Merry Christmas Yia yia

Today I started putting away some of the Christmas decorations.  It always makes me a little sad to do so, and I usually put it off as long as possible.  At Christmas I use my good china, crystal, and flatware for meals and desserts.  I love these things, but I hate to hand wash them.  I almost didn't use them this year at all, because I didn't want to wash them.  Then I realized that was really stupid and I got them out.  My Grandmother gave me a set of nice flatware that I love.  She passed away 7 years ago and I always think about her when I pull out the box with all of the pieces in it.  She had handwritten a note that I keep in the box and I read it every year. 

My Grandmother was born in Greece and came here when she was in her 20's.  She kept her thick Greek accent all of her life, and all of us grand kids loved to try to imitate her accent.  One year at Christmas she called to say hello, and in my best six year old version of a  Greek accent, I exclaimed, "Meddy Christmas Loddy!" (my nickname is Lori).  My Greek cousins thought that this was hilarious, and to this day we still tell each other "Meddy Christmas Loddy."  One of them posted that on my Facebook wall, in fact.

My grandparents met for the first time at their engagement party.  It was an arranged marriage, and soon after the wedding they came to America.  My Grandfather, or Papou in Greek, had been to America before and had started working here. He went back to Greece to find a bride to cook and clean for him.  He found my Grandmother, or Yia yia in Greek, and brought her here. She had grown up on an olive farm, the only girl in the family with five brothers. She spoke not a word of English, and knew no one.  She barely knew my Papou. 

This was in the 1930's, and there weren't many working moms then.  So she cooked and cleaned and learned to speak English on her own.  She had 3 children, the youngest was my Dad.  My Yia yia was very smart, and I think if she were born today, she would've been a doctor.  She loved to try and diagnose her friends and family when they were sick.  She even subscribed to medical journals to learn more about medicine.

I am glad to have opportunities that my Yia yia didn't have.  She made the best of what she had, and made a great baklava.  Meddy Christmas Yia yia, I miss you.

2 weeks vacay at home = 12 days too long



I'm bored, but cute!

My kids' last day of school before Christmas was last Friday, December 16.  They don't go back to school until January 2.  Luckily for me, that means that we are almost halfway through. I love my children, don't get me wrong, but what the heck are we supposed to do all day for 2 weeks?  To make matters worse this week it has been raining.  We have made cookies, gone to the park (before it started raining), and gone shopping for last minute presents. Yesterday we went to see the new Chipmunks movie (In case you're wondering, it wasn't that bad.  The Smurfs movie was much worse!).

Today I took them to an art studio for a drop in session.  I am now officially out of ideas.  Please send me all of your suggestions, preferably suggestions that are low cost / no cost. And please don't suggest board games, because I hate them.  I also hate crafts.  I really need to go back to work!  My 13 year old son is especially hard to entertain unless video games are involved. Unfortunately several of his friends that lived in our neighborhood have moved away, so that makes it hard as well.

I have seriously considered letting them open an early Christmas present, but so far have held myself back.  Yesterday presents arrived from my sister and from our next door neighbor, so we spent the afternoon trying to figure out the new Figits and and playing with Barbies.  I keep trying to remember what we did last year during this time, but that was right after I lost my job and I think I have blocked out the entire month of December 2010. It's hard to be happy with your kids at home, when you're worried about how you're going to pay for Christmas presents, your mortgage and your car payment. 

So Christmas, hurry up and get here!  I might have to resort to doing laundry and cleaning out closets! ACK! Someone, please come entertain me!

Please don't punch my kid in the face

While out of town this week on a job interview, I received an email from Sarah's Kindergarten teacher.  Apparently, one of Sarah's male classmates decided to punch her in the face.  Neither the teacher nor Sarah knew why he did this, and apparently was unprovoked.  The email went on to say that the boy's parents were called in to the school to speak with the principal, and that the boy had to apologize to Sarah.  This was not an email I wanted to see while 800 miles away from home.  And by the way, didn't this at least warrant a phone call from the teacher?  Not that I could have taken the call, however; my day was filled with 8 interviews and a store walk through. 

I forwarded the email to my husband and called home to talk to Sarah.  Did it hurt?  Yes, but it's fine now Mommy.  Why did he do that?  I don't know Mommy.  Hmm.  I flew home as planned Friday morning, which was the last day of school before "winter break".  I guess you can't say "Christmas vacation" anymore, even in Kindergarten.  I picked up Sarah, and she had several things to show me.  The boy had written out an apology letter to Sarah, and an apology letter to me and my husband.  There was also a letter from the boy's parents to me.  Additionally, there was a Hello Kitty doll.  The letters explained that the boy had to spend his allowance to get Sarah a gift as an apology / peace offering. The boy's Mom explained in her letter that her son had issues with "impulse control" and he had "made a bad choice."  Yeah, I guess he did. Wow.  I kinda felt bad for this boy.   As parents we never want our kids to be the ones making the "bad choice", but let's be honest, it happens. I'm glad these parents took it so seriously.  I also personally love Hello Kitty, and that helped.

