A Jen Too Many

Best Christmas present ever:

The Light of My Life has today off.

Somehow, we always wind up wrapping presents on Christmas Eve. I suppose it's a sign of how much I've come to dislike the task that I always leave it until the last minute. That's not a tradition though, just a bad habit!

Out traditions include going out on the lawn before bedtime to spread a few handfuls of oatmeal out for Santa's reindeer to snack on while he is in our house. The girls write letters to Santa and leave them on the table with cookies and eggnog using a special Santa-decorated mug and plate.

During the day we follow Santa on NORAD's Santa Tracker (if we remember to do so - last year we forgot until just before bedtime.) Today we will be making cookies for Santa, baking the pies for dinner tomorrow (pecan, apple, and mince) (I love mince pie; we're going to find out this year if the rest of the family can learn to like it too), and making the Jello Salad of Instant Diabetes*. We will hang up the stockings at some point.

We will eat cookies. We will drink eggnog. The girls will try to persuade us to let them open, "Just one present, please, please, please?" (The answer will be, "No.") Eventually everyone will fall asleep (this will take awhile) and then Santa will come.

Small people have been instructed that they are not allowed to get up until their alarm clock goes off (6:30 a.m. has been negotiated.) They are allowed to get Mommy and Daddy up at that time. BUT NOT BEFORE!!
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*Jello Salad of Instant Diabetes

Ingredients
1 3 oz box of flavored gelatin
1 8 oz tub of whipped topping
1 15 oz can of crushed pineapple
1 8 oz can of mandarin oranges
1 16 oz tub of small curd cottage cheese

Directions
Drain the crushed pineapple and mandarin oranges; save the juice. Prepare (according to package directions) whatever flavor you prefer of gelatin. (Lime is popular for this. I like raspberry, personally. Cranberry is also good, especially at Thanksgiving.) Use the saved pineapple and mandarin juice in place of some of the water.

After making the gelatin, put it in the refrigerator to chill until it is about the consistency of a raw egg white. Mix in the fruit and cottage cheese. Fold in the whipped topping. Return to refrigerator and chill until firm, in whatever bowl you will be serving it in.

Variations
Some people like to add nuts and marshmallows. Maraschino cherries are also popular. Feel free to throw in whatever goodies your family likes best. (There are a lot of variations of this. Throw the search string "jello cool whip cottage cheese" into a search engine and you'll come up with a ton of recipes.)

Once a year, sometime in December before Christmas, The Love of My Life will go out on his day off to fill up the car and come home with chocolate covered cherries. He gets one for each member of the family and hands them out when he gets home, tossing them to each of us, sometimes playing guessing games before handing us our candy.

It's the only time he ever buys those, and the only time we ever eat them. I didn't realize until today, though, when he was standing in front of me, saying, "Pick a hand!", that it's become a tradition for us. (I picked the wrong hand, but he gave me my candy anyway.)

It's not a big deal. It's not something we've ever even talked about. It's not part of our plans when we discuss Christmas. And yet, when I realized he'd brought the candy home, a small voice inside me said, "Oh, good, that part of Christmas is taken care of now."

It's just a quiet little thing, and yet, it's funny how important a part of Christmas this has become to me. A little affectionate gesture that helps to bind our family together, perhaps more important than the bigger traditions precisely because of how small and quiet it is. And, I can't help thinking - how typical that this kind of tradition originated with him. I tend to think of the bigger, flashier things-to-do and rope everyone into participating. He just goes out and does his thing, quietly and efficiently, not making a big deal about it, but bringing all the more meaning to it because of that.

Conversation between the girls, while playing around and under the Christmas tree, with various dolls and sundry stuffed animals:

Youngest Girl Child: Attend (translated: pretend) we had a sleepover

Oldest Girl Child: So we can wear our capes!

YGC: Yes.

OGC: The kitty is alright!

YGC: Attend your kitty liked it

OGC: Does she like it? I'm glad.

YGC: Attend she has to stay in the cage. (pause) Santa came last night!

OGC: He did? Is she alright? Did you see Santa? Tell me you didn't!

YGC: I did! Just kidding!

OGC: Come 'ere girl. (gasp) You kicked her! Just kidding. (to the stuffed cat) You need to be washed! You have fleas. Friend, can you hold her still? Kitty! Don't worry, it's gone. Now!

YGC: I'll hold her. Meow, meow, meow. Attend you messed her up.

OGC: Meow, meow, meow. You've got to shake her!

YGC: Attend she didn't like it and she was crying.

