Holiday recap

When Christmas comes, and then goes, I am always left standing in a pile of discarded gift wrap, toy packaging and cookie crumbs, wondering, "what just happened, and why am I five pounds heavier?"

I love to watch Big Bang Theory and I imagine Sheldon explaining the Doppler effect with his hilarious sound effects to boot. That is what the holiday season is like for me, from Halloween through New Year's Day.

I feel blessed, though, because my family made it through the holiday season without any major illnesses (no barfing, strep or ear infections) and no injuries (boys wrestling but five years apart? Not good) and we managed to see nearly every single member of our extended families without being subjected to the horrid lines and delays of a major airport.

In terms of our travels, we did travel quite a bit. However, we traveled in our new Toyota Sienna minivan which drives so nice and is so spacious so the boys don't have to breathe on each other and risk WW3. So to me, traveling was much less stressful. I love, love, love my new minivan and let me explain why a mom of only two boys, ages almost 12 and almost 7 would want an 8-passenger vehicle.

• Sliding doors on both sides of vehicle. No more having to warn them on every exit not to bang into the car next to us. No more worrying about the Chicago wind blowing the doors into the car next to us. Now, if I can just train these guys to use the door on the side they were sitting on, then we'd be okay. I swear it's like explaining nuclear fission to these two...

• Next point, they have plenty of space to spread out their video game cases, Pillow Pets, iPods or whatever. They do complain that the van doesn't seem to have enough ports for all their tech gadgets though. Jeez.

• Next, I am often transporting other kids around. I don't sit for other kids, but when my boys have friends over in the wintertime, we generally don't have kids walking a couple blocks in cold weather. I am happy to bring them home. And now that Connor is in middle school, that blending of elementary schools from all over the city, he has friends that live clear on the other side of town, so a car trip is essential. Sometimes, a mom friend will call me in a semi-panic that she's not able to pick up a couple of her kids from school, and since I might be there anyway....I am always happy to do it. The more the merrier, I always say. 

• The van is so versatile that we were able to move seats and stow seats and bring home a new TV and my second favorite thing in the world right now--my new digital piano. I am scraping the rust off my brain and fingers and I've hauled out the music books I've had since middle school and I'm relearning to play piano. It is wonderful....

So there you go. This minivan and I are becoming a tight-knit pair. And I nearly forgot to mention the front seats are heated. LOVE YOU, BUTT WARMERS!!

Our last trip, which was just this past weekend, involved driving to northern Indiana for one night, then up to southwestern Michigan the next, which was New Year's Eve. The weather was a little touchy, and my husband decided to drive, which was awesome for me. I had to work on a baby blanket anyway. The first thing he said when driving the van for the first time was, "Man, this thing is like a BUS!" And I was like, "I know! Isn't it great??"

In other news, the two gift ideas I thought would really thrill my boys are not all that thrilling. This is not a news flash. This is reality. However, I'm going to keep working on them until they LOVE these gifts. More on that later.

My youngest began ice skating lessons last evening. We went to the ice arena after Christmas for open skating and he was hanging onto a large orange cone for the first half hour, then decided to skate without it. He really did okay for a beginner. Then on our way out, we saw information for skating classes and I decided to sign him up. I'm hoping it's going to work out though. I wasn't aware of the 12:1 ratio of students to instructor and these kids are all about 6 to 8 years old. After class, we went to the hockey shop in the ice arena and had both the boys' blades sharpened and cleaned and bought fabric guards for them called Soakers. I can't WAIT to see them skate with these now....Could be YouTube material. When we were at open skating last week, Jack fell down on his behind a couple of times and I kept encouraging him and praising him for his efforts. He replied, "My bottom's doing all the work!"