Girls of Summer

I love baseball.

I learned to love baseball from my father, who, I'm sorry to say, is a Mets fan.

There's something of a family tradition when it comes to unfailing loyalty to a team that constantly disappoints, or at worst, breaks your heart.

My granny is a lifelong Cubs fan, the poor thing.  When she and my granddaddy were dating as teenagers, he would drop her off at Wrigley, buy her a hotdog, and wait outside with a book while she scored the game from the bleachers.

She feels personally responsible for the end of the 2003 season.

I will never forget my first game.  I was about the age the girls are now, and my dad told me I could make all the noise I wanted.  I screamed through seven innings and then passed out.  I was hooked for life.

Of course I married a baseball fan.

Every year, for our anniversary, we go to a baseball game.

And this year?  We brought the girls.  To their first baseball game.

It was awesome.

I wanted to plan a road trip for us to spend the weekend in Pittsburgh to catch MY team play... but M's team was in Chicago playing the Sox for the week, and we decided... on the whole... it made much more sense not to drag our family (and a very pregnant Becoming SuperMommy) across three states just to enjoy the luxuries of PNC Park.

So despite the hazards of doing so, we all went to the Cel and rooted for the Twins.

...enjoy the photo spam!

Nobody was more excited about the game than Poppa.  Well, maybe SI.

The seventh inning stretch was FASCINATING

Daddy needed some help with his hat

Whenever a White Sox player hits a homer, they get fireworks.  Sadly, we saw a lot of fireworks that night.

Sometimes fireworks can be scary.  But mostly they're fun!

SI wearing mommy's hat- we might not have gone to Pittsburgh, but I still showed my team spirit.  :)

Daddy and the girls' first cotton candy!  DD didn't like it- she must not really be my child.

A Mauer homer!  Yay!

DD in mommy's hat

Alternate Plans

Several weeks ago

As you probably know from glancing to the right hand side of your screen, or from glancing at this picture right here... I'm super pregnant right now.  Due with grubling number three in a number of weeks.  I anticipate that she'll be a little early.

And, as you probably know from reading several recent posts, it has been my plan to have a VBAC.

But, as my OB constantly likes to tell me, "There's just something weird about your uterus, isn't there?"

What's weird about it?  The only position that babies like to hang out in there is transverse.

...babies can't come out vaginally if they're transverse.  It just doesn't work.  It's like a German Shepherd trying to climb through a cat door starting with one hing leg.  Not going to happen.

Sort of this time last pregnancy- with twins
(I had actually already popped by now)

(Yes, I just compared my vagina to a cat door.)

So we're back to the glorious days of "trying to turn the baby around."  How I remember this from my previous pregnancy.  The daily moxabustion, the routine acupuncture, the hanging out upside down, the flashlights, the music, the firm but cautious belly massage to gently encourage this stubborn little one to just get her damn hip out of my cervix and replace it with her head...

And in the meantime, I need to reconcile myself to the idea that I might very well be facing a repeat c-section.  Because nobody will let me try to labor a transverse baby out naturally, even under the best of circumstances.

And while I endeavor to make peace with the facts of my "weird uterus" and the remind myself that the invention of the c-section is responsible for such advances as ensuring that a woman and transverse twins can all survive the birth process, I learn/remember more and more of the things that I loathed about the end of pregnancy.

Over eating is a problem.

Like "Things That Cause Contractions."

1. Over eating
2. Coughing
3. Climbing the stairs to my third floor walk-up
4. Laughing too hard
5. Lifting up my daughters to tickle them
6. Vomiting

...oh right, vomiting.

I caught a stomach bug this week.  Always glorious when you're into your final month of pregnancy.

I should be back at 100% in... well... let's face it, not until after this baby comes out.  Give me another month, and we'll see how things are going over at Casa SuperMommy.  In the meantime, what's happening around here?

They're awfully cute.

On Friday we're going out to celebrate M's success with a dinner cruise down the river.  Yes, there will be lots of pictures of the girls being very excited on a boat.

Saturday, my husband receives his Master's degree.  I've never seen anyone work so hard as he has these last two years in my entire life.  There will be many pictures of him with his hood and diploma.

The following Monday, it's back to school with me for my final class.

...and the following weekend my friends are throwing me a baby shower.

...and then it's me and M's anniversary.

...and then Baby X is due.

