Togetheritis

It's Christmas break at Preschool. Greg is off work. Its even too cold for the dog to go out for very long. We are having ourselves some real family time. Lots of good 'ole family time.

Its the kind of family time where you loop the Baby Einstein video during every wakeful moment to keep from having a bored, snotting, toddler dangling from your shin while you clean out the fridge. Where a pouting, whiny three-year-old inspires the next round of "What do you want to do today?" from Greg and I that ends with me making the boys nuggets for lunch (again) and Greg playing some shooting game on his iphone to hopefully kill another half hour.

We have ripped down the Christmas lights, spontaneously caulked all the window casings, cut the boys hair, played out all the Christmas toys, cleaned out our closet, and swept the garage. All that is left is the obligatory lolling around on the carpet annoying each other to keep from actually dying of under-stimulation.

Today, after Charlie threw two platefuls of food on the kitchen tile and encored with thirty minutes of writhing anguish, I finally said it. "Greg, I am tired of being with us. I have togetheritis."

"I think we have 'Doing-nothing-together-itis'" he points out while opening yet another sleeve of Ritz crackers.

We need help. I am one Mighty Machines Video away from "All work and no play makes Andi a dull boy."

To quote Cindy: "I'm just sayin'."

Clarification

Merry Christmas

From The Hawkins Family

First of all...

This is a late, cheap, unoriginal Christmas E-Card. Please consider it the heartfelt gesture of love I truly intended to post a few days ago... I love you all dearly and have had more fun this year blogging than you can imagine.

And for the clarification...

It was Christmas Eve service. Me and my two noisy, irreverent, children were sitting with my in-laws. It was a solemnly quiet moment, and the gazillion people around us were reflective while Big Toby gave the message.

Big Toby: Baby Jesus came to the world, grew into a man, and, finally, died for us on the cross.

Little Toby: (With a loud gasp) He died?

Apparently we have 32.9 years in the Life of Christ to cover in the new year.

Landfills

All I want to do is clean the [stupid] floors because they are covered with torn up bits of toilet paper [and dog hair] that two chubby hands are pushing around with a yellow bulldozer.

"Toby, please clean up this mess!"

Toby is outraged. "It is NOT a mess, it is a landfill!" but I do not see the justification his tone implies, because Charlie has trash bits stuck to his upper-lip snot and that is where I DRAW THE LINE!

"I will not throw the trash away [while you are looking]. I will put it in the special place [where I keep the preschool projects made with popcorn kernels]," I say, but he isn't listening anymore because Charlie is pushing the bulldozer out of the living room and throwing a taunting giggle over his shoulder.

Sometimes I wonder what it is like for Greg at work every day doing his job without anyone trying to stop him. I imagine him sitting at a quiet desk checking off items on his "to -do" list with a sharpie. How quaintly productive.

I have to squeeze all the cleaning into one episode of Oswald or I might as well not bother.

I might as well not bother anyway because I have two little boys and this is just life.

A dirty, snotty, cluttered life.

But a good one.

William Runs The White Rock

I don't post about running very often because most of my friends would rather gouge a stick into their eye than cover any distance on foot, but every so often I feel it necessary to justify my blog title.

I almost didn't get into the race because I procrastinated and they sold out of bib numbers. Me, Jerri, and Jamie had to scrounge for an entry. Thankfully someone in my kettlebells class wasn't going to use his and gave it to me. [Thanks, Bill] So, this morning I ran The White Rock Half as a 42-year-old male from Flower Mound who wore purple shorts and raisenberry lipstick.

There were 17,000 runners lined up at American Airlines Center for the start. Crowds give me germ anxiety and it was really hard to avoid sharing air. No matter what direction I turned my head I could smell breath and it made me want to gag. I had to quit worrying about it at mile four when my running partner accidentally sprayed me with a wayward loogie, so thanks, Jerri, I guess.

