Quick Takes Volume 51

~1~

Katie was remarkably well behaved and so quiet while I showered this morning.  My eleven years as a mother and lessons learned from two previous children did not register with me this morning.  EVERY veteran mother except me knows that a quiet toddler is not a good thing unless she is sleeping.  I stepped out of the shower and began screaming like I was that guy in the Godfather who found the horse head in his bed.  Katie had the toilet brush in her mouth.  AAAAAHHH!  Thankfully, it was just the handle, but there she was happily chewing on the end of the toilet brush.  More horrifying was the discovery that she decided to put her pacifier and her little tub toy in the holder for the brush.  ICK! ICK! ICK!  I ran and got Bryan to help me clean out Katie's mouth and to discard the pacifier.  I'll give the toy a good scrubbing and contemplate whether or not it's trash bound.  Ugh!  I relocated the brush to a cabinet with a safety latch.  How was your morning?

~2~

I'm pretty close to being able to say that all of my Christmas shopping is done.  I got a lot of my shopping done in the past week.  Most of it was gift cards and online orders so I was able to get it done even while stricken with the plague hand, foot and mouth disease.  

~3~

Once my hands healed up and were functional I got a nice amount of gift wrapping and packaging done.  I realized two days ago as Katie explored in the dining room that I probably won't be able to leave the gifts I purchased for people outside our home under the tree like I normally do unless I want to keep wrapping them, which I don't.  So I'm trying to figure out what I need to do because I need my dining room table to be cleared off by tomorrow night so I can have it all set for Advent.

~4~

I've been putting some serious thought and prayer into the possibility of homeschooling the girls next school year.  I really feel like I've been jerked around on this issue.  When my husband was on board with it two years ago he quickly retracted his ok after we went to a homeschooling conference and every stereotypical homeschooler seemed to crawl out of the woodwork [The family with their children in matching sailor suits DID NOT HELP!].  You would have thought that I had just told my husband that I was going to start wearing jean jumpers and sneakers for the way he reacted.  In those two years we have tried out the middle school and switched both girls to our parish school.  Now, he's telling me he thinks I should homeschool them.  I told a homeschooling friend that I thought this year was going to wind up being a $7500 "I told you so" even though I hoped it wouldn't.  I blame the normal family we ran into on the ferry boat to Magic Kingdom.  They were homeschoolers and in her few minutes of interacting with us, I think she sold my husband on homeschooling.  

~5~

I cleaned the kitchen minus the dirty stove top yesterday.  I feel so much better now that it doesn't look like a bomb went off in this room.

~6~

Does it feel like November flashed by to anyone else?  So much went on this past month.  We had Bryan's birthday, delayed Halloween, a business trip for Bryan, family vacation, family portraits, the plague [hand, foot and mouth disease], Thanksgiving and 12th anniversary all in what feels like the fastest month ever.

~7~

I got a few sneak peeks of the family portraits that we had done about two weeks ago.  I can't wait to get all of the images so I can pick out new pictures for around the house and my Christmas cards.  The woman who took our pictures is my friend's son's teacher.  She really has a gift for taking great pictures.