The Joys of the Season -- Christmas Cards

It's that time of year again: the annual cards are arriving in the mail every day from far and near. So far we have only received 5 cards, but I'm sure next week will be big. I mailed my cards yesterday. Go, Laura! Of course, they were totally impersonal -- a picture of the boys in the snow (see my post from a few weeks ago) I had printed out online, slap on a computer-generated address label, a return address label and a Christmas stamp, and put a huge stack of them in the mail box. Ahh, relief!

Of the cards we have received, two are from the same extended family, who shall remain nameless. These have some issues I must address. The first included the "catch-up on the year" form letter. It was generally OK -- telling about the big events of this family, what the kids have been doing in school and extracurricularly.

The issue I had was everything was very, er, religious. Now, I'm not intolerant of religion. I try to be accepting of those with other religions. (Well, calling agnosticism/atheism a "religion" is a stretch.) Anyway, I am fine with Christians sending cards talking about remembering the "reason for the season," etc. I, personally, find the reason for the season to be about giving gifts to friends and loved ones, getting together with loved ones, etc. Yes, I am one of those horrible secular people who has turned Christmas into the Santa-centered holiday it now is. And I don't take offense at people wishing me "Happy Holidays" instead of Merry Christmas. I won't boycott Target because of this. I will continue boycotting Wal-Mart because it is evil, but I won't boycott a store because the employees get the Christians in a tizzy by saying "Happy Holidays" to be more inclusive of non-Christian Americans.

Anyway, back to the cards. The form letter brought up a few things that made me uneasy, but the main one was this: Billy Graham Crusade. The phrase just gives me chills.

The other card that I couldn't handle seemed OK until you read what was printed under the cute picture of the kids: "Merry Christmas from the Smith's" followed by the first names of the parents and kids. Now, this family's last name isn't really Smith. I am using Smith to protect the innocent -- the two boys pictured above the horrible grammatical error. It's possible the boys and their parents are actually property of "the Smith," but I doubt it. I just don't get it. The parents are both educated people who are pretty smart. Do they really not know that adding an apostrophe doesn't just make something plural? Now, I would give them the benefit of the doubt if their last name ended in X or something. "Merry Christmas from the Ajaxs" Hmm, that doesn't look right. Maybe I should do apostrophe X? Now, it would still be wrong, but understandable. More understandable if their last name was actually "X." But, it's not. It's a normal last name, that is made plural by adding a regular old S, not by adding an apostrophe S! Arrggh! And, I could also overlook this error if it were in an email message. But, it's not. It's in a Christmas card that they had printed out. Did they not even proof read this before they had it printed and sent out to family, friends and acquaintances (and grammar nazis)? Or is it nazi's?

I'm back!

And I'm tired! I keep going to bed too late at night. Last night I almost made it to bed before 11. Well, I was in bed, but I insisted on reading before turning out the light. Then when Harrison woke me up at 5 am, I was still feeling brain dead. Fortunately he went back to sleep!

My latest crazy idea: I'm going to write a novel. Or maybe a book of short stories. Well, I at least have an idea to start with. I've been thinking about it at night when I'm drifting off to sleep. I have my main idea, but then I keep coming up with problems. If I have to research this thing, it's not going to happen, so I'll see if I can solve the problems in some non-research way. Perhaps sci-fi, so I can have everything happen in a different world, with human-like beings, who don't necessarily act exactly like humans. That way I can have them do things humans wouldn't and no one can complain that my story is unrealistic. Yep, I'm getting ahead of myself. I have to write something first, before people can start tearing apart my writing!

Or maybe I'll use talking dogs....

Let the feasting continue!

I accidentally typed, "fasting" which is probably a better word for this blog!

Following the examples of Allison and Kristen, I give you

THE 10 THINGS MOST PEOPLE DON'T KNOW ABOUT ME

1. I'm a member of this group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FisherPriceNewerLP/
I own about 500 of these plastic figures. It's a sickness, but I can't stop. I even took that picture on the website of the Nativity scene. Yep, those are part of my collection.

2. I finished 2nd in the 7th grade spelling bee. When I was watching the finals, the guy who beat me (and really didn't deserve to, since he got to spell the same word I'd just misspelled) missed a really easy word that I could have spelled with my brain closed. I coulda been a contender!

3. I have completed 3 sprint length triathlons.

4. I slept with a security blanket for many, many years. I still have Banky, but I don't sleep with him anymore. We have a platonic relationship now.

