The Fish Pond

Christmas Traditions (and Carnage)

We have two Christmas traditions in this house, both of which really can't be called traditions at all, and both of which really got shot all to hell this year, resulting in no sleep and a weird present situation.

BigDaddyFish has always, always done the bulk of his Christmas shopping on Christmas Eve. Stores around here have always stayed open late, sometimes until midnight, so this was never a problem. He usually took off work that day because Christmas Eve was always the time we spent with my side of the family at my grandparents house. My grandmother was a neonatal/postpartum nurse for 25 years, and she always, always worked on Christmas Day, so that the other women she worked with who had small children at home could be home with their families. So she always had off work on Christmas Eve and that's when our family gathered at their home for food and presents and general togetherness. I didn't cherish it nearly enough when I was younger, but thankfully I did realize how important it was to me before they died and it went away.

This year BDF started a new job assignment the week before the Christmas holidays, a job assignment that made his 20 minute commute into a one hour each way commute, and that's if there's no accidents or weather mucking things up. He had to work this Christmas Eve, but he was able to arrange his schedule so that he could leave early and do his shopping. His plan was to do some shopping by himself, then come home and get the bigger kids and take them out to get presents for me. This year, for the first time in at least two decades, the stores closed early. Best Buy closed at 5pm, Target and Kohls at 6. He got to do some shopping, but he didn't have time to come get the kids, and the only thing even remotely open late was Borders. So I got a new iPod from Santa. And 13 books from the kids and BDF. And this:

Excuse the freaky hair and jammies, but you know how I feel about the pictures.

Now I get to go out and shop for all the kitchen gear I asked for. And the sweater - can anyone recommend a good source for a black cardigan sweater, preferably cable-knit?

My other tradition is the wrap fest on Christmas Eve. Since we've had kids who were mobile, I didn't really have any way to wrap presents privately in advance of Christmas. This year with four kids who are all pretty much aware it's been particularly hard. What I have always done is put the kids to bed early, around 8pm, get all the presents out of hiding, and sit on the floor watching A Christmas Story marathon and wrap presents. The kids all know that if they come down and see any presents they don't get any presents, so they are appropriately fearful and stay put. It works.

This year, someone forgot to tell Nemo about the tradition. He napped late, despite my best efforts to get him to sleep at 1 and then 2, he never went down, so I figured he'd just skip the nap and go to bed early. When he fell asleep in his high chair at 6 I figured he'd just sleep through. No so. He got up about 7:30 and then wouldn't go to bed until midnight. I started my wrapping, STARTED it, at 12:30 am. BDF helped, but we still both went to bed at 7am. The kids helpfully slept in until 9. Weren't they nice? It was a lot of wrapping:

The scary thing is that isn't even all of it. There's a bunch of stuff to the right, across from these presents, that are Santa presents, and not all of them were even wrapped. Every year we tell the kids that it's going to be a lean Christmas, that all they will get are presents from Santa and one present from each of us, and every year we go completely overboard. Next year, we really will scale down, because I'm not spending all night wrapping. Seriously. It can happen.

Here are a few more gratuitous shots of the carnage that is left on Christmas morning when you have 4 small kids and two parents who spoil them.

  Because the anticipation of Christmas is just too much to keep your tongue in your mouth.

If you celebrated the holidays, I hope they were glorious, and if you didn't, I hope you enjoyed a day of quiet and rest. Happy birthday to Fish-Flopper and Godfather Mike, and Happy New Year to everyone else. May 2009 be gracious to you all.

I stayed up til 7 am for this??

Words You Really Don't Want to Hear Two Days Before Christmas

"Look, Daddy, now my hair's not in my eyes anymore!"

Sunny Says, Illustrated

"Look, Mommy, it's a picture of Trout standing on two watermelons!"

Because that's something we do every day around here, apparently.

Ride 'Em Cowgirl (and Boy)

Scene: Superbabysitter is lumbering rather slowly across the floor on all fours, Sunny and Nemo atop his back.

Sunny: Giddyap!

Superbabysitter: This is all the Giddy my yap gets.

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Real post coming soon. Lots of posts in my brain, ZERO time to get them all out. Off to go be Mom on The Spot at Sunny's preschool Christmas party.

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New post up at DC Metro Moms here. Let your picture be taken.