Somewhere in there, the girls are being evaluated for a speech delay (twins, what can I say?), I'm *hopefully* finishing up some nursery projects and belated wedding presents, and we're taking the girls to their first baseball game.

So in short, I'm sorry I haven't been around much.  Things have been busy.  They are SO busy.  And much as I love you all, and I LOVE writing, and I wish I could be here, writing, daily...

Well...

This month is non-stop insanity.

I think you all probably understand.  :)

That said, you can expect a post for each of the super fun things we do around here.  Which means, at least two a week all month (plus the Sunday Blogaround).  And then?  Then I think I'm going to hand the reigns over to Poppa to write about the early days with Baby X for a while.  If he's willing.

Cheers-
Becoming SuperMommy

Pomp and Circumstance

You might have noticed it's been a bit quiet over here the last couple of days.

I didn't even post a Sunday Blogaround this week, and I'm sorry for that.

But you see... I've been busy.

I graduated from college.

...sort of.  I still have one summer class I've got to hammer out- it starts a week from today.  And hopefully, I'll finish it before this baby evacuates my womb in a safe and relatively friendly manner.  But I did the graduation thing.  I put on a cap and gown, and I walked across a stage, and I shook hands, and grinned like a crazy idiot, and received an empty folio to put my diploma in when it finally arrives.

Although I could have, I didn't graduate with honors.

I graduated with my totally unspectacular credentials at 28 years old.

I graduated in a TINY class, comprised only of people who knew each other well.  Who, for the first time, I opened up to in a personal way.  Because for the first time, I was presented with them as people, rather than obstacles to my success.

Most of my classmates?  They didn't know I was pregnant.  I've been scarce this semester.

Most of my classmates?  They didn't know I had kids.  A husband.  A life outside of my brief intrusions into their class discussions where it was clear that only I and the token neo-Con had done the homework.

But I did get to graduate with a few of the folks that I considered *my* classmates.  When I started with the program, I knew everyone.  There were about a dozen of us at first, and my two favorite classmates were there with me.  One is now the assistant to the undergrad department head, the other was receiving his master's.  They know what the last five years have been like for me.

Since I started at this program, five years ago, my husband was diagnosed with and then beat brain cancer.  I took time away from school to take care of him.

I got married.  I took time away from school for that.

I got pregnant with twins.  I took time away from school to gestate them.

And I went back, part time, and got pregnant again.  And this pregnancy has been hard.  I've had gall bladder disease, skin cancer, SPD, and I've been under a ridiculous amount of emotional strain.

And here I am, nine months in.

One class left, but the hard part has passed.

From here on out, I have no idea what is going to happen.

But I know how hard I worked to get here.

And I am proud of all I've done.

Thirteen years, I've been at this.  Thirteen years I've been taking classes, learning, at first loving my education for every minute lesson it offered me, lately slogging through because it didn't matter whether or not I was learning- the end was near.  And now?

Worth it.

Every single second.

Sunday Blogaround- 4.1.12

Sunday Blogaround!

I was going to play a ridiculous prank on you.  But instead, I'll share my favorite posts of the week.  Enjoy!

"All Princesses Say Woo Woo" - Happy Hippie Homemaker
A wonderful way to express what kind of entertainment has value and what, frankly, doesn't.  I love this, and I know exactly what sort of "woo woo" she's talking about!

"Kitchens... With A Twist!" - Departing the Text
A selection of books for children that prominently feature kitchens.  I love it.

"Cadbury Eggs" - xkcd
First of all, I LOVE xkcd.  It's a long time favorite of mine.  Second of all, I love- LOOOOOOOOVE- Cadbury Creme Eggs.  If M ever asked me to chose between him and my creme eggs... well... we'd have a really hard talk coming up.

"Why? on Wednesday - Celebrity Edition" - Because Motherhood Sucks
I love this lady.  She cracks me up almost every time.  This is a rant about the insane things that celebrities do to their children that makes life more difficult than simply being the child of a celebrity.

"Father of the Email Attachment" - The Guardian UK
So, no, it isn't a blog post.  But it is from this week, it is about my father (who I am very proud of), and it does make me laugh my ass off every time I read it.  Also, bonus mention of me and my little ones.  :)

"Hey SAHMs: Here's Some Back To Work Resume Advice" - Honest Mom
Another one that made me laugh out loud.  I definitely see myself using at the very least the last of her suggestions when I update my resume this summer.  Are the suggestions honest, though?  You be the judge.