OGC: She's hiding. (to the stuffed cat) Don't worry! We'll fix it! Pretend when she said that she came right back up. (to the stuffed cat again) It looks like you like it. (brushing the cat's hair)

(discussion about the right way to brush a cat)

OGC: Pretend this is her home

YGC: And her kittens slept in the Christmas tree. Attend her kitten was sleeping.

Continuing on like this for quite some time...

The Little Demon Up The Street was here this morning. There has been snow (much excitement!) and they played outside, then inside, then outside again. Then Oldest Girl Child asked if she could go play at TLD's house. I told her, "No." She accepted it, albeit with a pout, and went back outside.

I just went to check on them and there is no sign of any children. I have no idea where my children are, but I'm willing to be they're inside TLD's house again.

I hate, hate, hate this. I don't want to have to be harsh with her. I've re-evaluated my stance again and again, but I can't see that I am being unreasonable. I need to know where she is. I need to know if she's inside someone's house. I cannot let her run wild around the neighborhood without accountability. The world is just too dangerous for that. All I ask is that she let me know where she is. I try to keep the Nos to a minimum. She still is fighting me on this, though.

I have to figure out what to do next. I have no idea what consequence to use next. She was grounded for a week this last time. Do I make her start checking in with me every 15 minutes? Ground her for longer? When I was little, I would have gotten a hairbrush, belt or wooden spoon to the bottom for this kind of behavior. I don't agree with that kind of punishment, but I do have to say it had its advantages. I would have been much too frightened to pull this sort of stunt (at least not twice.) But ruling that out still leaves me with a problem - how do I convince her to obey me without terrorizing her?

Can I quit this gig? Just go have a nice easy career solving world hunger, finding a cure for mental illness, or discovering the key to Faster Than Light travel? 'Cause that would be simpler than trying to raise my children to be responsible, capable adults, I think. Easier than trying to teach them to be independent while keeping them safe.

Or maybe I'll just go hit my head with a hammer. It'll make a nice change of pace.

So, y'know, the question of the day is - How do I keep my sweet, darling, precious little angel from being sullied by her association with that nasty little hooligan over there, who is constantly finding ways to lure my little snookums into terrible acts of deception, manipulation, disrespect and general misbehavior?

No, really. Stop laughing, guys. I am serious!! How the heck do I keep my kid away from the bad influence of The Little Demon Up The Street? I have been wrestling with this all week.

The other day Oldest Girl Child went up the street to play with TLD. I had specifically told her that I didn't want her going inside to play. I wanted her to play outside. It wasn't that cold and after being in school all week she needed the exercise. Besides, playing inside with TLD tends to lead to trouble. Like the Nail Polish Incident. And the Deliberately Running Away And Excluding Youngest Girl Child Incident. Not to mention the TLD Lying To OGC And YGC About People Being Mad At Them Incident. And a host of other Incidents.

That day, I wanted to surprise the girls with a movie (a real movie, in a real theater with popcorn, even) so when it was time to go I went outside to call OGC home. There was no sign of her, so I went and knocked on TLD's door. There she was, inside, a guilty look on her face, absolutely and completely busted.

I talked with her when we got home. I was very calm and patient, but firm. (Really, I was. I didn't yell once. Not even a little bit.) I talked with The Love of My Life and Father of My Children and we agreed that grounding was appropriate. We did allow her to go to the movie with me and YGC since that is an unusual treat and it seemed overkill to take it away, but we gave her a choice. She could have a couple of extra days of being grounded, or she could stay home from the movie. (She chose the movie and the extra days of grounding, obviously.)

When we got home from the movie, OGC had a quiet talk with her father about the importance of obeying us and the dangers of going somewhere without telling us. Afterward he came to me, rather shaken up. He had gotten his first ever serious rebellion from OGC. As he described it to me, she wasn't bored, or distracted. She was flat out rebellious, taking a you-are-so-stupid-attitude toward him.

He wanted her to never play with TLD again, feeling that this attitude was not natural to OGC, but something she had picked up from her friend. Now, I've been thinking this same thing for awhile. As I said before, there have been a number of incidents with TLD that have more than alarmed me. I haven't felt comfortable with just banning her, though. I thought that would provoke further rebellion, and I wasn't sure how well I could enforce that rule since she just lives a few houses away. I did not want OGC playing up there with her anymore, though, since my attempts to keep control of the situation have been so easily undermined.

