We’re pregnant again and due in mid October. This was sort of a surprise, but not really considering how much time I’d been spending standing downwind of Matthew lately. (hee hee)

It’s too early to know what it is, but I’m not a huge fan of ultrasounds so unless there’s a medical reason to have one we won’t be getting one and therefore won’t be finding out the sex. We’re using the same midwife as before, and we’re definitely trying for another home birth (fingers crossed!).

Now, while I’m wild with joy about the prospect of a MiniSack 2.0, my delight has been tempered (read: squashed flat) by a raging case of The Sickness which took hold on Friday and doesn’t show any signs of letting up. Matthew has been a total rock star and has taken care of everything he possibly can, whilst and at the same time juggling some very tremendous work obligations. Today it looks like the saving grace will be Gatorade and no-salt Saltines (Thanks for the tip, Anna!). This, plus as much time spent laying down as humanly possible. Fortunately, this weekend Matthew was able to let me spend more than 98% of my time laying in bed dry heaving while he did, frankly, everything. Tomorrow will be a different story since he has to go to work and concentrate so I’ll need to, as they say, cowgirl up and push through. I’m confident that we can get through this nasty phase as a team, only slightly scuffed up with a small amount of dirt and weeds in our hair.

By my estimates we’re only 6-7 weeks along. And, by that estimate we have at least 7-10 more weeks of The Sickness to endure. I’m praying with all my might that this won’t be one of those perpetually sick pregnancies like some of my beloved fellow moms have experienced. I have hope. And faith. Hope that I won’t puke tomorrow, but faith that there will be a toilet nearby to rest my head on when I do.

This part sucks giant sweaty donkey balls and there’s no nicer way to say it. But, the pay off is a sweet, cuddly, beautiful little critter that will bring just as much light into this house as Evelyn has and give Evelyn a real baby to kiss instead of just the one in the mirror. We absolutely can’t wait to meet the new Lentil. We just have to muscle through this part of it.

Between Christmas and now we managed to get to the Albuquerque Bio Park to check out the annual “River of Lights” extravaganza.

Played in some snow.

Got a visit from cousin Nate Schularick during which we completely disregarded the fact that he was probably dead from traveling and even more dead from adjusting to the delights of a sub-one-month-old baby of his own. Therefore, the best activity we could think of would be to drag him through the Rio Grande Zoo and force him to take the obligatory “Large, medium, and small” pictures.

Bought our first battle axe.

And, our first pair of glittery pink princess shoes.

Naturally, there’s a story to go with those shoes. We were at the shoe store and I was doing my darndest to find practical, useful shoes for her to wear without breaking the clothing budget. Evelyn kept reaching for these glittery pink abominations and she’s gleefully show them to me, I’d smile, put them back, and slap a new pair of practical shoes on her feet. She’d frown at her feet, reach for the pink shoes again, smile, and show me again. We went through this routine a number of times until I’d made my selection. I gathered up the shoe boxes and turned to gather up my child and there she was standing, holding the box containing the glittery pink shoes. It seemed appropriate to buy her the shoes, given her clearly communicated desire to own them. Since buying them, she points and grunts and squeals and yells to wear those shoes at every possible opportunity. And, since the picture doesn’t truly show the layers of girlness these shoes flagrantly display, let me describe them to you. Take a standard mary jane shoe, dip it in pink glitter. Then sprinkle pink heart-shaped glitters on top of that. Then coat the velcro buckle with fake rhinestones. Then tie a metallic pink bow to the top. Then bolt three plastic pink heart-shaped gems to the toe. Then put it in a box, stock it at Payless Shoes, and watch people like me as their visual cortex detonates from trying to process the overwhelming stimuli the shoes provide.

We also got our porch play area set up, and figured out that playing in the kitchen sink half naked was almost as good as playing throughout the house completely naked.

Expressiveness is the word of the day. She’s been talking since she was out of the womb, but in the last two months her word count has blossomed, and most of the words come with some sort of gesture to further emphasize her point. The most popular being when presented with a situation or object that she either doesn’t fully comprehend or fully acknowledges is dangers she puts up her little hand and waves it in front of whatever it may be and firmly says, “Hot. Hot.”

