My side of the family always comes over and celebrates Christmas on Boxing Day, which is great, because no one has to run around too much on Christmas Day.  After the gifts were unwrapped and our bellies were full (again), we started to talk about resolutions.  I always make them, and I always break them.  My sister, Deanna, is more dedicated.  A few years ago we both started to run.  After I did the Lunenburg Heritage 5K race, I told her that we should do it together.  It’s a great way to stay motivated.  The next year, we did it, and motivated we were.  We signed up for the 8K only a few months after.  That was the most I have done, and I really haven’t done anything much since in the way of running.  Deanna has a personal trainer, goes to Nubody’s, and again, is more dedicated. 

So on Boxing Day, this past Christmas, feeling ill from too much food, booze and the extra 5 pounds (when you’re short 5 pounds is a lot), I made a resolution to run the Blue Nose Half Marathon with my sister.  That’s 21K.  Not only that, but we pinky promised and locked it, in front of our kids as witnesses.  Evan is a big fan of the pinky promise and to date, I have not broken one.  I think he might need therapy if I did.  

 To seal the deal even more, I am making this resolution public.  My hope is that it is harder to break this way. 

Now I’m off for one last New Years Eve bender.  Training day starts on January 2nd.

We were invited to a few holiday shindigs so I thought I needed a new something fabulous.  I was thinking a fun sparkly top.  David calls them boob shirts.  I tried on a cagillion shirts (my spell-check is telling me that “cagillion” is not a word but for effect, you get what I mean). 

 Now, I loved being pregnant.  In fact, when I was 3 months pregnant, I didn’t look pregnant fast enough.  And only a year after having my first son, I did it all over again.  I enjoyed being pregnant the second time just as much (truthfully a little less, but Colin will never know this).  But now that I am not pregnant, and short of a miracle or an affair, will never ever be pregnant again, I really don’t want to look pregnant.  So, what is up with these shirts that look like maternity shirts?  I have to say, I have seen them on people, and they are adorable.  I think, “so cute.  I need to get a shirt like that.”  But I’m short, and they are not cute on me.  They just make me look pregnant. 

 It was a challenge to find a shirt that was fun and trendy and not maternity looking, but I did find something.  So then I had to spend the entire night sucking in thinking, I wish I could wear those maternity shirts.  Then maybe I could eat something and people wouldn’t think that I’m fat.  They’d just wonder how I got pregnant.

‘Tis the season for visiting friends and family, eating way too much and going to school Christmas concerts. The concert at Bayview Community School was amazing with standing room only.

Weeks before the concert I bought the boys adorable Christmas sweaters that I envisioned them wearing while Christmas caroling around the neighborhood (that last part was a joke). The evening of the concert, however, it became clear to me that these sweaters were a waste of money.

“I’m not wearing that sweater. Everyone will laugh at me,” Evan said.
This was a nice sweater. It didn’t have Rudolph or Frosty the Snowman on it. It was brown, burgundy and ivory striped, and very dapper.
“Ok, Evan, you have a choice. You can wear the sweater, or you can wear a shirt and tie. It’s up to you,” I said, certain he’d pick the sweater.
“Give me the shirt and tie,” he said unhappily. Clearly he didn’t like that sweater.

On our way to the concert Evan started to display reservations about his choice.
“All right, Evan, if you are the only one with a shirt and tie on and you feel embarrassed, you can remove it,” I negotiated.

As we walked into the school Evan ran through the front doors almost knocking over a friend of mine.
“He’s concerned he’ll be late,” I explained. “He’ll be a very reliable man one day.”
“Lord knows we could use more of those,” she laughed.
“Which reminds me, you haven’t seen David have you?” I asked, half joking.

Evan’s class entered the stage. I noticed as each boy entered, none were wearing ties. “Oh no,” I thought to myself. I imagined Evan entering the stage without the tie and his collar unbuttoned looking a bit like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. But my reliable boy did not disappoint. He entered with the tie on.

At the end of the concert I went to his class to pick him up.
“I’m wearing a tie every day,” he announced.
“You are?” I said. “Why?”
“You get the girls when you wear a tie! I have 3 girlfriends now!” he said with enthusiasm.
“You do. Who?” I asked.
“I forget. Mr. Millet had a tie on too,” he said of his student teacher. “But he didn’t get the girls.”