"Pop Tart French Toast Souffle" - Dude of the House
Seriously, if the title alone didn't have you salivating, there is probably something wrong with you.  That, or this just appeals way too strongly to my current pregnancy-cravings-of-doom mindset.

"Soccer" - The Hossman Chronicles
I know, I referred you to Daddy Hoss last week, too.  But I just love this post.

Pie and Utter Geekery

About a month ago, I participated in an event that, frankly, was a very very VERY bad idea.

This requires a little explanation.  It will all make sense in the end, I promise.

I am a gigantic nerd.  I sometimes wonder how close to the line of true geekdom I fall, because honestly a great deal of my geek cred has been acquired purely by osmosis.

How?  Well, this is my dad.  When I first started "dating," sometime in my mid-teens, I quickly determined my own litmus test for whether or not a guy was too geeky or nerdy for me to spend my time with- if he knew who my dad was, he was out.

So, when it comes to carrying on a conversation about some fine details of geekery, from the history of PayPal to the problems facing any anti-spam effort, I really can hold my own.

That said, my personal computer geekiness only extends to my basic knowledge of HTML and extremely long history with socializing via the internet.

My first comic love.

Of course, being vaguely geeky, even by association, I gravitated towards *real* geeks.  People who build their own server farms, battle robots, or pornography empires.

And there are some elements of nerd/geek culture that are just plain inescapably awesome.

Like comic books.

It wasn't my father who interested me in comic books in the beginning.  No, it was my uncle, who is less of a geek extraordinaire in his own right than he is an expert in something that geeks almost universally consider really really cool.  His area of expertise?  Sexual deviancy is post-Soviet Russian literature.

He despises Jonathan Safran Foer, or at least did after "Everything is Illuminated" was first published.

At any rate, HE was the big comic book geek. And when I was a kid, he decided he had "outgrown" his comic collection.  A decision I expect part of him regrets to this day.  Being the only relatives of "appropriate" comic reading age, my sisters and I inherited the bulk of his collection.  Everything valuable he kept, but our home became refuge to more comic books- almost all in their protective sleeves- than I could have ever hoped to count.  We could have opened a really crappy comic book shop.

At first, I had little interest in the comics.  My closest experience with them was watching some of my younger cousins (on my mother's side) playing with X-Men action figures, and it held absolutely no interest for me.  Until I discovered on one sleepless night, the Mars series.  Scientist Morgana Trace, paralyzed, builds a super exoskeleton with which she is able to explore the strange and dangerous landscape of Mars.

It's really a very cheesy book.  But I loved it.  And I learned that comics might have something to offer me.

One of my first boyfriends later introduced me to Johnny the Homicidal Maniac.  A few years later, my uncle bought me my first Love and Rockets book.

There was no turning back.  I still think that the Palomar collection by Los Brothers Hernandez is one of the best books I've ever read.

So, I became a comic book... fan.  Not quite a geek, really.  I never got too into superhero stories.  But I am utterly addicted to Walking Dead- the books, not the show.

Which brings me to my very very VERY bad idea.

A local comic book shop held a pie baking contest.  To the winner?

You guessed it.  Comic books.

I absolutely couldn't resist.  Despite not being able to eat pretty much anything that goes into a pie, I decided to enter.

I started off by shooting myself in the foot.  How?  I spent an entire day emailing the owner of the comic book shop with questions- mostly about my ideas for awesome comic-themed pies.  From what I could tell, this hadn't actually been part of the competition up to that point, but after being bombarded by emails he sent a notice to all of the contestants- the pies must be comic themed.

There went my comic-themed edge.

So I spent the whole afternoon coming up with awesome ideas for comic themed pies.  A collection of Comedian Creme Mini Lemon Pies (with a drizzle of raspberry blood), a Hulk ice-cream pie (mint, of course), a Thing pie (sweet potato and covered in crushed Boston Baked Beans)...  in the end, I settled on two.

The first was my Snow White and Rose Red Charming Cheesecake, inspired by the sisters of both fable and Fables.  This was a real cheesecake- no cream cheese here.  Just mascarpone and ricotta cheeses, with raspberries on one half and white chocolate shavings on the other.

The second was actually M's idea- Rorschach Creme Pie.

The Rorschach Creme Pie was something I had considered, recipe wise, but I hadn't thought of the theme.  I was going to use it to make a Georgia Mud Pie, which is like a Mississippi Mud Pie except that there are dead people coming out of it (because the Walking Dead mostly takes place in Georgia, get it?).  But M's idea was better.

