Ravenna

My Ravenna. Wow. She's this complex, wonderful, yet aggravating little girl. She's the cutest little thing you've ever seen. She's funny and quirky and insane. She's really bad though. She listens to no one & will do what ever she feels. She'll leave the room for two seconds and do something bad - then she'll come back in with her cute little self saying "I'm sorry Moggy" in that sweet little voice of hers. Really, you hear the word Moggy come out of her mouth and you're done for. She sings and sings. She's quite the dancer too.

She is a force to be reckoned with. I don't want to crush her independent spirit, but I would like her to listen to me - or at least pretend!

My little Ven is a broad. She's sweet as pie, and very girly. I paint her fingernails at least three times a week. She plays dress up all the time and loves her baby dolls. Make no mistake though, she will kick your butt if you try to mess with her. If Coen tries to take one of her babies, she'll whomp on him. Seriously - flying tackles and all.

I tell people all the time what a little hellcat she is, and that I'm glad I only have one like her. They think I'm kidding. Oh no, I'm not. I can barely handle her - I couldn't handle another one!

I don't want you to think I'm complaining about my daughter. I'm not. She is what she is - to the max. She's a free spirit, to say the least, and I love her and all of her Ravenna-ness.

She's going to be able to do whatever she sets her mind to do. I believe she can change the world someday.

Christmas Momminess...

I'm a mom. I knew I was a mom before Christmas, but now I'm REALLY a mom. Santa brought me a crock pot, cookie sheets and flannel jammie pants. All I'm missing is the bubble bath and the fuzzy slippers - the sad part is that I would have liked to add those to the pile. I loved everything Santa left under my tree! I've not only become a mom - I've become MY mom! Oh, Lord!

I had the giggles all Christmas morning watching my kids open all their gifts. They were really into it this year. Christmas is really starting to get fun at our house. I tend to be a Scrooge about the Christmas running, but after this year's Christmas morning - I'm looking forward to next year already. It was so much fun and filled my heart with such joy to watch my kids' every move Christmas morning.

Oh - and Christmas Eve service at church... Ven was a real pain, but I wouldn't change it for the world. Coen sang in the choir and then he was an angel in the children's nativity. His robe was too big and he kept tripping on it, but he really looked like a little angel with his tinsel halo draped around his head. The whole time there was Ven in the isle yelling - "There's my brother! Look he's an angel!" - you know, in 2-year-old language. She sang during all the songs. She had no idea what she was singing, but it didn't stop her. When we lit the candles she started singing Happy Birthday.

So this is Christmas.

The holiday changed for me that first year Coen was born, but now that the kids are getting into the holiday it's a whole new ballgame. We read The Night Before Christmas & I explained what a clatter and a sash were. Coen and Ven cut out cookies and piled loads (and loads) of sprinkles on top of them to pass out to all of our friends and neighbors.

It's just the beginning for our family. I can't wait until next year when Lil will be able to get excited about opening presents as much as her older brother and sister. I can't wait for all the Christmas mornings to come. Our livingroom looked like a tornado whipped through. It was great. I would say I feel like a kid again, but that's not it. It's better than that - I'm a mommy.

The constant worry... aka "Parent"

I love being a mom. I discovered with my first born child that every cliche you ever heard about being a parent was true. "You never thought you could love anyone so much." "It's the most amazing thing you'll ever experience." "You'll never look at anything the same again." They're all true. The other one that also got me was "You'll worry about them for the rest of your life."

You do. You worry about everything. I never used to me so neurotic, but I am now. I try to play it cool, but it's always in the back of my mind. What's worse is that I work in the media. I sit and read the AP news wire every night. I see things that you don't want to know about. What is wrong with people that they do such horrible things to kids? It just makes me a freak about my kids even more. I tone it down a bit for my husband, or he may have me committed. Seriously, what is wrong with these people? I would love to let my kids go out and play in the back yard while I'm putting lunch together, but I'm afraid to leave them in the yard unattended. Someone might come by and snatch them off of their swing.

What kind of world is this? Was it always like this? Has the media done this to us? Has the media made us all such neurotic freaks that our kids aren't allowed to walk to school anymore, or is the world going to hell in a hand basket? Perhaps it's a little of both, I don't know. All I know is that I've always dreamed of having children, and now I have three of the most beautiful babies I've ever laid eyes on, and I've never been so scared in my life. Sometimes my chest tightenes up and I find it hard to take a solid breath when I think about it.

