If You're an Elf....

Am I the only one who can't even stop to take a breath in this last week before Christmas? It's exhilarating and exhausting all at the same time. I love it...I hate it.....I love it....I hate it....I love it. Regardless, I need more caffeine! And speaking of caffeine I learned a HUGE lesson this week! Take note: Pepsi Max is NOT the same as Pepsi One!!! I was three cans into my morning last Sunday when I looked at Luke with bloodshot eyes telling him I was pretty confident that I could make lunch, gets the kids dressed, finish my Christmas shopping, write a blog, and complete World 2 on Wii Mario Brothers before noon if I could just get rid of the body shakes that I seemed to have developed.

Luke: "Jenny....what have you been drinking?"

Me: "Pepsi Max! My dad always has it at his house and I like it!"

Luke: "No....your dad has Pepsi One at his house."

Me: "Same thing!"

Luke: "Ummm....it's not the same at all actually. The "max" in Pepsi Max stands for "Maximum Caffeine"

A quick confirmation by Google assured me that my new beverage selection has more caffeine than Mt. Dew and I realized it was going to be a long afternoon! A long afternoon for Luke that it is. Can you imagine having to deal with me shaking high on caffeine for 5 hours with the only thing to look forward to is a mega energy crash where my attitude might just give him an early taste of my menopause years? Poor guy. It just occurred to me in the last few seconds that that is probably why he offered to mow the lawn on a 35 degree day with rain blowing sideways in his face. Now I'm wishing I hadn't revisited that moment. Luke says a lot more with his actions than his words. Wise fellow.

In any case, I don't normally drink 3 cans of soda a day so please save your lectures about how you once got an email saying Diet Coke can make a rusty nail shiny and that Snopes.com actually confirmed it. But I've never been a coffee drinker and my to-do list is a mile long until I'm ready for the main event this Saturday. And I really need some sort of legal drug to get me through the movie "Polar Express" for the 892nd time while I re-wrap all of the presents whose bows somehow made it into LuLu's mouth while I was busy begging Emery to give the movie "Rudolph" a try instead. So if this is the worst of my vices than I'm going to consider that a victory. And in the meantime I'll save my bottle deposits to pay for Emery's therapy when his world someday comes crashing down as he realizes that there is not, in fact, a real Polar Express train that might at any minute show up outside his window. The last part isn't even a joke.....he looks for it a lot. It's sad and sweet all at the same time.

I did have one day off last week where I didn't have anything on the calendar so instead of being smart and laying low, I called my mom (who works downtown) and told her I was bored! "Come meet me for lunch!" she said, an offer which I hesitantly accepted. Now this may not seem like much of a story yet, but imagine if you will, me downtown at Pioneer Place with a stroller-confined infant and a 3 year old (insisting he can walk himself) who has never seen anything more flashy than the Christmas decorations that hang from Target's ceiling over the $1 section. Can you even begin to wrap your mind around how big of a field trip this was for him? I'll spare you all of the details and just tell you that at one point I had to physically pull him out of the Pioneer Place fountain after I turned my back for a split second to check on Lu. It was a proud moment and one of those in which I completely disregard the 700 people shopping around me and screamed with full force, "EMERY GET OUT OF THE FOUNTAIN!" only to realize that shoppers were literally peering over the 2nd and 3rd floor balconies to see who had just lost their nomination for Mother-of-the-Year. It's me people....and don't worry! I lost my chance at that title on January 2nd when I took Emery grocery shopping in his Buzz Lightyear pajamas in the middle of the day because I was too tired to get him dressed and instead took advantage of the fact that he doesn't have any concept of personal pride just yet.

The fountain incident should have been a clue that I was in over my head, but ignoring this obvious red flag I dredged on towards Santa whose gigantic chair was perched in a Winter Wonderland conveniently located right next to the new H&M. Of course instead of Santa we were greeted with a gigantic sign letting us know that the big guy was unavailable because he was visiting sick children at the Hospital. I know it's wrong to be angry about that, but a 3 year who doesn't understand "pride" most definitely won't accept "charity" as a reason for a broken Santa promise on a moment's notice. I needed to think quick and come up with some sort of lesson that both delivered a new Santa while simultaneously reinforcing the concept of selflessness! Interrupting my train of thought, though, was a gigantic elf who told us Santa would be back in 4 hours as he handed us the prices for the portrait packages as some sort of sad attempt to offer a consolation to a clearly upset toddler. Ummmm....2 things wrong with this:

1. If you're and "elf" and you're taller than me....you're not an elf.
2. What am I supposed to do with a price sheet for 4 hours expect mull over how I had student loans for 10 years that I could have paid off by buying a laser printer and hiring some guy with a white beard to pose with kids for $34.95 a pop. ($49.95 if you want a CD)

Fast forward to the good news: It turns out Santa wasn't at the hospital at all! We found him at Macy's across the street a mere 5 minutes later! Just what are the odds of that?!?!?!

