Crock-Pots and Christmas Elves

In lieu of exchanging gifts, my mother, three sisters, two brothers, additional in-laws, friends, boyfriends, and significant others over the age of 18 have a Yankee Swap on Christmas Eve.  The exact number of participants varies each year due to marriages, divorces, estrangements, break-ups, new homes (shout out to my BFF's family for moving an hour away), etc.  Regardless, every adult brings one gift to enter into the swap and leaves with a different one... Unless you, like myself, buy something special with yourself in mind, such as the 30 rack of Bud Light and rolls of paper towels I put in last year... It's funny, too, sometimes you end up with something you never expected. Like the year I received this Neckline Slimmer... or my mother ended up with this lingerie... 

But there is something that you can expect every year: the sister that I am babysitting for this week will inevitably bring a Crock-Pot.  I'm not kidding.  Every year, for as long as I can remember, someone has unwrapped a Crock-Pot.  Some years our mom takes pity and keeps it... again.  Some years my sister takes it back home, but no doubt, this year, I'm taking it.  After this week, I get why she brings the Crock-Pot to the swap: it works Christmas miracles! 

Being a parent is literally a full-time job. Kudos to all of those working parents out there, you're crushing it! Days are jam-packed with washing laundry, and doing homework, and grocery shopping, and basketball practice. The list is clearly never-ending.  Then, when you're trying to get stuff done and your kids are watching TV, they watch these shows where the moms have all day to prepare dinner and they wonder why you keep feeding them cereal for two meals of the day.  BUT low and behold, some genius out there invented a Crock-Pot, slow cooking tacos and meatballs galore! Isn't it nice to think that someone is out there looking out for us moms? (I'm including myself in that category until tomorrow morning). Which is a good thing, too, because there are some assholes out there just trying to make our lives harder! Like the jerk who created Elf on a Shelf. 

Meet Oodle - my sister's kids' Elf on a Shelf.

 

Oodle is like the anti-CrockPot.

He makes no one's life easier and brings anxiety to the Christmas season.  Out of the 5 days I have been a mom, twice I have forgotten to move Oodle before climbing into bed, and have had to get up in the middle of the night to find a new location for this bitch! I'll tell you, it is adorable watching my two nephews who still believe in Santa wake up and run around the downstairs looking for Oodle, but c'mon! Santa already sees you when you're sleeping! He knows when you're awake! And when you're not awake, Mom or Dad has to go find a new place for Oodle!  To make it worse, I've noticed that some parents aren't helping each other out.  Pinterest and Facebook are flooded with Elf on a Shelf ideas! Elves ice skating around the kitchen table. Elves writing notes to their families.  Elves building a freaking igloo out of marshmallows! RELAX, just move your Elf at night like everyone else and stop making it harder for others to keep up!

I get it.  Crafty moms and dads exist. Culinary moms and dads exist. Busy moms and dads exist.  Parents, just like kids, come in all shapes and sizes (if your size it too big, hit me up, I'll let you borrow my Neckline Slimmer), but my point is this: I've realized this week that parenting is a day-by-day vocation, and it's freaking hard! In my experience as a spoiled-rotten daughter, your kids have NO IDEA how much work you do so they probably don't thank you for 85% of what you spend your life doing to make theirs easier.... but that's okay.  Because someday, they will have kids of their own, or their sister will ask them to babysit for a week, and they won't remember that one time in 2013 when Oodle stayed in the same place for 6 days in a row... and they'll have no idea that the meatballs you heated in the Crock-Pot were actually frozen from Costco.  They'll be thankful that you tried, that you were invested, and that you were there.  Hang your hat on that this holiday season.  If you're a parent, you're a Rock Star!

Do Moms Take Naps? ...asking for a friend.