So I made my Rorschach Creme Pie, and my Charming Cheesecake.

They were both amazing.

And, out of about twenty pies, my Rorschach Creme Pie took first prize.  The Charming Cheesecake pulled in at a prizeless #5, but only because meat pies were allowed.  If it had been a sweet pie only kind of contest, I would have taken first and third.  I feel pretty awesome about that.

What makes me feel the awesomest though?

The winning pie- judged barely better than a pie made out of spiced meat (but only then because half of the judges didn't get a chance to taste my pie at all- it had been completely devoured)- was nearly fat free.  And vegan.

...that's right.  My vegan pie beat out spiced turkey pie.  It beat out "Spider Jerusalem Bacon and Swiss" pie. It beat out a "Gotham Night" pecan and bacon pie.

It beat both "Captain American Apple Pie" and "Fantastic Four Apples" pie.

It even beat "Banana: The Last Pie."

So, for those of you who don't believe that a vegan dessert can be just as freakin' delicious as any meaty, fruity, or otherwise creamy pie, eat your hearts out.

...so, why was this such a bad idea?

You might remember that I'm pregnant, and that for me that means I have a gall bladder that can't process fats.  This was a contest of open judging- everyone who paid to enter the event (a paltry $7 that was waived if you brought a pie) was a judge.  That meant that you had to taste as many as twenty different pies.

Oh yeah, this was a bad idea for me.

Even worse?  After making friends of sorts with the owner, he's now having ANOTHER baking contest.  For cakes.

The day after my birthday.

...who thinks they might be in the mood for some Bifrost Cake with Rainbow Bridge Frosting?

Rorschach Creme Pie

2 packages firm silken tofu

10oz semi-sweet chocolate chips (vegan)

10oz white chocolate chips (vegan)

1 3/4 c graham crumbs

1/2 c margarine (vegan)

Chocolate syrup

1. Melt margarine in a bowl.  Mix with graham cracker crumbs.  Press into sides of two pie pans (or one GIGANTIC pie pan, as the case may be).  Set aside.

2. In a blender, blend one package of tofu until mostly creamy.  Add 1tsp-1tbsp water if needed.

3. In a double boiler, melt the semi-sweet chocolate.  Add to blender, and quickly blend with tofu until homogeneous.  Pour into pie crusts until about half full.

4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 with white chocolate, topping off pie pans.  Only this time, add just a little bit more water.  Just a bit- so that the white chocolate is ever so slightly creamier than the brown.

5. Carefully drizzle chocolate syrup onto the surface of the pie.  Using a toothpick, marble the top of the pie to recreate a Rorschach test.

6. Set pie in fridge to set overnight.

Done.

Easy as award winning vegan pie, right?

Family Train Trip (I think I can I think I can I think I can...)

Train rides are FUN!

Last weekend, my little family found itself in a bit of a pickle.  How to get from Chicago to the Twin Cities and back as quickly as possible for M's grandpa's funeral.

What is normally an eight hour drive would undoubtedly last MUCH longer with the inclusion of one pregnant lady and two potty training toddlers, and taking an airplane would have been SOOOOOOOOO expensive!  Add to that our travel curse, and you get one family that is very reluctant to jump in the car and drive for a whole day without much warning.  Whilst complaining about this lack of options to Poppa, he threw out a suggestion that simply had not occurred to me.

My vision for our entire trip.

"Why don't you take the train?"

...I thought it over.

I used to take the train a LOT.  There is a train that goes pretty much straight from Chicago to my old hometown of Ann Arbor, Michigan, and each time I returned from college for some event or other, that was my method.  I learned that the train can be very... unreliable.  Either it goes perfectly, or it does NOT.  I had days that I would pull into the station before my parents had even left their house to collect me, but then there were other days...  Like when my grandfather was dying, and 20 minutes outside of Ann Arbor we hit a person.  Yes, a person.  Our train was immediately labeled "crime scene," and nobody was allowed off.  For six hours.  It was unbearable.

Sadly, M's only experience with the train had been with me, taking it to Passover with my family in upstate New York.  That is *supposed* to be about 13 hours on the train.  Sadly, it took us more like 19 or 20.  Our return trip from that event wasn't a whole lot better.

