Merry Christmas to all!

Well, folks, it's that time of year: I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! We are going to visit my Mom in Dallas, along with most of the other siblings, for our Christmas celebrations & exertions this year. This will be the first time in many, many years that the Rudows (previously and currently) and Jungs, etc, will be together for a holiday! Yay! We are all very excited.
I would like to say to Amber & Steven & children that you will be MISSED. It's sad that we couldn't work it out for you to attend also, but I know there will be a way some other time if we keep working on it. We will think of you, gossip about you, and drink a toast to you. And you really can't ask for more than that.

In closing, I would like to post here a poem that I re-wrote for my husband last year. The thought began stirring in my brain when I observed all that he does for our family, and with a little concentration & foolishness it came together nicely. I would like to say thank you, my dearest dear, for all the happy Christmases you have given me. We've been through a lot the past year or two, but we're always going to be ok as long as we have each other to love and live for. I love you with all my heart. Merry Christmas!


Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, except for Jeff Doss.
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
Because Daddy Jeffery had placed them there.

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of boojie danced in Zoe’s little head.
And mamma in her mismatching nightclothes was down
In her bed while Beauty still puttered around.

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
Mom sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window she flew like a flash,
Tore open the curtains and threw up the sash.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen grass
Gave the lustre of mid-day to the crack of Dad’s ass.
As he bent over what to her eyes should appear,
But a red lawnmower, shiny and clear.

With a little hand movement, snappy and quick,
He roared that lawn engine and woke up Aunt Nick.
More rapid than eagles his mower-blades came!
Mom gibbered, and shouted, and called him a name!

Did it sway him? Did it stop him? Never! He stood
And as he shouted, I knew he was the true Christmas dude:

"Now Dyson! Now Cascade! Now Windex will fix em!
On Comet! On Clorox! C’mon, Pledge, we’ll Blitz em!
To the end of the yard, and all through the hall,
Now clean away! Mow away! Mop away, all!"

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
The sound of the lawn mower rose to the sky.
And after the lawn, to the duplex he flew,
With his ratty grey pants on, to clean up there too.

And then, in a twinkling, he buzzed all around
Cleaning the windows and cleaning the ground
Cleaning the dishes, around the sponge flew,
Changing the lightbulbs and cleaning Miu’s poo.

He was dressed, as I said, in ratty old sweats,
His T-shirt was stained and his underwear ripped
A bundle of garbage he had flung on his back,
And after he cleaned he was going to unpack.

His eyes-how they twinkled! his smile, how easy!
His head how it gleamed, his nose, it was greasy!
His lovely plump lips drawn up like a bow,
But his teeth, they weren’t quite as white as the snow.

The half of a cookie he held tight in his teeth,
As he plugged up the tree and put up the wreath.
He had a nice face and a little round belly,
That shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly!

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings, then turned with a jerk.
And laying his finger inside of his nose,
He pulled out a booger as big as a rose!

He sprang to his computer, crunched the numbers he kept,
Making everything perfect while his family slept.
But I heard him exclaim finally, dousing the light,
"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!"

Hah, Bumhug

So I was feeling a little bah humbug the other day. I think that as I get older this feeling comes to me more frequently...I would say 'for some reason', but I know the reason. Holidays, while fun and something to look forward to all year long, are just a lot of work sometimes. The workload increases exponentially with every extra family member you have, so with every child...etc. I think, too, that it's a product of growing up in Japan, where, despite Amanda's information to the contrary this year, people do not usually celebrate Thanksgiving...ergo Christmas becomes the one big holiday, and maybe even MORE fun. I sometimes feel that Turkey day #1, with all the trimmings, followed less than 6 weeks later by Turkey day #2, with all the trimmings, just becomes an overload of turkey.

