Octo-baby

  Apparently, this is what happens when you give Elinor Cheerios after she has eaten waffles.

Santaclaustrophobia

I looked around the internets to see if there was an official term for the fear of Santa.  Because let me tell you, Scout has it and always has.  There is  pogonophobia, which is the fear of beards: nope, daddy is still huggable when he has given up shaving for a week (but ask me how huggable he is to me when he shaves it all but a mustache and then chases me around trying to kiss me -yes he still does that-), there is hagiophobia- fear of saints and holy things (nope, she isn't a vampire nor is she possessed nor is Santa very holy these days anyway no matter what his roots are.)  I think I'd know by now if she had rhodophobia (the fear of the color red) or cacomorphobia (the fear of fat or obese people).  These are as close as you can get to a fear of Santa.  Perhaps you could combine them all into a crammed term that incorporates them all................or you could just call it Santaphobia.

When Scout was a year old, we were in Macy's and there was a Santa wandering around handing out candy canes.  The moment he got within 20 feet of her, she absolutely flipped out.  I didn't think too much of it, she was right in the middle of the fear of anyone that isn't mom and dad talking to her that little ones get.  Then a year or two later, on Christmas morning when she woke up, I said, "lets go into the living room and see what Santa left in there for you" and a dark look of fear crossed her face when suddenly all the talk about Santa coming down your chimney and creeping around your living room leaving you stuff and eating your cookies hit home to her and she didn't like that idea at all.  We coaxed into the living room though and she shook off the creepy feeling pretty fast.

Last year, at our ward Christmas party, Santa came and then left to sit in another room and the kids were to go visit him.  She flipped and I mean a 5 year old had a fit and cried her eyes out because mamma told her we were going in there to sit on his lap, get her picture taken and get a candy cane.  This was a girl that never has tantrums and never throws fits.  I pushed her a little, thinking that she would get over it when she was there and saw the other kids happily doing it and the promise of a candy cane.  Nope, it just got worse.  I gave up, I mean, I've looked at pictures like these with a lot of sympathy in the past and I don't want to do that to my children.  And lets face it, I am not exactly crying myself to sleep at night that I don't have a fuzzy little picture of little Scout sitting on Santa's lap.  I decided that day I would respect her fear and support her fully.  Now, this is just Santa in the flesh mind you, she is fine with pictures of him and talking about him.  He just can't come within her comfort zone (which is about 50 feet or so).  


I am not sure how long Santa is going to remain an actual figure of truth to her though.  Frankly, I'm surprised she seems to think he is real this year.  She squelched the tooth fairy this year with the loss of her first tooth.  She asked me if it was me that gives her money for her tooth.  I asked what she thought and she said yes and I told her that it was me, but it is fun to pretend that it is a fairy.  I told myself before I had kids that I would play along with Santa, etc. for as long as they seemed happy with it, but if they ever asked me point blank, I wasn't going to lie to them.  I was going to hear their opinion and feel out if they seem like they want it to be real and go from there.  She didn't like the idea of a little fairy coming into her room and getting under her pillow much either, so she seemed relieved with the truth.  I am a little boggled that Santa is still allowed to come into her living room every year.  Maybe the proximity is enough to keep her at least calm, he doesn't leave presents under her pillow at least.

So anyway, this year when we talked about going to the ward party (it was on Friday), she immediately asked if Santa was coming.  I said yes and she started to panic and ask if we could stay home.  I told her we were going, but she does not have to sit on his lap if it makes her uncomfortable.  She seemed satisfied with that, although felt the need to ask me about 6 more times that day if she had to sit on his lap.  He came in the room and she kept her cool for the most part, but started to cry when her friend ran to her and wanted to go in there with her.  We told her that Scout is scared of Santa and she left.  She was the only child left in a room full of adults, so of course she got asked a million times if she was going to go see Santa.  One nice lady told her a story about how scared she was of Santa when she was a little girl and they shared a high five.  

Just cause Scout is scared, I decided I should not have Elle miss out on Santa.  So I took Elle, and Scout actually stood out side the door and peeked into the room a few times and even after a while stood with her back against the wall right at the door way.  But then people would try to coax her in line and she would get upset.  Daddy rescued her and they watched as Elle had her turn.  