The Magic Hat

As a Mom, I try to get my kids Christmas gifts that they will really love.  As I think back to Christmases I had growing up, I remember bikes, clothes, games, books and toys. But the most memorable gift I received was a magic hat set.  It was a plastic top hat and magic wand set, complete with instructions on how to do magic tricks.  I don't remember if it was a gift for me, my younger sister, or for both of us.  Santa sometimes brought us joint gifts since my sister and I were just 14 months apart.  On this particular Christmas I think we were around 7 or 8 years old. 

I opened the magic hat and started trying to figure out how it worked.  My Dad took one look at it, and decided that he knew how it worked, without reading the instructions, of course.  My Dad is by far the smartest man I know.  He could take a car apart and put it back together.  He could build anything out of wood: our kitchen table, toy airplanes and cars, bookcases.  He could answer any question that I could ask him. He knew something about any subject.  He tutored our babysitter in algebra.  Later when I was in high school he tutored me and all my friends in physics (Interesting trivia fact: our physics teacher was a finalist to ride on the space shuttle that blew up).  So when my Dad said to me on that Christmas morning that he wanted to try out the magic hat, I didn't doubt his ability for a second.

From this point on, there are varying versions of the story, depending on who tells it.  I remember it as Dad pouring a glass of water into the hat; Mom remembers it as Dad pouring a glass of milk into the hat.  Then Dad said to me, "Hey Lori, let me put this magic hat on your head."

"But Dad," I said, "the milk / water / unknown liquid will pour out on my head!"

"Don't worry," Dad said.  "Trust me!  It's a MAGIC hat."

So I walked over to him and waited for him to put the magic hat on my head.  In seconds I was drenched.  I looked at him in disbelief.  I couldn't believe that he would do that to me.  My Mother later told me that the look on my face was that of pure shock.

"Oops," Dad said.  "Sorry Lori." 

Moral of the story?  Read the directions. And don't be your Dad's magic hat assistant.

Happy Holidays everyone.  And please don't buy your children a magic hat!

To wrap or not to wrap?

I really dislike wrapping presents.  I think it is a waste of time and money.  Not to mention it's not great for the environment, either.  All that time and effort, spent on something that the kids will rip apart as soon as they see it.   A few years ago I tried convincing my husband that we should just leave the gifts from Santa unwrapped under the tree on Christmas morning.  I have some clear memories of Christmas as a child, coming downstairs, flipping on the lights, and feasting my eyes on all of the presents that Santa had brought, unwrapped of course.  I think that was the year that my sister and I got a magic hat set (which will be the subject of tomorrow's post).  However, there was no way to convince my husband that this was a good idea. We must wrap everything! In over sized boxes! With bricks in the bottom to fool them! Ugh.


I taught my nephews to call me Aunt Pretty.
I think Austin was 10 years old before he
realized that my name was Laraine.

Back when I was a working Mom, my time for wrapping was limited.  Our weekends were busy with family activities, sports, and errands.  Mostly I would wrap at night when the kids were in bed. So I would stress out about wrapping all this stuff, stay up  too late, and repeat the cycle the next night until it was done.  And then of course my husband would tell me that I wasn't wrapping the packages "correctly".  Good thing we only have blunt tipped scissors in our house.  Actually he can't help it, he's a Virgo.  Virgo's have an inherent need to compulsively organize and line up things.  I am the polar opposite, and see no need to line up cans in the pantry or load the dishwasher a certain way.  I feel like if the wrapping paper is on the package, then my job is done.  Line up the design? Hide the tape? Please. Give me a break.

Sarah, my 5 year old, has been asking me every day for the past week to help me wrap presents.  Yesterday I finally gave in.  Sarah and Olivia helped me wrap presents for our family members.  Sarah was in charge of the tape, and Olivia wrote out all the gift tags.  Then Sarah wanted to write out some tags, too, and all hell just about broke loose.  Let's just suffice it to say that Olivia ended up in time out and we wrapped it up pretty quickly after that. I bought some more gift wrap (on sale) at CVS today.  Maybe I can get a few more presents wrapped before time for carpool.

The out of town interview

Well it's official.  I have a plane ticket for an interview next week.  Please be thinking about me as I have a full day of interviews starting at 8am and ending at 5pm.  I will be interviewing with 7 different upper level management people.  The hardest thing about these kinds of days is that by the 5th or 6th interview, it's hard not to feel brain dead. 

