Christmas Concerts - Part 3

Alex's Christmas Concert performance.

Christmas Concerts - Part 2

Connor's Christmas play.  He's the one in the dragon costume!!!

Christmas Concerts - part 1 - Kirstin

Kirstin's Strong Start class performs Jingle Bells!

Santa's citizenship

My children wrote letters to Santa last week.  Complete with full colour illustrations of the gifts that they would like this year.  

Alex's letter (edited several times over the course of a couple of days):

Kirstin's letter:

 Connor's letter:

I have to commend their efforts.  But I also cringed when in my mind I calculated the budget required to fulfill this years' dreams!   Two DS's and a Wii U?  Not to mention the Star Wars Lego Millenium Falcon which bears a hefty price tag of $99 for something that's likely going to be spread all over the living room by Boxing Day, and inadvertently vacuumed up over the next several months.

Oy!

So I had a conversation with the children about how Santa's elves don't know how to make electronics, and Santa actually has to purchase those types of gifts.  And how if we ask for too much, then it makes us look greedy and it takes away from his budget for all of the other children in the world.  They seemed to be okay with that explanation. Alex even amended his letter to state that if given the choice, he'd prefer the Wii U over the DS.  (The more expensive Wii U --- but something the whole family can share so maybe a better bang for Santa's bucks)

Kirstin has only asked for one thing... the 2012 Holiday Collector Barbie.  Not something I would ever consider purchasing for her.  She's still at an age that she destroys the hair and undresses the barbies and loses the clothing.  The "collector" status of any barbie in our house is greatly dimished the second she gets it out of the box.  Still what are toys if they aren't meant to be played with, right?  And it's the only thing she wants for Christmas.  An ethical dilemma I'll leave to Santa to solve.

I guess we'll have to see.  I think Santa's going to pick and choose from the wishes of my children.  I doubt that he will bring them everything their hearts desire.  But maybe he'll bring them one or two things they want, enough that they'll still be excited by the magic that is Santa.

The kids kept harassing me about 'when are you going to mail our letters' and I kept procrastinating hoping I could get away with keeping them for future scrapbook potential.  But they prevailed in their nagging... so I took photos and we sent the originals away. We mailed them to:  

Santa Claus, 

The North Pole 

HOH OHO  

Canada Post must have delivered the mail rather quickly because on Wednesday, they each received a response from the big guy himself!!  Which was pretty exciting around here.  The letters were form letters so each one got the same letter. At this time of year, with the sheer volume of mail Santa must receive, it's no wonder he writes one letter and sends photocopies to everyone else.  My children thought that was very wise of him.  They even commented that it was how I do our Christmas letter, too.

The interesting thing was the return address.  The letters came from the same place we'd sent them, only with a slight addition...

Santa Claus
The North Pole
HOH OHO
Canada.

Canada?

The thought had never occurred to me that the North Pole might actually be in Canadian Territory!  I just assumed that, floating in the middle of the ocean the way it is, it doesn't belong to any country.  But when you do some research, Canada and Denmark have land masses that are equal distance away and the North Pole could go either way.

How cool is that? A little seasonal geography to mull over this time of year.  We might actually share a country with all the inhabitants of the North Pole... Santa and the Mrs, the reindeer, the elves!    And if that is the case, well then that would make Santa Claus a Canadian Citizen!  He's one of us!  I love that!  I mean, we are known to be a generous, multi-cultural, overtly friendly bunch of people.  Why wouldn't Santa be a Canadian?   Makes sense.

What a fantastic claim to fame!  The most famous, loveable, generous, fun-loving man in the world is a Canuck!

I guess we've earned our bragging rights, hey fellow Canadians?

At the very least, we can stop apologizing for Celine Dion now...

Merry Christmas!  Hope Santa is good to you this year! 

Chris Baty sent me a personal message!

I love November!  It's "National Novel Writing Month".  When I stumbled across it in 2009, I didn't have any idea whether or not it was actually feasible to write a 50K word novel in a month (it's approximately 200 double spaced pages).  But I was up for the challenge.  At that time I had a 5, 2, and 1 year old.  They went to bed relatively easily, so I did all my writing after that, from about 9-11 pm every night.

Thus, "Patchwork Saturdays" was born.

In 2010, knowing I had 'won' the year before, I was confident that I could do it again.  This time I worked on a novel idea that had been percolating in my brain since 2006.  I wrote 50K words on "Undesirable".

2011, I wrote 50K words again, this time on "My Grandfather's Clock".

Seeing a pattern here?  I am.  I am excellent at starting things, absolutely horrendous at finishing them.  I now have 3 unfinished first drafts of three very different novels.  I'm pretty pleased with them.  They're rough, unpolished, and rambling... but underneath their rough exteriors, they're really quite good.  At least, they're they kind of book I would read.

So, this year... I was expecting a baby in early November!  Poor planning on my part.  November is MY month.  I shouldn't schedule anything else in November.  At all.  I really didn't have high hopes of getting much novelling done this year and was going to take 2012 off, although the thought really disappointed me.  But, I have a friend (I sucked her into Nano-ing last year) who was very motivating (she even wrote me a poem to inspire me!) and I though, what the heck, I'll give it a try.

I didn't start until November 7th.  So I was already 11,667 words behind right out of the gate.

And I didn't have any ideas for an original story.