Other words include Mama, Dada, up, Baba, crack (Short for “cracker”), nana (short for “banana”), woof (all dogs are woofs these days), whoa, and beep. To fill in the communication gaps, she also knows the sign language words for water, please, thank you, and pee-yooo (or, stinky). Often, the please sign is used for “help me”, so I have to pay attention to whether or not she’s asking for help or saying please. Despite her verbal prowess, we still do our fair share of grunting, pointing, stomping, screaming, yelling, and, oh yes, heavy sighing. Which, she may have learned from me, but I’m not sure. Kids can learn this stuff from anywhere I’m sure.

We’ve made it to the Explora! children’s science museum a couple of times, one of which was with Tiffany and Rowan, but I don’t seem to have any pictures of that, only video. I’m pleased to say that she was the only little girl running around in cammo pants and a moose sweater.

Last week my mother brought by a cute little dress that she said was a gift from my father’s sister, Anne and her husband Bob, for my sister Sarah when she was but a mere 12-month-old back in (dare I?) 1974. Mom has gotten pictures of all the girls wearing this little dress, including Anah, and wanted one of Evelyn. She could have killed me with how perfectly precious she looked. Like a big girl, but still so much a sweet and cuddly, deliciously edible baby.

So many things are clockwork these days, like her steady nap habit, and her steady to-bed-by-8pm habit. One of the cutest things is when she wakes up from her nap and still has some of the sleep hangover.

But, give her a snack and a sippy of water and it’s like watching a flower unfurl and reach out its tentacles to rough up a once-tidy room. With her expressive little face, it’s like getting hit by a hurricane AND getting a floor show all at the same time.

Evelyn makes my heart happy.

1. Make a blend of ground pork and ground beef to try to improve both moisture content and flavor profile. Perhaps taking a gyro-style meat angle.
2. Attempt a thematic cuisine-in-a-meat-cake kind of presentation.
3. Add the delight of some sort of meat-themed cocktail to the experience.
4. Figure out a way to incorporate Vienna sausages.
5. “Frost” and possibly “decorate” the cake using sweet potatoes.
6. Also figure out a way to incorporate the required ingredient item, CheezWhiz ®

My mother-in-law had presented me with an article in one of her food magazines in which they described a new trend of meat cocktails and included the instructions on how to infuse vodka and bacon. Intrigued by the notion of making a Bacontini, I took just over half of a 750mL bottle of Aboslut® vodka and added three (3) tablespoons of rendered bacon fat, including the so-called cracklin’ shrapnel.

Slightly put off by the new gasoline color, I let these two ingredients steep together for eight hours and then stuck it in the freezer overnight to for a full separation of the fats from the alcohol. But, because the cracklin’s are solids and not necessarily a fat, there was still the issue of how to sieve those out to leave a completely non-occluded vodka product.

By running through a paper-towel lined sieve just two times I was able to have a very clear, but still gasoline-looking material. I set it to the side to focus on the meat cake, taking time to draw out a basic plan.

The plan was to get some carne adovada simmering, prep the meat cakes by pulsing together in a 1:1 mixture some ground pork and ground beef, and to build a chile rellano casserole center into one of the meat cake layers. Then, to make a brilliant frosted decorated outside of sweet potatoes. First, the carne adovada was a chunked up bottom roast simmering in a mixture of red chile sauces.

Next, to peel and chop up the sweet potatoes and get those cooking. As it turned out, this would be a critical error in process. I should have baked the sweet potatoes instead of boiling them, as boiling created too wet of a base and therefore made a too-runny material to use as frosting, but we’ll see results of that poor choice later.

While all that cooked up, I started on the meat cake itself.

Using the food processor I added one pound of ground pork with one pound of ground beef, a medium onion roughly chopped, two eggs, about 1/4 cup of quick-cooking oats, some ground pepper, ground cumin, garlic salt, onion powder, and ground mustard rounded out the seasonings.

