Overdone

Jingle Bells!Something smells! Toddler barfing all the way!

Hey! And happy holidays, loveys. Were yours as festive and positively overblown as were ours? We drove through the night from Beantown to Motown, awe yeah, all fourteen hours to Detroit about 10 days ago. Saw Lovey's family. Then headed to Cleveland to see my homeslices. Then we continued the marathon theme of pushing all reasonable limits on carb-loading and shopping and napping and playing the "Little People's" Christmas album until we made ourselves sick with it all. And then we drove back last night. Baby Girl basically marked the passing of every state line with a memorial vomit. Poor kid was upchucking her way back home, and while you are busy composing your comment on this blog about What Kind of Parent persists in driving home while her kid is ralphing all over the back seat -- let it be known. We would have stopped at a hotel room and made her do a kegstand of Pedialyte, but then none of us would have slept and we would be none the closer to home. Whereas by 6 a.m. we were snug in our barf-laden pajamas all nestled in our beds, visions of sugarplums dancing in our heads. HURRAH!

It's clear, though, that Baby Girl's projectile pukes were a sign that we had all royally overdone it this year. The visits, the cookies, the presents, the planning of my 15 year grade school reunion? Yeah, it's totally what the midwife ordered for a 5 month preggo mcbeggo with a toddler. Highly advisable.

So the only resolution Lovey Loverpants and I can devise is one of the following: 1.) Relocate to Somewhere Closer to Family 2.) Relocate Our Family Closer to Us 3.) Forget Our Family; they are a costly, geographically undesirable lot. Stay tuned for more in 2010 as to which course of action the Loverpants decides...

And in the meantime, enjoy the sights and sounds of Holidaze 2009!

Baby Girl having an awesome time with her granny at Java Jungle

About to clear the little ginger kid who was smart enough to stand at the end of the turbo-slide:

The gift box that smacks of clothing within: To open or not to open.... My auntie MJ and I admire the festive banquet table set by my gifted stepmum Grade School Reunion. Yes, my nametag does say: "Hello, my name is: Most Likely to Become a Supermodel"

Little Brother, Little Sister

"Mom keeps asking me if I want to talk to the baby in her belly. And to that I'm all Tina Fey, 'Shut That Down, woman!' I just think this whole 'talk to the belly baby' is silly business. There is no baby here to talk to besides my lily-white Fisher Price dolly of the perma-grin, and she doesn't have much to say in response. She'd never be mistaken for a Chatty Cathy doll, let's be honest. And maybe that is all right for me sometimes...but I do get a little restless as a Lonely Only, you know? But the whole charade over this Little Brother, Little Sister hoopla is just a little bit insane, don't you agree? We went to the ultrasound altogether, Pops, Mama and I. I saw the skeletor baby on the screen and, meh, I wasn't impressed. Whatever was in there wasn't doing much but a lot of kicking OOOH LOOK AT THE FEMUR! and after I get rebuked all day long for kicking, it all gave me pause. Who does this kid think he/she is? Getting everyone's maternity panties in a bunch over some flamboyant kicks? I'm not fooled. I've been the only act in town for almost 2 years. I've been performing for sold-out audiences. This kid is a mere amateur. If he/she thinks there is a show to steal, he/she's got another thing coming to them. 'Round here it's All Baby Girl, All the Time!"

Overtures

"My new phone has a reject call feature with text messaging." "That's cool. But I don't even know what that means."

"Like I can reject a call and the person will receive a text message. I'll have to write some automated text messages."

"Like 'Busy, banging my wife'?"

"Um, yeah. Like that."

***

I have felt utterly exhausted by the last two weeks. I've been pushing through a couple of projects that were, in themselves, behemoths. I've been stressed and cranky and waking up thinking it was Sunday, only to horrifiedly realize it was Tuesday. I've showered the absolute minimum that a first world citizen can shower without receiving deodorant samples sent anonymously to my mailbox. Yet. And I entered into a new, financially imprudent love affair with the creme brulee latte (with soy!) at Sixbucks. My lands, is that the tonic of the gods.

*** I recently discovered we have the Gospel channel. This is not your standard Jaysus channel. It has really good programming! Not just Southern evangelical preachers trying to drain your pockets. It's good! Not that I could name a single Gospel artist, but they have a lot of contempo Christian concerts. I've watched the Jars of Clay concert twice already. Excellent. Even though the lead singer is dressed like Mark from "Rent" sans the hipster glasses. I think they are a highly underrated band. Their albums are all quite different in sound but the lyrics are consistently excellent; they are good studies of the uncliched faith journey.

*** In the midst of this end-of-semester distress and the condition of what Loverpants called "living under a rock; you didn't even know Gisele and Tom had their baby two days ago?!" I have really been moved by moments of sweetness from my family. The moments with Baby Girl when she takes her little pincers to my cheeks and, pinching the Cabbage Patchy flesh of my face, says, "Cheeksies! You so cute!" The moments when I don't at all deserve a hug and Loverpants gives me several in a morning.

I have also been returning again and again to Micah 5. I never knew how explicit the birth of the Christ child was, in prescription and spirit. That He would be born in the smallest of the tribes, that He would release Israel, and that He would be their peace.

In the last two weeks of fitful sleep and ever-expanding belly, I have called upon this peace to continue to reign in my heart and mind. I think of the sweetness of holding my own baby, and just the profundity of the Lord sending His own baby to earth to be stewarded by mere mortals, and I am closer to understanding how precious is the peace that was sent here for us to hold, like a mild little infant that so needs us to be still.