Never underestimate the soporific power of "Milo and Otis"

He was skeptical, naturally, about taking such an unreliable mode of transportation to such an important event.  That was when Poppa's quick and able research paid off- for a little more than the cost for one person to fly the round trip, our whole family could get a private four bunk room on the train- including meals- both ways.

We were sold.

We threw together our suitcases, and in a mad rush we boarded a train.

There are some complications when a family with two toddlers attempts to travel without a car.  First of all, car seats.  While they aren't a requirement ON the train, in order to GET to the train, or to get around once disembarking the train, you sort of need them with you.

That, and the train ride was supposed to last about eight and a half hours.  About the same as driving.  Only without the children strapped to their seats.  We grabbed an entire suitcase worth of distractions.  We also naively brought both of our backpacks in order to do homework (HA!), two diaper bags that turn into booster seats, a suitcase full of grown-up clothes, a suitcase full of toddler clothes, a bag of food and drink for the train (Who knew what options would be available for my CRAZY limited gall-bladder diet?  And would the children cooperate and eat it?), our winter coats, and some bedding- in case it was possible to actually put our children to sleep on the train.

It's easier to forgive somebody when you have champagne.

So picture, if you will, my husband lugging three suitcases, a gigantic red canvas bag, two diaper bags, a backpack, and two car seats as I trudge along behind, with a second backpack and two toddlers in tow (each wearing their own backpacks) the mere half a block from our car to Union Station.

I think, in that moment, M may have actually considered divorcing me for having dared to suggest a train ride in the first place.

His bad mood naturally lasted until we had checked two suitcases and the car seats, and was almost completely soothed by a peaceful wait in the special sleeping car waiting area while our girls colored with crayons and I collected him chocolate pastries.

They carried those train schedules with them all day!

The train was, in a word, amazing.  Really.  When things go well on the train, they go really well.  Our trip began, unexpectedly, with complementary champagne.  It was kind of fun the way that every single nook and cranny of the tiny compartment were usable.  It wasn't easy to get us settled into the space, but once we were in?  It was great.  And dinner was surprisingly really good- and totally edible in my current dietary state.  There was also virtually unlimited coffee for M and juice for me and the girls.  That was nice.

The girls loved the train- they kept exclaiming in joy that it was MOVING!  They loved watching the scenery go by out the window.  They even slept for a few hours!  When not sleeping, we read books, watched cartoons on the laptop, and M performed his Yo Gabba Gabba Dancey Dance act (he called it "The Chicken") with the girls' Christmas presents.  Something that certainly can't be accomplished on car trips!



We even took a break in the lounge car, to try to watch "Finding Nemo" where we could plug the laptop in to recharge.  Oddly, none of the outlets in the lounge car worked, but it turned out the outlet labeled "Razors Only!" in our compartment did the trick just fine.  While we were there, another family sent their daughter over to watch with our kids.  It was a little odd- the parents never so much as said "Hello," to us, but they sent their kid to our table and just went about their business.  I think I would have at least... you know... acknowledged the lone mom sitting with two toddlers and a laptop and obviously pregnant before adding another kid into the mix (M was off getting beverages- it took him probably half an hour).  But, as they were probably utterly exhausted as well AND had an infant in tow, I figured I'd just ignore them right back and make small talk with the little girl.

DD, Grandpa, and SI

That little girl?  SI decided she was her new BEST FRIEND.  She inched up to her, practically wrapped her arms around the bigger girl's shoulders (it looked like a, "How YOU doin'?" moment for sure!), and proceeded to show her the train schedule over and over again, pointing at the picture on the front and exclaiming, "We on this train RIGHT NOW!"  It was pretty darn cute.  Although the little girl DEFINITELY didn't appreciate having her name abbreviated to "Ape."

We arrived only forty five minutes late, and Grandpa was there to collect us.  An added perk- it is SO much easier to get to the train station (almost anywhere) than to the airport.  So it was a very quick trip- with car seats!- from the station to Grandma and Grandpa's house.

When I say M's family is huge, I'm not kidding.

We had a chaotic day in the Twin Cities, filled with family and love and much happiness, despite the sad occasion.  It would have made DeLloyd very happy to see all his family together, laughing, eating, and talking over every subject under the sun.

At the crack of dawn, we awoke, and began rushing through breakfast in order to have a repeat of our very peaceful ride from Chicago to St. Paul.  Unfortunately, our train home was a slightly different story than the original.