Soooo... We've been thinking this over this week. I expressed the feeling that we were looking at two ends of the spectrum, and we needed to find a third solution. Not to ban TLD forever, and not to let the situation (clearly a negative one) continue, but something else, something in between the two extremes. After thinking it over, and talking with a few people I trust, this is what we came up with:

She can keep playing with TLD, but it has to be over here, where I can supervise the situation. I even managed to put it to her in a way that didn't upset her. I explained that TLD's parents have a different way of looking at the world than we do, and it's not fair to expect them to make sure that OGC makes the sort of choices that we think are appropriate. Therefore, since our standards are the stricter, and since she plays over there so much anyway, it would only be fair to have TLD play over here. That would make things easier for TLD's parents, and give them a break from always having the kids there.

I am hoping, honestly, that TLD will not want to play here. If she does come over, though, I will make sure I stay in the same room as the girls and aggressively monitor what is happening. That will let me break up any bad behavior before it gets a foothold, not to mention allowing me to keep my peace of mind.

Can we do this? Can we Provide A Good Influence? Tame the Demon? Teach her to Play Nicely and Tell The Truth?

Time Will Tell ...

Around the beginning of November Oldest Girl Child and Youngest Girl Child walked up to me in the kitchen, wearing I-have-something-important-to-say expressions.

"Mommy," said OGC, "It's about time we start ..."

She paused, looking for the right words. YGC helped out with a conspiratorial, "You knooooow ..."

I thought rapidly. "Being good for Santa?" I contributed.

There were eager nods and grins. I laughed.

"I have a hunch," I told them, "that Santa looks at your behavior the whole year, not just right before Christmas."

The eager faces suddenly looked nervous.

Now, only a few days from Christmas, I am ready to pull my hair out. Forget the rest of the year. They can't even be good for five minutes at a time this close to Christmas!

I am dreading Christmas vacation. Why, oh why, do the stupid schools have to shut down for two weeks?

Every year when we put up the plastic tree, we have cookies and eggnog. The kids and I put the tree together, while their father takes pictures. Sometimes the girls like to dress up. We always use multi-colored lights, because I am the one who buys the decorations and that's what we had when I was a kid. I like a tree with those kind of lights.

Either Mommy or Daddy puts the lights on, then the kids put the ornaments on. We have a tree skirt I made many years ago, some old glass ornaments I got at a St. Vincent de Paul thrift store when I lived in Oregon, several newer glass ornaments (that are gradually decreasing in number as one or two break every year) and a large number of figurine-type ornaments that were either gifts from friends and family, or made by the girls at school and church.

This year we have two new ornaments - a wreath the Youngest Girl Child made out of sparkly pipe cleaner and a milk jug lid ring, in kindergarten, and a styrofoam ball studded with beads and sequins precariously held on with pins made by Oldest Girl Child. The ball is already starting to shed pins and I worry for its longevity.

We also have: a tongue depressor Star of David (OGC), a tongue depressor snowman (YGC), a tongue depressor Rudolph (OGC), a felt-and-pipe-cleaner sled made by one of my sisters and given to me many, many years ago, a blue glass ball with "Merry Christmas R.S. '98" written on it in puffy gold paint (given to me by a friend who died a few years later), a white plaster (I think) snowflake on a blue background (OGC), a plastic bead wreath (unknown), manger figurines I bought a few years before I met my husband (baby Jesus has been lost for years), and a piece of lace the girls found at the bottom of one of the boxes which I used to use as garland back when I was roommates with Cari.

At the top of the tree we have a star, also lit up with multi-colored lights. and another decoration that I brought with me when I got married. The girls both want to be the one to put it up on the top of the tree, so we arranged things this year so that they could both have their hands on it when it went on. (That's another good thing about an artificial tree - it's really easy to make the star stay on.)

There's nothing on there that would impress a decorator, but I love everything on there. Christmas trees are supposed to be gaudy and tacky and full of little kids' art projects. There's a law about it. Somewhere.

A woman I know slightly has been blogging about some steps she is taking to improve the way she treats her husband. She started off by doing something nice for him. He didn't exactly respond well. In fact, his reaction was to accuse her of trying to lay a guilt trip on him. Unsurprisingly, she started feeling like she was wasting her time. She squashed that reaction, though, and reminded herself that it would take a while for real change to happen.

I posted a quick comment encouraging her and then had to stop myself from hauling out the soap box. "Good luck," I wrote at the end of my comment. "You won't regret doing this." What I wanted to say, though, was more along the lines of this:

We live in world that encourages us to think in terms of profit and loss. We tally up. We keep track. We measure our energy and effort output and compare it to what the people around us are doing. We do this in our friendships, in our work relationships, and sometimes, especially in our marriages. If I do something for you, what are you going to do for me? Have you done as many good things for me as I have for you? Have you paid me for my favors to you, if only in being appropriately grateful for how nice I have been?