Here is my precious little guy posing with a Santa
who doesn't care about sick children:

Where Does Santa Want to Go to College?

Okay, it's been awhile since I've done a blog post and no...it's not because I am fading. There is actually one very specific reason I have not blogged. I'll let you guess why. Motherhood? Nope. Holiday shopping? Nope. Sick Kids? Nope. Working? Nope. I can see you're never going to guess so I'm just going to tell you. It's because of the game "Bejeweled." You know how it's always the small things that creep into your life and grow unnoticed until they become all consuming and keep you up until midnight? That is what this stupid iPod app has become! Bigger than the 100 year rivalry between the Ducks and the Beavers is the quest to have the highest score on Bejeweled in my household! Now by no means is this game new to me. I've been playing it for years at work while I was supposed to be doing something more productive and Facebook was growing old. But I happened to download it into my husbands iPod the other day because I am sick of Yahtzee and needed a new waiting room time waster for all of those Well-Child visits that seem more frequent than Emery telling me he has to go potty. (Actually they are more frequent.....when will this kid understand that he needs to tell me when he has to go????) In any case, Luke somehow shoved his $1,000,000 iPod Blackjack dream aside and decided to give my little game a go. And curse him....he BEATS me every time!! He has now made it is personal goal in life to make sure I have not a single spot on the top 5 scores and he is closing in on complete success. He even caught me Googleing "How to win at Bejeweled" which by the way is a complete waste of time unless you can't figure out that 4 in a row is better than 3 in a row. So anyway...I am in Bejeweled detox now and returning to my blog is baby step 1. My name is Jenny and (this week) I am a Bejeweledaholic...

So when I have not been using the Disney Channel as a babysitter so I can figure out how to get past level 9, I have been spending the rest of my time saying things like this:

• "Emery, stop touching the tree"
• "Emery, Santa saw you do that! Leave your sister alone!"
• "Emery, Christmas trains aren't meant to haul waffles across the living room!"

You get the idea. As you can probably guess we got our Christmas tree this week! I think I need to do myself a favor and just stop building memories in my mind before they actually occur. This is what I thought getting our Christmas tree would be like:

The whole family would be bundled up in our winter coats finishing our last round of, "The 12 Days of Christmas" as we pull into a hidden away snow covered tree farm where every Noble Fir sparkles in perfection! Just as we turn the corner with Emery screaming, "That one! That one!" a stranger would offer to take a family picture of all of us in front of our gorgeous tree that would become my new Facbook profile because everyone was caught smiling perfectly and looking the same direction for once! Then Luke would saw our tree down and pick it up one handed while we follow him to the barn to pay and enjoy some delicious hot chocolate and homemade cookies. Emery would get to see Santa and declare he doesn't need anything and, in fact, wants to donate some of his toys so his parents will stop tripping on them. There would be even more postcard picture opportunities all while some high school kids tie our tree to the car for free because they want to become Eagle Scouts and they are fulfilling their community service requirements.

Here is how it really happened:

"Shoot...am I lost?" Why am I passing 9 tree farms on the way to a tree farm? "Emery....put your coat back on! Is this the right place?" Then we took Emery to see the Santa that looked A-MAZING on the internet but in real life looked more like a high school student who wanted to become an Eagle Scout and and needed to fulfill his community service requirements. Oh well, Emery's only 3 and still fooled pretty easily. Off to find the perfect tree!

Luke: "Jenny...this is going to take forever, I don't want to drag a tree for miles with you following behind me with one kid on your back and another who insists he can do everything BY HIMSELF! Can we just buy a pre-cut one?"

Me: "Sure. Whatever. How about that one" (pointing to literally the closest thing to Santa's barn)

Luke: "Sold. Load her up!"

Emery: "We didn't get a tree!! Are we leaving?"

Me: "Yes we did.....go stand by it and I'll take a picture"

Emery: "That is our tree laying on the ground?"

Me: "Go stand by it so I can get a picture!"

