Heartbroken.

We just got back from Disney World. When we told the kids about my cancer diagnosis back in the summer, we promised them that we would celebrate with a trip to Disney World once my surgery and any treatments were over. This was that trip. But something else that motivated me to plan this trip was the shattered sense of limitless time that came with my diagnosis. Even though my prognosis is excellent, I lost any sense of security that I have infinite time with my children, any sense of a guarantee that we have years and years together in which to do all of the things we want to do. So "wouldn't it be fun to go to Disney World around Christmas someday?" suddenly became "we're going to Disney World next month!"

So we were in Disney World, surrounded by sweet, innocent, wide-eyed children at the mecca for sweet, innocent, wide-eyed children, when we heard about the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary. My phone had run out of battery power early in the day on Friday so I didn't have access to the news, but at one point David asked me where Newtown was, because there had been a shooting there. But it wasn't until we were back in the hotel when we learned of the magnitude of the horror. It just hits so close to home on so many levels -- as the parent of elementary-aged kids, as a Connecticut native. Connecticut is a small state, and when you grow up there it feels like you "know" all of the towns much more than in any other place I've lived, just because none of them are much more than an hour away. Newtown is only 20 minutes from my hometown, and I immediately thought about my college friends from Newtown. Leann. Dan. My mother has friends with children who teach at Sandy Hook. My friend Maureen sent us an email to let us know that Sean, who accompanied her on the piano whenever she sang at 10:00 mass, has a son at Sandy Hook. Sean played the piano in our wedding. His son, Brendan, was okay, but they lost many close friends on Friday, including the school psychologist.

To be at Disney World this weekend was to experience moments of great joy with my children, followed by that "punched in the gut" feeling when thinking about the families who had these kind of moments with their own children permanently and savagely taken from them.

On the plane ride home, my own beautiful kindergartner fell asleep on my lap with her ridiculously oversized Disney World lollipop still in her mouth:

I stroked her soft baby cheeks and wondered where she got that scratch and counted her eyelashes and just cried.

I cried again when I saw the armed police officer outside our elementary school when I dropped the kids off this morning, even though his presence brought me comfort.

Time with my children, experiences with my family: one gift from my diagnosis was great clarity, and these are the only things that matter to me. We might not have tomorrow -- that is of course the reality for all of us, although a cancer diagnosis will help drive the point home. But you know what? Cancer happens. Accidents happen. But a massacre of babies at an elementary school? THIS CANNOT HAPPEN AGAIN.

Elfin style

The elves came a few days ago and got right down to their usual elf antics. The first night they worked on a Christmas village jigsaw puzzle:

I had never seen this puzzle before, so apparently some kind of elf magic carried it into the house. It happens. Then the next night they got into the mops and brooms and rigged up some kind of elf obstacle course in the dining room.

I have a dream that someday, the elves will get into the mops and brooms and actually use them to mop and sweep.

And then LAST night, they somehow got a hold of the Video Star app on the iPad and made this über-bizarre music video: 

The first time I saw the original Gangnam Style, I told the friend who emailed it to me that I had no earthly idea what I had just seen, and I felt exactly the same way when I woke up and saw this.  We are invited to a Gangnam-style dance-off on New Years' Eve, so I guess I better hurry and figure it out.

Nutcracker weekend

Elizabeth danced in her first Nutcracker last weekend. She had been rehearsing since September and did such a great job -- we are so proud of her! She was a candle angel:

She had so much fun with this and wants to do it again next year. Our family has gone to see the Nutcracker for the past several years, so I think it was really fun for her to actually perform in it! Here she is backstage:

Our whole family went to see her perform in the Saturday night show. I volunteered to work backstage during her second performance at the Sunday matinee. As a volunteer with no discernible talents (like sewing, for example) I was assigned to be a generic "chaperone;" i.e. babysitter. You know, little boys kind of have the reputation of being wilder than little girls, but whenever I'm around a large group of little girls, they are totally insane. Is it me? During my gig, I needed to track down ice for one little girl (head bonk incurred during the course of flinging herself around) {as an aside: you should never do anything with a large group of children without knowing exactly where to find (1) a bathroom, and (2) ice}. I also had to scrub off eye shadow from the cheeks of a little 5 year old who tried to apply her own makeup and kind of looked like she'd been in a bar brawl. And then another little girl (a cherub) started sobbing upon being falsely accused of sitting in the seat that another cherub had been sitting in. I had watched the superb performance the night before, and seriously had NO IDEA that there was such drama going on backstage. I guess props to the directors are in order!

Right when we needed a little comic relief, Mother Ginger came to visit:

This was really such a fun experience for Elizabeth (and the rest of us!)