I won't get into the presents issue, because it's impossible to raise the discussion without taking both sides of the issue (What a waste of money! Give it all to the starving Armenians! Presents are an expression of love and they make the day very special! Also, I personally demand presents of every loved one and acquaintance that I possess, so let's not be hypocritical, Susanna!) etc etc. But no one can deny that if you have to buy for more than, like, your boyfriend, it can be a little stressful. But I also ADORE shopping over the holidays, when the stores are all lit up and cozy and you can drink Starbucks while you peruse the merchandise, until your husband calls you from home asking Where are you but not in a nice way and you can hear the boys disemboweling each other in the back ground while the baby screams merrily......

Sigh. I'm so confused.

Lets just say I have to stay on top of my mood sometimes, to ensure the proper level of merriment.

But think about this, oh you imagineers (don't sue me, Disney): What if you could check into a hotel over the holidays? A big, huge, sparkly, Christmassy hotel, pre-decorated the way the way you like, with a Christmas tree in the lobby and the promise of a ready-made turkey on Christmas day? What if the stores we love were around the corner, and when you woke up you could purchase your Starbucks in the lobby of this wonderland while the Kenny G Musak of Tidings and Joy played in the background, and what if afterward, toting said Starbucks, you could walk to the mall (in your fabulous shoes) which was right around the corner from the hotel and then you could shop till you dropped and then come home to the hotel and have a massage while your doting husband waited for you in the bar with a cinnamon appletini??? What about them apples? What is a cinnamon appletini? Also, where are my children in all this?

I know. It was a VERY nice daydream. But waking up Christmas morning, when the work is mostly done and the tree is decorated and the kids are all starry-eyed over their decorated house and their painstakingly wrapped presents is pretty great too. Or we could go crash Moms'.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving, all! I feel kinda bad about not keeping up with this here bloggie of mine, but I stop short of apologizing...I sorta feel that when one has three young children, one shouldn't have to feel too badly about neglecting the things of lesser importance in life. And by that, I mean you. No, not really. You are VERY important to me...I can say this with almost 100% certainty, because I believe that almost no one except my immediate family reads this, SEEING THAT NO ONE EVER POSTS A COMMENT except my siblings and sometimes a parent. So you are important to me & I am thankful for YOU! See how I brought the conversation back around to Thanksgiving? Aren't I a skilled and cunning linguist? Ha ha ha. Say that fast 10 times.

Moving right along: we have just returned from Mom's & DC's in Dallas, where we spent a little "mini holiday vacay" over Thanksgiving. We did the following, not necessarily in this order:

--Made a FABULOUS Thanksgiving meal that we and about 7 other family/guests consumed with relish on the day of, followed by deep and weighty discussions about Black Friday sales.

--Some of the more enterprising of us (hint: not me) went out to said sales at different ungodly hours of the night and morning. Jeff left his warm bed at 1:30 AM to shop, and Mom & DC, not to be outdone, went at 5:30 AM.

--We took the kids to various "new" parks, always a popular activity.

--We went to "A Dickens of a Christmas", which was a sort of happening in downtown McKinney, complete with elaborate Christmas pageant & all sorts of family fun...carousels, pony rides, little petting zoo, etc. We consumed hot chocolate, corn dogs, a sort of Greek taco with lamb & Mediterranean ranch on it (which was really very good), and Mom's personal favorite, a (small) Santa sleigh entirely made of milk chocolate & filled with chocolate mousse! Yum!

--The following night we went on "the Polar Express", which we purchased tickets to a couple weeks before even going up to Dallas, as it was billed as a sort of wonderland for kids, complete with snacks & hot chocolate, a performance before & during the train ride, a Christmas tree maze, etc. Well, we dragged Mom & DC & Abi all down there with us, and to make a long story short, it maybe wasn't exactly what we had pictured. At least the kids loved it...they didn't care. There was the slightly tacky "intro show" which featured young girl singers, a la Miley Cyrus, belting out Christmas tunes with more vigor than expertise, dressed in what I can only describe as "Slutty Santa Chic". The "tree maze" was a walkway, slightly zig zagged, that led to the train itself. The train was old & quite neat....you had to climb stairs to get up into it, and it had these great old sleigh type seats, and they had decorated it nicely. The ride was fun because the kids enjoyed it so very much....they were really just jumping for joy of it. There was a loudspeaker over which a lady broadcasted a sort of running series of Christmas singalongs, instructions to the passengers (one of which was to have a man and woman get into the aisle and dance the Jingle Bell Rock, which Jeff obligingly did...I was proud of him!), and there was a terrific reading of "The Night Before Christmas" by way of an encore. Mom & DC & Abs were right there along with us, having a great old time, greeted by Santa when he came by, etc, and it was really quite terrific actually.

