Friday, December 24, 2010

Melodrama

One of my fondest memories of Lauren's toddler-hood was one summer day when she was about 18 months old.  We were living in a crappy little apartment that I hated and Jason loved.  He said it was like being on vacation...no yard work, no home maintenance projects, etc.  We were there for 6 months while our home was being built.  It was very hard to go from living in a nice house, back to living in a cramped apartment.  The part I hated was being newly pregnant for the 2nd time, hauling groceries up 3 flights of stairs with a toddler in tow, and then having to go back down the stairs to take the big dog outside.  Ugh, never again.  But that is not the point of my story.

One day Lauren wasn't feeling the greatest, so I was trying to give her some medicine.  She was not taking it well and it got all over her face.  While I was trying to wipe it off, she turned away from me and smushed her face down into our very nice, suede recliner.  Jason freaked out.  "Oh great, it's ruined!  Is this what it means to have kids?  That we can't have anything nice?!  Great, just great....no, you can't clean it...it's ruined!"

The reason why this is such a fond memory for me is that it was then that I realized how much my wonderful husband exaggerates.  So now whenever Jason is telling a story, hunting or otherwise, we tell the listener to divide by two and add one.  And that's the truth.

Which brings me to today.  It's Christmas Eve and we are spending it with Jason's family and extended family this year.  It's a ton of excitement because there are more kids for our kids to play with.  That being the case, we decided that our kids should take a nap this afternoon because we know that it will be a late night.  We had gotten them situated and given all the usual warnings about staying in bed and not bothering each other.  Thinking they were settled, I headed to take a shower and make myself presentable for our evening out.  When I was just about ready, Jason came storming down the stairs spewing the following rhetoric:

"That's it, I'm done.  I've had it.  They don't listen!  All our kids are good at is watching TV and eating junk food!  That's all they're good at.  I'm done!"

Apparently nap time did not go as planned.  But. . .if you know our kids....and if you know Jason...you'll know to "divide by two and add one" and that is really how it went.

Merry Christmas!