In keeping with the random holiday theme:

One jolly season a couple of years ago, the iguana was out sniffing packages and looking for ways to get outside. He forgets that going outside will freak him right the fuck out because it is too big and scary for a guy like him. I then heard the gentle tinkle of the glass bell ornament that I got in the early eighties (late seventies, maybe) and a piney rustling. There he was, proud as could be to finally, finally have found a real live (somewhat) tree to scale. Someday this will be our seasonal card photo. If we ever get that organized.

The boys went with John to the library to return and aquire dvds. (We get books, too, but the dvds are only for a week and we have more books than we can read before they’re due. So don’t give us that dirty look leaving the library with our kids and only movies. We aren’t that evil, really.) They came back with lots of holiday choices, like Rudolph and Teleflubbies Cmas, and (excuse me while I retch) the vejetabull tales. I am not a vegetabull tails supporter, and would totally have done some sort of accidental illegal shelving on the way to the check out if I’d been along. Today the kids watched it while I was in the kitchen doing dishes and I wanted to yell out like a heretic, “No! the true meaning of cmas is NOT that a certain person was born!! It is all about getting the (way cool and interesting) pagans to join the (totally oppressive and controlling and murdering) church by incorporating the pagan’s biggest holiday into theirs. Any scholar worth their salt knows that Criste was born in the spring! But, at our house, we split the difference and make it all about TOYS and EATING SUGAR! Yay!”

But I didn’t.

Today I took Nate for his kindergarten physical. He had to get a chicken pox shot (which I am not 100% in favor of, but being divorced from his Dad who wants the kids immunized, I gave in to keep us out of family court where I’d be ruled against anyway) and a tb test. He was very brave. When she did the exam and wanted to check out his parts, he got really mad. He said, “MOM! She’s looking at my privates!” I said, “Oh, honey, it’s okay if it’s the doctor. Are you alright?” He answered that she was TOUCHING them, in a very alarmed voice, then yelled, “GET YOUR HANDS OUTTA MY PRIVATES!”

And me?

Totally giggling and trying very hard not to let anyone see me. How stupid is it that I giggled at that like a little kid? Poor Nate. He needed me to help him out and I was laughing. Truth be told, I’m laughing about it again. I’m lame. You had to be there.

I have got to get the kids up earlier in the morning or give them ludes at bedtime. They get in bed and won’t sleep and require drinks and trips to the toilet and stories and tapes and me (because one of the dvds was Haunted Mansion — cause I wasn’t on that trip to the library). By the time they are all asleep hours later, I am so tense and pissy that I want to punch a hole in the wall and John is asleep and the whole wonderfullness of him no longer working nights is pretty much null and void. I see the appeal of the “let your baby cry itself to sleep” club. But I can’t join.

The neighbors would kill me. The kids are LOUD.

I’m joking. But, seriously, the bedtime thing had best settle down when school starts. I need grownup time at the end of the day. I’m turning into a babbling idiot. More of one, anyway.