--I had a nice time talking & working out (gasp) and generally 'fellowshipping' with Abi the Beautiful and Gracious, who also assisted me quite a bit with the kids all weekend, Lord love her.
So all in all a very good weekend. I may have mentioned that Dillon broke our camera, but I took some pics on my phone, or the crapcam, to borrow a Dave Barry-ism. Enjoy! (The first ones are actually from Halloween & before.)

Zoe Boe saying hi from Texas

Halloween pics: Zoe was a ladybug

Noah was "clawman" (Wolverine)

Dillon was supposed to be Batman but the costume we got him did not fit, sadly. So he had to settle for Noah's costume last year, a spider. I think he was underwhelmed.

We went to the "Zoo Boo", and this was one of the attractions.

This was a drum with a fake fire in it, and I thought the picture came out nice.

This was the only picture we got of a day adventure we took to a Renaissance Festival, which was AWESOME. We may dress up next time.

And here's the Thanksgiving pics.

Aloha, witches. And warlocks. It's almost that time again, Hallowed E'en, night of the dead and the massive insulin spike. We're getting ready for it in the best Doss tradition, by painstakingly deciding what to "be" and then, with all my accumulated skills of sewing & creating, going to the local Walmart and buying the kids ready made superhero costumes. It's A LOT of work, but it's so rewarding, you know?
Anyhoo, here are a few updates on us recently:

--We did a 5 mile Walk for Heart Disease the other weekend, our whole family, along with some other people from Jeff's work and a couple thousand strangers. It was invigorating, in fact, albiet a bit stressful as Dilly threw his umpteenth fit because he had to sit in a stroller (Horrors!) and Zoe went to sleep in Daddy's arms....not so bad, that, but Noah wouldn't get out of the stroller and Dillon can't be trusted, so Jeff had to carry her, sleeping, the last 2 miles. I think he had a backache. I guess that's what we get for trying to do small marathons with small children. I liked it though....it was certainly out of the norm.

--We've been up to visit Mom, Grandpa, & DC in their new, gorgeous home in McKinney. It's really lovely...high ceilings, lots of crown moulding everywhere, lots of nice windows with trees outside, etc. I mean, this is a home that I wish we could buy & live in! So happy for them. While we were up there DC & Robert were going out to a movie ("The Owls of Gonohreaa" or something) and I blythely invited myself along with no tact whatsoever...and DC not only obligingly let me come, but insisted on paying for me. I told him it was ok, cuz he was my Dad, but that he'd better not make a habit of it. Joking aside, it was pretty nice to see a movie...it's been awhile. Jeff put all the kids to bed for me, bless his tired heart. He's been working pretty brutal hours recently.

--On the kid front, everyone is doing well. Noah is getting really turned on to learning & seems to have acclimated to his school nicely, THANK GOD. I was getting a little worried there at the beginning. He's trying to read everything in sight & sits there practicing his alphabet FOR FUN. I'm very proud of him.
Miz Boe is getting very big and ladylike. She can walk very well now, although she has this funny, old-lady-with-bad-hips sort of gait. Of course now she thinks she's going to be walking everywhere & getting in to everything, just because she can. At least she's not a Dilly #2, climbing the walls. And speaking of the young devil:
Dilly is well physically, but seems to be breaking out in a recent rash of misbehavior and especially naughty escapades. I sometimes dispair of that child. He's very smart and maybe gets bored, and we all know about an idle mind; consider these examples:

1. I often let the kids outside to play in the sprinkler, and since our backyard is fenced, I let them play by themselves. And no matter how much I adjure them by the living God not to, Dilly ALWAYS takes off his pullup and revels in the mud. When I say revels, he takes a full-on mud bath, face to feet, and lets not forget the crotch. It's so gross & I'm sure it's a miracle he doesn't have worms. He eats it too, spitting it out with astonishment on his face, like he had NO IDEA it tastes like....well, dirt. Please see the picture below, exhibit A.