Since the meat cake process is not without its foibles, this proved to be too much material for the food processor to handle, and I had to take about half of it out in order for it to work right.

Four half batches consumed all the meat that I had and created a smooth meat material for smashing into the 8-inch round aluminum pans. Three cake layers, in total, with the third being the one destined to bake with a chile rellano center.

Once the meat cakes were ready, I began on the chile rellano center. Based on a version created by my dear mother called Speedy Rellanos (or, as Matthew and Nathan refer to it, Fireloaf), I started by sauteing some onions and garlic, while Berta shredded a massive pile of cheese.

A combination of eggs, mayonaisse, roasted and chopped green chile mixed with the cooked onions create the bonding agent.

I put a layer of bread crumbs in the meat cake well, laid down some cheese, poured in as much of the chile mixture as would fit, and topped it with more cheese and bread crumbs.

Not wanting to overcook the meat cakes into a dry state, into the refrigerator they went to stave off E. coli and trichinosis. The aluminum foil were fittings to add heavy pottery bowls of water in my lame and (once again) poorly thought out attempt to weigh down the meat, making a dense material and simultaneously creating a usable meat well. That sort of worked and sort of didn’t.

Any meat product, even an aberrant meat cake needs gravy. But, since I was creating a mexican themed meat cake, a brown gravy didn’t feel, to me, to match up very well. Thus was born the idea of a bacon queso. Out came the bacon and so began its frying. While I was at it, I attempted bacon swizzle sticks for the bacontinis.

Phase one of the project ended with the meat cakes going into the oven and with me cleaning up the kitchen.

About this time, Evelyn had awoken from her nap and finished her lunch and wanted in on the action. 20+ pounds of baby went into the backpack and she hovered patiently and cooperatively over my right shoulder for more than 2 straight hours until I thought that collar bone was going to snap. After cleaning up all our dishes, we started on Phase 2 by draining the sweet potatoes and attempting to make a frosting.

This is right went fear began to well up in my throat as I saw how completely soupy the potatoes were, so I immediately began mitigation efforts to thicken it up without compromising the taste. I whipped in more than 1 cup of flour and 1/2 cup of bread crumbs, adding some garlic salt to take the floury taste out. It went from bad to worse to really bad to awful to maybe-I-should-rethink-the-whole-frosting-idea. But, doing what I do best, I ignored my insticts and pressed forward by turning my attention to the bacon queso “gravy”.

The initial baking of the meat cakes is completed, with a completely different meat smaz byproduct this time than last. There was quite a bit less shrinkage and instead of giant greazy pools of schnyz there was more meat juice and less meat smaz. It still need to be drained/dabbed off, though, so as to not create a stability issue. My increasing worry was to avoid a situation whereby the cakes my slide off of each other, so ensuring as much greaze was removed as possible was key.

Our first attempt at assembly went something like this: Layer one – carne adovada.

Layer two – chile rellano.

Layer three – top layer and hopeful recipient of the bacon queso “gravy”.

Commence frosting with sweet potatoes.

Commence REMOVING sweet potato frosting.

Commence cleaning off the meat cake of as much sweet potato mess as possible.

Thank the meat cake gods that I had another package of bacon thawed in the refrigerator and begin a swirled bacon wrapping.

Add the Vienna sausage candle holders. It’s worth noting that I cut a small “x” in the top of each sausage to best hold the candles.

Back into the oven the cake went to finish baking and crisp up and cook the bacon shell. One more round of cleaning dishes and shoveling failed sweet potato frosting off the counter and we were on to assembling the bacontinis. Taking center stalks from a celery I carved a point onto each one and used it as an olive swizzle. Then, to add to the meaty flavor I smoothed a piece of prosciutto on the inside of the glass. Three ounces of bacon vodka to 1.5 ounces of dry vermouth stirred over rocks and poured in. Unfortunately, I failed to get a picture of the filled martini glass, to the prepped glass will have to do.

Once our guests had arrived, we began the feast.

