I was sick this week with a weird little illness that manifested itself as a sore throat, tight chest, and overwhelming exhaustion. Today is the first day I haven’t felt as though if I closed my eyes for more than a blink, I would succumb to narcoleptic urges. Unfortunately I woke up with no voice – NO VOICE; how to communicate with children? – but it has started to come back now so I can issue commands without the children ignoring me unconsciously (as opposed to the conscious ignoring) or having them answer “What? WHAT? I can’t hear you!”
The boys have been in swimming lessons with their school all week, and this always seems perverse to me: swimming in the frigid city-run pools, then walking back to the school in sub-zero temperatures. The boys seem to be completely depleted by these lessons, or else they have what I have, because this whole week they have become progressively more and more tired. At lunchtime yesterday, Mark started asking if he had to go back to school in the afternoon; he was soooo tired. Normally I would have just kept him home, as it was very cold out and the thought of getting everyone dressed and out the door, again, was just too tiring. After all, how much actual schooling gets done on a Friday afternoon (which is only 80 minutes long) one week before winter break? This is where homeschoolers have the win. THE WIN. However, both his snowpants and backpack were still at school, the boys had haircuts after school, then we had to pick the dog up from the groomers…and I convinced Mark to “just keep going” and promised that after all of that we would just curl up on the couch and watch The Charlie Brown Christmas. As it turns out, Mark’s class just went to his Grade Five “Buddy” class – the school pairs up older kids with younger ones in a buddy system – and watched Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Clearly a LOT of schooling goes on a Friday afternoon one week before winter break. While Mark was learning about reindeer and their exclusionary tactics, I set Jake up with Starfall on my laptop and proceeded to make all the beds with flannel sheets fresh from the dryer. Is that a good idea when one is exhausted? No, it is not. It took every ounce of willpower not to crawl between those sheets, those cozy, fuzzy, warm-from-the-dryer sheets.
I’m happy to have some energy back today.
I have great holiday mojo, holiday chores do not get me down, with one exception: gift wrapping. I decided that I must wrap gifts today, and THREE HOURS later, I finished. I considered throwing in the proverbial towel and forcing my husband to do it, but he was busy repainting our bedroom, so I kind of felt like I should be doing something productive. So I wrapped gifts for three hours. The issue isn’t the number of gifts I have to wrap, it is that I am completely incompetent with gift wrap. It looks like a three-year-old wrapped my gifts and I don’t even have a three-year-old in the house. In fact, the two gifts that Jake helped me wrap look significantly better than anything I did on my own. I don’t know what my problem is. I always have way too much paper, or not enough, and my hair evidently falls out from the strain because strands of it are always stuck in the tape, or the tape gets stuck on my nails and takes off my nail polish, and then the ribbon. My word, the ribbon. How does one make a bow that doesn’t look like something my dog chewed on or, alternately, some kind of poky, pointy, Sputnik-like object that one stuck on an oblong, weirdly shaped, strange cornered parcel? WHAT IS THE SECRET TO TYING A PRETTY BOW??? By the time I was nearing the end of the gifts, I was pretty much like “FUCK THIS. NO MORE BOWS. I HATE ALL OF YOU. NO BOWS FOR ANYONE.”
So maybe not the Christmas spirit. I really need my voice to come back full force so I can start with my White Christmas rendition, or Mele Kalikimaka, or even Baby It’s Cold Outside (or as I like to call it, the Holiday Date-Rape Song!). After all, the best way to spread Christmas cheer is by singing loud for all to hear! And maybe having a glass of wine. That should bolster my spirits.
Gift bags my friend, gift bags.
Oh! I love your new blog icon. It is fabulous!
Glad you are feeling better.
Hahah…I am laughing WITH YOU. being sick sucks donkey nuts and tying bows suck even harder. That’s why I buy mine at the dollar store.
But a little trick since I am queen at scrapbooking the shit put of anything…make two loops (like bunny ears) and tie them without making the initial knot. Like cross one bunny ear loop over the other and then pass it through hole. Did that make sense? It’s hard to explain but if you google bow and scrapbooking together something should pop up.
Is this not the most random comment ever? Sorry.
Hope you feel better!!
I’m okay wrapping. I don’t do bows. My son loved his grade four buddy soooooo much I love remembering it. The Holiday Date-Rape song? Thing I might have literally laughed my ass off — going to check right now.
I am with Kimberly here on the buying bows. I can’t make a pretty bow to save my life! I love wrapping though!
Glad to hear you are feeling better! We have all been fighting it here. Happy Holidays!
I don’t do bows anymore, either. A lot of our gifts get shipped and the bows always ripped off, and those that go under the tree stack better without a bow. Plus, no bows allows me to continue my Grinchy Christmas this year. NO BOWS FOR YOU.
I’ll never listen to Baby It’s Cold Outside the same way again. SHUDDER.
Oh gosh…what a week. Sorry to hear you were sick.
Wrapping presents is not my area of expertise either. 🙁
It sounds like the public school system gets as much accomplished (in terms of education) on a Friday afternoon as I do w/ my boys’ Friday afternoon homeschool lessons.
I second the gift bag suggestion. I hate bows & wrapping paper so much that I just make gift bags of scrap fabric that I get at thrift stores or garage sales. If I assembly line the bags it takes less than 5 minutes of sewing.
Have you heard the Michael Buble & Anne Murray version of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside?” It’s the best version of the song, b/c it sounds more like coy flirtation than sexual coercion.
I’ve lost my voice twice in the past year, so I know the pain of parenting while being silent.
My cats go crazy if they see ribbon and will eat it and eat it and eat it until they puke it all up or tiny bits of it stick out the back end requiring a wee tug from me. I’m sure you’re not surprised to hear that I’ve completely banned anything ribbon-like from this house until the cats breathe their last.
I’m so sick of “Baby It’s Cold Outside.” We use Pandora for Christmas music and they play that song at least 3 times every hour. Whatever happened to the oldies, but goodies? Bring on Elvis’s Christmas music – now that’s fun to sing along!
Thanks for the laugh! You crack me up!
I`d try Muppets` Christmas with John Denver instead (grin). Forget the bows; I second the gift bag option. And I found it interesting to read of your symptoms, which match mine EXACTLY. I dragged my boys to the doctor today and was diagnosed with croup, of all things, and a side of laryngitis. If the wine doesn`t help, apparently honey will. The warm flannel sheets also sound good.
Ha, ha, ha. I so suck at wrapping but I love every minute of it.
I hope everyone feels better. And oh, the date-rape song. So true, so funny.
LisaDay
You may try Nin Jiom Pei Pa Koa (ninjiom-hk.cwahi.net). i know alot of people use it, its also non alcoholic, though it’s effectiveness is not as good as alcohol based cough medicine, but it’s still good to use on not so serious scratchy throat.