Feel free to pull this up and view it in life size. Please note the expression on the face.

2. He has broken & damaged numerous things, the last one being our beloved camera. It's not that he's trying to be naughty, but he doesn't know how to obey when told not to touch things.

3. And this is the piece de restistance: the other night he went to sleep very early & awoke, unfortunately, at about 11:00 PM, bright eyed & bushy tailed, ready for action. Jeff & I were exhausted & told him to lay in his bed, and then (unwisely) went to sleep with him still awake. I woke up about 45 min. later to find him gone. I had a feeling I knew where he was, and I wasn't wrong: he was in my makeup again. He ADORES my makeup.....it's all in this big drawer in our bathroom & he's never allowed to touch it, and consequently he desires it above all things in this life. I guess it's like the most fun shiny finger paints ever. So I go in there, and I just gasped. My breath was literally taken away by the scope of his perfidy. It was like a movie scene of a crime or something, in it's grandness. My makeup was EVERYWHERE, spread all over. Powders were overturned, lip gloss wands were strewn promiscuously about, leaking gloss everywhere, and there were small, Dilly-sized hand prints, pink, all over our uncleanable, flat paint walls. He had taken 2 tubes of my lipstick and done hand artwork all over the walls. But that wasn't all. There, amid the wreckage of my makeup, staring at me like a deer in the headlights, stood my STARK NAKED son. He had removed his pjs & diaper, and was fully covered, head to toe, in a dusty pink lipstick. He had taken off his diaper and lovingly rubbed it into his crotch and fronie, which were both a lovely rose-pink, and sparkly to boot. It was in his hair, on his neck, everywhere. I CANNOT OVERSTATE THE CASE. Also, in places he was a shimmery golden color. Through my horror it occured to me that he had actually done a very good job of evenly spreading the lipstick all over himself...it was a smooth tone, very hard to achieve. But then, OH MY GOD OH MY GOD YOU BAD BAD BOY etc.
I washed him for 20 minutes with a scrubby and grease-cutting dishwasher liquid to get it off him. Companies make makeup hard to remove. I didn't spank him or anything. It was just too late in the night and I was too weary to care about punishment. But I did cry a little because of my destroyed make up & the mess. Jeff later told Dilly that he had made me cry, and he was so upset that he hasn't gotten into it again. We'll see how long that lasts.
Alright, I have no more time now. There are other stories, but this will have to do. I think, if you love us, you'll pray that we live through Dillon's childhood. Also, that he lives.

Mom & Dad, a little worse for wear

Noah the Barbarian

This has an explanation: that thing on his head it is a net, like a little butterfly net. Dilly was convinced that it was the perfect touch to make him a superhero, and very happily posed for these 2 pictures. The pose he created himself, naturally.

I just think this is the cutest thing in the world.

Starting out on our "walk" for heart health.

Someone took this pic for us...one of the few we have with all of us in the pic.

I think this one is a little better. I took it.

Pretty Aunty Abi, who doted on the kids when we were up visiting Mom.

Family fun at a lake near where Mom & DC live. We had a picnic! Yay.

Batpeople

Today I'm in the computer room & Noah is helping me clean up. I had to insist that he did so because his legos were all over the floor. So he takes off his gear & does it, telling me that he's Batman, just like a new Netflix show that he & Dillon were watching. So Noah finishes up his part of the mess, and it's Dillon's turn. I tell Noah, "Batman, go call Dillon to come here."

He dutifully calls:

"Batwoman!"

And Dillon comes running.