5. In grade school, I was in remedial PE. It was called COPE class, and involved lots of riding a scooter back and forth across the gym floor. I repressed this memory for several years, then remembered it in high school, and my mother confirmed that I, indeed, had had motor skills issues as a child.

6. I limped down the aisle when Jay and I got married (well, anyone who went to my wedding would know that...) . I had ACL surgery on my knee 6 weeks before hand, and it didn't heal properly. I had another surgery a year later, and now have a normal gait again, and my quadricep muscle back, which totally disappeared when I had my gimpy leg.

7. I got to see Jude Law do a nude scene in a play in London the summer I studied abroad. He was just a young guy starting out then. Every girl in my program had a crush on him after that play (and probably some of the guys, too - it was a theater program, after all!).

8. As a preteen, I had huge crushes on David Letterman and Alan Alda. So, so, pathetic! I watched two episodes of M.A.S.H., followed by Late Nite every weeknight. My girlhood crushes were more acceptable - Harry Hamlin from "Clash of the Titans" and the kid from "The Black Stallion."

9. In college I was a ropes course counselor (this involved getting up too early on Saturday mornings and sitting on a platform high in a tree), and was into rock climbing and the use of "cams and biners." Prekids, I also used to scuba dive and ski a lot. Don't I sound rugged and outdoorsy? Haha.

10. I went from being a super geek, ultra-involved honor student in high school to being a complete slacker/procrastinator in college. I guess that's what college is for, right? Well, I was involved in some clubs in college, but wasn't compelled to be the treasurer, president, director, vice-president or similar in any of them!

Getting Good Photos of Young Children is So Easy!

Can you smell the sarcasm in that title?

Last Friday I decided I'd take the boys to the mall to get some Christmas pictures, and hey, while I'm at it, Harrison's 18 month pictures done at the same time. Brilliant idea, Laura! Would you like to introduce a pack a wild dogs, a bloody carcass, and some baboons, as well, to liven things up?

So, I set up an appointment, dress the boys in their matching red sweaters and khaki pants, get some more floofy clothes for Harrison to wear, some goldfish crackers, hair gel and a comb, and baby wipes. I'm set!

We arrive at the photo place and get to wait about 20 minutes. That's always a great idea with the young kids. Keep 'em waiting! Then, the fun of the photo shoot starts. The photographer wants Hutton to kneel and hold Harrison's hands. Hutton doesn't know how to kneel, so his butt collapses on his heels, but hey, he's holding Harrison's hands, so that works. The photographer gets a few shots of this pose. Move on to the snowman prop. Hutton starts trying to lift it, takes the hat off, crushes the hat, etc.

OK, move on to the individual shots of Harrison. Things seem to go pretty well. I change his outfit a couple of times. He poses with a train prop while wearing a train outfit. I know these pictures will turn out great! We leave to go kill an hour at the mall.

Because the boys were both so good (relatively speaking), I take them for ice cream to kill time, as I only have the umbrella stroller for Harrison, and trying to shop with two young boys is always a bad idea. And we return to get the pictures....

Which are really sucky. The ones of Hutton kneeling, holding Harrison's hands, are OK, though Hutton has his weird half smile on, where it looks like he's using his tongue to press out his bottom lip. Plus this draws attention to the fact that he has a cold sore. Eh, they're OK, though. The snowman shot the photographer captured (and when I saw photographer, I mean the 18 year old who works there probably making $7 /hour) features Hutton trying to knock the snowman's hat into his frozen brain, while Harrison looks great. Of course the 2 pictures of Harrison are both bad. One is off center, and he looks disheveled. The other he is sitting, but has a terribly pained expression on his face. No train shots. So, out of the half hour of work (and I mean on my part, trying to get the boys to cooperate with having their picture taken), there are 5 pictures ranging from mediocre to really bad. I'm just not very happy that I've gone to all this trouble for 5 bad pictures.

I finally buy one of those poses of the boys together, figuring it's a good picture of Harrison, and not the worst picture Hutton's ever taken. Then I set up another appointment to bring Harrison back for his 18 month shots, because I still have a coupon, and I'm not going to waste a coupon, dammit!

Feast or Famine

Well, my blogging seems to be feast or famine -- three posts in one day, followed by several days of nothing! Then again, calling my posts "feasts" is a stretch, too. It's more like when I go too long between meals, then get hungry enough to eat at McDonald's, and get a combo meal and eat the whole thing. And then afterwards feel gross for stuffing my body with bad food.