I watch my children bounce around and play and use their little imaginations and I wonder, how could anyone hurt something like that? I can't imagine it gets easier as they get older, but I hope so. In the meantime, I'll just pray for them.

Hard Friends

Every one has that one friend. The friend that is really hard to be friends with, but you keep them around anyway. Our reasons may vary as to why they're hard to be friends with, and why we continue to keep them around. This doesn't make them bad friends, but it makes them hard friends.

I have one of these. I've known this person for almost 20 years. In those 20 years, their friendship was always a hard one, but also rewarding. Everyone would always ask me why I chose to spend so much time with this person, and my answer was always the same - because I like them & we have fun together. We could always share things we couldn't talk about with other people, be goofy and stupid the way we couldn't with other people, and cry in front of each other because neither of us would ever cry infront of other people. We really were the yin to each other's yang.

Over the years we've still managed to keep this friendship. It's still the same in some ways, but it has drastically changed in others. We can still share things with each other that we wouldn't necessarily share with anyone else. We can be goofy, but my friend is rarely in the mood to be goofy, or take a joke. She cries in front of me, but I rarely cry in front of her - it seems uncomfortable in a weird sort of way. She has changed, but hasn't at the same time.

She never has time for me unless she needs something, it seems. She has other friends that she goes off and acts goofy with. She spends her time with them and confides in them. She calls me when things aren't going right. I'm the person that gets all of her problems. Not everytime she calls, but most of the time.

Do I sound jealous? Well, I am. She was my friend, and now she has no time for me unless she needs me for something. I couldn't tell you the last time we went out together. I used to ask her to do stuff with me all the time, and then she would bail on me at the last minute. I still ask her to do stuff with me, but she's always got an excuse as to why she can't. The thing about it is that she calls me after ditching me to tell me about all the stuff she's done with all of these other people. She honestly doesn't think this hurts my feelings. She means no harm to me, but causes it all the same. I don't say anything to her about it, why add something to the list of woes crashing down upon her.

I bought my house almost two years ago and can count on one hand the number of times she's been in it. Even then it was with someone else, or for a birthday party. She practically drives by it every day.

She recently celebrated a birthday, or should I say didn't celebrate a birthday. She made plans with all her friends to go out together. She wanted to invite all her friends from work and everyone she was friends with outside of work too. I called that night to wish her Happy Birthday and found her at home by herself crying because everyone bailed on her. I was angry for a couple of reasons. First of all, how dare these people treat her like this. Secondly, why was I never invited? I even brought it up while she was sobbing on the other end of the phone. Normally I keep these things to myself, but I was so extremely hurt by this that I asked why I wasn't included. "Well, you have a family an I figured you were with them." Excuse me? Of course I'm with them - we all live together. Am I being punished for having a family? Is my family the reason why I've become the friend she doesn't actually want to spend time with, but is OK to come to when the chips are down? My husband doesn't keep me chained in the basement. I'm allowed to go out with my friends. Would I do it every weekend? No, but I would go out with my friend for her birthday. As a matter of fact, if this particular friend called and said I'll meet you in 5 minutes, can you be there? I would fly like the wind.

Then I sat and really thought about it. Why do I still chose to be friends with this person? The answer is because she needs me, and that's what friends are supposed to do - be there when they're needed. I'm not the person she wants to go out with and have fun with. Sure, she only calls me when her world is turning upside down. But that's why we were paired up. I'm her rock to lean on. I'm her consistency. I'm the person she feels safe to call when things are tough and I can listen without trying to fix everything. I can offer her my view on things to help sort things out. I can share with her, and we can still talk about things that we would never utter to anyone else.

I'm her glue, and her strength - and that's not a bad thing to be. Is it hard sometimes? Yes. Am I up to it? Yes. Friendships evolve, just as people do. Our friendship may not always be like this, but if it is, that's OK.

I still may get jealous, but I'll be fine. I've just come to accept that she needs me to be the pillar she leans on. I would be lying if I didn't say that I'm honored to be someone's pillar, but just every once in a great while it would nice just to be girlfriends going out to have a good time.

For the sake of Santa

My husband and I went out a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving and did our Christmas shopping in one day. Sure there were a handful of items here or there that needed to be picked up, but for the most part we were done - at least for our kids.

Then it happened.

After Thanksgiving at his cousins' house all we've heard about is the "Wii."