Elle was so amazed that she actually got to get so close to this amazing looking man with all that white hair on his face.  She was so cute.  No fear of Santa with this one, (in fact, the only fear she seems to have is that of getting from one the crawling position to a sitting position -or changing positions of any sort-).

Santa seemed rather taken with her too.

My Birthday

I celebrated my birthday a few weeks ago.  The last few years, my birthday's have gained a slight reputation of being on the bad side.  Two years ago, my beloved and wonderful husband totally forgot it.  He had an excuse, he had court the next day to defend himself from being sued and had remembered my birthday for the days leading up to it, but it escaped his mind entirely the day of.  Last year, while planning where to celebrate with a nice dinner, Tiny E somehow poked herself in the eye REALLY bad and cried for over an hour while we conceded and warmed up frozen spaghetti.  This year, I found myself driving on the top of a mountain amidst the worst snow conditions I have ever driven in.  There is more to it, but you can see the pattern here.  Nothing I would define as epically bad, but still.......Anyway, I wanted to record that weekend I spent, cause it was an interesting time.

My birthday fell on a Friday, and it happened to fall the weekend that Breaking Dawn Part 1 came out (for those of you that follow my life, you would know that my family has a strange tradition of seeing these movies up in Wyoming in this crappy theater together.  More on that in a bit.) Also, my sister in law Bronwyn was in her very first play, "A Midsummer Night's Dream" as a made up fairy "Foxglove" at the local college.  Also, my dad was speaking in church that Sunday and planned to tell some life experiences he doesn't share very much.  It was a total no brainer to go up there.  So my sister Cat and her son Booker, my sister Sue and me and my girls headed out on Friday afternoon in two cars.  We were making good time until we were about 2 hours away, the snow started to fall.  No problem, we just needed to be there by 7:30, to make B's play that night.  We had plenty of time.  Did I mention that my family lives on the other side of the infamous "South Pass"?  This is an infamous place in Mormon Pioneer stories, it is the place that the Martin and Willy Handcart Company got stuck in a winter storm that caused a lot of suffering and many to lose their lives and had to be rescued.  Anyway, we were making our way through this pass with some MAJOR snowfall.  You know the kind that pretty much blinds you?  The very lucky thing was that there was miraculously no wind.  South Pass winds are legendary.  They cause the pass to close a lot in the winter cause they are menacing and blow semi trucks down and little cars right away.  Speaking of closing, they closed the pass that night WHILE we were in it.  We must have barely made it in there before they closed it, and there was an official vehicle waiting at the other closure, waiting for us last crazy people to get out so they could lower the gate. 

Yeah, my skills got us through without one slip (with the help of the 4 new tires Rob had made sure were on there before our trip).  Man, it was a good thing we had those things.  It didn't get any better off the pass, we still had a 30 minute drive to Riverton, which took waaaay longer then that.  We didn't make much of the play.  We made it for the last few acts and pretty much missed B's entire performance.  My birthday dinner was wolfing down my requested sweet and sour chicken cold my sister had lovingly prepared in my honor and then left the girls with Cat, who decided the play was a total loss and skipped it.  It could have been worse, I could have spent my birthday dying on the top of a mountain as a tin can a semi ran over.  OR, it could have been spent turning around because the pass was closed and spending the night in a flea bag hotel in Rock Springs.  We shuddered over that thought more then the dying one.  So we triumphed South Pass, not a bad birthday after all I say. 

Sadly though, early that afternoon a beloved member of their community and orthodontist to my nieces and nephews, crashed his plane and was killed.  This is the man that makes his own fireworks and then puts on a free show every 4th of July that totally kicks butt (spoken about in a previous post, here).  So sad.  He was a good friend to my family and husband and father to his family, was a good support to B when she joined the church and is very missed by all.  Kind of sad it happened on my birthday, it's weird to think that day will be such a sad day for his family for the rest of their lives.

The next day was Saturday and we went to a matinee of Breaking Dawn.  I don't want to complain or anything, but the movie was legitimately pretty good and the theater had gotten a new sound system and the generator had been replaced and the audience was pretty quiet also- Taylor Lautner has obviously noticed the way his voice sounds when he talks and modified it this time  (WHERE IS THE FUN IN THAT????).  Luckily, the movie did give us some gems such as the werewolf pack conversation.  I sure missed that generator going off every 15 minutes or so, picking it's times to go eeeerrrrrrrrrrrrr...bumbumbumbumbum..... during a particularly brooding Edward moment.  The theater did seem to want to at least remind us where we were at the very end and produced a loud and nondescript crash somewhere in it's annals at the very last poignant and quiet scene.  Thanks old friend, you still have it in you, at least a little.

