Merry Christmas!

Clouds and Linings

The cloud:

• The stomach bug hit all of us this weekend and for some inexplicable reason, it's hitting me again. 
• The kids have the cold from hell, so Weston was up every 30 minutes last night, screaming about the fact that he had boogies and that those boogies were on his pillow and his pajamas and MY HAIR. 
• Luke's preschool class is putting on what promises to be the cutest version of the Nutcracker ever tomorrow, and I can't go because of the resurgence of the Stomach Bug That Wouldn't Die. 
• I had told a friend that I would keep her kid tomorrow so that he and Luke would get to play before we all parted ways for the holidays and now that I'm sick again, I had to cancel. 
• I made a commitment to someone to help them tonight and obviously, I had to cancel that, too.
• McMoose's project at work was supposed to be done a week and a half ago and it has dragged on and on and ON, so we haven't been able to get done any of things on my pre-travel list.
• With the busy schedule and the sicknesses, we haven't had time to order our Christmas cards. I finally spent 4 hours navigating various awful websites last night and ordered some at Target that I was supposed to be able to pick up today, except the brand new printer at our local Target broke so they cancelled our order.
• And the icing on the top of the worst cake ever is that the pattern I'm knitting has problems that I didn't catch in time, so now I have to unravel several inches of intricate work so I can fix it.

The silver:

• I am grateful that we're usually healthy and that the past few days have been an aberration rather than our normal.
• The half-hourly wakings reminded me of what it was like to have a new baby in the house and I am grateful that my kids are two and four--and sleeping solidly through the night, except on rare occasions!
• I am grateful that McMoose had already arranged to take the morning off tomorrow for the Nutcracker, so at least one of Luke's parents will be there. And I'm grateful for the camcorder, which will let me see the performance, even if I don't get to experience it myself.
• I am grateful for good friends who understand when I can't follow through on commitments I've made.
• I'm grateful that one way or the other, McMoose's vacation is almost upon us!
• I am grateful for people who keep us on their Christmas card list, even when we go a year without sending any out. I'm grateful that even though no cards were made, we still have the lovely pictures that we would have used for that purpose.
• I'm grateful for the needles and the yarn and the patterns and the cozy goodness that is knitting. I'm grateful to have the time to spend on it. I'm grateful for the relaxation it brings. I'm grateful for the excitement of beginning a new project and for the peace that comes with finishing something beautiful.

Luke, On Happiness and Tigers

Luke and I are reading The Christmas Carol together. We're still at the very beginning because it's so dense that we can only make it through a couple of pages at a time, but it's led to some interesting conversations.

Me: Do you think Scrooge is a happy person?
Luke: No.
Me: What did he think should make people happy?
Luke: Having money. And I have money and I am happy.
Me: Yes, but Scrooge has way more money than you or I or Weston or Dada.
Luke: What?! And he's still not happy?
Me: That's pretty surprising to you.
Luke: Yeah!
Me: Maybe there are other things that we have that he doesn't.
Luke: Like...our house?
Me: And who lives in our house?
Luke: Me and you and Dada and Weston and Sasha and Loki.
Me: Our family. Does Scrooge have a family?
Luke: Noooo. And no friends. Well, he had one friend. The one who's dead.
Me: Marley.
Luke: Yeah, but he's dead now. Is Scrooge unhappy because he's dead?
Me: What do you think?
Luke: If he only had one friend and the friend died, I think that would make him sad. And if he wanted to have a family and he didn't, that would make him sad. Or if he didn't want to have money, but he had a lot of it, that would make him not happy, too.
Me: So is happiness about having what you want?
Luke: Yeah. I'm happy with a toy dragon. And you're happy with knitting. And Weston...is happy when destroying my things, mostly.

Luke, stopping me mid-sentence as I read to him: What does "bloodthirsty" mean?
Me: Um...it means someone who likes to do violent things and hurt or kill people.
Luke: A tiger is not bloodthirsty.
Me: It's not?
Luke: No, because a tiger doesn't want to hurt anyone or be violent. It just wants to eat. And it likes to eat any animal and person that it sees because it just thinks they're all food. It's just what a tiger does.

A Few of My Favorite Things

Afternoon coffee. Knitting. Keeping company with a four-year-old in a cape, who is humming quietly as he sews buttons onto a piece of felt.

Innocent

Luke has a friend spending the night over and in preparation, I told him that he should not talk about anything scary while his friend was over. Of course, this is how my child translated that request...

Other Boy at bedtime: What's that sound?
Me: Just a car passing outside.
Other Boy, 10 seconds later: What's that sound?
Me: The sound of Luke's moving picture. Doesn't it sound like a waterfall?
Other Boy: Yes. But what's that quacking?
Me, quite unable to hear any quacking: Hmm...maybe it's a duck that's swimming in the lake by the waterfall.
*A low growl comes from the top bunk*
Other Boy: WHAT'S THAT SOUND?!?!
Me: That's just Luke being silly. Luke. Stop. Growling.
Luke: *Growl* That's not me growling. *Growl* That's the tiger near the waterfall. *Growl* You know, he comes out of the picture sometimes at night.
Other Boy: I AM NOT SLEEPING IN HERE!!!!