holidays

alright, so the holidays are here. dear sweet baby jesus...the holidays. my entire family has been in and out of my house at some point over the past week. the only one left is my 19 year old brother (daisy) who will be heading back to college tonight. it was nice not having to travel up to pennsylvania with our dog and pony show (and not to mention all of the CRAP that we have to take with us), but no worries...my family brought the dog and pony show to us. i cleaned the shit out of my house last saturday for their arrival...and i don't know how you feel about the whole cleaning thing, but that day i said to butch, "i'm so glad my house is clean...so that my family can shit it all up again!!" i always say that i'm not going to clean before they come, just after. (but i do it to myself every time.) and so last sunday my mom arrived, wearing her rose colored glasses and a smile. my mother and i are the same in a lot of ways, but we are also very different. i think it's safe to say that i've gotten 89 percent of my genes from my father. anyway, she is very positive! and perky! a lot of the time. her glass is always half full. (of wine.) she skipped through the door and i kinda had to brace myself for her all day/everyday happy attitude.

monday i had off of work, so i went out to run errands while she was here...it's so nice to run errands without a toddler on my leg and a baby on my hip. i even had time to get my hair cut. it actually felt like a little vacation. about ten minutes into my get away into the real world...she called me. "ummm....i am taking the girls for a walk and i got a flat tire on the jogging stroller!!! (she was laughing hysterically...) what do i do?!!?" (my lord.) "well mother, there is a pump on the porch, so head back to the house and blow it up if you can..." i could hear ella yelling, "what you doing nanny?!"(she doesn't know what she's doing, ella, remain calm.) . i hung up and a few hours later i called her back around lunch time to see if she wanted anything from subway. she replied, "tricia! i did not come to maryland to get fat!!!" (i was going to get you a turkey sub, not a double whopper...mother.) "so you aren't going to eat lunch!?" she said, "i had my tea, i'll be good until dinner." (tea?!) that's the other thing about my mother...she is about 115 pounds soaking wet. (just one of my ass cheeks probably weighs in at 115.) while she was here she was on some special hot tea potion kick that "melts belly fat" away...if i had only tea for lunch i would probably kill someone. anyway, i headed home shortly after this and we were incident free for the rest of the day.

that night, i made dinner and fen called to say that she would be over for a visit. she came through the door with her patented bottle of wine tucked under her arm around 7, we talked and laughed and i went to bed around 9...i left her and my mother downstairs. around midnight, the two of them were cackling loudly like little school girls and both were hopped up on wine. they were laughing their heads off (and woke me up. look out.)...i then stumbled down the steps, looked into the living room and scolded my own mother.."you have to get up in 6 hours with your grandchildren!! go to bed!!" fen gets scared when i yell and she ran out the front door. my mother hopped onto the futon (with all of her clothes on) and covered herself with a blanket. the next day fen texted me to see if she was still in trouble. my mom called me at work to see if she "ruined thanksgiving"...dear lord no mother, get a grip. i do believe she may be going through "the change" and is highly emotional at all times. that doesn't work well in my house, because i say exactly what i'm thinking (often using lotsa sarcasm) and even though i don't mean to hurt her feelings, i sometimes do. (sorry, mom.) she was home with the kids all day on tuesday and i called at lunch she said (and i quote), "I COULD DO THIS EVERYDAY OF MY LIFE!! I LOVE IT!" however, when i got home a few hours later, she laced up her sneakers and squawked, "i need a break...i'm going for a walk." (welcome to my world, debbie.)

wednesday i began cooking for the big thanksgiving feast (enter many pounds of butter) and that night we went out to the bar for drinks, while daisy stayed home with the kids. both carrie and ella have been going to bed around 7 every night and sleeping until 7. (it's been glorious.) and so, when i put them to bed, i figured the trend would continue. (i was sadly mistaken.) i swear that children have a sixth sense about stuff like this...we made no mention of us leaving after they went to bed, but somehow they just knew. around 1am, i received a call from daisy and i could hear carrie crying. he said, "she is awake and i think she pooped." (REALLY!? aaaaaHHHH.) and so, i went home and left the kids (i mean my parents) at the bar. upon inspection when i got home, carrie had a poop explosion up her back. (she has pooped maybe two times in her whole life in the middle of the night. so of course she would do it when my little brother was babysitting!?) i asked keith why he didn't change her...he's said, "i've never done that in my life and i don't plan on doing it ever." (awesome babysitting skills, bro.)

thursday and friday went off without a hitch. my family (minus my tea drinking mother) managed to eat and drink almost everything in the house. saturday morning butch went to get the tree and ella started harassing me in the kitchen. the conversation went something like this: "i want tookie." me: "no honey it's too early for a cookie.." ella: "i want tookie." me:"no, but maybe after lunch you can have one." ella: "i want tookie." me: "not happening, kid." ella: "i want tookie." me: "no." alright...so you see where this is going. same question, answers got shorter and shorter until i was just doing the dishes ignoring her...which escalated to "I WANT TOOKIE!!!!" 8 (EIGHT, i counted) more times...and then she proceeded to SLAP ME IN THE ASS. (oh my god, my toddler just slapped me in the ass.) when i turned around, she must've seen the crazy look in my eye, because she took off running. (oh no you didn't, sister.) as i was chasing her around the corner, butch was coming through the door with a christmas tree quoting clark griswold (loudly)..."LITTLE FULL, LOTTA SAP!!" carrie (who has been held and had direct attention for an entire week) was in the other room making what we call "the most annoying sound in the world" (from the movie dumb and dumber)...it's not a cry, it's not a whine...it's a high pitched noise that demands attention, and sounds like nails on a blackboard. (it was at that point that i realized, had there been a video camera in our house...we would be rich.)

and so now we arrive back at sunday, the holiday week has (finally) come to a close. i am more than exhausted and also feel like i need to check myself into the betty ford clinic after the mass amounts of holiday booze i consumed. butch leaves tomorrow to head to the mountains of maryland for a school "outdoor ed" trip. (he will be camping in the woods with a bunch of middle school students, for the whole week.) he wants me to believe that this will not be a "vacation" for him, but i know better. (i know what goes on in our house, fool...camping with a bunch of teenagers is a cake walk compared to this.) between work, the most annoying sound in the world, my ass slapping 2 year old,  and the fact that warren won't be here to help...i will most likely lose my mind at some point this week. stay tuned.