Fortunately, the McDonald's thing doesn't happen too often, even though Hutton always asks for McDonald's, or "M Donald's", when we are leaving his speech therapy appointments on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I try to only get Hutton food there when we go, and wait and eat a better lunch at home. The problem is, we only have a half hour between speech therapy and the school bus pickup, so it's a rush to drive home and get him lunch, and "M Donald's" is so fast and easy....Of course, he always mentions going to M Donald's when we are at the speech therapist, so she thinks Hutton only eats crap, I'm sure!

The other day my sister ran into my best friend from high school in the grocery store. My friend, Sharling, had switched jobs a while back and lost my contact information, so got my email address from Emily and wrote me yesterday. We're going to try to get together when I go home to Nashville for Christmas next week, which will be good. She has a 19 month old son, so I'm sure Harrison and Hutton will love playing with him. It's very strange to think that it's been 10 years since Sharling and I have been really close. We drifted apart after college, when we both got real jobs, then I married Jay and moved to Florida. We've only seen each other a handful of times since then, and I would really like to keep in touch with her this time around.

Snow fun

After Harrison's nap, we went outside to enjoy the snow and wait for Hutton's bus to drop him off from school. We all had so much fun walking through the yard in the snow, and even Jay came out for a few minutes. Sally, one of our dogs, had the most fun, tearing around like a greyhound. Here are some pictures:

Cool NYC people news

My friend, Eva, lives in New York and works in the Bronx Zoo. Well, she doesn't work there, she works for the Wildlife Conservation Society, but her office is at the Bronx Zoo. Sounds cool, doesn't it?

And, as if that weren't cool enough (living in NYC and having an office in the zoo and getting to see the cool animals whenever she wants), she's married to a cool guy, too - Jeff. Jeff and his brother are independent filmmakers. They have made 3 or 4 films now. The first one, Suckerpunch, is one Jay and I own on DVD. It's a little, er, violent and disturbing, but interesting, nonetheless. And my friend Dawn's 3-legged dog, Mona, has a part in it! I haven't seen their other films yet, but these include, The Fittest and...wait for it...Ghetto Dawg II, Out of the Pits. So, I had heard from Dawn that the latest film was a departure from the more violent films. Well, The Fittest was, too, but that's beside the point. And Eva even got to do some sound effects in this one. I got this email today from her:

"Yeah, baby! Jeff's horror movie, Salvage, got into Sundance...yes, the top festival in the country. He is sooooo excited. And, an agent has already called offering to represent the Crook Brothers. Oh, please, please, please....we've been hoping and wishing for a little luck (and to get out of debt.) Talk to you soon!
Eva"

So, if you ever hear of the movie Salvage, run, don't walk, to see it! Hopefully it will actually show up in a theatre, as the earlier ones didn't make it to theatre, or were in some smaller film festivals.

A lovely, snowy day

Well, as you can see from my absence since Sunday, I am not doing well making this a daily log. But, I do what I can!

As you may have guessed from the title, it's snowing today. The first snow of the season here in Woodinville, and it's coming down in pretty, fluffy flakes and sticking to the trees and ground. The boys were both so excited by the snow, and when we got home this morning from Hutton's (yes, I'm going to call everyone by their real names, now, as I don't think anyone who ventures onto this blog will use them against me in any way!) speech therapy session, he rushed inside to get the snowflake magnet from his magnetic calendar. He showed it to me so proudly and said, "Snowflake!" and then we put it on the calendar to mark the first snow.

Hutton's therapy is going so well! I don't know if it's his biomedical stuff - he's done 6 rounds of chelation, which is a metal removal technique that helps the body detox, and the last round seemed especially helpful. The first 5 rounds were this spring, and then over the summer I took a long break for his body to try out different things, like a regular diet. Prior to the "regular" diet, he was on a gluten and casein free diet for about 9 months, and though we saw improvements at first, when we added gluten and casein back, his behavior seemed similar, and his speech continued to progress. He still doesn't drink regular milk, though he eats cheese and yogurt. On that front, I am planning to take him to another doctor to try NAET, an allergy elimination technique a few of my friends with autistic kids say has helped their kids.

Anyway, after his last round of chelation, he had some bad behaviors for about a week, which I think could have been from yeast overgrowth, which is a side effect of chelation sometimes. I treated him with an antifungal, and then a few weeks ago we went to his homeopath, and he was given his "remedy" again. So these things, in addition to his speech therapy, ABA therapy, supplements, and school are all playing a part in his progress, I'm just not sure which is the most helpful! But the past week in particular has been especially good -- he is now saying, "Look, Daddy/Mommy! I see a _____" instead of his old, "What's that?" which he would use to draw our attention to something, even when he knew what it was.