I'm handing you no blarney, the likes you've never known

Yesterday Amanda and I were in my garage painting a bed (that's another post) and listening to tunes, including some Christmas music, when she asked me about my favorite Christmas songs. I couldn't answer her question on the spot, but in the hours that followed my favorites started popping around in my brain like hot corn kernels. In no particular order:

Do They Know It's Christmas, Band Aid. Christmas+the 80s+a recording studio full of Brits = the highest form of bliss.

All I Want for Christmas is You, Mariah Carey. I'm not a Mariah fan, but I love this song. If you don't like this version, you probably don't like puppies, rainbows or ponies either.

It's Christmas (Baby Please Come Home), U2. So much angst, Bono, and at Christmas! I hope she finally came home.

I love Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker from start to finish. The Chinese Tea dance is one of my favorites:

Little Drummer Boy (Peace on Earth), Bing Crosby & David Bowie. The dialogue at the beginning is kind of cheesy in that "Paul, I think I told you, I'm a lover, not a fighter" kind of way, but it should be obvious by now that a little cheese will never deter me from liking something.

Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah. Gives me chills every time. Chills I tell you!

Followed closely by For Unto Us a Child is Born, Handel's Messiah.

Shifting gears, we have Blue Christmas by Elvis. Elvis's Christmas Album was a mainstay of my childhood, and for me it's just not Christmas until Elvis starts crooning (sorry, I tried to find young Elvis but could only find 70s Elvis on You Tube.)

Ah, but here's young Elvis singing Peace in the Valley, which I might even love more than Blue Christmas!

Gabriel's Message, Sting. This is a beautiful song, and I don't think it's ever gotten the play that it deserves.

Ave Maria, Harry Connick Jr. Harry takes his sweet time getting into it, but I love his version.

Do You Hear What I Hear?, Whitney Houston. Oh, Whit. That Bobby Brown really did a number on you.

O Holy Night, Josh Groban.

Carol of the Bells. Amanda introduced me to this version by the a capella group Straight No Chaser:

Christmas in Killarney, Bing Crosby. I pretty much want to live inside this song.

That's a good start. There are more, many more. I'll be adding them as I remember.

o christmas tree(s)

Ever since we moved into this house 5.5 years ago, we've talked about putting up a second Christmas tree in our sunroom. The conversation usually went like this:

C: We should really put a second tree up in our sunroom.
D: Yeah.

But we never did. Because let's face it, decorating the house for Christmas is kind of a chore. There, I said it. Sure, I have the same Norman Rockwellian vision that everybody does of all of us drinking hot cocoa while Christmas carols play in the background and we take turns picking out that perfect branch for a favorite ornament, but the scenes where the kids nearly come to blows at the Christmas tree lot over which tree to pick and a coin flip is finally needed to settle it, or where an ornament bites the dust roughly every three minutes, are conspicuously absent from Norman's paintings. But once it's actually done, I could swear that it was nothing but hot cocoa and carols for us -- that's the magic of Christmas!

Anyway, we got married in November, and David informed me right before our first Christmas that he preferred large colored lights on the Christmas tree. He waited until after we were married to tell me that. Because I loved him, I acquiesced, and even went so far as to go into a Walmart in December to procure said lights. That's love. And ever since, we've had big honking lights on the Christmas tree. They've totally grown on me over the years, but when we moved into this house and suddently had a big empty room off the back, I saw my opportunity for a Christmas tree with dainty white lights. And this was the year that we stopped talking and started doing. So now we have party in the front:

Business in the back:

I went all white and gold on the business Christmas tree. I love it. But I love the party tree too. And the kids have cute little tabletop tinsel trees from Target in their rooms, so there's really a tree for every mood and personality type in our house this year.

November brain dump (in under the wire)

I started various Thanksgiving-related posts this month but never finished any of them. And now we're about to officially enter Christmas season (if you drive around my neighborhood, you would think that it started last weekend, but in our house, it does not start until December 1) so I better unload these Novemberish thoughts immediately.

- Thomases Bagel Thins do not get stale. It's actually pretty creepy. I just had a breakfast sandwich on one that's been living in my refrigerator since . . . late summer? And it was delicious! I think I'm going to keep them in my freezer from now on, not because they need it to stay fresh (clearly) but just so I'm not reminded of their preternatural freshness when I'm trying to enjoy one.