Before arriving in St. Paul to pick us up, our train got trapped behind a disabled freight train.  So despite our mad rush to get out of the house in order to catch our 7:50am train, we didn't actually board the thing until after 11am.

Playing with Grandma in the *fancy* waiting room

I have to say, waiting around OUTSIDE the train while it goes through a miserable delay is MUCH better than being actually ON the train during the delay.  No comparison.

Our return was in many ways much worse, and in some MUCH better.  On the worse side, the compartment was MUCH OLDER!  Almost everything was *slightly* broken, from the tray table we set the laptop on for movies, to the closet holding our coats, to the bed the girls could sleep/sit on while looking out the window.  We found solutions for just about everything, but it really drove home how important little things are on a trip like that.  Our car attendant on our return trip obviously didn't give a crap about what kind of job he was doing- he tried to get out of bringing us our meal!  I actually had to have a fight with the dining car manager in order to get our food- and a good thing I did!  He was forcing our attendant to bring us our meal, but he had refused to take our order!  He was going to bring me, a vegetarian Jew, a bacon cheeeseburger, and he was going to bring my vegetarian toddlers chicken fingers.  I was pretty freakin' livid.

M's sleeping feet, the sleeping girls, and the
place in which I was to shortly pass out.

He also tried to kick us out of our compartment an hour outside of Chicago so he wouldn't have to stay on after we disembarked to clean it up.  (Yes, he told us that.)  M was much more polite than I was ready to be. He just lied and told him we didn't use any of the bedding, and he could forget about having to change things.

As far as things that were better, the scenery was GORGEOUS, and as it was daytime we could actually enjoy it.  The girls just lay down and slept for almost the entire first half of the journey.  M and I ALSO got to sleep for a few hours!  It was WONDERFUL.  The food was, quite possibly, better- as it turned out my veggie burger and the girls' grilled cheese were just fine, and M thoroughly enjoyed that bacon cheeseburger I wouldn't have had any interest in.  Lastly, it seems that older train cars have more spacious bathrooms.  Believe me, when one of you is pregnant, one of you is a giant, and the other two require assistance... that matters.

Best of all?  The train conductor was trying to make up for lost time from before they picked us up, so we actually spent about an hour less on the train that we otherwise would have.

Me and my girls on the train

Or... maybe.. the REAL best thing was the Red Cap guy back at Union Station who piled us into a cargo carrier, drove us almost all the way to the parking garage, and then waited with me and the girls while M got the car, installed the car seats, and then came to pick us up.

Things will change, of course, once Baby X is in the picture.  But for the time being, I am totally converted.  The train is the only way I want to travel to the Twin Cities and back again.

Even if it means M lugging our entire lives for half a block.

Holiday Recap, or, Unintended Consequences of Birthing Favorite (i.e. "only") Grandchildren

The last night of Channukah

I have spent a great deal of the day thus far making plans for M and I to take the weekend essentially away from our children, in order to undertake The Great Ikea Adventure.

First of all, you must understand... I don't do so well at stores like Ikea.  I get agoraphobia on occasion, and nothing like a big box store will kick that in.  And no store is bigger, more filled with people and stuff, and more designed to totally overwhelm your senses than Ikea.  Add to that my rapidly increasing levels of nesting hormones, my obsessive need to plan, and my inability to walk for any meaningful length of time without a cane (yay SPD!), and it all adds up to a gigantic disaster waiting to happen.  Thankfully, sans grublings.

So why on earth are we doing this?  What could possibly have inspired us to go through the process of trucking ourselves out to the burbs to go through a process that will most likely result in at least one of us crying in public?  (The only Ikea trip that left M in tears was more due to manly shame than anything else- his pregnant wife was climbing all over the car using her mad knot tying skillz to attach far too many oddly proportioned boxes to the roof of our Kia.  Girl Scouts taught me well.)

How I decorate for the Holidays

We are going to Ikea in order to find a way to accommodate the innumerable presents that were heaped upon our children by their doting relatives.

This is not a complaint, but I'm just saying... I don't remember EVER having as many toys as my kids have right now.  I just stole away and entire box of toys that as Executive Parental Unit I deemed "outgrown," and their toybox STILL doesn't close.

So what on earth was involved in this veritable orgy of gift giving?  I couldn't even begin to catalog it.  But I can tell you without a doubt what the favored gifts have been, and I am extremely pleased to say that I am behind at least three of them.  Go SuperMommy!