I my various readings, I saw there was yet another new yahoo group devoted to a new method of treatment for autism, using Valtrex and MB12. So, of course I signed up for that group, too, to add to the hours of reading I already do on all the autism boards. I find it quite funny (I won't use the term ironic, because I know what it really means!) that I am the parent who spends so much time reading up on autism and its possible causes and treatments, and half of my readings are very complicated medical and scientific reports I don't really understand. Reports that discuss ethyl versus methyl mercury, methyl sulfation in the brain, viruses, bacteria, vitamin supplements and what they do, etc., etc. Jay is the parent who spends 90% of his time watching the stock market, which is his new job, working from home day trading.

Now, I'm getting to my point. In college, Jay double-majored in computer science and...
CHEMISTRY! So, why I am the one making my head hurt trying to figure out if MB12 is better than regular old B12 at improving the methylation (I don't even really know what that means, and how it differs from sulfation) in the brain, if ALA alone or ALA + DMSA are better at chelating mercury, if using antivirals will help? Hmm, I don't know, but I guess it's like everything else in the life of the hausfrau -- if I don't do it, chances are it won't get done!

Well, it's Sunday afternoon, and I'm coming to the horrible realization that the holiday weekend is almost over. But then again, that means the H1 will be back to school and his morning ABA therapy tomorrow, so I'll only have one child to chase around for most of the day.

Then there is the gym hanging over my head, taunting me with, "You know, you haven't been in in 2 weeks. You've already used that sickness excuse. Your toddler doesn't have a runny nose anymore, but your butt fat isn't going to go anywhere unless you move it in here." I am still trying to get myself into a 3 day a week gym habit, which I had going great for about a year between kids. Strangely enough, in the 18 MONTHS I've had since H2's birth, I haven't gotten myself back into the gym habit.

I at least accomplished some sewing this weekend. I got my serger to work again, and my sewing machine works sporadically. I have a shopping cart cover partially completed, which is good since it was a baby shower gift for a baby who is now over 6 months old! Whoops! Oh well, I did give the baby's mother a gift instead of the shopping cart cover and told her I'd finish it "soon." Everytime I use my sewing machine I have to really wonder if this hobby brings me any pleasure, especially when I start calculating how much money it would cost to buy whatever it is that I'm attempting to make myself. There are a whole lot of things that are cheaper to buy, look better, and save my precious "hey, the kids are asleep and you can actually accomplish something" time for more important things -- like sitting on the couch, watching tv, and knitting. Which I would have done this weekend instead of sewing, except J was hogging the TV playing Halo.

Well, on that note, J isn't playing Halo right now, H2 will be needing a nap soon, and if I hurry, I can go get dibs on the TV! I need to spend more time with my other monitor, you know.

Random quote and funny story

Random quote:
"There has been one death from Vit A toxicity in an adult male who ate nothing but polar bear livers." From my website readings on vitamin supplements for viral issues.

Funny (and true!) story:
J repeated this one to me today when we were eating lunch with the boys. The restaurant was playing your favorite soft hits, interspersed with holiday music, though the phrase "favorite soft hits" is quite subjective, as none of them were faves of mine.

So, as an Alanis Morrisette song started, ("Under Rug Swept," or whatever it's called) I commented to J that the song was about her affair at age 13 with Dave Coulier, the Canadian guy from "Full House." J didn't know who Dave Coulier was, but asked if I remembered the story from our friend Neal about seeing Alanis at the Redhook Brewery. I vaguely did, but asked him to repeat the story.

So, Neal and his family went to the Redhook Brewery for lunch one afternoon. The walked in behind a petite woman and guest. Neal swears the petite woman was Alanis. The hostess at the Redhook apologized that the restaurant was closed, as it was in between lunch and dinner time. Alanis said that she was disappointed because they had come to the brewery for the sole purpose of eating lunch. Neal said he had to bite his tongue to keep from saying to Alanis, "Isn't it ironic?"

Bonus funny anecdote:
After lunch, we went to Costco. After shopping, we needed to get gas, so pulled into the line there for some super cheap $2.14 gas. Woohoo! J was waiting for a left side pump to open up, when the attendent tapped on the window. The attendent told J, "You know, I've got a 14 foot hose that can reach around pretty much any car, so you can use any pump." Of course, J immediately quipped to me, "He seems pretty proud of his 14 foot hose!" After pumping the gas, J expressed regret that his quip didn't include reference to the "reach around" as well.

It's better to burn out....

