Fold My Laundry Please

Yesterday we had a little bit of last minute shopping to take care of.  Nothing big, Andrew wanted to pick something up at Walmart and I needed to get some groceries from Albertson’s.  Since the two stores are in the same shopping center, we decided to split up and save a bit of time.  I took the kids with me and we headed off to get some food.  When we got inside, we saw Santa sitting there in the front of the store!  He was the best looking Santa that I’ve ever seen in person!  In fact, I’m pretty sure he was the real deal!  He had jingle bells sewn all down his hat, his beard was real, he was wearing real leather boots (not those slip on thingys that come in the costume kits), he had on a wide leather belt that had studs and rivets in holiday designs, and he had a large leather pouch hanging from his belt that you just knew had "The List" in it!  I asked the kids if they wanted to talk to Santa, but no one did.  (Gideon is a bit sketchy on the whole "Santa Claus in Person" thing and Ethan said, "I already told Santa that I wanted a guitar.")  So we just sat there and watched Santa talk to the kids for a while.  That’s when Santa convinced me he was real.  A Mexican lady and her little girl walked up to Santa.  The Big Guy leaned over and spoke to the little girl.  "How are you today?" he said.  The girl just stood there, staring at him with big wide eyes.  Then Santa said, "Habla Espanol?"  The little girls eyes got even wider and her face erupted in the biggest smile I’ve ever seen.  "Como esta?" he said, and then proceeded to ask her all about what she wanted for Christmas and such, all in Spanish!  I told the kids "See, Santa knows every language in the world!" and then my eyes welled up with tears and we quickly headed off to continue shopping because it would never do for me to sit there crying in the grocery store!

After we had paid for our things, we heard an announcement that our local fire department had arrived to take Santa back to the North Pole.  This caused Ethan to remark, "Santa doesn’t ride on fire trucks!  He uses reindeer!"  So I quickly explained that the reindeer have to get all rested up for their big flight and the fire department was nice enough to give him a ride home so that he can get ready, too.  As we headed out the door, we discussed the price of regular gas vs. magic gas and wondered whether we could get some of the magic kind for our own car.  We were just in time to see Santa climbing up onto the fire truck.  We all waved and the kids shouted things like, "Bye Santa!", "See you tomorrow!", and "Fly safe!"  And me, I just stood there trying hard not to burst into tears right there in the parking lot!  He might have been one of these guys, but I’m pretty sure he was the real thing!

Today is going to be a busy day!  We have cookies to bake (Santa likes ‘em fresh!), rooms to clean up (Santa hates tripping over toys in the middle of the night, too), and this evening we’re hosting our family’s Christmas-get-together-thingy at our house.  It should be a lot of fun, food, and PRESENTS!  Andrew’s brother Edward is in town for the holidays so it will be nice seeing him again.  (Side Note:  After New Year’s, Edward’s girlfriend is joining him here to meet the family.  Could things be getting serious?  Hmmmm…..)  And to make everything perfect, the weather has been cooperating beautifully this year!  All our snow had disappeared and then Friday it snowed all day leaving us with three or four inches on the ground.  Then it snowed all night last night putting down at least six more inches!  The weather guys keep telling us that there is one more cold front coming through our area and we’ll be getting snow all night tonight and into tomorrow morning!  "It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…."  Sing to me, Bing!

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Lets begin with a little bit of science.  According to Wikipedia, "The XX/XY sex-determination system is one of the most familiar sex-determination systems and is found in human beings and most other mammals. In the XY sex-determination system, females have two of the same kind of sex chromosome (XX), while males have two distinct sex chromosomes (XY)."  My theory is this, since a Y is basically an X that is missing a leg, that missing leg in the male combination of sex chromosomes is genetic coding for a desire to dance.  After all, while possible, it’s difficult and awkward to dance with only one leg.  Proof of my theory can be seen at almost any night club or wedding reception.  You generally see large groups of women on the dance floor, standing in a circle with a pile of their shoes in the middle, and dancing like there’ll be no tomorrow.  On the other hand, the men will stand around on the fringes of the action hoping to get the phone number of one of the women so that they can get away from the torture that is dancing.  If they do dance, it’s only an effort on their part to get that coveted phone number they so desire.  Meanwhile, the women remain pretty much oblivious to anything happening outside of their dance circle, content to dance away the stress of the day.  It’s a dilemma of nature, really.

