January: Hi! Remember me?

February: I thought I’d be original and post about the snow storm.

March: I am not happy that my child is scared of thunder and loud rain.

April: *crickets*

May: *crickets*

June: *crickets*

July: I’m back! Or am I?

August: Well, we’re back from our lake vacation/family reunion.

September: I’ve been craving candy all week.

October: Friends are a strange thing, aren’t they?

November: So I think I already said somewhere that I’m going to be giving a portion of my testimony at my mom’s group.

December: I’ve got nothing today.

I don’t think posterity will mind.

So, a few weeks ago, Mr. Mouse and I went to a holiday party for his work.

But it wasn’t the big fancy holiday party for the whole company.

It was a smaller party for just the team of engineers that work for the client that Mr. Mouse works for – probably about 30-40 people there, counting the plus ones.

The evening consisted of dinner at a nice downtown Italian restaurant and taking in a concert a big  downtown arena.

As luck would have it, we ended up sitting at a table with Mr. Mouse’s boss and then also that guy’s boss’s boss.

Did you follow that?

I hope so because I’m  not going to make an org chart.

Believe it or not, engineers are not the most social beings, so as often is the case, I found myself feeling the need to be more social than I actually felt like being.

The goal was to be vibrant (great descriptor) and not obnoxious.

If you don’t know me in real life, it’s important for this story that you know that I am at least as obnoxious and inappropriate in real life as I am on the blog.

If not more.

So, throughout dinner, I’m resisting all of these opportunities to crack jokes as boss^3 is talking about all of the success that the division has had in the last year both independently and in comparison to the rest of the company.

Oh, yes. There were many opportunities for jokes.

And I sat there, being polite, less-than vibrant and actually thinking about each word before it came out of my mouth.

And it was exhausting.

This has gotten kind of long, so I won’t even go into the part where I ate shrimp.

Actual food from the sea.

Gross.

He got an iphone earlier this year and has surprised us all with how addicted to it he is.

He’s been chatting around the idea of getting an ipad because he is old and would like the bigger screen to use to replace his phone for the sitting around the house time.

To be honest, I don’t know why he didn’t pull the trigger on the ipad because he tends to just buy himself what he wants – thus making him very difficult to buy gifts for.

I called my mom in early December to see if he’d gotten one yet, so that I could consider getting him some accessories for it as a Christmas gift from us.

She reported that he hadn’t and asked if she should get him one.

Because I knew it would make my shopping easier, I said yes.

I’m a giver that way.

Actually, I think it was just the push she needed to go for it.

Along with the push of having Mr. Mouse email her the exact link of what she should purchase, so she didn’t screw up and buy him something crazy instead.

Because she’s not as good with the old Internet as she’d like to think.

My dad and I drove to the airport on Friday to pick up my sister and brother-in-law and on the way back to my house, we got to talking about the ipad and why he hasn’t bought one yet, etc.

I could tell he still wanted it and that he had no idea my mom got him one.

He wouldn’t know – that is more money that they typically spend on gifts for each other.

On Christmas afternoon (the result of Christmas being on a Sunday) when we opened presents, the first gift opened was the ipad.

As soon as he realized what it was, he totally teared up and for the rest of the gift opening, he couldn’t stop holding my mom’s hand.

It was the best reaction ever.

Gratitude for an undeserved gift.

And isn’t that what Christmas should be about anyway?

I was going to take a little poll, but then when I started thinking about the options, the list started getting really long.

Like too long.

So, I scratched the idea of the poll because I just can’t bring myself to list the many guilty pleasures I have.

I’ve got to keep something a mystery, right?

It is long (relatively) on top, long in the back and short on the sides (see also: my baby used to pull her hair out in handfuls).

Certainly mullet-ish.

The general consensus of the polled public seemed to be to leave it alone.

But I just kept thinking about it.

