picked up her Cinderella costume from and put that on her. Cinderella is her go-to gal, evidently. Queen of Hearts, Queen of Hearts, Queen of Hearts. Shortly after Thanksgiving, it dawns on me, I should probably order this thing. And of course, they don’t have it in her size. They’ve got a 10 and suggest to me to purchase that and whittle it down. Yeah, and when I’m done, I’ll finish adding the last two stars to the American Flag.

While all of these machinations are working themselves out, I’ve taken the girls to the library where Mo has happened upon a book called Lettice, about a rabbit who becomes a flower girl. My sweet, sweet Mo — she swings big. While she likes the story, she totally bypasses the flower girl rabbit and fixates on the bride (for some reason the rabbit takes dance lessons from a human instructor who is getting married). Mo now proclaims, “I am going to be a wedding lady for Christmas!” Oh boy. We ask her about the Queen of Hearts and she maintains that, yes, she is going to be that, too, but she is going to be a “wedding lady”, too!

What to do, what to do? Call in the big guns — the sewing skills of my mother and my mother-in-law (aka MIL). MIL decided to tackle the Queen of Hearts, my mother, the wedding lady dress. The sewing skills of both of these women is phenomenal. MIL made her ensemble that she wore to our wedding. My mom made many Halloween costumes for me and made that pumpkin suit for Co. MIL made the girls’ baptism dress and their Christmas dresses. My mom made them personalized rag dolls. Me? I bake, but I digress.

Suffice it to say, Christmas morning found Mo the owner of enough dresses to furnish any trousseau. Between the several school dresses from Santa, Mommy & Daddy, and even Co-dizzle, she’s set at least until kindergarten. As for the dress up dresses, well. . .see for yourself. . .

Queen of Hearts made by Grandma

click here to see the dress from Chasing Fireflies

The talent here is ridiculous, I know. That’s why I put in my order for a red dupioni silk wrap dress before word gets out and I can’t even get a friends and family discount!

So my fingers have finally regained their feeling after untwisting and releasing countless toys from their plastic habitats on Christmas morning. Why, for the love of all that is wholesome, do manufacturers insist on binding their products to their packaging? Christmas morning comes, holiday wrapping strewn aside, and tiny hands scrabble to open their presents only to be thwarted by two dozen twist ties binding Princess Barbie at the neck, wrists, forehead, waist, hips, thighs, ankles, and areas prone to chafing.

By the time I freed her from her plastic casing, Mo was already four presents ahead of me, and Co was dancing a jig, holding a half unwrapped box of Ready, Set, Go! Toddler cars. Four cars in the box, each bound by no less than six twist ties. I got the first one freed, frantically handed it to her so as to work on the next ones, but given she has the attention span of a fruit fly, she had moved on to snacking on the crayons in Mo’s stocking.

Early in December, I had read an article in Parents or Parenting or some kind of parent-focused magazine, where the author proudly boasts that in addition to making roasted corn and butternut squash bisque with vegetable from her own garden, a Bosc pear and fennel stuffed turkey, and sweet fried plantains topped with a roasted beet relish, in between her Annie Liebowitz photographed family holiday photoshoot, and having her Christmas Letter edited by Anna Wintour, she dutifully released all of the toys from their bindings, ties, and handcuffs before lovingly placing said toys back into their respective packaging and wrapping them in the homemade pulp free holiday paper she whipped up on her back porch while waiting for her contractions to get strong enough so that she could labor in her inflatable pool and bring forth baby number five in her size 0 Juicy Couture Maternity Terry Dress sans doctor, doula, epidural, smelling salts or a king size sleeve of Reese Peanut Butter Cups — four months before Christmas Day.

I don’t subscribe to that magazine any more.

*sigh* I had planned to write about the Christmas holiday, the lack of egg nog (yes, I said lack) I imbibed, TV shows I’ve watched, the cold I caught that is hanging around like I owe it some money, things like that, instead of this present opening diatribe. So, dear readers, here’s hoping that you had a wonderful holiday and that you bring in the New Year doing whatever it is you enjoy, with whomever it is you enjoy doing that with. See you in the new year.

So we are deep in the throes of Operation Christmas Countdown. The tree is up and dressed, the Christmas cards we’ve received are hanging from the mantel, we’ve got Bing Crosby and Nat King Cole on repeat, cookies have been made and distributed. and the girls handmade Christmas dresses arrived yesterday (thank, Grandma Lorna!). Pictures of that to follow, rest assured.