- As I was about to click "BUY" on Katy Perry's Teenage Dream: The Complete Collection, it occured to me that my musical taste seems to be regressing. I think it's all of the Top 40 radio that I'm exposed to in my car, combined with how much time I actually spend in my car. It rewires your brain or something. In fact, I was driving in the car with the kids recently and it became painfully obvious that I am the biggest only Justin Bieber fan in the family. I realized that when "As Long as You Love Me" came on the radio:

and just as I was about to enthusiastically jump in with "As long as you love me, I'll be your platinum, I'll be your silver, I'll be your gold," the chorus of voices from the back shouted "NOOOOOOOOO!!! Turn the channel!!" Caroline added, "Ew! It's Justin Beaver!" And -- and here is when I realized that something is terribly wrong with the natural order of the universe when my 7 and 5 year old daughters don't want to listen to Justin Bieber but their 40 year old mother does--I felt vaguely annoyed as I turned the channel. Because I REALLY wanted to listen to that song. Because I like it, dammit. A couple of days later I was running with another 40 year old mom friend of mine, whose taste in music I totally trust, and she brought up completely on her own how much she loves that Bieber song. See! It's them, not us!

- David and I went to the beach for our 14th anniversary (thank you for babysitting, Grammy and Granddaddy!!) It was awesome. That is all.

- I made the Pioneer Woman's Cornbread Dressing with Sausage and Apples for Thanksgiving. At first I was a little worried about it (1) it's a little non-traditional (mushrooms?), and (2) I was NOT a fan of the huge, dry looking breadcrumbs in her photo. It just didn't seem to be the right dressing/stuffing texture. But I figured that a PW recipe would probably be reliable for comfort food, so I went for it, with some tweaks. The recipe said to cut one inch cubes of bread, but I cut mine much smaller:

And it totally worked! It was that quasi-mushy-in-a-good-way texture that I like in my dressing/stuffing. Next time I'll either omit, or cut way back on the quanitity of baby bellas -- I think 32 ounces was overkill (PW is clearly of the "go big or go home" mindset in her recipes.).

- I made these oreo turkeys for the kids since I was pretty sure they wouldn't eat apple pie or pumpkin cheesecake (where have I gone wrong?)

- We started Thanksgiving off with a hike:

Pretend rock climbing:

- I think we got a 3-legged turkey. I'm still kind of disturbed. And it was even one of those organic, free-range, hormone-free, preservative-free, treated-to-weekly-massages turkeys from Whole Foods, so I have no explanation for the third leg.

- I love a holiday table.

- Leaf jumping:

-If I have time to edit this later, I'm going to add a photo of our Thanksgiving mantel. Hint: it includes Mr. and Mrs. Pilgrim, whom I scored on clearance at Smith's after Thanksgiving one year:

I know! I can't believe that such a fine, handsome wood-carved pilgrim couple wasn't snatched up LONG before Thanksgiving, but sometimes Lady Luck is just with you that way.

We have SO much to be thankful for. I love having a (still relatively non-commercialized) holiday that celebrates gratitude, but I really try to be mindful of it every day.

presidential posters

I remember learning about the presidents, and more generally, about the U.S. system of government, when I was a kid. And while my parents certainly had political beliefs, they really didn't try to impose them on me, so my main takeaway from my childhood was that the president is awesome and that our system of government is the best. I am grateful that I was introduced to government and politics in a simple and innocent way, and that I was allowed to develop a healthy respect for the office, and the system, before I grew up and learned just how ugly politics can be. And it is very important to me that my children learn to have a similar respect for the office, the system, and the process while they are young. There will be plenty of time for them to threaten to move to Canada and/or secede when their candidate loses! So while David and I had strong opinions about the last election, we really tried to explain that both candidates want what is best for the country, but just have different ideas about how to get there. We did share a little bit about why we vote the way we vote, which the kids may or may not have understood, but one thing they do understand is that they will be on the losing side of every classroom mock presidential election they ever participate in in Alabama if they vote like we do. ☺

Coinciding with the election, Jacob had to make a presidential poster for school. The kids did not get to choose their presidents but were randomly assigned. Jacob got:

I'm kind of a fangirl, so I was super excited! Of course with Bill you don't get too far into the bio when you start running into names like "Paula Jones" and "Monica Lewinsky," but Jacob seemed pretty focused on getting in, getting the information he needed for his poster, and getting out, so he didn't deviate from his outline -- date of birth, place of birth, education, offices held before president, identify of vice president, political party, main accomplishments while in office, fun facts. And thankfully, he chose as his fun fact "nicknamed Bubba as a kid," so I didn't need to field any questions about Gap dresses or pizza deliveries. Phew.

Elizabeth cannot have someone else in the house working on poster board without getting in on the action, so she wanted to do her own presidential poster. She chose James Madison. Of course as with all Elizabeth projects, copious amounts of scotch tape were used.

When David left for work in the morning, she begged him to come home with a picture of James Madison and a copy of the Constitution for her poster (our printer is broken) and you would have thought he came home with a new puppy to witness her reaction when he came home with these papers in hand. Elizabeth taped them to the poster to complete it. Both children then did a presentation of their presidents for us from the hearth. We are a happy nerd family.