Also on the table was a salad and some macaroni and cheese for those of us who didn’t want to subject our colons to such a blow. It was mentioned later that I should have provided aspirin to everyone to help thin the blood out a little after dinner. It was a lot of fun, but, as always, there were a lot of lessons.

1. The multiple separate cakes create a problem relating to size consistency. Because of this consistency issue, the stacking, frosting, and otherwise stability of the cake becomes problematic. Next year I may just make a single cake in a taller pan and then cut the layers out of the single cake, thus providing the size and density consistency needed.
2. Sweet potato frosting still seems viable, but baking the potatoes will probably be a wiser choice as it doesn’t add additional moisture, but rather, removes it.
3. The rellano center was good, and set up nicely, however, the weight of the meat cake layer above it caused it to bulge, breaking the meat walls and ultimately causing the cake to lean. If I do this again, the rellano may be the top layer.
4. The challenge arose when it was pointed out that last year’s meat cake was made of entirely beef, except for the bacon weave exterior. This year, I upped the animal content to two. Next year, I may need to include lamb and seriously attempt a gyro-style meat cake.

Matthew’s biggest birthday surprise didn’t come until later than night when Spenser and Amy flew in to town and I snuck them into the house for him to see the next morning. A sweet, sweet surprise it was, too.

Normally, laundry isn’t a documentation-worthy event, except to say that at some point during the weekend while Evelyn and I were coloring pictures with four carefully selected crayons, half of the blue crayon broke off in my sweater pocket unbeknownst to me. But, apparently fully beknownst to the heating element of the dryer because it zealously distributed that crayon on every piece of clothing swirling in it. I’m sure the dryer was chuckling for DAYS after it watched me open the door and practically vomit from the instant rush of rage that lunged between my cranial lobes. Lucky for me, 95% of the laundry in that load was mine. And, even luckier, 100% of those clothing items were new. As in, only worn once. But, at least now I could say they were worn once and also had blue crayon streaks all over. SHIT!! CRAP!!! DAAAAAAAMN!!!!

My instinct said, “Pretreat! HOLY FASHION CARNAGE, BATMAN! PRETREAT! STAT!! STAT!!” so I got out a paint brush, filled a coffee cup up with laundry detergent and started painting my clothes. Then, it occurred to me that it was crayon I was trying to remove. CRAYON. Aren’t crayons made of wax and the evil souls of payday loan officers and therefore unlikely to come out with simple laundry detergent? Wouldn’t I need some sort of crayon napalm? A magical incantation? An animal sacrifice? Something??? So, I stopped what I was doing and inquired of the almighty Google machine which stated a number of various tricks, including the use of WD-40, Goo Gone, and mineral oil.

The mineral oil fix required that you rub mineral oil into each crayon spot and let sit for a bit. Then, use dish soap (yes, dish soap) and scrub THAT into each of the mineral oil spots and let sit again. Then, take the whole lot and stick it in a warm water laundry cycle with some additional laundry detergent, being sure to use the extra rinse feature at the end. Since half of the laundry was already steeping in laundry detergent, I took the other half and began painstakingly dabbing on mineral oil with a toothbrush and using a second toothbrush to scrub in the laundry soap. It took, you know, like, FOREVER. But, into the wash they eventually went and out they came without nary a crayon mark to be seen, but with grease stains where crayon stains once were.

This problem was ridiculous and seeming to compound in ridiculousness per minute. I needed a pretreater that was cheaper and easier to use than laundry detergent so off I ambled to Costco. I was pushing the cart along listening to Evelyn babble away at total strangers it suddenly dawned on me and that insulting little cartoon lightbulb sitting above my head lit up. The crayon in question was a washable crayon – as in very nearly water soluble. Meaning, the pretreated clothes I hadn’t dealt with yet were probably going to come out cleaner than the ones I had doused in mineral oil. Hell!! DING DANG!! EFF EFF EFF!!

Sure enough, I was right. But, I wasn’t right before I greased up several other pieces of clothes and had to spend yet another hour and small fortune in detergents pretreating THOSE items again to run through the washing machine AGAIN. Our water bill is going to be outrageous. The moral of the story is this:

When crayon gets into your dryer and sets upon your clothes with the fury of a cornered badger don’t let rage obfuscate the obvious solution: Pretreater, warm water, rinse and repeat.