Of course, no Christmas season would be complete without the last minute scramble for presents and assorted stocking fillers that have been forgotten despite the day-to-day trips to the malls and department stores. You’d think that I’d have gotten a handle on it all, especially since we’ve decided to keep Christmas more contained than years past. I really wanted to adopt a 4 gift rule – something you want, something you need, something to wear, and something to read — but that wasn’t as well received by the masses as I had hoped. In the end, we decided for the sake of practicality and for the sake of our wallets — hello, economic downturn — that we would buy a handful of things for the girls, that DH and I would exchange between ourselves, and everyone else can have a big helping of, “Happy Holidays from our house to yours”! I did offer my parents a kind of service exchange, where I reluctantly happily do something for them that they’ve been nagging asking me to do, such as organize their photos into photo albums or address their Christmas cards for next year. In exchange for whatever task they have for me, they’re going to watch Mo and Co for New Year’s Eve. Woo! Woo! Woo!

But, back to the last minute scramble. My mom often tells this Christmas story of how a young Hilary with one L had her Christmas list made and that the year’s most coveted toy, a Cabbage Patch Kid (I’m dating myself here), was not on the list. Dear Mom asked and asked, “Are you sure you don’t want one? Are you sure you really don’t want a Cabbage Patch Kid,” to which young Hilary steadfastly maintained, “No”, “No” and again, “No” before going back to butcher the hair of some unflinching Barbie or some such. Almost everyday, Mom would ask me in a twisted “Green Eggs and Ham” type exchange.

Do you want a Cabbage Patch Kid?
Do you want one named Sarah Syd?
Would you like one Christmas Eve?
Would you like one under the tree?
Would you like one here or there?
Would you like one anywhere?

Fast forward to about four days before Christmas: guess who decides they want a Cabbage Patch Kid? Much applause to Dear Mom, though, who had the foresight to have stocked her closet with one or two of those hard-headed, perpetually dimpled dolls with yarn hair. So yes, I did get a Cabbage Patch for Christmas and her name was Joella. I think the next one I got was named O’Greta Hawkins. Seriously, I couldn’t make that up. Dear Mom averted a crisis and all was right with the world. When I heard that story as an adult, I laughed and thought, “That’ll never happen to me, not when I have kids.” When I heard that story as a first time parent, I thought, “That’ll never happen to me, not when Mo-dizz gets bigger.” When I heard that story as a mother of two, I thought, “That’ll never happen. They’ll get what they get and be happy about it!” Then the Fisher Price catalog arrived in the mail.

Curse you Fisher Price and your multitude of pastel colored toys for girls, your glossy pages filled with preschoolers playing effortlessly with toys that have taken a small time of MIT graduate students to assemble! Mo-dizz has been walking around with the catalog under her arm for the past three or four days in a Fisher Price delirium, telling anyone and anything that will listen, “And I want this and I want that and I’ll have that for Christmas and I want this and I want that and I’ll have that for Christmas and I want this and I want that and I’ll have that for Christmas and I want this. . . .”

She brings the catalog to the table at every meal. She brings it with her when she takes a nap or goes to bed. She tried to bring it with her to the bathroom, but I had to draw the line on that one — we have a hard enough time finagling good wiping without the distraction of the Loving Family Grand Victorian Dollhouse.

There have been no written amendments to the her Christmas list that hangs from the fridge, but she has been whispering and mumbling about this dollhouse consistently. Do I have it in the closet? Um, that would be a “no”. Like I really knew she was going to want that! Am I going to scramble between now and Thursday to whip this thing out of thin air? Um, that would be a “yes”. And why? Why do it, despite all of my better judgment, all of my posturings, and all of my soap box declarations of how I’m not going to be that mom?

Because there’s a hard-headed, perpetually dimpled doll with yarn hair in Mo and Co’s toy box, and her name is Joella.

It’s the holiday season and the wish lists abound. I helped Mo and Co get their respective thoughts on paper for the fat man, but I haven’t given any brain time to what I’m interested in. I can clearly remember being about seven or eight years old, laying on my bedroom floor with the Sears WishBook and the Toys R’ Us catalog spread out next to me, dog-earing the pages and making notes in a spiral bound Mead. I didn’t go as far as to cross-reference, color-code or provide an appendix to that list, but there was a list nonetheless.

Now that I’m a so-called grown-up, I am bombarded with the fact that the hooplah of Christmas is reserved for the Noggin and Nick Jr. set. Well, I just can’t accept that. I mean, I will, but, it’s not like I’m happy about it. So I guess that means, I should take my letter to Santa off of the fridge, right? And no dropping hints to my Grams about what size I take and which stores I frequent? Dang it! Can I at least leave a couple of clipped out pages from the Tiffany’s catalog on DH’s pillow? How about emailing “Someone thought you might like this” teaser’s to my parents’ email from the Banana Republic website? Yeah, didn’t think so.

