JoAnn made me do it

Yesterday afternoon I had a few errands to run, and in typical fashion Michael fell asleep in the car.  That was fine, except for the fact that I had planned on stopping at Joann's Fabrics to look at patterns.  How was I going to do that?  I said to myself" Oh, that will be easy - he will be asleep and I can just carry him in and sit and thumb through the pattern books."  Mistake after mistake was made in that one thought.  First off, nothing is easy with a sleeping kid in a giant puffy coat... nothing.  Secondly, I momentarily forgot that Michael is the BIGGEST BEAR when he wakes up. Not just a typical bear, but a snarling, grumpy, horrible, screaming bear.  Without listening to that inner mama voice that makes sense, I instead listened to the inner crazy voice that said that everything would turn out fine.  Oh my goodness... should have paid more attention to voice #1.  So, we get into JoAnns, and he's starting to wake up.  I'm moving slowly, carefully, trying not to cause too much sleep disturbance.  I sit down and open the pattern books and it all went to pieces.  Michael starts crying, and crying, and crying some more.  Yelling, sniffeling.  It was awful.  So awful that it... made... me...CURSE... at my son.  I was shocked at myself, and even though Michael did not know the severity of what I said, I think he caught my drift because HE looked shocked.  Unless my memory is wrong, this is a first for me.  I try not to get pushed to this limit too often.  (Oh, who am I fooling... at least not in public I don't get pushed this far.)  But even when I AM pushed, I just don't typically use naughty words, especially with my kids.  Fortunately, the shock of the moment caused him to settle down a little bit and I was able to find a pattern that I wanted.  It brought to light for me that I really need to not be stretched so thin that one little (or big) tantrum by my child in a fabric store could bring me such a place of extreme frustration.   It felt awful to be so fed up.  I hope it was not only a first, but a last. 

Just hear those sleigh bells jingling...

We went on a sleigh ride on Sunday.

It was wintry and blissful.

We went to a place called Beaver Meadows

 with my mom and dad

to experience a fun, snowy afternoon.

We rode in a one-horse-open-sleigh,

sang a couple of tunes,

drank some HOT chocolate and ate some yummy cookies,

made a couple of paper crafts,

and best of all created some wonderful memories. 

We hope to repeat them year after year after year.

Happy Night

My big girls and I are sitting on the couch, in our"new" old  living room, watching "Gilmore Girls".  It's making me happy.  They are really into it and I love that.  They are laughing and talking and commenting and staying up much later than they should, but we are having a nice time.  The little ones are in bed, and Marky and Maddie are leaving us for 4 days; I think that I'm trying to squeeze out the most of the best from the time that we have left before they leave town.  It's a happy night indeed.