Long time no post.  Its hard to crank out the fine art with babies flying all over the place.  And its been a long time since I’ve shared a Christmas with little kids so I’ve forgotten how crazy it is.  Christmas in my teens was fun because I had much younger siblings.  When I was about 12, my parent were all….And by the time I was in high-school, there were a bunch of us.  At one point there were 9 people living in our house.And 4 of us hovered around 6 feet tall.  That’s a lot of big people to cram in a small rental home. It looked something like this.And here was the set up.Because I was the oldest, and a girl, I had my own room WITH a door to outside. I was pretty stinking lucky.  And just in case you didn’t notice a certain feature on the layout above, let me point it out for you.We had ONE bathroom.  A tiny one with a 3 person occupancy allowance but we could fit up to 6.

But my room was awesome.  My BFF Maggie and I would turn my bedroom upside down to find enough change for a pizza.  So the pizza guy would show up to my bedroom door and try to ignore all the faces smashed in the front window, trying to get a glimpse of what we’d ordered.  Within seconds we’d hear breathing and whispering on the other side of the door.But we’d ignore it and totally cram face.Until there was nothing left but the crusts.And then we’d let them in.They would descend on the crusts as if they’d been denied white bread and preservatives their entire lives.  ANYWAY, back to the whole Christmas thing, it was hard to keep Christmas secrets in a house that small and that packed.  One year, my parents wrapped gifts for us teenagers and they allowed Mel to help.  She was about 5 and a half.  And she was beside herself with glee.Daddy laid down the rules.And so they wrapped everything up and then Mel adjourned to the living room to play.And she forgot all about the gifts.

Until she heard a car pull up.And two teenagers get out.And suddenly she could think of NOTHING BUT the Christmas presents.Or more importantly, what was inside of them.And so, not even 15 minutes after she had sworn not to tell a soul….….my parents realized they had overestimated her ability to keep a secret by 2 days, 23 hours and 45 minutes.  Nick’s foot hadn’t even landed on the carpet when she spilled her guts.And….well……what can you do?

Merry Christmas.

I’m always torn when choosing which Walgreens I visit.  There are 3 in our vicinity.  One is very close and the other two are….not.  The convenient Walgreens’, unfortunately, posses one minor deterrent that the other two…..don’t.

Walgreens Guy

He’s about 35 and upon first glace he appears mostly normal (except for the staring, which proceeds past the line of comfort). You can tell he was pretty buff about 300 twinkies ago.

But two things set him apart from everyone else in the store (and miles around).

1. He doesn’t fit into the stereotypical Walgreens employee-slot.  He’s not YOUNG-young.And he’s not OLD-old.And 2.  Walgreens Guy doesn’t ever shut his pie-hole.  And everything that comes out of his mouth sounds like a horrendously loud announcement on the Price Is Right.I don’t even have room to draw the loudness. Or the used-car-salesman cheese.

Or the “professionalism” that basically evaporates when a customer is begging to be impressed.
And if he gets a little over-worked, or ever-excited, things get all cray. A line of people are like Ritalin to him. And heaven forbid the customers begin interacting with him.  His declarations escalate dramatically into manic, frenzied outbursts.And by the time the last person in line leaves, Walgreens Guy can barely hold back the spontaneous combustion.And then there’s me. I prefer not to speak, you know, ever.  Lighthearted banter just about drives me to drink.  He knows this now.  And though I approach the counter consumed with my own thoughts….…he still gives it a go (albeit, wearing his most serious and professional face).I recently visited Walgreens with my sister-in-law, Cris. It seems I failed to instruct her on the rules for Walgreen’s Guy interaction. And unfortunately for her, she is very attractive. And fortunately for him, she doesn’t mind the speaking.Maybe I’m just weird…..Thankfully she’s pretty bright and it only took her two of his sentences to regret having made eye-contact in the first place.I mean, what do you say to statements like that when ..

1. You Don’t want to know.

and 2. You are too scared for your life to be impolite?

So Cris said….And immediately all her internal organs contracted in on themselves.And we both panicked on the inside.All Walgreens Guy lost his marbles.

So this morning I took candy away from my baby. Boy found a piece of Laffy Taffy on the floor and was trying to cram it in his face.Where does he learn that kind of nonsense?I sat down next to him and took it away gently.  Anger arose in his little baby heart.And he acted on that anger almost immediately.We have these daily hourly outbursts of selfishness and disobedience.And it being Christmas and all, I began wondering about the most righteous kid EVER. And I don’t just mean “righteous”.I also mean….Or more accurately…And I BET that after the first time Mary had to tell Jesus not to shred the toilet paper, he never did it again! (Not to say he wasn’t tempted….)I wonder if there was no open defiance.

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I have to think that his terrible two’s were a big, non-terrible piece of cake. 

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And to think that Jesus even had siblings.  Siblings that he most likely didn’t punch in the neck.

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Not to say his siblings didn’t occasionally have reason to glare…..

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But what I find so fascinating is that this perfect child grew into a perfect teenager and a perfect adult.  And then he willingly died for us to save us from our angry, selfish, nasty little hearts.

Righteous!

I blurted this one out. No forethought. No “rough draft”.  Nothing.  It just needed to be drawn.

Sometimes I’m absolutely positive that a creepy, yet happy section of my brain has suddenly decided to rattle things up a bit.Maybe its bored. Maybe it has decided to clean out its garage, emptying unused gallons of serotonin into the chaotic (empty?)  thoroughfares of my brain (causing a blip of confusion).But after that nano-second on nonsense, my brain as a whole, consolidates the data and comes to the conclusion that it is thrilled. Not just thrilled, ecstatic beyond belief.It literally hits me out of nowhere, and then goes away.  I’m usually multitasking at the time. You know, doing something AND thinking…..Usually thinking happy thoughts…..And then BAM!All this excitement comes rushing into my head all at once!

And then I go back to thinking normal happy thoughts, minus the spazzing.I’ve ruled out the possibility that it could be drug-induced because I distinctly remember it happening in 8th grade and I’m pretty sure I wasn’t smoking crack in 8th grade. Haha! I joke! (Of course I was smoking crack in 8th grade.)

I was at my friend Pippa’s house and she was having a birthday party. We were swimming and I was floating and looking up at the sky, thinking about……nothing.But I was happy. Happy enough that the addition of a single happy thought pushed me over the edge into blissville. I remember exactly what it was.  I had a frozen drink waiting at home for me in the freezer (from Bobbie, the college student that lived with us. She worked at THE MALL!) I remembered that drink and I was all….The happiness of the present mixed with the utter ecstasy of the future, caused a serotonin explosion in my brain that I could barely contain……..

…..then it went away.

And I went back to regular happy.I wish I could bottle it…….aaaand imbibe without getting arrested or embarrassing myself at a wedding (neither of which has happened to me before, but you never know).