Blogging on the blogger iPhone app

It was extremely icy this morning when I woke Wren for the antibiotic premed for his 9 AM dentist appointment. It was his eighth dentist appointment in the space of three months as his fillings keep falling out. We are not sure why but at least he's getting better at having them done, repeatedly.

Before we left he begged to bring the iPad so he could listen to the Yogcast Minecraft podcasts but I explained they need wifi to work so we brought Beazle as a therapy dog instead.

Driving home, the sky was a brilliant blue and we can see the neighborhood reflected in the chrome Christmas decorations hanging on the bare cherry tree.

I recorded this blog post on my iPhone.

The 2,592 Thousand Seconds of Christmas

This evening I have ditched making dinner and baked Gingerbread instead.  With days so short and school only letting out a week before Christmas, it seems there is never enough time for Holiday activities like baking and cutting paper snowflakes and shopping for gifts together (instead of making an Amazon Wishlist and sending out cards (not e-cards) and going skating and for light displays and making decorations for the tree and all that.

Everything gets squeezed into a few days of high drama, hence, the gingerbread at 5pm.

"Can I eat another gingerbread man?" Frost asks, wondering how far my festive spirit will take me.
"After dinner." I insist, leaving the exact nature of dinner ambiguous.

The sink is overflowing with mixing bowls, baking trays, spoons and a whisk still dripping with white frosting and I am counting on serving Wren and Joshua with the leftover lamb and beef cottage pie I brought home from the PTA Christmas Party last night.  Frost and I will have to do some kind of exploratory cooking with a can of beans and a panini press.

The sun set two hours ago and its only 6.15pm, the holiday lights I hooked onto the eaves of the house have turned on with their timer (installed today) and we just bought and decorated our tree.

I squeezed it in on a Tuesday night after school - already dark at 4.30pm when we arrived, Wren said "I am freezing I will wait in the car!" but I didn't let him. 

The boys ate two candy canes (each) and had a fight over trees - Wren wanted a tall skinny one while Frost wanted a "bushy one with more room for decorations."   Wren reviled the word "Bushy" and kept shouting "I HATE the BUSHY ONE".   I asked the Christmas Elf assisting us to give us a moment and toured the aisles of trees for a compromise TALL, and full figured one.  Thankfully it was one of the cheapest in the yard - a mere $25 for a 7 foot tree (which is actually 8 ft because it hits our ceiling and had to be trimmed.)

Our Christmas tree with some birthday presents around it.

Is Father Christmas Real
Wren has been battling the tradition of Father Christmas.  Yesterday, he asked me:

Wren:  Mom, tell me the truth of this.  Does Father Christmas 'xist?  I think he does NOT.

One day he will tell me that Father Christmas is not real and that "Mom brings the presents" while the next he will tell me that he knows that he exists because he "sees him with his minds eye".  This mind's eye thing is a recent concept he came up with to explain the fact that his Waldorf teachers at preschool insist there are fairies while others (like me) can't see them.  Wren says you see them "in your minds eye".

This morning the Mind's Eye took on new significance in this conversation:

Wren:  I am getting ALL the mods on my Christmas List.  All the toys except the Ninjago Fire Fortress (a $110 Lego set I said "no way" to."

Shannon:  Who said that?  Did Daddy say that?

Wren:  Father CHRISTMAS said that.

Shannon:  Father Christmas spoke to you?

Wren:  I hear him and GOD with my Mind's EAR.  He is the Boss of Winter and now its Winter so he said I can have all the presents on my list except that Fire Fortress.

Shannon:  I think he's wrong honey.  You can't get all the toys on that list.

Wren:  Well, if he is WRONG then GOD Does Not 'ZIST!

Shannon:  [WTF?]   What has that got to do with it?

Wren:  Well, Father Christmas and God do not lie and make mistakes.  Does Jesus LIE? 

Shannon:  No.

Wren:  And you said that that they is WRONG and I do not get all the presents so then THEY DO NOT ZIST.

Shannon:  Maybe you didn't hear them right?

Wren:  I do.    I have a minds eye and a mind's ear and with my mind's ear I can hear moles digging in the underground "dig, dig, dig" and I can use my mind money - it cost 190 points - to get minds feeling so you can feel the earth turning and the sun turning and the trees growing with their magic.  And I can see father Christmas and fairies with my mind's eye!

I must now go and microwave that Shepherds Pie!

Wren drew this Rat King / Lizard King character and asked us to
make it so Josh and I made it from FIMO.  He is going to stand up
to be used in D&D miniatures

Wren doing a forced smile at Swansons where we went for lunch

I am DONE now.  I demand a cookie.  Stop taking pictures of me
with your stupid iPhone 4S 10 mpx camera

I am a fish.  How many days till Christmas?
How many hours in a day, again?