A turkey and some mistletoe

I’m back at my Mom’s house for today and tomorrow, after having been home Sunday, Monday and Tuesday night. We’ll be popping back and forth like this a lot for the next month or so. Mom is on personal leave from work until the last week of January so Noah and I will take advantage of the ability to visit her during the weekdays. This time off will give her a few weeks after the holidays to take care of some of the paperwork that needs to be done after your spouse dies. Or at least start the balls rolling. She met with a lawyer yesterday to find out how to set up trusts for Larry’s three sons and was told it would take an entire year before they could receive any money from his estate. I never realized just how much had to be done after someone passes. As if the grieving isn’t hard enough.

And now on to more lighthearted topics. Noah is growing like a weed and learning about his world at a rapid rate. Here are a few of the new developments:

He’s begun waving. ALL THE TIME. When someone leaves a room or puts on their coat. When he’s running away from you and when it’s time to go to bed. And at random strangers at the mall, the grocery store and on the street.

Pucker up! He’s laying open-mouth, swallow-you-whole kisses on Mom, Dad and Grandma. Not to mention our cats, Grandma’s dogs, stuffed animals, dog sculptures at the Burlington Coat Factory, and the kitties in the Cat Encylcopedia that’s become his favorite book.

He’s gotten whinier, more defiant and tantrumrific. When he wants to hold this or go that way that’s what he wants and heaven help the soul who tries to stop him. Who told these babies they had free will anyway? And he’s becoming quite the little devil. This morning after being told “NO” when he tried to play with the batteries and their charger he snuck back over to them when I was otherwise engaged and when I noticed him with a battery in his hand he made a sound and hand gesture as if that pesky battery had jumped into his hand of it’s own accord and bit him while he was innocently playing with his toys like a good boy.

Shopping carts are the best thing ever, unless of course you’re expected to sit in one. While I tried to tackle some Christmas shopping on Monday, Mark supervised Noah moving shopping carts around in three different stores. The craziest thing is that he was incredibly contemplative while doing it, as if he had some grand plan and supreme goal in mind. I believe if he’d have gotten those carts in perfect alignment for his supreme arrangement the fate of us all would have been irrevocably altered. I’m hoping for the better – he doesn’t seem the type to be planning the earth’s destruction. At least not that I know of.

Call rehab. Noah has developed a dependency on raisins. He can eat a whole box in one sitting. I think they may have beaten cheese as his favorite food, of course it’s hard to say since he can’t say “raisins” repeatedly like he does “cheese.” Maybe if we called them “reez.”


Crap. I know there was more stuff I wanted to share but I can’t recall it. I guess I’ll save it for later. My mind is totally scattered. Once again Christmas is going by in a frightful blur. I still haven’t mailed Christmas cards, baked cookies, wrapped gifts or completed shopping. We put our tree up on Monday night but were too tired to decorate it until last night. I went through the box of decorations and decided not to put up anything other than the tree stuff and the front door wreath. The house needs to be picked up and scoured in preparation of having my in-laws and my mom over for dinner on Christmas Eve – to eat a meal I haven’t yet planned. Goodness. I’m tired and stressed even thinking about it all. I hope by Saturday that some of the Christmasy spirit hits me. Like a truck.