Saleslady: "You guys can take a picture pretending to cut it down if you want...."

Me: "Luke....go kneel by the tree!"

Luke: "I'm not pretending to cut down a tree! We'll do pictures at home Jenny!"

Here are some shots of the Schultz Clan picking out our perfect (pre-cut) Christmas Tree:

"Ho, Ho, Ho little boy! Seniors 2011!"

Santa was a little too busy to decorate the tree next to him? Maybe we could have bought it already in the stand and saved some sweat!

After all of our hard work!

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

Wasted Time I'll never Get Back...

Wow! I didn't know food was such a heated topic! I mean, I guess I did because I can hardly contain my own eye rolls when the soap boxes start to come out, but it's obvious that all of you have all been put through the same ringer as me and I'm dizzy! Kudos to everyone for having their own beliefs and sticking to them, just quit sharing them with me! Kidding :) I know that I mentioned that I try to buy organic as it becomes more readily available. After reading back what I wrote in a heated moment I should clarify that statement as not to be on my own soap box. I should have said, "I shop organic if I happen to be on that side of the store." Realistically, if I make it all the way over to paper goods toting two kids (one of which insists on walking by himself but gets distracted by every randomly displayed Pez dispenser along the way...thank you Fred Meyer) and I see a pile of Tostitos chips, I have no problem qualifying that as a vegetable to save the long walk back to produce. I'm no saint, I'm in survival mode!

Besides milk, another thing I have always tried to buy organic is baby food. I'll admit that at one point (when Emery was about 6 months old) I too fell victim to a smug attitude when I proudly announced my purchasing habits to a group of fellow moms who all looked at me with their mouths wide open. I knew they would be impressed! "You don't make your own baby food Jenny?" WHAT?? I CAN'T WIN! I don't think I was being asked that because people were questioning my food choices. I think they were just astonished that I hadn't figured out how to use my blender on boiled sweet potatoes. Well guess what? I don't own a blender. For real I don't! Maybe I should have made that a priority 6 years ago when I was toting a laser gun around Macy's feeling slightly entitled and still awkwardly greedy picking out my own wedding presents. I own a Magic Bullet. It's something I convinced my husband we HAD to have after many a late nights watching three giddy strangers drink margaritas while their overly enthusiastic host made guacamole in 3 seconds. I truly thought this might be the key to me hosting my very own Mexican fiesta someday! I'll save you the suspense and tell you that all I got was $50 worth of broken dreams and guacamole that looked more like halved avocados because it actually was just that.....halved avocados. That thing takes 3 seconds like it takes me 3 seconds to get ready for a night out on the town! Actually, it probably does only take me 3 seconds to get ready since I don't have too many people to impress anymore and by "town" I mean Sherwood. Jenny 1. Magic Bullet 0.

By some miracle last week I decided to dust that thing off and give baby food making another try. Really my "miracle" came in the form of a $70/month baby food bill. Those little jars add up! So with the best of intentions I bought 2 sweet potatoes, boiled them, and Magic Bulleted away. I forgot to mention the very important steps where I Googled "how do I make baby food?" and the 20 minutes after where I watched YouTube videos made by women with even more discretionary time than myself. In any case my research paid off because it worked!! I made 6 little Glad containers of sweet potatoes and I was gleaming! So intense was my satisfaction that I started going through my freezer looking for anything I could puree. Peas? Pureed. Carrots? Pureed. I just kept going! I even stopped to consider whether or not you can puree meatballs because those things have been hogging valuable freezer space for too long! (Sidenote: Next person to invite me to a potluck...guess what I'm bringing?) By the time I was done I had a whole freezer shelf full of homemade baby food! I was high on life right up until I went to Costco and came home toting bulk sized staples that all require freezing and, alas, had no more freezer space. Stupid baby food! What am I supposed to do now? Where will I keep my spinach and mozzarella raviolis until I find them in 8 months, wonder if they are good, and throw them out??

I bet you thought this story was going somewhere? Joke is on you! The only thing this story leads to is me telling you that I spent my entire morning reorganizing my fridge and freezer. Exciting stuff huh? So in an (organic) nutshell....you just wasted 5 minutes reading this and I wasted even more time writing it. Happy Wednesday!

Jenny

PS.... I really do want to say thanks to everyone who keeps reading this blog. Really mom...I love you too! I don't pretend to be a writer, just a self published amateur complainer who had enjoyed reconnecting with a lot of people who seem to be in the same boat :) We're all in this together right?