Or, better still, if you have the economic fortitude, go buy new clothes.

Ten years ago I was still married to TheEx. He had convinced me to buy a generator and a rain barrel, and on December 31, we literally hunkered down in our house, watched TV, and waited for Y2K to end the world as we knew it. In the months preceding new years, I had the most vivid dreams about Y2K looters breaking into our house, shooting my husband dead, and asking politely if they could please have our canned goods and toothpaste while I gave them directions back to the interstate. In November, 2000 we took a cruise through the Caribbean, courtesy of his employer who bought tickets as a Christmas bonus. That trip probably represented the longest amount of time that we had gone without some sort of negative event that caused a major blow out. We did, in fact, have a series of negative events but they never escalated past a few hours of pouting and was nothing a couple of Foster’s oil cans didn’t fix. In December of that year I had what was probably THE most memorable restaurant meals of my life when TheEx’s employer took us out for dinner at The Milagro Grill and Brewery in Bernaillo. I had Duck à l’Orange with a sweet potato au gratin and a dessert of a deep-fried Oreo® cookie topped with a scoop of fresh-made vanilla ice cream and raspberry coulis. Holy eight-pound sweet baby Moses, I can still taste the red chile they added to that l’Orange sauce. One of my strongest memories of that time in the marriage was checking the calendar to count the days or weeks since the last incredible yelling talk-down in order to estimate when the next one would occur. I got pretty good at it until he lost(quit) his job – then all bets were off. It was going to be another three long years before I disentangled myself from that particular individual. And, it’s been a not-so-bad six years since.

Naturally, once I travel to the East Compton of my personal memory grid, I am drawn back to current circumstances where the comparisons are quickly drawn and the rightness of leaving TheEx are reinforced. Also, it’s easier to look at this start of the coming 10 years with more positivity than I viewed the world in 2000. I have things this year that make all the difference in the world. I have people in my sphere of consequence that are healthy, constructive, and full of pure awesome (you know who you are). And, I have Evelyn! As long as I see her grinning face while she ham-fists her xylophone then I feel like I can. Just that. I. Can. And, I. Will. So, Ha. Ha. On. All. You. Doubters (you know who YOU are).

At the start of a new decade, it feels like renewal and possibilities are all the more shiny. There is the hope of prospects, both personal and commercial. I don’t use the word “hope” quite as flippantly as some have come to. I don’t think of “hope” as a raining down of magical wish-giving unicorn kisses, but “hope” as in “options.” I look at “hope” as the option to choose, to take action, to exert, stretch, and otherwise flex any and all muscles both physical and psychological. “Hope” to me is seizing the opportunity to take my circumstances and make the most out of them – whatever they may be or evolve into. Lemons in to lemonade? Maybe. Lemons into lemon cream pie with a towering pile of freshly whipped cream tinged with just the right amount of vanilla? Most assuredly.

I’ve scoffed at the idea of new year’s resolutions, and hold fast to the notion of goal setting. Last year, I made a list of goals, so let’s review and see if I met any of them, shall we?

1. Raise Evelyn

So far so good. She is in the process of being raised, but we seem to be on track.

2. Try not to win the Crap Mom award for 2009.

Hm. I’m pretty sure I was nominated a couple of times…

3. Get to work on time or early each work day.

Solution: Quit the job! Done!

4. Drink no more than 1-2 caffeine-free diet sodas per week.

I think if you took the aggregate number of sodas I consumed and divided it by 52, I’d be about there.

5. On the days I’m home from work take Evelyn for a long walk, even if it is only on the treadmill.

Solution: Quit the job! Done! Plus, we do go for walks several times per week.

6. Actually employ the exercise ball for exercise.

Solution: Sell it! I sold it in a yard sale this last summer.

