Fat and Festive

I started out this morning with a huge list of things that I wanted to accomplish and three kidlets who were going to do everything in their power to make sure that would not happen. Needless to say, it took all of ten minutes for me to feel like going back to bed and calling it a day.

First, we started with the zillion questions. Pig Jr. had his nebulizer treatment while all three watched Planet Earth on DVD. I planned to use this time to fold the three loads of laundry that had been sitting in laundry baskets overnight, and having to stop to answer Rooster's questions just left me frazzled. "Is that the Mommy?" "Why are they trying to eat the babies?" "Can someone tell them to go eat the big animal and leave the babies alone?" "Wait! Why are they trying to eat the Mommy now?" "Is that the North Pole where Santa lives?" "Are they trying to swim now?" "Why are they swimming instead of eating?" "Why are they eating the other animal? Why can't they just go eat some meat instead?" I think that the CIA should hire my daughter to wear down suspects so they will confess to anything just to make the endless questions cease.

Next we moved onto the game called "Do the Opposite." If I said something, they would immediately do the exact opposite. It was kind of like a weird version of Simon Says. If Mommy says to stay out of the living room because she is trying to vacuum, they must enter the living room. If Mommy asks them to pick up the tiny pieces of paper all over their bedroom floor, they must not only leave the paper there, but also find ways to increase their numbers. If Mommy says to stay away from the fake tree because it is dusty and she doesn't wish to have to nebulize the reactive airways kidlets, those kidlets must do everything in their power to try and hang out near the fake tree, preferably while playing with the dusty branches and hacking up a lung.

By noon, I was ready to put the fake tree back in its storage container, pack up all of the items I had been laboriously using to clean and decorate, and cancel Christmas this year. I got their lunches ready, forced Pig to deal with feeding them, and went outside to burn off some angry energy raking leaves.

Eventually, I re-entered the house. I stomped my still-huffy self down to the basement where Pig was working, and gave him a choice: fat and festive or cranky. He chose the former. I stomped myself back upstairs and baked some cupcakes. I plunked myself down and stuffed my face with them. Then I went off to decorate for Christmas with the help of the bribed-with-cupcakes kidlets.

I am happy to report the afternoon went much more smoothly than the morning. Even if it hadn't, there were still more cupcakes with which to drown my sorrows. The best part of this whole deal is that my loving husband was the one to okay me getting fat today, so I feel no guilt whatsoever about chowing down on junk food.

The house looks pretty, too.