It's not a good way to handle a relationship, any sort of relationship. Especially not a marriage.

When I wrote, "You won't regret this doing this," I didn't mean, "This is going to work, and everything is going to be wonderful in your marriage if you just keep it up." I meant, "You will never regret doing the right thing, and in marriage, refusing to keep an ledger of favors done and received is the the right thing. Even if he never acknowledges a single thing you've done for him; even if everything falls apart, you will have the satisfaction of knowing you did what you could to keep your marriage strong and healthy."

(Now, I did not say that to her, because I don't think she needs to hear anyone saying, right now, "Hey, even if it doesn't work out ..." So I'm saying it here, on my personal always-pulled-out-for-easy-access soapbox.)

I was taught throughout my childhood to look to Jesus Christ as an example of how to live. He loved and served others regardless of their ability to "repay". I need to do the same thing with the people I know. It doesn't matter what they do in return. This isn't about their choices. It's about my choices. I have a responsibility to treat the people around me with love and kindness regardless of how they act. Not that I always achieve my goals in that, but I keep trying and like to think that I am improving as time goes by.

Several years ago I had an experience that made me aware of a very simple, but powerful, truth: I have never regretted obeying the Lord.

In all my life, I have never once said, "Wow, I wish I hadn't kept that commandment!" or, "What a waste of time it was to do the right thing!" I have never regretted following the Savior's example. I have never been unhappy that I kept a commandment. I have never been sorry I did the right thing. I have only ever been glad when I did those things.

On the other hand, I have always come to regret those times I have lived down to my worst impulses, or even just my not-so-lofty impulses.

So when I say, "You won't regret this," that's only shorthand for everything I just said in this post.

There was much sorrow in our house this morning. School was not cancelled.

There was great hope for a cancellation, since the weather forecasters were predicting an ice storm that would have shut everything down for at least the morning, but nothing of the sort happened, and everyone headed off to work and school this morning just as normal.

"School is not so fun!" Oldest Girl Child complained to me after the umpteenth time of checking the school website did not reveal a new message cancelling everything. I gave her my mini-lecture about the importance of school, that fun isn't the most important thing in the world, and her job right now is learning. And I'm sure it really sunk in, this time. I swear - she listened intently. Really!

I spent tonight teaching my daughters the fine art of artificial tree branch fluffing.

When I was a kid, we always had a real tree. One year it was a live tree, in a wooden barrel half. I think my parents were being ecologically correct that year. (The tree went outside after Christmas was over. I don't remember what happened to it after that, although I would be willing to lay money on it having died of neglect eventually. Green thumbs do not run in my family. Herbicidal thumbs do.) A couple of times we went out to tree farms and cut them down ourselves. Most years we just went to a tree lot.

Dad would always get the biggest tree that would fit in our house. The house we lived in when I was in high school had cathedral ceilings, and he really went all out after that, at least as far as height went. You see, a 10 or 12 foot tree is not cheap - unless you are going for the very tall Charlie Brown tree. Especially when you are buying it on Christmas Eve just before the lot closes for the year. I wish I had a picture of some of those trees. Not much in the way of branches, but they were certainly tall!

I was a Christmas tree purist when I was young. Artificial trees? Blasphemy! Yet here I am, on my *mumblemumble* year of our artificial tree, and very happy with it. OK - there's no smell. There are also no needles that are still being vacuumed out of the carpet in March. No worry about the dog drinking the tree's water and poisoning himself with tree food / preservative. No stress about scheduling when to get a tree, and how to get it home. No having to make sure to remember to put it out at the right time to have the garbage service pick it up free of charge.

So my children will have fond Christmas memories of putting the tree together before decorating it. That's OK. We have a living pine in a pot on our porch. If I remember to transplant into a bigger pot this spring, it might not even die.

When I was a kid I was notorious for constantly having a book in my hand. (I still do, it's just not as obvious that it's a book, since I keep my books on my PDA now.) I walked home from school, reading all the way. I walked around the house, reading. I even read while I was supposedly listening to my teachers in junior high school, hiding the book under the desk, on my lap (until I got caught by an irate science teacher.)

This morning, Oldest Girl Child was walking around, re-reading her latest library book, Junie B. Jones and the Mushy Gushy Valentime. Every time I turned around, there she was, reading instead of getting ready for school. We had to pry her away from the book in order to do morning scripture study and afterward, when her father was trying to get her attention so that he could ask her to give the family prayer, she replied, "I know, I know, I'm just reading a little bit."

She left the house for the bus stop, nose buried in her book. I couldn't be more proud. That's my girl!