The sweetest thing

The other night I had had a VERY long day with the kids....seemed like they were all acting out much more than usual. I just felt worn out. I was putting them to bed and Dillon, out of nowhere, says this:
"Mama, you're the best mama I never seen".

I gave Noah a piece of yellow construction paper with stars on it that he could practice cutting on (he has to use scissors in kindergarten), and went out somewhere for a while. When I came back the stars were up on our fridge, neatly cut out. Jeff told me that he gave them to him because, "You and Mommy are stars to take care of us."

At dinner tonight I put together some leftovers for the kids to eat. Dillon starts to say something:

"Mama, you...."

and stops. Noah leans over & I can hear him whispering, prompting him:

Noah, whispering: "You're the best cook"

Dillon, triumphantly: "Mama, you're the fatness cook!"

My Holiday: San Antonio

One thing I really like about having other people come to visit us is that it seems that it makes us more adventurous. We end up deciding to do things that we might not otherwise have thought to do on our own...or if we thought about it, we decided forget it, it's too much work with three small children. But then someone else shows up & suddenly the possiblities are endless. Case in point: we went cave hiking with Paula. The pros were that it's a super neat thing to do & Jeff & I have been dying to see one of these Texas caves for a long time. The cons: it's a very steep, wet, hour-long hike, we have 3 children under the age of 5, and Paula is claustrophobic. None of these things moved us. We went boldly where young children probably should not go, to the Natural Bridge Caverns.
It's a series of caves that has a trail running through it, and there are several hike "tours" that you can pay to go on. The one we went on was billed as the easiest one...it was about 45 minutes of hiking & went down to 180 feet below the surface at it's lowest point. So long story short, this is how we did it: Jeff carried Zoe in the carrier, I ended up carrying Dillon most of the way on my hip, and Noah walked, and was a trooper for pretty much the whole time. Paula pushed through too, even though she had to stop every 10 minutes or so with shortness of breath. I have a very good picture of her clinging to a railing for dear life that I intend to post. Did I mention that it was 80+ degrees down there, with 99% humidity? But what views!! It was amazing to see these caverns under the earth...you felt like you had fallen into a JRR Tolkein story at times. They named these huge caverns all sorts of fanciful names, like "The Hall of the Mountain King" or "The Valley of the Fallen Lords". I was just in awe of these incredible formations that take millions of years to form!! Of course, it's hard to get good pictures while you're balancing a 30 lb child on your hip, but I did my best.

On the way down to the caves

Abandon hope, all ye who enter here. The entrance.

Everyone smile! This is fun! This is FUN! (Also, please note my highly appropriate hiking clothing.)

A tight squeeze. I have to admit, when I saw this passage, even I got a little claustrophobic.

Neat lookin rocks

Alien

Looks a little plastic, doesn't it?

A naturally occuring underground pool

Paula trying to smile through her pain

That's better

I didn't mention this, but this was a mini-break-trip to San Antonio that we did on the weekend before we were to leave for CA. We had intended to stop there on our way to CA, but decided that it would be more time efficient to go there the previous weekend & just drive home, since it's only 3 hours away from us.
The next stop was a wild animal park which is practically adjoining the cave site. There's all this acreage & they let all kinds of wildlife roam free over it, and you stay in your car & drive around, trying to feed the overstuffed animals from your hand, praying to God that the Texas Longhorn doesn't scratch your new car paintjob or the 7 foot tall ostrich with a bad attitude doesn't decide to peck your left eye out as dessert. I didn't feed any of the animals from my hand personally...too chicken. Jeff did, though, although he drew the line at the ostrich...who really did act as if he came from the Juvie Ostrich Hall pretty recently. It was a neat experience to see all these animals up close & personal, even if they were stupefied from being stuffed to the gills and sunstroke (it was about 100 degrees that day). We saw all kinds of deer, many varieties of moo cow, ostriches, giraffes (they kept those penned up, I guess they're too valuable to risk being roadkill), zebras, etc. Neat!

The wild animals

Moo

Daddy and Noah feeding the animals

Whatchoo lookin at?