7. Actually exercise the at least 4 times per week to start reduction of the post-baby done-lops.

Well, my intention was there, but the execution was quite bungled. Matthew and I are trying a joint effort this year, so hopefully better results will come from it. I need to jettison the last 20 lbs from pregnancy, and with Evelyn practically not nursing any more this should be more realistically attainable.

8. Stick to our family budget.

This I’m really good at. In fact, Matthew has basically handed over the budget reigns so he can focus on other things, like, you know, keeping the income coming in.

9. Have monthly budgeting summits with my husband.

Yeah…. not so much with this. Although, with me in charge of the budget it’d be good for him to get the synopsis from time to time.

10. Try a church bible study.

I tried my Mom’s bible study and liked it a lot. It has become difficult to carve out the gas money needed to travel to Los Lunas every week, so I’ve fallen off the wagon, as it were.

11. Get all our music put to the NAS device and the CDs sold.

Nope. Not done.

12. Put the money from the CD sales towards the mortgage.

Solution: Sell the house! Done! Problem is, we got another house, so we still have a mortgage. Hm.

13. Create a direct-to-DVD release of “Evelyn 2008: The Beginning”.

I’ve been making movies and posting them throughout the year – that should count.

14. Create 2006/2007/2008 individual year movies cataloging that year’s events.

No. And, come to think of it, why bother?

15. Get a passport.

Papers were sent to the Department of Giving Out Passports yesterday!

16. Learn how to use Final Cut Pro, and its companion softwares Soundtrack and LiveType.

Still on the agenda.

This year has more goals, but most of them are regarding another mysterious project that I won’t be talking about again until (or, frankly, if) it gets off the ground. Some goals I can mention include:

1. Plant a hefty vegetable garden.
2. Can as much produce from that garden as exceeds what we can eat.
3. Can pickles using baby dills – so can early.
4. Can jams using fresh fruit.
5. Teach Evelyn her letters, numbers, basic shapes, and colors.
6. Teach Evelyn more sign language to improve her communication abilities.
7. Stick to the day-to-day chore list to thus create a happy, mildly contented husband
8. Paint and decorate Evelyn’s room using this as my new decorating inspiration.
10. Sell more than $1000 in Avon per campaign.
11. Go on a family vacation to someplace new, or at least someplace different.

Now, I have to take “hope” and turn it into that lemon cream pie we were talking about.

Evelyn had been to the doctor today wherein she received her well-child check up and her 12-month vaccinations. It’s worth noting that she barely cried at all during or after those vaccinations so either she is one tough cookie or they are exceptional nurses. Either way, it was a low stress experience. She went down for her nap like usual and I went out grocery shopping. When I got home the normal routine kicked in where I finished laundry, Berta started dinner, and Evelyn and I played. Dinner went off without a hitch and Evelyn and I were heading for the tub right on schedule at 7pm.

Off with the dirty clothes!! Off with the diaper!! 20 seconds of obligatory sitting on the training potty!! And, into a cozy warm bath!!

Evelyn is standing up and splashing about when,

She looks at me and I look at her, both with equal surprise when her shoulders hunch slightly and,

Now, I’m laughing. She chuckles when,

Now I’m really laughing and so is she. Only this time she stops, gives me a mischievous eyes, an “O”-shaped mouth and,

Laughter abounds! Another “O”-shaped mouth, a couple of tiny clenched fists and,

I can’t breath for laughing so hard. Evelyn is laughing hysterically, but manages to pause, grasp the edge of the tub and squeeze out a last,

Needless to say, I was somewhat concerned that this could have ended badly with sullied bathwater, but no. Once she had exorcised such a plethora of gas – an amount that could have weakened the knees of an adult human male – she had a whole new lease on the evening.

If this isn’t a gunshot across the bow of sexism and equality, than I don’t know what is. Clearly, she can go toot for toot with any grown man who has ever feasted on boiled eggs, beer, and broccoli and she can do it on half of a sippy cup of milk and some shrimp alfredo.

This 12 second moment in time is exactly the kind of thing that could cause labor amnesia and in the amnesia delirium convince a person to have a second child. Fortunately, labor was sufficiently memorable that it’ll take a lot of these 12 second moments to create any sort of amnesia What. So. Ever.

