Creature Feature House is moving to a new house!...or a townhouse, or an apartment. I don't exactly know yet, I just started looking. But! There is a closing date for my present creature house for next week. The kids and I are filled with excitement and anxiety, which makes us wonderfully nauseated and none of us can wait until it's over :)
What else? I've been eating too much. Yes, I know, tis the season and all of that, but I'm not so much eating like a person who's letting herself go at Christmas but more like a person who's just letting herself go. I told my friends last night that after the move I'm going to start really paying attention to what I eat and exercise regularly again. Ok! Dieting, I'm talking about dieting! Dieting is such a trendy word. But! But! But! It's true. I'm too young to give up! (sob, gasp, whimper, munch on cookie) I can't give up the fight!
"I give up," one of my friends said to me last night. "I'm not even trying anymore."
"No!" I cried. "We can not accept defeat!"
"I'm not accepting defeat," he said, smiling. "I'm just not fighting, so I can't lose."
What's going on besides accepting my unacceptable weight and the defeatest attitude of my friends? The kids are out of school for Christmas break. Yesterday they gave their teachers gifts, and I was relieved that I'd managed to convince Christopher that he couldn't give his teacher an Angry Birds chew toy.
"But it's cute!" he protested, squeaking the red, scowling rubber bird.
"You don't even know if she likes Angry Birds," I said.
"Well...I know she downloaded it so her kids could play it."
"But that doesn't mean SHE likes it," I argued.
""She WILL like it!"
"It's a dog toy!"
"No, it's not!"
"Christopher, it says 'dog chew toy' on the tag!"
"...Oh. Well, let's get her Pokemon cards."
I kept telling him that the point of gift-giving is to give someone what THEY want and not necessarily what he wants. "Do you think a grown woman would want Pokeman cards?" I asked and he gave me this confused look as if to say, "What human being would NOT want that?" In the end, we settled on a tin of red hots because he remembered that she likes spicy things. Emma got her teacher a mug and Claire got hers a candle. I guess I could have turned things on them and said, "Why can't you be more original like your brother??" But they wouldn't have known I was joking. They would have cried and I would have ruined Christmas for all enternity. The story would be told year after year, over rounds of eggnog, "You remember that Christmas when Mom said we weren't good enough?"
The other daughter's face will blacken. "How can I forget. I thought about getting her something nice this year but then I remembered all that, and I just wrapped up a bunch of barbed wire."
"I made her nails-and-saw-dust preserves. How's THAT for originality Mom!"
Obviously, I have some worry about how my desicions and the things I say are going to affect the emotional development of my children. Will my ridiculous sense of humor warp them somehow? Will this move be a good thing for them? I think so. About the move, I mean, not my warped humor. I actually think the humor thing is good for them, though it does embarass Claire lately. I get the "Do you HAVE to act like that?" look a lot. And I say, "Yes. Yes, I do." I don't know how this move will affect them in the long run, but worrying hasn't done any good.
I will keep you all posted. For the next two days I'm just going to try to give us all a nice Christmas. Lots of snuggling up with blankets and playing games or watching movies. And no diet just yet.
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