Holy Crap, the 400th Post!

First of all, this is my 400th post! And don't I wish this was going to be some spectacular post worthy of that great number...alas, it's not. I feel so sad for my poor, neglected blog. Not because I kid myself enough to think that my readers (all 10 of you) are sitting at home staring at your computer screen thinking, "I enjoy her posts SO much...I just wish she would post more..." No, I don't think that at all. But the main reason I do this blog at all is for myself and for my kids. And to keep record of this crazy life that seems to be flying by me at a rate faster than I can possibly absorb. So I write it for me, and for my children when they are old enough to read it. And because of that, I am a little sad that I haven't been more diligent in updating during this holiday season. Because this is one of the special ones. It really is. My children will only be young for so long and this is truly the "magical" time. My son is SO taken by the entire season and my daughter is at the most hysterical and sweet age that I could literally eat her up and not get enough. Alas, I have work and I have to prepare for said holiday so that the children CAN enjoy the hell out of it and, as always, there simply aren't enough hours in the day for me to get it all done. And so my record keeping (aka the blog) suffers.

We are a mere 3 days away from THE BIG DAY, as it is known in my house. And everyone is all a flurry of excitement. Unfortunately my clients don't seem to care about that and still want their damn bookkeeping done. It is quite rude actually. And to further that notion, they don't seem to understand that my daughter is out of daycare for 2 entire weeks, thus leaving me with nary of a moment of time to work on said bookkeeping. So I spend the entire day doing a balancing act. As I type away and try and figure out the numbers my daughter follows me around the house telling me it's time to read a book. Add to that the pressure of having all the gifts and stockings (the damn stockings!! Whose idea WAS that anyway?!?! What a waste of time and money...) and food and everything ready for the big day and you have one tired Mommy.

BUT. There are moments. There are moments during each and every single day that I stop for just a millisecond and I smile in my heart. Because these are THE moments. You know? The ones that make it all worthwhile? There are so many of them lately. From my son singing all the Christmas carols he knows while falling asleep at night to my daughter just recently mastering singing Jingle Bell Rock that make me smile. A moment like the other night when I walked down the hall about an hour before bed time and noticed that my son's door was closed. This usually means he has had quite enough of his sister thankyouverymuch and has taken a break. So I walked the house looking for his sister and when I couldn't find her I knocked on his door and entered. What I found was enough to bring tears to my eyes. They were both sitting on his bed leaning against his pillow and he had turned out all the lights but turned on the lights from his little Christmas tree in his room. It was dark except for the light of the tree and they were laying together singing songs. And not only that, but he had gone into her room and gotten her pillow (if I'm being honest it is one of those damn pillow pets that they advertise for all the time--I can't help it! They love the freaking things!) and her lovey for her and they were laying together actually holding hands. I seriously cried. He told me to please shut the door because this was a brother and sister special moment. Of course I shut it immediately and smiled while doing so. THIS is why I had two of them. THIS RIGHT HERE. This bond that they have. These holidays that they are sharing together. The fact that on Christmas morning they will run down the hall TOGETHER to see what Santa brought for them. My son isn't doing it alone. He has a sibling to share it with. And all the drama of getting pregnant and being the single mom who CHOSE (gasp!!) to have another child on my own is all culminated in that very moment. My heart literally bursts with joy.

Of course then I had to continue down the hall because I was in the middle of 15 things and needed to continue. But the point is, I stopped and I DID notice. And even as I try and type this blog entry my son just came barreling down the hall into my office because my time of typing has come to an end. He wants to tell me a story about a ladybug who has small claws on their legs so they can poke holes in the leaves...

Of course the monotony of life is still here and it also exists in my son's everlasting stories about his bugs and his friends...and I can honestly no longer hear myself think because we have now moved on to listening to how his ants in his ant farms dug tunnels so they too could have holes to live in...and dear god I just can't shoo him away. I will go and listen to the end of his story and then I will brush his teeth and put him to bed and then I will go and sit at my computer and work for the next two hours until it is almost 11:00 at night at which time I will stumble to my room, turn on an old rerun of Golden Girls from my DVR and fall asleep before the credits are even done rolling. Thus is my life lately. But as I pointed out earlier, amongst the craziness and work and preparations for the holiday season, there are some super special times. I just wish I had more time to stop and enjoy them and document them here for me to look back on later. Because for some reason this year I am acutely aware of the fact that my kids will not be small forever. They will be sullen teenagers who just await their gifts and skip past the singing of songs and the magic of the season and just sit with their iPods playing in their ears and only stop long enough to rip the paper off their gifts and then go back to their room to enjoy them. I know this is coming. And that is why NOW is so special. And that is why I feel like I need to "bottle" now and be able to look back and remember it.

But for tonight I will just put a little red-headed boy to bed and listen to his stories about bugs and hug him and we will read Twas the Night Before Christmas and I will kiss his little head and then listen to him sing softly on his monitor while I work.

And since you have stuck with me for this long, babbling post...here are some pics. Because of course we all know that's why you really come here anyway, right? The Boy decorating a gingerbread man:

And The Girl when we were picking out our Christmas tree. I don't know how I snapped this picture but it is SO her. The little face, that little expression...just totally my daughter. Love her so much...
Happy Holidays everyone. May you all be enjoying it as much as I am!