In all honesty, there really isn’t anything that I REALLY want for Christmas, but there are a few things that I need to see happen.

1. I need for Shane Mercado to have his own TV show or something. He just looks like a lot of fun.

2. I really need for Orville Reddenbacher’s Simply Salted popcorn to not taste so freakin‘ good! I’m going through like 2 boxes a week.

3. I really, really needed for Lil Sass to have been wrong about those Fiber One Bars. Ohhhhh, my stomach. . .

4. I need to be more consistent about having my camera more accessible for all of the once-in-a-million photo ops and hilarious banter between Mo and Co. I need to work on this because Mo’s rendition of “Santa, Baby” while Co dances back-up can’t be done justice by mere words.

5. I need for the library branches nearest me to have the books I’m looking for on their shelves. Seriously, this is driving me insane. You’re a library! You’re supposed to have books! On your shelves! For people to check out! It isn’t even a case of other patrons taking out the books because the books aren’t even there to be taken out! Time to update the inventory, people.

6. I need for Co’s “crapbook” to finish itself for me. Oh, the best of intentions, I truly do have them. The pages are there, the pictures are there. The motivation? Not there. I did make progress, though, and I hauled the box of scrappin‘ stuff out of the closet. I know where her book is. It’s all about the baby steps, people, all about the baby steps.

7. I need for Mo to just take a nap when it’s nap time, instead of the 90 minute running commentary that I get. Everyday, for the past 3 years, at the same time every day, we have a rest and everyday, for the past 3 years, at the same time every day, that little voice just keeps going and going and going. She ran through her entire song library of seasonal favorites, including “5 Little Pumpkins”, “Jingle Bells” and “This is the Way We Give Thanks” (though I think she made that last one up), before launching into “Do You Know Your Continents”, “How Many Months in a Year” and my personal favorite, “Do You Know Your Continents -Remix”, which is currently in the queue as I type this.

*sigh* I need a vacation. . .

ps. I really need not to watch Newsies for the umpteenth time, but it’s On Demand! It’s demanding to be watched! You know why (wink,wink, nudge, nudge).

So this is my first week off from school and I am dizzy from trying to figure out what to do with all of the time I had previously spent studying. Apparently the decision had already been made for me over the Thanksgiving holiday because when I went to put on my jeans Tuesday morning, they seem to have shrunk in the closet. WTF? Oh wait, I know. Must have been that Ben and Jerry’s/pumpkin pie with “Cool HWhip“ (you have to watch the whole thing!)/rum balls/chocolate chip cookies with walnuts/coffee with pumpkin pie spice creamer or maybe that extra helping on sauteed spinach I had. Plus, for some reason when the holiday season hits, I turn into Betty Crocker/Paula Deen and start baking and cooking like I’m in contention for Top Chef. Seriously. I’ve made rum balls, two different kinds of chocolate chip cookies, homemade meatballs and tomato sauce, roasted corn and garlic potato soup. No chef worth their salt wouldn’t taste their creations as they go, right?

I know, I know, it’s not like I don’t really know how that happened. Anyhoodle, the bottom line is this bottom ain’t fitting in the jeans. I swear, I’ve been singing this song for as long as I can remember, but more to the point, seems like the free time has now become gym time.

Truth be told, I like going to the gym. I like working out and feeling strong. I get kind of pumped when I’m doing the assisted chin ups/dips (yeah, emphasis on the assisted) and see my triceps bulge like a ‘roided up bodybuilder. I get my playlist in my iPod going and before I know it, it’s time to start the cooldown. Of course, by the time I leave the gym, I’m dying for something good to eat. I’ve started bringing an apple, extra water, maybe a Fiber One bar (eat at your own risk) to munch on and I do pretty well throughout the day. Then, dinner time hits and I am like the Tazmanian Devil at an All-You-Can-Scarf buffet. It’s like a hole opens in my stomach so that anything I put in my mouth goes straight from my throat through the stomach and into the wooden leg I seemingly have acquired. And me being short-waisted and only 5’3″, you’d think the leg would fill up quickly. *sigh*

I refuse to turn myself in to WW again — unless LibbY does it with me because misery loves company. Maybe I should since LibbY found an ad with me in it — if that’s not a sign, I don’t know what is. I’m resolving to get it together and get those jeans back on sans the muffin top. Mmmmm, muffins. . . .