Dec 29 … Night

Knees drawn to my chest, I sit in my favorite green swivel chair in the cold den, the one the dog and I constantly fight over. A blanket is covering my legs, arms hugging my bent knees, a warm mug of tea in my hands. The steam seems almost tangible, I try to circle a tendril with my finger to no avail. Kristin is laying on the couch with a blanket to her chin, mug of tea on the end table next to her, sudoku book next to that, and remote control deftly in her hands. One dog is at my feet on the tail of my blanket, the other dog is stretched along Kristin’s body like a 50 lbs pillow. The children have all gone to their beds with few arguments. We will soon put the dogs in their beds and rest our pretty heads as well. Good nights are abound, sanity reigns and fears allayed.

A subtle finger trace along her chin, following her cheek and finally catching a tendril of hair behind her ear. Kristin looks at me like I’m crazy, smiles, and then goes to turn off the TV. Even though the dogs know their place they jump on our bed showering it with more hair before being shooed away. A new day soon approaches and a new year will soon be on us shortly. Good night all.

Dec 11 … it’s that time, again

Dec 9 – Well, the Christmas tree is up and the children are elated that they have something to decorate and the parents are elated that it isn’t the walls or floors for once. I spent about an hour setting it up over the weekend and the children (mainly Kate and Emma) spent an hour or so putting various decorations on it. They were not allowed to put any glass decorations on for fear of breaking them, so they were continuously running from tree to Kristin or me asking if this ornament or that ornament was glass. This went on mainly unsupervised, so when Kristin got in there to actually look at the tree she saw that, although they did a fairly good job of not clumping the ornaments together, they left a few too many close to ‘dog level.’ Kristin straightened out the low hanging ornaments and everyone was happy (except for the dogs who now have to settle for regular dog food). Since I could not find our small collection of Christmas music, I settled on the next best thing, the soundtrack to The Nightmare Before Christmas. The kids wanted to watch it so I put the movie in. Kate was alright with the whole thing, Emma did not want to watch the scary parts and wanted Kate to let her know when they were over so she could watch again. After it started Nathan just wanted to play Gamecube and kill the bad guys. Attention spans waned and soon the movie was playing by itself and one child was in the kitchen, one was in Nathan’s room, and Nathan was on to a different game on the game station. Heaven forbid I turn the movie off, though, as they were back in the den as soon as I touched the TV to let me know they were watching it – albeit from different rooms, obviously.

Dec 11 – Another round of The Nightmare Before Christmas and this time everyone was happy enough to watch it for a full 10 minutes, well, maybe 15 minutes. Kristin was already working on the computer and listening to music there, so to make things worse Nathan goes in and starts to play Gamecube. The girls decide to pull out some old soccer shin guards and put them on their feet to make skates out of. Now, with the movie in the background, the girls are running around the den in their makeshift skates going on and on (and on and on) about how much like real skates they sound. I tire of the movie not being watched again so I turn on the stereo and turn off the movie. Now, we have the cacophony of the computer dinging and playing rock music, the gamecube, children laughing and talking loudly, and a stereo blaring out oddities like Madonna and Edie Brickell. To make matters more… interesting, I get the dogs riled up, jumping around, and barking. Wine… we must now have wine. Since the dogs were brought into the picture, it is the perfect time to pick up the girls (one at a time, please) and swing them around the room, feet barely above the dogs heads, almost hitting furniture, laughing hysterically and asking to go again. Next time around I make a seat out of my arms and swing them up and down at dog face level. Thankfully the dogs are smart enough to not get close enough to get kicked, but dumb enough to run up and lick faces as soon as the swinging is over. Nathan runs in to tell me about a boss he killed, or a level he achieved, and then runs back to kill some more. Kristin comes in from time to time to tell me what Nathan is doing or to tell me about a song she is listening to. Dogs are running from couch to playroom to me and back, jumping on each other and barking the whole time.

Mean old Daddy realizes the time and starts taking the skates off the girls feet, tries to calm the dogs down, and tells Nathan to save his game… bed time is upon us. Girls have to take a bath, Mommy helps with their hair. Dogs have to go out to pee and chase imaginary bunnies one last time. Nathan has to save his progress upon penalty of me shutting off his game out from under him (he, as all gamers, hate that, trust me). Stereo is turned off, computer sound is turned off, and dogs are no longer inside to bark at me. Things are starting to get calm, finally. The girls get out of the bath and Mommy dries their hair. Nathan has finally turned off the Gamecube, checks his sugar, and goes to the bathroom one last time. Everyone goes to their rooms, I finish picking up after the girls’ skate party, let the dogs in, and then crash into the bed myself. Good night, one and all.