(If you don't care about the details of the toys, skip to the picture of the man in the fancy pants for the heartwarming ending.)

SI and her new train

We had three distinct gift giving events.  First, our own small family Channukah celebration.  It was the first night of Channukah, and the girls opened presents sent from extended family members, from me and M, and from a few friends.

This night yielded two big wins for the kids.  First, their Melissa and Doug toy train set and toy truck and car set.  I'd just like to say, my girls LOVE cars and trains.  I think the idea that toys like this are so heavily gendered is truly unfair.  And I love that the first person to get them their own trucks- a great toy dump truck and fishing boat set- was my Granny- hereafter known as Great-Grandmommy.  She delivered them to the girls last summer with the announcement that SOMEBODY had to get our   little girls their "boy toys," because those are better toys anyway.  Great-Grandmommy, you rock.  The train and truck came from her sister, my great aunt Minda Rae.  They have been underfoot ever since.  It's kind of glorious.

Wearing their Channukah dresses from Great-Grandmommy

The next big toy excitement was over their "big" presents from Mommy and Daddy- that is, me and M.  As SI has been obsessed with robots for months now, we found her a super cute stuffed robot.  Despite the obvious reasons not to, she immediately named it "Blue Robot," and it became her very best friend.  For DD, we got an owl.  Now, this was a little trickier.  She has a serious case of the "me toos" when it comes to expressing her opinions.  So I simply filed a way a list of things that she announced she loved that morning while getting dressed, and when I found what was to be HER stuffed toy, her little voice announcing, "I love owls!" jumped back from my memory.  As it turns out, she loves this owl, too.

SI and Aunt Engineer play with the elephant bank

The next day, it was off to Minnesota for Christmas.

Yes, the very next day.

I can't even begin to recount all the gifts they received.  M's family utterly showered them with love and toys and all manner of things that little children absolutely adore.  It was five days of nonstop madness.

Aunt and Uncle Engineer got the children stuffed animal piggie banks.  Well, a piggie bank and an elephant bank.  They make noise and move around each time you put in a coin.

This was more excitement than my children could handle.  Cookies were abandoned.  All games forgotten.  Nothing was important anymore.  Not now that there were... pig and elephant.

DD insisted on posing with "her family" at least 100 times

The children spent much of the trip putting coins into the banks as fast as they possibly could.  It is due to this that they quickly learned that the coins that made the pig and elephant come to life were called "money," and from there it was only a few quick leaps of thought to the repeated squeal, "I love money!"  Adorable, yes.  My grandfather probably rolled in his grave a little bit.  :)

The girls were each given a gift by their cousins (we have a one-to-one gift giving ratio for kids, as there are SO MANY of them in M's family!), and I have to say... those cousins have spectacular taste!  It's amazing.  The girls only get to see most of M's family a few times a year, but M's aunts in charge of gift gathering for grublings seemed to read the girls' minds across the span of three states.  DD got what she has since called "my family," which is two little girl dolls, a mommy doll, and a daddy doll.  She carries them with her everywhere.

Yup, same zipper as on the show...

Then came the coup de grace, Muno and Brobee.  You see, my kids are OBSESSED with Yo Gabba Gabba.  For a whole month, the only way I knew to get SI to smile for the camera was to ask her if Muno had bumps, or one big eye.  The answer to both of those questions is "yes."  I searched EVERYWHERE, within a few pre-set limitations, for Yo Gabba Gabba toys.  I finally dug up some stuffed backpacks from Spencer's Gifts, of all places.  DD was immediately in love.  SI wasn't so sure.  She spent about five minutes looking Muno over, as if asking him, "Are you really who you say you are?"  Finally, she accepted that he might not be THE Muno, but he was at least HER Muno.  And just like that, Blue Robot was forgotten.  Possibly forever.

Future American Idol?

I actually feel bad for that toy.  To be loved intensely for five days and then tossed aside?  But I digress...

The other huge Christmas hits were microphones and flashlights.  The microphones, sadly, do not have adjustable volumes.  But they have wrought a huge change in my daily life.  As many of our friends and family know, our children HATE singing.  The reason for this is that they love being sung to sleep, so much that they associate all singing with bedtime.  So unless they are not tired, not laying down, or have no wish to sleep, they feel they are being tricked when somebody strikes up a tune.  However, the microphones play the tunes to a few songs that I know, and I now frequently find myself with two microphones shoved in my face as I sing endless verses of "Old MacDonald Had A Farm."