So I cheated.  Well, technically I was a Nano Rebel (according to Nanowrimo rules).  I continued to work on my 2010 novel, Undesirable instead of starting a whole new story.

And somehow despite having a newborn, I hit the 50,000 word finish line.  Two days early! :)  I just left the laptop on and typed whenever I could, sometimes one-handed with a daughter or two on my lap. I now have a 380 page, almost finished, first draft off my 6 year story in the making.  I have to say, I'm very excited.  Maybe I can finish the actual manuscript before I go back to work next October and start submitting it to publishers.

Easy Peasy...I've got a few chapters to finish typing, some plot lines to tie up, then a heavy due proofing job that goes beyond spell checker, then I need 5-10 volunteers to read and critique, then compile their suggestions, do a re-write eliminating the crap, another editing / proofing job...

Nah, it probably won't be ready to call a manuscript by next fall.  :P

Anyway, the crux of my blog post wasn't to brag about my insane annual hobby, it was actually to brag that I  got a facebook message from the founder of Nanowrimo!  He posted a slogan contest on facebook, and I was one of the 7 people who won it.  He's sending me a poster as a prize, and he sent me a personal message congratulating me!  So made my day!!!

My slogan...  "Week Four: My children have no clean underwear!"

Now that November is over, time to catch up on the laundry and embrace the Christmas Season!

A Good Baby

Brooklynn is two-and-a half weeks new, now.  My husband has used up his vacation time and returned to work.  The boys are in school and Kirstin is in preschool and dance lessons.  It was inevitable, I suppose, time to face reality.  

We ventured out in public.  Twice now!  And it's been surprisingly successful.

Yesterday Brooklynn was in and out of the car seat three times helping me play chauffeur (read "mini-van mom").  She got introduced to the other moms picking up their kids at preschool (Kirstin made sure everyone got to see her baby sister) and she hung out with the boys and I outside of Kirstin's dance class.  She was the one without the colouring book...

And, although I knew it was coming, I was still unprepared for it.  Two different people asked me that question that people ask.  The one that drives me up the wall.  The one that I cannot help but answer with a snotty reply.

"Is she a good baby?"

Why, no... no she isn't.  She poops in her pants CONSTANTLY, she burps without saying 'excuse me', she interrupts me while I'm making supper or talking on the phone... she stays up too late, she complains if we don't give her undivided attention... she NEVER cleans up after herself, and she's recently taking to spitting on me.  Every time she cries, I have to change my shirt.  Oh, and she sucks her thumb because she knows that means we'll have to fork over thousands to the orthodontist when she's older.

The little brat is driving me crazy!!!

Okay, that's not actually what I said.  What I said was, "Of course, ALL babies are good babies!"

I'm not exactly sure what other answer people expect me to give.  If you want to know if my baby cries a lot, then ask me that.  If you want to know if she's sleeping through the night (umm... she's 18 days old, are you kidding me?), then ask me that.  If you want to know if she has fit seamlessly into our lives without me having to sacrifice any of my adult indulgences... well, that's just nuts.  You don't have children expecting not to have to give up a little free time here and there.

I supposed I could just say, "Yes, she's a wonderful baby!"  But I can't.  The question makes me crazy.  People have asked it with every single one of my children.  Everyone one of my children has been very different in their personality and quirks.  And every single one of them has been a fabulous baby.  If they weren't, I'm pretty sure we wouldn't have four of them now.

Babies are designed to be challenging.  

If they slept for 8 hours a night right off the bat, and then had a two hour awake period followed by a three hour nap, consistently every day, they would starve.

If they were content to lie in their cribs and quietly stare at the ceiling while I sit and scrapbook/write/crochet/watch television/facebook/blog (insert indulgent hobby here), they would get flat heads and developmental delays from being understimulated.  

If they never cried, well, they'd be under-cuddled, riddled with diaper rash, hungry, etc (insert basic needs here).

And if I could pop a soother in their mouth everytime they wanted to nurse and I didn't feel like it, they would learn to ignore their feeding cues and they would fail to thrive.

So, really... please don't ask me if she's a good baby.  I will tell you what I've told the other 200 people that have asked me that over the years...  "All babies are good babies!"

Our 'Good Baby'  --- self-soothing with her thumb, nature's pacifier! 

Incidentally, she hardly ever cries, she sleeps 20+ hours a day, she only wakes me up twice a night for a twenty minute feed and then goes right back to sleep, and she's quite content to sit in my lap while I crochet, watch tv, type, etc.  We think there's something wrong with her...

whiny update...

After my 'feeling sorry for myself' blog post last week, I thought I should update my 7 or 8 readers that actually check this page.

At my appointment this morning baby was head down!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  That was confirmed by both my midwife and a hastily booked ultrasound.  Took him/her awhile to figure things out, but s/he did not disappoint, and turned right in the nick of time.

No ECV (external cephalic version) for me.

No middle of the night ambulance ride if my waters break while baby is transverse and at risk of cord prolapse.

No elective or emergency c-section (hopefully).

We are officially able to breathe easy now, and just wait and see when Mother Nature wants this baby to come.

Bring it on, baby, I'm ready and I am sooo happy that I get to meet you the most natural way possible!

(Hmmm... wonder if I should let my employer know that I am going to be around for my last 8 shifts after all, if they want me to come back in...  nah...)