Usually around this time of year, we are getting ready to pack the family up and fly down to Atlanta for the holidays, which means that someone has the stomach flu, or our flights have been canceled or delayed, or I am making lofty goals about not looking like the Chrismukah ham, or I still have last minute shopping to do or I am complaining about my lack of personal space on airplanes, or someone has decided to toilet train herself, but this year is a little different. Because we are already here. So, while we don’t have to deal with airports and suitcases and delayed flights and sitting next to drunk men on planes, we have our own little version of pre-holiday chaos going on.

This work-at-home mom is now a stay-at-home mom. Which, obviously, is what happens when your children are off of school for two weeks, but only I kind of missed that memo. So, if you couple that with the fact that my stepmom is making a party for 100+ people tomorrow night and has yelled like hell asked us very kindly to stay out of the way while she prepares and cooks and cleans and decorates and plans and cooks some more. AND couple all of that with the fact that Isabella and I are plagued with runny noses and the coughs and the snots (oh my fucking god, THE SNOTS) and, as Isabella puts it, “my cheeks have a headache!”  it’s pretty clear that it’s just a wee bit chaotic around our neck of the woods. And none of us really feels like going anywhere BUT we can’t exactly stay at home all day due to the whole persona non grata thing…

So, on Monday I bit the bullet and put some pants on and took the kids to Target (woo! fancy!) where my children whined for two hours, but, they were entertained and we came home with bags full of things to do like puzzles and Othello and UNO and Rummikub and art supplies (but only the washable kind and NO MARKERS!) and some Ni-Hao, Ki-Lan something-or-other that I didn’t know we bought until we got home. On Tuesday I decided that my mommy skillz were clearly lacking because no one seemed impressed that I took my kids to play at Target. Also, after that excursion I was officially broke. So, I put pants on AGAIN and we spent almost 3 hours at the park. SAHM FTW! Emily came with a friend. Josh quickly made a friend and Isabella walked up to a little girl and said, “HI! You wanna be my best friend?” It’s funny how easily my children make friends, seeing as how hard it is for me. I couldn’t even imagine walking into a room full of strangers and being all “HEY! Who wants to be my friend?”

oh, and did I tell you about the dude in the living room who is giving Isabella nightmares?

no? how about now?

(almost as scary as the thought of upgrading to WordPress 2.9!)

And, you know, because the normal chaos wasn’t enough, last night the husband decided that he was going to take my old laptop and reformat it and do all this fancy stuff to it to basically – as he explained it to me – get all of my shit off of it so the kids could use it for fusion fall or webkinz or whatever the heck the kids are playing these days. Which he did, successfully, and then dropped the damn thing right on the floor. OH YES HE DID. It’s busted. Awesome. Happy Chrismukah, Josh and Emily!

Today we have a fancy day of watching The Three Amigos and eating takeout and hiding Isabella’s santa costume from her and watching Center Stage and debating whether or not to let Mandy Moore sell me some proactiv for this wonderful acne I’ve been given for Christmukah and buying this tshirt thanks to miss slynnro and drinking copious amounts of coffee out of mugs the size of my head