I have had a few out of town interviews this past year, some I was semi-interested in, and some I was VERY interested in.  In February I interviewed with a company that I was VERY interested in.  They flew me down, and had a car pick me up at the airport.  The hotel where I was staying was only a few blocks from their downtown office building.  This hotel had a shuttle that would drive me over in the morning, no problem.  I had a friend that already worked at this company, and we met for a drink when I got there, the night before.  Things were going smoothly; I liked the area, everything looked great. 



Me and my new travel umbrella

I woke up the day of the interview and it was pouring rain.  Hmm. I had no coat, no umbrella, nada.  Good thing the hotel has that shuttle, right?  I got in the van and told the driver where I was going, complete with address.  He drove me the couple blocks and dropped me off.  I got out and realized that this was not the right place.  He had dropped me at the wrong office building.  It was still raining.  Panic set in. Ok, deep breath, get out your iPhone. I GPS'ed walking directions from my location to the correct office.  Only I had no idea which direction was north, even though I was less than a quarter mile from my destination.  I could figure that out, but I would need to walk in the rain.  Ah ha! A gift shop in the office building where I was, surely they will have umbrellas.  They didn't. Panic.

There was no way I had come this far to give up now.  I saw a man behind a desk in the lobby.  I walked up to him and said, "Sir, can I buy that umbrella there behind you?"  Being the southern gentleman that he was he said, "No, but you can borrow it, just bring it back."  Ok, great, I'll solve the problem of the return later.  I thanked him and was off.  Hopefully my shoes wouldn't be ruined.

I was now going to be late.  I called my HR contact, no answer.  I left a message and carried on. I found the right building and ha ha funny story to tell!  It's raining!  I had to borrow this umbrella!  Driver took me to wrong building! I think I had 7 interviews in a row that day too, including a store walk through.  It all went pretty well.  At the end of the day I asked my HR contact to please please please return this umbrella.  I really hope that he did.  I flew home, and I hoped for an offer.    Needless to say, I didn't get it.  My HR contact finally called to tell me that they really liked me, but offered the job to someone else with just a little more experience.  He also told me that I was their 2nd choice.  Gee thanks. I was crushed. 

After that interview I bought a travel sized umbrella.  I always take it with me for interviews, no matter what the forecast.  Live and learn, I guess. 

Things I learned in Kindergarden

I don't remember much about my own time in Kindergarten.  We lived in Petersburg, VA, and my sister and I attended a church kindergarten.  I remember show and tell, weekly readers, and riding tricycles on the black top. 


Sarah's stocking creation

This year my youngest child, Sarah, started kindergarten.  At the beginning of the year, the teacher sent an email via signupgenius.com asking for Moms to volunteer to help with "centers".  Being the Accidental Stay At Home Mom that I am, I thought, sure! I'll help! Why not?  I logged on and reviewed the time slots (this was in August, mind you.)  Two of the other moms had signed up for every single time slot from August through the end of November.  Seriously? While I was glad to see that Sarah's class had some very interested Moms, I was ticked off that I would have to wait until December to help out in her class.  I mean, surely I would have another job by then, right?  But here we are, December 7th, and I am not working. So off I went to kindergarten. 

I arrived a few minutes early and the class was having their math lesson using pennies and nickles. 
Teacher: Class, if I want to buy a candy bar that is 10 cents, what coins would I use to pay for it?
student #1: Ten pennies!
student #2: Ten dollars!
student #3: A credit card!
For the record, student #3 was not my child.   However, I am surprised that Sarah didn't say that.  During the course of the lesson, one kid fell out of his chair, one kid picked a scab on his elbow and started bleeding, and one kid started telling me about how his family read a story about St. Nick last night.  Controlled chaos.
Soon it was time for me to help with "centers", whatever that is.  The teacher explained to me that for my center,  I would be helping the children make construction paper stockings.   The kids would sew these with yarn, glue cotton on the top, and write their initials with glue and glitter.  Um, hello, this is a CRAFT.  I do not like crafts.  I am not good at crafts. I avoid crafts at all costs.  Now I have to help 15 five year olds complete this craft. I showed the kids the finished example, then tried to explain how to push the yarn in and out of the pre punched holes.  A few kids could do this without any help.  A few kids just didn't get it at all.  One sweet little girl started to cry when she couldn't get the yarn through the hole.  I was kinda surprised at how many different skill levels were in just this one class. Soon enough, my hour was over, and I was covered in glitter.  I needed a nap.  Or a glass of wine.  Maybe both.  I'm not sure how these other moms do this.  I certainly confirmed that I would not be a good kindergarten teacher.  But for one day, it wasn't so bad at all.