J just came upstairs to tell me he had something very sad to show me. I followed him downstairs. He turned on the TV and pressed play on the TiVo to start up the episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live he'd been watching. (Yeah, there's not much stored on our TiVo worth watching today....)

There, before me on the screen was the immortal 80s hair band, Def Leppard. The paraplegic (?) drummer started the infectious beat, and the lead singer, looking older but still sporting some long and not necessarily pretty hair, spoke/sang the lines, "It's better to burn out/Than to fade away!" Hmmm. You may want to really listen to that line next time before you show up on TV to sing a decades old song from the glory days.

Thanksgiving

I am upstairs in the "office" with the boys. We watched a little bit of the parade on TV, and now they are watching a video while playing with toys, while I read email and attempt to blog.

After H2 woke up at 7 am, I nursed him and put him back to bed. H1 was also up, but he is more self-sufficient when he gets up early, so I just went back to bed. An hour later when H1 was knocking on the door asking for breakfast (well, he's only four, he's not THAT self-sufficient!) J got up, so I got to sleep in.

I'm glad I did, cause I had a nice dream. It was Christmas time, and I was in Pulaski, TN, my parents' hometown. In the dream, my dad and my grandmother were both alive. In one scene of the dream, we were at a party at someone's house, and dad was ready to leave. I was going with him, and was going to walk back to the party afterwards. For some reason, he picked me up and put me in the bed of the pickup truck he was driving. Cut to the next scene. I'm sitting on a couch, next to my late grandmother, and she's smoking, as she did in life. I am smoking, too, though I have never been more than a social smoker in college. She says something to me about how I shouldn't be smoking since I have to drive later. I tell her it's not smoking, but drinking that means you shouldn't drive. Then I realize I'm smoking a cigarette held in an electric tooth brush handle, and it's really pretty nasty to have a cigarette rotating quickly throughout your mouth. Blech! Glad I'm not a smoker in real life, though if I were, I think I'd quit after that dream!

In the next scene, I'm looking through a couple of baskets of Christmas ornaments at my grandmother's house. They are handmade or hand-decorated ones. There are a few with letters on them, so I am looking for some with Hs for the boys. I don't see any H ornaments, but there is a Santa ornament that has my father's face, and another ornament looks like my late great-grandmother, though I can barely remember her face from life, so it was one that you just had to trust the dream. I was thinking that I wouldn't be able to have these ornaments as one of the other siblings or cousins might want them, too, though I really wanted to take them.

And then I woke up. It was already 10:30, and I had a not-so-big day ahead of me: THANKSGIVING, though only our immediate family, and we're not cooking anything special. My friend Liz is bringing over some enchiladas that Corina, who cleans both of our houses twice a month, brought to Liz. Corina's mother, who is visiting from Mexico, made them, but Liz has bad morning sickness and can't handle the onion smell from them. So, the boys, J and I will be having a very Ole Thanksgiving!

Definitely not in the spirit of the first Thanksgiving! The town where I grew up, Duxbury, MA, was one of the first towns settled by the Pilgrims after Plymouth. We knew A LOT about the Pilgrims from school, since their heritage was all over the place. We didn't wear black or those goofy hats or anything like that, but since there were monuments honoring Pilgrims everywhere, it was hard to avoid. There was even a granite slab inscribed to a horse used by the early shipbuilders for rope-making, for crying out loud! Honest Dick was apparently a very honorable horse. He walked around in a circle, twisting ropes all day. And all he got for it was this crappy inscribed plaque! Well, sorry, I googled him and couldn't find anything, but I think the plaque is on the grounds of the Myles Standish Monument somewhere, so if you happen to be there you can look around for the final resting spot of this good horse.

Ok, while trying to find confirmation of Honest Dick, I came up with the following. From another blog, of all places! Warning, this is disturbing, and I hope HD didn't know anyone involved!

Time to shower. I don't want to scare Liz off before she hands over the Thanksgiving Enchiladas.

Here's something to sing as you gather round your turkey, stuffing, and cranberries.

http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/w/e/wegattog.htm

We sang this at one of my school plays. I was a Native American extra. I braided my hair, cut up some old brown towels into a fringed shirt to wear over some brown cords, and stuck a feather in my hair. Though the Wampanoag people would have not had feathers sticking up in the air. They were a woodland tribe, so if you wear feathers, they should be braided into your hair so they won't catch on the tree branches.

Some more Thanksgiving-related info: http://www.tolatsga.org/wampa.html
Though this is mostly about the Wampanoag tribe, there's the story of the Pilgrims, too.