Next we drove into San Antonio proper and checked into the AWESOME hotel that we had booked online. We got it for a very good price on one of these discount sites, and it was a Marriott...I have generally VERY good experiences with Marriott. Anyway, it was just beautiful, with a terrific pool and lovely landscaped areas, courtyard with fountain, etc. We left our bags & proceeded to take the kids down to the Riverwalk, which is the river that runs through the city with restaurants & bars and shops all along both sides of it. We took a little tourist boat on a "cruise" up & down the waterways, with the boatman giving us a running monologue of the history of the buildings & the river, etc. Interesting! Not so great was the waiting in line for a good HOUR before getting on the thing...note to self: maybe doing the Riverwalk on a Saturday night in July isn't the best thing in the world. The kids were pretty worn out after this big day, to say the least. I was too, truth be told. We slept well.
So the next day we went to the Alamo & Paula delighted in the history of it, looking at the displays, etc, to her hearts' content. (We had been there before). To be honest, although it's very interesting historically, I find these historical gravesites and battlefields kind of depressing...it's sad to read the gruesome histories of what went on, and how many people died, even if it's supposed to be "glorious". Anyway...we sweated it out there for awhile (what a hot summer!), and then made our way back to Waco. And that's our big weekend in San Antonio.

The beautiful fountain at our hotel

I waxed artsy with the photos of the beautiful hotel we stayed at:

Noah and Dillon (who's clearly had enough) at a Davy Crockett memorial pool at the Alamo

Ahh! Some sugary sweetness after a long hot morning

Always look for the silver lining: a cloud that was beautiful at the end of our day.

My Holiday:

I remember reading a Peter and Jane book once that was about Peter going back to school and writing an essay entitled something like "My Holiday", wherein he encapsulated his summer at the seashore or some equally British. We Americans go on vacation & go to the beach. Also, have you noticed that in the similarly titled series, "Dick and Jane", that the writers in both instances have used the names "Peter" and "Dick", which are both nicknames for male genetalia?

Why am I on this subject?

I digress. I'm trying to write a little travelogue of our...well...travels, to California. Jeff and I had planned to drive there for awhile, as we had not been able to afford to do so for quite some time. Yay for pay raises! In our family we have this "special day highwater season" which starts with Noah's birthday on July 23rd and ends with Jeff's birthday on Sept. 1st. Included are mine, Zoe and Paula's birthdays, and our anniversary. Cha Ching! All this to say we often try to go on vacation around this time...makes it all more festive.
This year was a particularly big year for Paula, being her 60th birthday. So Jeff and I decided to fly her out here, because seeing us and helping me to take care of our kids for a week or two is SUCH a special present, and then we all were going to drive back to CA together. Which is what we did. I had a very nice visit with Paula (Jeff was still working, this was about 2 weeks prior to driving to CA), and she caught up on her Grandmother time with the kids. We had Noah's birthday celebration during this time, too. Guess where we went? And they all said: CHUCK E CHEESE! Of course. He turned 5, but for deep dark reasons still INSISTS that he's 4, because per him, if you're 5 you have to go to school. No matter that he already IS in school and enjoying it...I guess it's the idea of the thing that he objects to. It's something we're working on. Anyway, here's some pics of the birthday:

The birthday cake Noah had his heart set on. Look at it closely...it's quite a cake. Bonus points because the toys on it are all actual toys and are being used by both boys! Do you know how much Spiderman toys cost? About as much as this cake. Score.

Noah wanted the Chuck E Cheese crown more than anything in the world, and here he is proudly wearing it.

Yee haw pardner. He struck this pose ENTIRELY ON HIS OWN and held it while we took pictures. The outfit was a present.

Happy Birthday Boy

Miss Zoe with Dilly's consolation prize cars. Grandma Paula got Dilly a present too, so he wouldn't feel left out.

The pièce de résistance: a big boy bike!

I was going to write more and publish more pictures, but unfortunately I am out of time today. More tomorrow, children permitting.