The flashlights have been turned into SI's new favorite game of all time.  She calls it, "Light in the Dark."  It sounds religious, but actually it's quite literal.  I turn off the hallway lights, and then she runs around with her flashlight (a tiger that roars when his mouth opens to emit a beam of light) squealing with delight, roaring with the tiger, and announcing, "Make light in the dark!"

Grandma made that purple dress!

Then it was back to Chicago for the last night of Channukah, and immediately off to Guppy Lake for the SuperMommy family shindig and New Year's Eve.

Again, total present overload.  My mother went absolutely nuts getting stuff for the girls.  But the most beloved items of the trip were the following...

The vintage stuffed My Little Ponies made the top of the list.  I'm still patting myself on the back.  And intensely relieved.  If the girls hadn't liked them, I'd be playing with them myself out of pure determined pride.  Aunt Genocide was pretty floored when she saw them.  They're creatures of our own childhood, and it is a little strange to see them brought back to life, as it were.

DD lighting the wooden candles

Grandmommy got the girls a toy Menorah.  That was an enormous hit.  The girls took turns lighting candles all weekend long.  They even came to accept more singing- the Channukah shema in a variety of tunes.  So long as they were lighting the candles, singing was totally allowed.  It was pretty cool.

And then there were the books.  So many books!

The girls favorite two were, without a doubt, "It Happened in Pinsk," and "The Carrot Seed."  Although the Nutshell Library and the incredible pop-up book from Grandmommy are also instant favorites.

"It Happened In Pinsk"

It's odd.  I noticed as I was picking out books for my kids (like "It Happened in Pinsk') that really, I was passing along my own favorite books.  But the more books I got for the girls (they got a book apiece every night of Channukah), the more I realized that I wasn't passing along MY favorite books, I was passing along my mother's favorite books (Maurice Sendak's Nutshell Library) that had been passed to me.  And more than that, I was passing along Great-Grandmommy's favorite books ("Harry the Dirty Dog" and "Blueberries for Sal") that had been passed first to my mother and then to me.

It's amazing to realize that children's books, GOOD children's books, are so incredibly universal that they transcend era.  That it doesn't strike my kids as at all odd that somebody would deliver coal, or that Sal's mommy's kitchen would have a wood burning stove, or that Pierre's mother wears an elaborately feathered hat.  It doesn't strike them as strange that the big brother in "The Carrot Seed" would wear knickerbockers, or that Irv Irving's telephone would have separate parts for the mouth and ear pieces.

Reading "Harry the Dirty Dog" with Grandma

A good story, with good illustrations, is basically immortal.  And that's pretty cool.

So the girls need about a bazillion feet of shelf space for all their new books, they need a new, more organized system in which to store their increasingly complicated toys, and I need about a month and a half to recover from the insanity that was December.

I suppose that if there's a moral here, it's Don't Have the First Grandchildren Unless You Have Tons Of Space.

Or, you know, do.  Because there are few joys greater than giving a gift that is well loved.

M and his swag

And truly, gift giving is my favorite part of the season.  I love to give presents.  I love finding things that tell the people I care about, "I KNOW you.  And I love you.  And in order to show you that, I have a physical object that you will love because it reflects something about you that can only be known by those who DO love and know you."

I got Grandmommy a super weird CD.  I got Aunt Genocide TMNT tumblers.  I got M a laptop skin that looks like a vintage boom box and a hoodie from his alma mater.  I got Aunt Engineer a beautiful upcycled sweater.

I love to give gifts.  Because when somebody opens the gift, and sees something that they really like, it's not about what that thing is.  It's about being loved.

So I am glad that my children are so crazy about all their new stuff.  Not because they needed a single piece of it (which they did- the dresses and the socks. THANK YOU!).  Not because now they have all sorts of new distractions that give me a little more time.  I am glad because they are so thoroughly loved by their family- by their aunts and uncles and grandparents and greatgrandparents... by friends they didn't know that they had.

Watching them play together is always pretty amazing.

My heart was warmed every single time DD grinned and said Thank You to another person.  I grinned seeing now only how happy my children were, but how happy their relatives were, seeing that they had succeeded in showing something simple like love to my children.

I love the holidays.  I love presents.  While I don't care what I get (although I ADORE the perfume M got me!), I care very much what I give.  And I really hope to instill those sorts of gift giving values to my kids.