And that made me think two things:

1. Clearly I wanted to cut it even if other people told me not to or I wouldn’t still be thinking about it.

2. It’s hair and it will grow back, so what did I have to lose? (I’m not sentimental about baby hair, so I didn’t have that to lose.)

So, here is the before:

And here is the after (pay no attention to my messy kitchen counter – it pretty much always looks like that):

I’m glad I did it.

The short sides look longer than they did (when obviously they are the same length as before) since the difference between the sides and back is not as great and the back overall looks less unruly and more full (if you can describe baby hair as full).

I’m very clear that I’m in the minority here since NO ONE I asked thought I should trim it, but I am also probably the one person on the planet that cares the most about her hair, so I suppose it’s okay if swim against the current on this one.

Now, onto 12 Days of Christmas.

I think Mr. Mouse has figured out what’s going on by now (the third day of Christmas according to our calendar), so I can tell you my fun (for me at least and hopefully him) Christmas activity for this year.

I started on the 12th and that was the First Day of Christmas, so he got one gift – not a partridge in a pear tree.

Then, the next day he got two packs of fancy hot cocoa.

Then, today he got three packs of M&Ms.

So, you get the idea.

I may or may not have gotten creative with some of the numbers, but I can’t reveal all my secrets because it’s only the Third Day of Christmas.

I’ve got nothing to say mostly.

I held a tiny little baby today.

Well, he’s not that tiny and little, but he’s only 8 weeks old.

He loves me.

I have liquid cheese in my future.

Baby Swiss was wearing leopard print leggings today and people kept telling her they liked her tights and she of course said nothing resembling a “thank you” because she doesn’t acknowledge people out in public unless you count averting her eyes and hiding behind my legs.

Then, we’re driving home and she is in her seat in the van holding her baby and a stuffed bear and I hear Baby and Bear talking to each other…

“They aren’t tights, they’re pants.”

“Oh, they’re pants.”

“Yes, they are pants. They aren’t tights.”

“I like my pants.”

If I don’t say when I’ll be back, it will be months, so let’s just say I’ll check in on Tuesday.

Peace out.

I’ve even heard multiple people say that their child woke up a different person (not in a good way) on their third birthday.

I’ve tried to reserve judgement on what I think is terrible due to all of the whining about age three.

Because there is nothing like sharing a frustration about your two-year old to have it dismissed as being meaningless in light of bigger frustrations coming.

Both encouraging and validating.

Or not.

So, I’ve had a three-year old for exactly three weeks thus I am an expert.

Only joking.

I’m clearly an expert on everything, whether I’ve experienced it or not.

Or at least that’s how I roll on MY blog.

So, three weeks.

I’m happy to report that there was no switcheroo pulled with my child between bedtime on birthday-eve and morning.

So far (you know all three weeks we’ve done), three seems to be the age of “Why?” (this started several months ago, but I don’t see it going anywhere anytime soon) and repetition.

Like, “What’s your name, Mama?” “My name is Mama.” “What’s your name, Mama?”

Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Over and over.

But three’s behavior (all three weeks of it) has come nowhere near to that of TWO AND A HALF.

Imagine that I’m say that in a really doomsday-ish kind of voice.

Two and a half was the age of the fit.

Fits are not my favorite.

So that’s the report on three.

In summary: three doesn’t scare me.

But really, I’m glad to have three.

And even TWO AND A HALF (doomsday-ish voice again).

My mom says that the hardest age to parent for her has been the adult ages.

Because she can’t fix our problems.

She couldn’t fix things when my sister’s marriage went downhill and she couldn’t make everything better when I had three miscarriages.

I totally get that.

Because if my child’s biggest problem is that she can’t find her baby doll, I will be a happy mama.

I feel like I am so boring lately.

I have nothing interesting to report today.

We went for a walk.

We had Chick-fil-A for supper with some friends.

The girls were totally bushed and went to bed super quick and easy (they are generally never all that hard, but tonight: super easy).

Me = boring.