1. Christmas is almost here, Christmas is almost here, we love Christmas, blah blah blah. Lately I'm feeling a bit bi-polar on the Christmas cheer front. One minute I'm loving everything, the next minute I'm just cranky. Because although the shingles is doing MUCH better, another of my kids is sick again, and I feel like I live in a land composed of snot and skin rashes and vomit and I'm never going to get out. For instance, this morning my kid sneezed and a huge booger flew out and landed on the presents I stayed up until midnight beautifully wrapping. That's sort of a picture of how life is right now. I'm trying to be the mom who is the Maker of Memories, spreader of Christmas cheer...but sometimes it just doesn't come that easily, you know?

2. We did finally get our Christmas tree, but it was kind of a fiasco too. The place we had planned to go was closed, the other place was almost closed by the time we got there, Lucy was cranky, Evie was asleep...our 2010 tree-hunting expedition may actually need to have its own post. It was that fabulous of an experience.

3. Thanks for all your advice on teacher-gift-giving! I went with the majority opinion, and got Starbucks gift cards for my kids' teachers. Coupled with cards in which I had my children either dictate to me or hand-write themselves what they liked about their teachers. Certain children who are actually capable of writing sentences on their own acted like it was a death sentence to be asked to write a simple thank-you card, and had to be threatened in order to achieve compliance, and then got totally into the project and wrote a whole paragraph on each card. So that's good, right? Does forced thankfulness still count?





4. When you have three little identical stair-step daughters, it means you end up with a lot of little identical outfits in stair-step sizes. Lucy wore one such dress for her preschool program this week; this adorable red corduroy number comes in a variety of sizes and we at one point owned the same dress in size 4T, 2T and 6-12 months. The baby size has now been passed on to my little niece, but the 4T and 2T sizes were still around to be worn again this Christmas. After the program, I thought I told Lucy to hang the dress back up, since it wasn't really dirty and she could wear it again today for her class Christmas party. Today when she was getting dressed, I saw the red dress hanging in Evie's section of the closet, and assumed it had been put on the wrong rack. I pulled it off and handed it to Lucy, who put it on. When I buttoned her up, she said, "Oh, stop buttoning,  it chokes me!" I told her I was sure she was fine and to stop complaining, but I relented and left the very top button undone.

Just now, I pulled a load of laundry out of the washer, and what did I find...but the red dress. In size 4T. Which means I just sent my preschooler to school wearing her little sister's size 2 dress. I guess I'm glad now that I didn't insist on buttoning that top button.

5. I tried to make my sick daughter a cup of hot tea, heavily laced with honey (so she'd drink it), because that's what the American Academy of Pediatricians recommends instead of cold medicine for 2-year-olds these days (and we all know following the AAP's recommendations has worked so well for me lately) and I didn't have any cold meds for someone Evie's age anyway. And I tripped while I was carrying it to her and spilled the majority of it all over the floor, and the table, and the walls. And the little bit left at the bottom (that probably had the most honey in it and should have been the tastiest) she refused to drink anyway. Snotty kid, wet and sticky house. Home remedy = fail.

6. It's just been one of those kind of days today. Can you tell?

7. But it could be worse. It really could be. I just saw a post on Facebook today about a family with three young kids who lost everything in a house fire. Perspective is a good thing, and I truly, truly am grateful for my warm home and loving (albeit snotty) family, and am hereby resolving that there shall be no more whining about spilled tea. (And, if you're local and you'd like to give something to help these folks out, let me know, and I can put you in contact with someone who's is coordinating some relief efforts for them).

For more Quick Takes, check out Conversion Diary.