David came down the stairs the other night having just put Colin to bed, and looked visibly shaken.
“I just had the saddest conversation with Colin,” he announced.
He told me about it.

Colin asked how he was made.
“Mommy and Daddy loved each other and made you,” David told him.
“But how did you ‘maked’ my bones?” Colin asked.
“Mommy ate good food to make your bones,” David answered.

Then Colin announced that he didn’t want to die.
“Well we don’t want you to die either and you’re not going to die for a very, very, long time Colin,” David said back.
“But what if my head got chopped off?” he asked.
“Well, then you would die, but Mommy and I try really hard to have that not happen,” David said back.
As he was telling me about his conversation, I was on the edge of my seat in anticipation of David’s responses, and was very impressed at his ability to think on his feet.

As we approach the year anniversary of the passing of my mother-in-law and the grandmother to my sons, I can’t help but wonder if we could have done a better job of explaining life and death to them. If you think about it, that must have been very confusing. All of a sudden one day, a very integral person in the family is no longer there.

Colin and Evan went to the funeral, and I remember Evan’s reaction to hearing his father cry. It was only then that you could see it in Evan’s eyes that he understood what was happening.
“I want to go,” he sobbed.
I wondered if we had made the right decision to take them.

Colin will often ask, “Where is ‘Nanny With the Dogs?’ “
That’s what they called her. Then he’ll say, “Oh I remember, she’s in heaven.”
Right after her death, Evan would cry at bedtime and say he missed her too much. My two boys have handled our loss very differently, so we have to help them differently. Colin could talk day and night about his Nanny With the Dogs just like he saw her yesterday and, aside from asking a lot of questions, be somewhat unaffected. Evan is a lot like his dad and it’s still just too hard.

Christmas will forever have a sad undertone. Fortunarely, it’s hard to be sad at Christmas with kids.

Do you think a 6 year old knows what embarrassed means? Evan told me I embarrassed him. Yes, you’re right, he knows. I’ll set the stage and you can tell me if I should cry myself to sleep or shrug it off.

Evan’s best friend plays hockey. Evan did CanSkate for a season and after freezing my butt off every Saturday at 8:30 am for 8 weeks, I was not devastated when he said he didn’t like it. Now, much to my chagrin, he wants to play hockey. Anyway, he went to Connor’s hockey game with his parents and loved it. He announced to me that this Saturday he was going again.
“Great,” I said. “Colin and I would love to see Connor’s hockey game.”
“No, not you,” he said.
“Evan, Connor will be on the ice. Who will you sit with?” I asked.
“Connor’s mom,” he said.
I was hurt
“Well I can sit with Connor’s Mom. She’s my friend too.”
“But you embarrass me too much,” he announced.
My mouth hung open.
“What do I do that embarrasses you?” I was curious.
“You talk too much,” he said without hesitation.
“What do I say that irritates you so badly?” I asked.
“You always say, ‘how was your day, what did you do, who did you play with’ and on and on and on,” he said.

When I was young my mom embarrassed me (sorry Mom), so I was trying to be a cool mom. I guess I failed.

Evan went to the hockey game with Connor’s family. I looked out the window and watched them leave. Trust me, I have better things to do than to spend a Saturday in a hockey rink. But because he didn’t want me to go, strangely that made me want to go.

So I’m trying not to talk so much and ask so many questions. It’s like having an itch and not being able to scratch it.

My son Colin is a nut about making forts. Whenever I get home from work he has every sofa cushion and bedsheet we own made into a fort. Some of them are amazing and have different rooms and crazy entrances and he’s even set up the portable TV/VCR. We’ve always said, he is either going to be a world-renownded architect or a very comfortable homeless person. One that everyone else in the alley envies.

Last Christmas, Santa had a brilliant idea to get him a fort-making kit. It came with walls and joints and pegs. This would foster his enate sence to create while saving me a lot of frustration. He came down the stairs Christmas morning with his brother to this amazing fort wonderland all set up. It looked like Santa might have been up until 3:30 am setting it up because it was confusing. He spent the day in it, then went right back to my bedsheets and sofa cushions.

A few weeks ago we saw this great bed at Pine City in Bridgewater. It had a fort built in. Perfect, I thought and bought it. Now he always has a fort set up in his room, but unfortunately that has not stopped him from making his forts all over the house. The bright side: I no longer bother to fold my sheets.