Well, I keep taking notes on the "big doin's " around here, but I think I may have stalled too long again. Here are some of the pre-Christmas highlights.

OUT TAKES:

• "I what to show Miss Jenny what I'm wearing, 'cuz I'm a man now."

• from Josh's story to me: Once upon a time, there were two Kevinbirds that walked across the street without holding hands or looking, and they got hit by a car, and then they got hit by a truck, and they were squashed. And then they were okay...

• On a recent visit to Mom's, Mom was trying to do something.  Josh tried to help by telling her how to do it but she wanted to try it her way...without much success.  Finally Josh looked up at her, put his hand on his chin, and said, "So, um, tell me...how's that working for ya?"

twas the week before Christmas, and all through the house,
we are plagued and be-illed, so allow us to grouse


My aunt burst an ear-drum, but is still working the room




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One of the more interesting bits o'drama lately was that Josh got the stomach flu...actually Josh and I got it at the same time, so I was literally flopping around on the kitchen floor like a fish with vertigo, and Josh was getting the day's award for best fountain effects.  When it got to the point that he couldn't even keep water down, we took him to the doc, who prescribed something in a suppository that could  have stopped his heart. Now, the good news is that she mentioned this. The bad news is that there was no way in hell we were going to give him that, so the poor little guy had to run the gamut without medicinal intervention...It was the next day before his stomach finally calmed down enough to get fluids back into him and start him back on the recovery road.  He looked like a little alien creature with big hollow eyes and a giant head on a pencil-thin neck.  It broke our hearts to look at him.  Poor Jon was dashing back and forth between us both that night, but as I had stopped eating or drinking anything long before Josh did, I was able to recoup in time to take over when Jon came down with the plague. It was a rough couple of days, but everyone was back to their old selves directly.



And then on to Christmas Eve...which shall remain lodged in our minds forever as an expletive laden Christmas Carol because the elves waited until the last minute to assemble the Christmas toy of doom!  This time around Josh's big toy was a kitchen set with pots and pans (Do not laugh.  Our theory is that if he gets interested in cooking now, he will be interested in learning to cook his own meals later). The elves have learned their lesson, and will be prepping earlier next year AND making certain that whatever big toy comes into play will have minimal assembly requirements.  For this piece of, ahem, work, it took the elves from 11:30 p.m. (under constant threat of a small invader) to about 4 a.m. to snip, cut, curse, and snap about one hundred and twenty useless bits of plastic into one recognizable toy. I cannot speak of the other elf, but I know of at least one that was muttering under her breath, "(*&^ing hell, (*&^ ing hell, Why'd we pick this thing? I'd rather take a hammer to it or hang me with some string-ING!"  The other elf mentioned that the elf in question might be taking the whole process entirely too seriously, and that the singing elf's song not only had questionable grammar but was also likely to awaken a small invader. The singing elf glared at the other elf, deliberately quieted down, and began on another epithet-laden melody to along the lines of the "thumpity-thump-thump, thumpity-thump-thump thump! Look at Frosty go." However it should be noted that the lyrics at that point were nowhere near so innocent.  Finally the assembly process was complete, the buttons worked, the pans were in the oven...all was right with the world. (Though it should also be noted that when/if the Small Boy loses interest in the kitchen toy, there will be an elf waiting in the wings to...take care...of it ...personally and permanently.)


Christmas Day...much better than I anticipated.  Weather behaved. So did boy. Boy was fabulous. Boy was INCREDIBLE!  There were people all over the place, holiday decorations, flaming candles, and Josh was just stunning. He was well-behaved. He was polite. He was ornery, and we didn't even have to have the phasers set on "stun".  He and his uncles launched into a marathon bop-it session, he was so busy with them and that toy that he had little time to get into things he shouldn't.  (Yes, another bop-it found it's way to our house, and it has truly been a wonderful thing.)

Four Years In

Wow! Four Years old. Josh's party was a total hoot.

Only Anna H. showed up from the kid contingent (of 10 we'd invited), but that darling little diva was more than enough. She and Josh charged around in the bouncy house until they dropped...literally. They collided several times, and Grandma O. was watching her with a careful eye, especially after one collision left Josh with a bruise on his cheek, and wondered aloud if Anna knew she was in "enemy territory." They just bounced off each other and threw themselves back



into the fray, and Jamie and "More Jamie" are now absolutely required party entertainment as they chased and played and wore the butts off the small ones...at one point, they even snuck into the bouncy house (for a very quick moment)...the poor girl manning the toy was a bit uneasy about that, but Devon turned on his charm and the little girl had no choice but to be turned into goo. The then Uncles made a point of keeping their part of the chase outside the inflatable.

We got to see everyone I wanted to see...everyone was as pretty as a Christmas present since they had all come directly from church...and shy, housemouse Helen was simply a wonder...chatting it up with everyone, glowing like a candle...and she even worked up enough nerve to go up to my brothers and hug the stuffing out of them. I was so proud of her. That was the bravest thing I'd ever seen her do.

Sadly, we lost the whole contingent after our scheduled hour and a half...Mom and Dad and Grandpa and Grandma O. had to get cantata-ing. Heidi M. and her mom, Kay, had to leave because Kay's knees were hurting. Rhonda and Tim headed out for similar reasons. Harry and Helen wanted to change out of their church clothes, and Irene left with them. Technically, the boys should have bolted for the Cantata, but they stalled as long as they could so that they could play in the arcade and rack up tickets for the small ones. We had just time to open their present to Josh and Heidi and Anna's present to Josh before we were left on our own on a day that had suddenly become as dreary and blech as it was possible to get.