We were in our own that night, Amy and Scott had their company party that night, but in true form, mama bird made us a yummy casserole before she left.  We hung out that evening with my parents and watched a movie, then at about 10 they decided to head home (they live in Riverton too, but when we come to town, we stay at my sister's house).  Anyway, my parents had taken separate cars, coming at separate times, so they left in two different cars.  Shortly thereafter, I saw to my crying baby and then went back downstairs in time to see my brother shoot up and say, "you did WHAT?"  Turns out he was on the phone talking to my dad who had just rolled his truck on the ice.  He had called 911 before Matt (surprisingly, if you know him), and thought he better let us know what's going on.  We couldn't believe it.  We immediately bundled up and drove to where he was, thinking that he could be in shock and hurt worse then he thinks, which was not hurt at all according to him.  Amy and Scott were still gone and my mom wasn't answering her phone.  We got to the scene and there was a police car there already and surprisingly- Amy and Scott.  They had driven past and seen his truck there.  My dad was fine!  Crazy guy was fine.  The police man called the ambulance anyway just to be sure, we were glad, as we think we should be a bit cautious seeing as he is the "octo dad" and by that I mean he had 8 bypasses this summer on his heart.  He didn't have a scratch on him!  While they were checking him out we noticed that we were about 7 people standing on the side of the road in like 0 degree weather at 11 at night next to an ambulance, a cop, and a rolled truck- laughing and making jokes.  Don't come across that every day.  I took a picture on my phone and didn't send it to anyone and my phone has been washed since and is dead, so I guess those pics are gone forever.  I am sad, cause it is quite the memory.

The next day was Sunday, and at nine o'clock that morning, my dad stood up at church and delivered his talk.  Scott told him that he is a hard man to kill and he is right.  This world is not through with him yet and for that I am grateful.  I am not ready to be without him, and I am glad someone agrees with me.  After church Sue, Cat, Scout and I went to the first part of B's play for the matinee.  I am glad we did, it was fun seeing B and it was Scout's first play and she liked it.  In fact, B's part was pretty much done, so we all agreed to slip out and I told Scout and she said that she wanted to watch the fairy princess (Titania) wake up and see who she falls in love with.  I love that she was following along and liked it and wanted to know what happened next.  I loved that she had no idea that it was going to turn out to be a man that was turned into an ass.  I knew she would get a kick out of that.  She loved that group of guys (Bottom and company) and laughed really hard when they were on stage and I wish she could have seen the play they put on, she would have loved it.  We'll take her again when she is a few years older.  Good to know she enjoyed it though.

We went home that next morning and had a beautiful clear day and two of the best behaved little girls on the planet.  I can't think of one thing to complain about them on that drive home.  They were fabulous.  We got home and gave Rob a big hug and Lola sure was glad to see us too.

Notable moments to remember:

The giant Twilight cups and my disgust that I got Bella.  Then, Matt offering to go back to get me an Edward cup and then thinking it through in his head that he would have to ask the girl for the Edward one.

Leprechan Puck

Matt imitating leprechan Puck

Watching Paranormal Activity 2:  B staying awake the entire time and not watching a second of it, then asking us questions to get the story clear, Kyle's creepy room happenings and my rational explanation of the circumstances.

Did I forget anything?  I know I did, but I am out of ideas tonight.

I promise I didn't forget Hunch Cat.  I will NEVER forget Hunch Cat.  We watched that video on Amy's big screen tv I am not lying- no less then 50 times.  It kept getting funnier and funnier and I will NEVER ever not laugh upon viewing hunch cat.  I laughed just as hard on viewing number 49 as I did on viewing number 2.

I dedicate this video to my fellow hunch cat peeps, you know who you are and I know you are going to laugh:

For all of you that haven't seen Hunch Cat, first of all: you're welcome and second, do yourself a favor and watch it at least 3 times back to back. 

(Or 50 as we did.)