"Maybe we should get Daddy one of those for his birthday in the spring, do you think that would be good?"

"That's a really long time away, isn't it?"

"It's only a couple of months."

"Yeah, I think I'll ask Santa to bring it to our house and Daddy and I can share it - and we'll share it with you and Ravenna and Lily too!"

OH NO!!! Don't ask Santa for the IT toy that no one can get their hands on!! That's all we hear about night and day. "I'm going to ask Santa for a Wii! All I want Santa to bring is a Wii! I can't wait to get my W"ii!

Now, I realize we can sit him down and explain to him that maybe Santa can't get a Wii, but how do you tell this to a 4 year-old. I realize we can also explain to him that he's 4 and maybe should wait until he's older to ask Santa for a Wii. Here's the thing - my husband and I really want Santa to bring us a Wii too! However, knowing how hard they are to come by, we thought we would ask the Easter Bunny to leave one intsead.

OK - here's the deal I made with my husband. Find out who's going to get them in and exactly what I need to do get ahold of one. Toys R Us - no later than 5am on Sunday morning. Are you kidding me? I have to stand in line with all those video game losers and crazy people that camp out infront of stores all night? Then Coen runs through the room "When Santa brings me my Wii, I'll teach you how to bowl. OK, Mom?"

So there I am turning the alarm off at 4:15 am on Sunday morning. I stop at Sheets and get some very tasty French Vanilla Cappuccino. I pull into the parking lot thinking I could sit in the car a minute to enjoy my Cupp-o-joe, but there's already a pretty good size line going out there. The scoop we heard was that they were getting in between 20 and 30 games that morning. Well, I'm about the 25th person in line... they better be getting closer to 30, or I'm gonna be pissed.

I sat in line and chatted with the elderly lady infront of me. Her grandkids really wanted one, so she was there with the rest of us on a cold, rainy Sunday morning. Thank goodness there was a roof over our heads, or this could have been even more miserable. There was another guy behind me getting one for his 13 year-old daughter. Their kids were old enough to get that, if we can't find one before Christmas we can always get one later on. My kid doesn't get that. The game plan was; I'll stand in line once. If I get one, great! If not, he's getting a $10 gift card from Toys R Us with a little note from Santa that the store was out, but we can go get one ourselves. I think he would be OK with that.

I was a little curious, so I asked the people around me if they would hold my spot for me for just a minute. They were very nice to do so, so I wandered up to the front of the line. Up front was this blonde woman with a scarf wrapped over her whole face like the invisible man. She had about three blankets on her and was lounged back pretty far in her chair. Her name was Laurie. She wasn't very talkative, and actually a little rude. She said she had been there since 12:30. I then decided she wasn't rude, but cold, tired and probably sick of people asking her what time she got there. The next person in line arrived at 3:30. So from 12:30 to 3:30 AM this little blonde woman was camped out infront of a store all by herself over by Chapel Hill! I'm not saying it's a bad area - it doesn't matter what area it is - that's just not safe! She's lucky someone didn't find her body behind Marcs that next day! But she was able to stay safe, and her kid will have a happy Christmas now.

I arrived at exactly 5 am and didn't sit in my car to drink my cappuccino, I drank it in line. I seemed to be getting colder and colder as we stood there. Time was moving so slow & I had the wrong car. It was so early I wasn't even thinking -"grab a blanket & a lawn chair!" I thought of it on my way there, but not before I left the house. There was a group towards the front of the line wearing their hunting gear and had a heater blasting on them that was attached to their car battery. Now that's preparation! I couldn't even find my hat!

Around 7:30 the doors opened. A guy came out and passed out flyers with sales tickets attached to them. As he moved down the line the woman in front of me and I thought the pile might make it to us. We held our breath and waited. YES!!!!!! YES YES YES!!!! I called my husband to find out exactly what else I was supposed to buy to go along with this thing. When I got off the phone I looked behind me. There were five people standing there. Whew! I'm glad I didn't sit in my car to drink my coffee! Santa will not disappoint - at least this year. The 30, or so people behind me that had been waiting for hours in the cold and rain all left. They'll probably be back later to buy a gift card.

I'm sorry to all of you who've stood in line for hours outside of a store before it opens. You're not all crazy nuts. Most of you are parents who love your kids. Most of you are all thinking, "I'm crazy to be doing this, but it's worth it." I'm now a part of the club. This was my first time, but I'm sure it won't be my last. I'll remember to get out the camping gear next time!