I think, the next time we have a party, we'll schedule our time better...we thought an hour and a half would cover it, but we were only thinking really of the time in the bouncy thing...We forgot to allot time for the cake and presents, and they had another party in that room at 4 p.m.. Next year, maybe an hour and half for bouncing and then one more half hour for cake and such. Still, I think everyone had a great time.

Back home, I had just time to throw in some gingerbread cookies, and we were descended upon again. We handed out the coffee and they handed Josh presents. Mom had sent Josh a "Twas the Night Before Christmas" book, and everytime he turned the page, he'd hear a recording of either Mom or Dad reading to him. It made me cry. The Grands O. had given Josh a laptop with more bells and whistles than his previous ones...it looks really promising. Tim and Rhonda gave him great quanities of playdough and Josh was so distracted by that for a ti

me that we couldn't get him to open the rest. More books, more toys...I fear we may need to add three more rooms to the house come Christmas time.

Getting Things Official

About about two and a half weeks ago, something finally clicked in Josh's head.  He was calm, cheerful, ready to throw himself into Circle Time at school...There was no attempt made to dislocate my arm, to rush the door, to try to bolt outside...nope, it was simply amazing. And yes, I absolutely checked for his "pod". He even took a nap.  The only thing to mar the perfection of that day was that we discovered that one of our favorite people from the school, Misty C., was moving on.  She'd gone into an interview on a whim, and of course, they snapped her up like candy.  Since June, she'd been in our corner...talking me through the dramas, quietly giving advice, laughing with me, easing Josh...she was Josh's first friend there...and I confess, knowing she was there was a huge comfort for me.  She's the kind of person you want to carry around in your pocket with you all the time, so you can take her out when you need to.  She's going to be adored in her new job...they simply won't have a choice in the matter...and as much as I wish she weren't leaving, I'm glad we at least had the chance to know her when we did, and I hope, sincerely, that our paths will cross again.

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As of this moment, my master plan to have my book published by Christmas has been delayed...but hopefully not indefinately. Jon's still going over the small print, and wants to keep doing that until all of his questions are answered satisfactorily.  Some of the wording is making him skittish (or downright hive-y), like the fact that, on the off-chance I should be sued for something I've gotten published, the company will hang me out to dry...also he keeps fretting about tax implications.  Ugh.  Now, in fairness, as I have said before, he likes to research and obsess and research and obsess before he commits to a project or purchase, and I do respect that...I do.  I'm just impatient. I'm being a pain about it (and I know it), and it isn't that we haven't had other things on our plate lately, because we have.  It isn't that I don't understand his rationale...I do. I get it...but at the same time, there's a part of me that is kind of overriding the rest of my brain right now.   The part of me that was less She Who Tries to Get Playdough Out of the Carpet (and Fails), and more as just me.  I wanted to get this project done and put to bed and see what happened and use the momentum from that one to kick me into gear on the next project...but I'm simply shelved for the time being, and it's frustrating.  I suppose the good thing is that I've added a few more things to the original project, but that doesn't really seem to balance things out. It's hard to lighten up, even when I know I need to.

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Thanksgiving began with poor Jon, who had been up since 5:30, departing our house to beat our septic system back into submission.  It was cold and wet and slippery, and he and Harry were once again hip-deep or higher in stuff I'd prefer to give as little thought to as possible. Harry is the only person I know who can be thigh-high in sewage and still whistle cheerfully and sincerely. Truly, he is a remarkable fellow.  We think/hope it is a clogged pipe likely brought on by a small boy with an addiction to profound amounts of toilet paper, but we fear we (read: Jon) may have to dig six feet in hard earth to get to the septic tank (because of the position on the hill, a mechanical digger would not be an option).  Several hours later, a newly scoured Jon piled into the car with us to attend the November festivus. As usual, there was a turkey the size of Godzilla, likely Idaho's complete stock of potatoes, and the Grands, and Auntie Suzing, and Jay and Dev, and the Nagles, who brought even more food.  Because. We. Didn't. Have. Enough. 

With so many people Josh was darting around like a hummingbird, flirting and bouncing off of everyone.  Mom chimed in to tell Grandma O that he wasn't like this all the time. I smiled and bit my lip...and my mother gave me The Look and repeated her statement. I continued to remain silent, and then found something else to do that took me out of the area of impending doom. In fairness,  he isn't like that all the time... Sometimes, he's actually asleep. :)  Jokes aside, props and props go to the Uncles who made it their cause to wear the small one down.  They played outside, they swung him around. They tickled him until he couldn't breathe, and every minute of it was absolutely adorable. 

The only fly in the ointment came later that evening, when my camera spontaneously formated the hundreds of pictures I had been taking (including the last pictures of Josh and Misty together at school, and Anna's last playdate with Josh), when I was trying to do a quickview and see what pictures we had.  There simply aren't enough expletives in the world.

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Had a big scare about two weeks ago. Josh was acting listless and he was having low-grade fevers, so we were doing the usual overnight campout in the living room. He was eating little, drinking little, but still lucid, when he suddenly spiked to 104.2 -- one quick tylenol dose and  we were back in Urgent Care where he was diagnosed with tonsillitis.  They took his temperature twice. The first time it was 103, then Jon asked them to check it again, and it had jumped to 104+, so Josh was motrined and we got his pink stuff and went home.  We were tag-teaming the Nurse's Hotline, Mom and Harry...and I don't have the vaguest clue who was on call at that nurse's line, but at one point they said we shouldn't bring Josh in unless he had a fever of 105.  (Yes, you read that right.  Can I get a WTF from the audience?  His poor little braincells start cooking at 104, what was she thinking?  )  Ten days of gritty pink stuff and the Small Boy is back to normal. 

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