Some of you may be wondering what brought this line of thought on.  Why on earth am I sitting around thinking about the XX vs. the XY sex chromosome combination and its relation to dancing and human dynamics?  Perhaps I’m a really deep person who is fascinated by the inner workings of human physiology.  Perhaps I have too much time on my hands.  HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!  TOO MUCH TIME ON MY HANDS!  BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!  *gasp*  *wheeze*  HAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA!  (Neither "LOL" nor even "ROFLMAO" could come near to expressing the laughter that erupted when I typed that last one!)  What really inspired me was watching Aurora as she goes about her day.  She’ll be busy running around, playing with her brothers while Andrew and I watch television.  Suddenly a commercial comes on that has a catchy tune on it.  Immediately she erupts in dance, unable and unwilling to stop.  Aurora could be sitting on the floor, quietly playing with cars, when someone begins to hum a song under their breath.  Aurora’s head starts bopping along with the beat.  It’s almost as though there is a natural compulsion to dance programmed into her very being.  This sort of thing doesn’t affect my boys.  There was only one incident of explosive and incapacitating dancing that happened to my oldest son when he had just barely started walking.  He was pushing a toy box that had wheels on it across the room when one of the toys inside started playing a song.  His little tushy started bebopping away, but it didn’t deter him from his task.  The little guy kept on going across the room.  Because he had a goal and heap of focus! 

In conclusion, girls dance, boys, not so much.  It sort of seems to grow out of them, which is sad really.  But as you can easily reason out once you understand the relationship between gender and genetics (as I myself do), without that other leg, the Y has a really hard time dancing.  Nobel Prize, here I come!  The question left to answer now is, what kind of ads do you think Google Adsense will put up on my site now that I’ve written a post that has the word, "sex" in it no fewer than eight (yes, I counted) times?  Watch and see, my friends.  Watch. And. See.

Want to feel really old, really quickly?  Go look up your graduating class on MySpace.  I thought I’d see how some of the people I went to school with are doing without having to actually talk to anyone.  I clicked through page after page of people and all I could think was, "Who are all these old people?"  I mean, GREAT GOOGILY MOOGILY!  We’re not that old!  And the sad part was the scent of desperation that accompanied almost all of them.  The clinging to coolness heard in the music and seen in the pictures of my old acquaintances still getting drunk at parties.  I’m not that old.  I’m still young.  And I actually am still cool.  Not that I ever was truly cool.  I was kind of a cool in geek’s clothing in high school.  But that’s not the point.  The point is that some of those "kids" I graduated high school with now have streaks of gray in their hair and 4+ children (the most likely cause of the gray hair, in my opinion).  One woman talked about her 12 year old daughter.  12 years old!  We only graduated 13 years ago!  I think this is why I avoid high school reunions.  In my mind’s eye, I’m still 19, skinny, and full of energy.  I try to avoid things that cause my delusions to self destruct.  You know, like MySpace…and mirrors.

Today we sat in traffic, circled parking lots, pushed our way through crowds, and waited in line, all to see Santa!  Our ward this year wasn’t having a Christmas party, so we had to search for Santa elsewhere.  Since we were going to Idaho Falls anyway today, I decided we should brave the mall during the height of the Christmas shopping season to find him.  And find him we did!  Ethan willingly sat next to Santa and prattled on about what he wanted to get for Christmas that year and Aurora just sat silently on Santa’s lap watching me while I wrestled with Gideon just trying to get him to stand somewhere in the vicinity of Santa.  I at least wanted him to get close enough to be in the picture.  Finally, I had to sit with everyone and be in the picture, too, so that he could sit on my lap. 

Gideon has never had a really close relationship with Santa.  He loves movies about him.  He points out every picture of Santa we see with childish enthusiasm.  But when it comes to actually talking to the man, Gideon wants nothing to do with him.  Ethan has never had this problem, but I knew there was going to be an issue this afternoon when Gideon started hugging my leg as we got closer to the front of the line.

This was the closest we could get Gideon to Santa last year…

…While neither Ethan nor Aurora had much of a problem with the big guy.

It was the same thing in 2004.

Ethan, yes.

Gideon….not so much!

Yes, Amber, I mean you!   I actually realized the link was wrong yesterday, but then life happened and I completely forgot about it. 

As an apology, I’m also posting the next day’s follow up to the first comic.  

Once again, just click on the pictures to see the comics close up.  Enjoy!

One of my all time favorite Christmas movies is "It’s a Wonderful Life".  I own two versions, black and white and colorized, and I have to watch both of them several times each holiday season.  Who am I kidding…I watch them year round!  Anyway, I was reading my favorite webcomics just now and I saw this one on Sheldon.  I laughed so hard because it’s something that’s bugged me about the movie, too!  Enjoy!

And just for fun…

I know that the writing is kind of hard to read because I had to shrink the strips to make them fit, but if you click on them it will open up the site so that you can read it easier.

Ethan was sitting quietly watching television yesterday.  I thought he was sucking his thumb, but when I asked he informed me he was wiggling his loose tooth for the Toothfairy.  I remember when I was little trying to wiggle my teeth loose, even if they weren’t loose yet, because I knew the Toothfairy gave money for teeth and I had decided to save up for a raft.  I wonder what Ethan’s saving up for?

Or in Aurora’s case, "Sheeeeeeeee!"

This is the smile I get every time I pull out the camera lately.

I just love that crooked little grin!

Ah, to cash in on the sales feel the holiday spirit so strongly!

This man’s wife must be a real terror!