Two Inches

What would you do if you found out that there was a way to correct a problem, a physical problem you have with your body that isn't just a cosmetic issue, but pertains to your quality of life? Would you do it, even if it was incredibly painful? And risky? Would you do it? And knowing what you do about yourself right now, would you have trusted your teenage self with making the right decision for you?

These are questions that have been weighing heavily on my mind this past week two weeks.

As those of you who know me in real life know, I am Short. Note the capital S. Really short. Like, not much taller standing up than sitting down short. I'm 4'10" tall, technically qualifying me as a Little Person, though I do not have dwarfism and have never considered myself as LP. I certainly identify with some of the challenges they face every day, and I've been ridiculed and treated poorly because of my height. Most of it is merely annoying rather than destructive, but there was a time in my life when I was first working when people wouldn't take me seriously because my height combined with my youthful appearance gave the impression people were dealing with a twelve year old, rather than someone older, and certainly they never believed me when I was in a position of authority.

My height has, once or twice, been an issue of safety. When I was pregnant with Trout, I couldn't drive from about five months on, because my belly was too big for me to safely get behind the wheel and still reach the pedals, and at the time I had a car without airbags. It was miserable to have to be schlepped around every single place I had to go. I couldn't just run out to the store. I couldn't get to my doctor appointments. I didn't really feel like I could go anywhere at all for fun, because I felt so guilty having to ask people to drive me around for the things I HAD to do.

We wised up when I was pregnant with Little Man, and with the purchase of pedal extenders I was able to continue to drive throughout my pregnancy, though I was still closer to the wheel than would have been safe had I had an airbag in the car (it was a stick-shift jeep, no less). Getting those showed me what a crazy thing it had been that I was driving for so long without them, so we kept them until we got rid of that car. It's not so much an issue now with next-generation airbags and cars with available adjustable pedals built in, and I fit in my Toyota just fine, but those pedal extenders were a life-saver back then.

All this has been on my mind because of this article from the Washington Post, about a 13 year old girl with dwarfism who decided to have surgery to lengthen her legs. This wasn't an option for me, as it wasn't available back when I was young. I often said, still sometimes say, that I would give anything to have at least two inches, just two little precious inches, to get me to five feet, the land where I wouldn't have to have even petite length pants hemmed, where I could reach things from the top shelves in the grocery store without having to ask someone, where I can sit back the recommended ten to twelve inches from the airbag. Where finding clothes that fit would be simple, and wouldn't sometimes require a trip to the children's section. Where my feet will be able to touch the floor when I sit, instead of dangling two inches above the floor, so I self-consciously tuck them under me, destroying my knees in the process. Where I can ditch my stools that I have all over the house so that I can reach the things I need to get to. The article talks about lengthening legs up to sixteen total inches for some people. That would make me a giant!

Now, at this point in my life, I wouldn't have the surgery. I like how I am. I also think that we all face challenges in this life, and this really isn't a bad one to face. I can't say I would have made the same decision when I was 13, however, or 15 or 17 or even 27. Because I wouldn't have made the decision based on what was right for ME, but rather more about being convenient to other people, or what other people thought of me. I have always prided myself on my independence and self-sufficiency, and I never want to be thought of as a burden or as someone who makes other people uncomfortable. My younger self would have been much more concerned with what other people think, driven by "fitting in" rather than being different in any way. Now, as I approach 40, I'm secure in my own skin, in my own height. I don't care what others think; it is not necessary for me to subscribe to what others think I should be in order for me to be valuable. I hope that I am setting an example for my children, who are likely to be shorter than average, and certainly Sunny who is well on her way to being as short as I am, that it is better to change the way people think than it is to change yourself to fit the average. I particularly like the quote from the article from Sylvia Boorstein:

"There are only two responses to every challenge -- balanced acceptance or embittered resistance. Acceptance is freedom. Resistance is suffering. We all know this."

Even if my feet do dangle when I sit.

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New post up at DC Metro Moms about my quest to find that elusive thing called sleep.

Fun for Juveniles

"Hey, there's a big sheet of bubble wrap? In the street?"

"Yeah...."

"Well, someone just ran over it. It was cool."

"Okaaaay..." More conversation about another topic ensues.

"Okay, so, I'm gon' go run over the bubble wrap now. Wanna hear it?"

"Uh, sure."

"Okay, I'm gonna hang the phone up over the mirror, hope you can hear it."

It sounded like a fart. It was cool. We are so easily entertained.