For about a week every year my brother-in-law is invited on a business trip to the Dominican Republic.  Spouses are invited, but kids are not.  Since my sister and brother-in-law have four boys, ages ranging from 7 to 17, a babysitter is undoubtedly required.  Generally, their trip to the Dominican falls during my college's finals week and the boys spend the week with their grandmother.  Three years ago, while they were on the trip, my nephew needed new black pants for his jazz band concert.  I was elected, at the ripe age of 19, to take him shopping for the pants.  Unfortunately, after trips to T.J.Maxx, Old Navy, and WalMart, I had come up with nothing, and he wore his too-short-Steve-Urkle slacks to the show.  Unsurprisingly, the shopping excursion ended with this tweet - a heartwarming and ultimately true affirmation from my (at the time) 12 year-old nephew: 

Now I'm 22.  Seasoned, mature, responsible.  I have graduated Magna Cum Laude with a Bachelor's degree in psychology with a double minor in sociology and writing.  I have taken courses in child development, human development, and childhood learning.  I understand token economies as the best way of forming and reinforcing good behavior, I know at what age the brain is fully developed, and I am currently reading Masterminds and Wingmen: Helping Our Boys Cope with Schoolyard Power, Locker-Room Tests, Girlfriends, and the New Rules of Boy World by Roselind Wiseman for pleasure.  

I am more than qualified to take care of my four nephews, so this week, I am playing mom for five whole days. 

You might be sitting there thinking, "five days is nothing!" and if you're thinking that, I am only on day two and I'm ready to assure you that you're totally and completely wrong... and clearly not a mother.  Holy. Shit.

The following are three of the lessons I've learned so far from my temporary stay in the land of parenting:

Motherhood Lesson 1: Seven (a.m.) is the new eleven.

Let us begin with a note about the sleeping differential between adults and children.  Adults, can generally stay up pretty late and would (if you ask me) prefer to sleep-in late.  My 7 year-old godson? Totally not into that arrangement.  Yesterday morning, I awoke to two little feet, with ten little cold toes climbing into my bunk (he requested that I sleep in his brother's bottom bunk instead of on the couch or in my sister's king size bed).  He squirmed his little piggies underneath the covers and under my leg to warm 'em up as I struggled to separate my top eyelids from the bottom ones.  This was at 7:30 a.m.  A time I haven't seen on a Saturday since my youth basketball days.  Which makes sense because that's where we were headed; recreational youth basketball.

Motherhood Lesson 2: Your kid is not looking at you until he's looking for you. 

Once we got to the gym, I realized I apparently missed the memo about all caretakers bringing their own fold up chair, so I stood for the hour.  Which I actually preferred because then I could follow my nephew's team around from station to station to watch him dribble, shoot, pass, etc.  Unfortunately, 7 year-olds, as I came to find, are not totally tuned into what their parents are doing while they're shooting hoops.  My nephew only noticed me during one station... where he assumed I sat the entire time. I, like I said, was actually moving to watch every one of his stations.  At the end of practice, when all six teams of second graders fled to the middle of the court, cheered together, and dispersed to find their rides home, I assumed he'd come meet me at the last station, having at least noticed that I was moving around the gym with his team. Boy was I wrong.  My nephew ran to where he had noticed me last: the opposite side of the gym.  The anxiety on his face was heartbreaking, as he stared at the spot I had stood during layups at Station Three... 35 minutes prior.  I made my way over to him, he was fine, and I decided that if my kid ever plays youth basketball, I'm going to be the coach. You can't lose the coach. 

Motherhood Lesson 3: Showers are a gift from God. 

My morning routine, outside of this weeklong experience, takes about 45 minutes. Wake up. Brush teeth. Make coffee. Shower. Blow dry. Make up. Clothes.  That would be an option this week if I started my day 45 minutes before the kids woke up! Except, who knows really what time that will be? Last night I found time to shower between 10:00 p.m. when the four youngins were finally sound asleep (two of my other sister's children slept over last night too: SLUMBIE!), my 15 year-old nephew was playing a video game, and my 17 year-old nephew was not yet home for his 11 p.m. curfew.  The shower was unbelievable, but blowdrying my hair seemed out of the question, I didn't want to wake anyone up with be blowdryer. Bedtime finally came at 11:30, when everyone was accounted for, in their rooms, asleep.  That meant 7 hours of sleep until my sister came to pick up two of the kids for hockey in the morning, but I didn't fall asleep right away.  I laid awake in bed for a few minutes running through the schedule for tomorrow, wondering when I would shower next...