I don't want this blog post to sound like a training journal so here are the highlights of the Dallas White Rock Half:

-Gun goes off [Don't worry it was planned]
-Five minutes later we cross the starting line
-Five minutes after that we stop to pee because the lines at the starting line were so friggin long
-Slight altercation with the girl who cut in front of me at the port o potty
-Thirty minutes later we pass the one and only person to yell my real name on the course [Thanks Blake] and not be cheering for William.
-Jerri and I run out of stuff to talk about and revert to our ipods [she=Van Halen, me=Beyonce]
-We blaze across the finish line seconds from the Kenyan superstars. [Okay, they ran the full, but whatever]

So, that's it. My first half since I got preggers with dear Toby five years ago. 2:06:50... Could have been worse.

[Oh yeah Kim... your aprons ROCK]

Booger-Nose and Poopy-Pants

Booger-nose is running through the house with a yellow yard stick, swinging it around like he is a ninja. Oh wait... no, he's a railroad crossing and a train is coming. He grasps the yard stick end with both hands and down it goes, "ding, ding, ding". It is just so exciting that I must watch it happen or else he appears exactly one centimeter from my eyeballs to make sure I see him. "I do see you," I say, but I would rather not have this exact vantage point because the booger in your left nostril is very close to my face.

Poopy-pants waddles his stinky bottom our way, coughing up a misguided sip of water from the Ozarka bottle he found under the couch. "Oh Poopy-pants are you Okay?" I say as I gently pat his belly. He looks happy to be belly-patted and encores with an experimental "cuh, cuh" just to see if I do it again. I do.

Suddenly, the yard stick whirls through the air searching for its next identity. It nicks a speck of paint off the wall and almost takes out poopy-pants altogether. Booger-nose does not notice though his eyes faithfully follow the whirring streak of yellow as if it might spring to life any second.

Poopy-pants is bored with coughing and is now perfecting his sneeze. "Ah, ah, ah, ah too!" He emphasizes the punchline so well that his whole body follows his nose straight into the carpet. He rolls over wondering where he is. "Yayyyyy!" I say to Poopy-pants and he smiles a big gap-toothed grin.

Booger-nose stops because he needs "a little bit of love". He crawls into my lap for a hug. Poopy-pants can't be left out and he waddles in too. I squeeze their snotty, stinky, little boy bodies.

Booger-nose and Poopy-pants, I couldn't be happier.

The Funniest Thing Toby Ever Said

I am re-posting this story from early summer for Kim's Favorites Party. It is my all-time favorite post.

"The Girl Next Door"

Actually, she lives down the street. I am not sure what manner of charms she imposed on Toby or if it is just her gloriously shiny blond hair, but he has suddenly become the pre-school version of George Clooney, flaunting three whole years of sophistication around the driveway on his swanky red trike.

He held nothing back. Her eight year old self floated gracefully up on a light purple Schwinn. Something inside him said Toby, she is special. Let her know you are a big kid. So after pointing out that her bike was "pwitty", he reached for the all-time greatest pick-up line anyone under five ever attempted...

"Lexi, do you need to poop? Because I know how to poop in the potty."

Bold move, little buddy. Very bold.

The Gift

When I was seventeen I went to Honduras during Spring Break. Our group flew from Oklahoma City to Houston, then took an International flight to Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital city. From there we drove hours to a small town in the foothills. We drove hours more in All Terrain Vehicles up twisty, bumpy, wet mountain roads. Then finally, we rode horses to a remote village. Our traveling took days. I have never felt so far away from home.

Our first night in the mountains I was carsick, homesick and full of anxiety over our primitive surroundings. When it got dark, I felt a cloud of doom hover over me as my friends and I walked outside the spider-infested structure where we planned to "sleep".

I suppose it is the irony of the universe, the funny way that ugliness and beauty contrast in the same place and make each other more vivid. Over the grass-roofed huts, and the stench of roaming pigs was a sky so bright it seemed to move with life of its own. A million, no a gazillion speckles spread like a field over us, blinking, shooting, smiling. I have never seen so many stars. I could have read a book underneath their light. It was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

Its the only time I have seen a sky like that. So, thank you God for showing me your vastness and sovereignty, and the veil of love you drape over humanity, even in the wildest, remotest corners.

Thanks, Kim.