Hot Toddy anyone?

This was taken just yesterday during a snow fall that came in fast, dumped at least one inch (stop laughing you east coast and north midwest folks!) and blew out in a simple matter of eight hours.

Christmas Eve was a matter of some debate: Which church service to go to? 5pm? 7pm? 9pm? 11pm? HA! In someone’s fevered dreams would I ever consent to leaving my home after 10pm, least of all leaving my home after 10pm and descend into the frigid depths of winter’s armpit. That makes me a mediocre Lutheran at best, I realize, but I’m hoping it won’t force Martin Luther to actively lobby for my damnation during his downtime in the hereafter.

We agreed that for one night Evelyn could withstand a little disruption of her self-imposed schedule and compromised that the 9pm service would be just fine. Had I not been pretending to be illiterate the previous Sunday, I would have seen posted in the bulletin that child care would only be provided at the 5pm and 7pm services. And, had I internalized that wee detail we would have modified our church plans accordingly. But I didn’t so we blundered forward and the night went only as one could expect it to go. Matthew and Berta got to enjoy the full beauty of the service, including lighting the tiny candles and singing the sweet Christmas hymns while I chased a 15-month-old around the church foyer and fellowship hall and other various lit locations.

Excessive fatigue has an odd way of adding more powerful juice to a child’s will than may otherwise be exercised, as was evident in her persistent urge to go up and down any stairs she could find, molest any Christmas tree within arms reach, brutally back-hand the 24″ felt-and-styrofoam hand-crafted snow man, chatter the ears off other babies, chase down older kids and make them fear for their candy, and generally refuse to be still in any way. By the time we got home she practically crawled into her crib on her own and I wanted some Tension Tamer tea (now with B vitamins!) to bring my brains back to some sort of center. Matthew wanted to open his stocking presents and since he is currently the only one with a Christmas stocking anyway Berta and I acquiesced.

In his stocking were tasteless humor gifts from me and thoughtful usable gifts from Berta. Meaning, I gave Matthew a can of bacon-flavored SPAM, a can of vienna sausages and an ash scraper for his grill so he would please stop using my good kitchen utensils for that chore. Berta gave him several other grill-related gifts so he would please stop taking our good oven mitts and using them as grill scrubbers and also gave him some meat flavorings.

In exchange, Matthew gave me a decaffeinated green holiday tea called Candy Cane Lane, as well as the commemorative matching mug and we gave Berta a gift card to go buy some new clothes

Christmas day dawned and despite having been to bed at the shockingly late hour of 10:30pm, Evelyn was still up and ready to get moving by 7:30am. Bleary eyed and admittedly a little cranky, I shuffled into the kitchen where I used my new tray (with the brightly painted word, “Cookie” on it) to present Matthew a Christmas breakfast feast of various meats. I fried up his bacon spam, browned the vienna sausages, cooked some bacon, and cooked some canadian bacon. A little scrambled eggs for decoration and a little hot sauce to completely alter the taste of whatever it’s dribbled on and breakfast was eagerly and quickly consumed by those who are open to such dietary proclivities.

Presents was laid back and fun and I was relieved that Matthew was relaxed about giving Evelyn time to look at and play with each present she opened. Truthfully, she didn’t care about opening any presents, she just wanted what was inside the stupid package. Once the item was unpackaged she was in little baby nirvana.

Despite a back-to-back series of foibles, a missed nap, a broken Christmas decoration, and giant piles of frustrations throughout the day, Christmas day ended on a high note with Matthew having diligently and thoughtfully smoked ribs for a large portion of the day. To that we added a Christmas treat of macaroni and cheese (with whole wheat pasta), garden salad, and a desert of sweetened ricotta cheese with fresh berries and a drizzle of dark chocolate ganache sauce and topped with rum-tainted freshly whipped cream.

The important thing was that the day ended. And, that everyone received gifts that far and away exceeded expectations or desires. And, that we don’t have to do this again until next year.