Don't get me wrong, I am having a blast! The six person monkey-in-the-middle game yesterday was the most fun I've had in a long time!  My nieces and nephews are all great kids, but I can't say this enough: I am undeniably impressed with how hard my sisters and my own mom work.  I'm sure I will learn about 15 million more lessons before this week is up, so I'll keep you guys posted.  Also, I just have one really quick question: do moms take naps? ... asking for a friend. 

Link to Rosalind Wiseman's website: Masterminds and Wingmen has a sister-book, Queen Bees and Wannabes, as well as a book for parents about parents, Queen Bee Moms and King Pin Dads:

http://rosalindwiseman.com/publications/

Good Cheer and Appreciation

Each year on a Thursday in November, at dining room tables across the country, families gather to share a meal and give thanks.  My family is no exception.  Each year we say grace and then circle the table asking each family member what they are thankful for.  This year, however, we got to dig into dinner a little sooner than in the past.  My grandfather, the matriarch of our family, passed away in July of this summer, and now everything is different.

The onset of my childhood was based around Sunday nights.  Some of my earliest memories include sitting three across the front seat of my mother's red car that whistled as we drove to my grandfather's house once a week for dinner.  My father would post up in our kitchen, watching television on a small eight-inch screen and bid us adieu as my mom packed my sister and I into the car for family dinner.  I'm not really sure why my dad didn't come.... or maybe he did come... the memories are hazy and blend all ages together; but I sure remember the feelings of love around the dinner table at Papa's house.  Thanksgiving was Papa's holiday.  All seven of his children would make the drive, bring their children, and help prepare a delicious meal.  He was King of the Krols and no one thought otherwise.  Since my grandfather's passing, my mother's family has been at odds.  That's what happens in fragile families.  If the anchor that held all ships at bay is lost, they are carried by wind and see in different directions.  This year, Thanksgiving dinner will be enjoyed my mother, my aunt, her husband, and myself.  A small, intimate gathering, still inundated by feelings of love.

What I am most thankful for this year is a hidden lesson that I have found in my grandfather's passing.  My mother, brother, and sisters are a beautiful exception to the rule.  I am one of six children born to my father, but only one of two born to my mother; thus, the four eldest of my family are my half siblings, but I whole love them.  When my father passed away, it was truly a tragedy.  He lost his battle to lung cancer five days before Christmas 1999.  What I have learned in the fourteen years since my father's passing, however, is that my siblings had the option to run.  My dad was the anchor that kept my family at bay.  He was our common thread, our home base, and our gravitational pull.  Without him there, what glue did we have to hold us together?  To this day, I am not sure.  I was seven at the time that we lost my father, and from that point forward it never occurred to me that my sisters and brother could have stepped out of my life forever; that my mother could have decided not to love them as her own, not to see my nieces and nephews as her grandchildren....but luckily for me, that was not the case.  My family loves harder, deeper, and with more vigor than any family I have ever known.  It isn't about having a shared relative or a thoroughbred blood line that makes two people family; it is love.  It is values.  It is knowing that losing that other person would be losing a part of yourself.  At seven years old, I was not old enough to know who I loved, but I knew who loved me.  I am so beyond lucky to have been born into the family that I have. I have an incredible, awe-inspiring mother, three beautiful sisters, and a strong, handsome brother that care about me more than words can say, and for that I am undoubtedly eternally grateful.

I pray for those who are not surrounded by the same love and affection that I have had the fortune of indulging in over my last 21 years on this earth.  As for those who are as fortunate, I pray that they take that luck and transform it into good cheer and appreciation for our world and the people who create it.