I don't even have time for this right now...

...but I'm not a quitter.  I hate the fact that the blog has sat un-updated for a record breaking five weeks!  Christmas eve-eve is tomorrow.  Just ask my kids, I've heard that expression no less than 100 times today.  We're all giddy with excitement and anticipation.  The new Fitzgeralds are scheduled to arrive in about 36 hours.  I could equally fill those 36 hours with wrapping or laundry.  You pick!  We need to bake cookies, go look at Christmas lights, share cookies with people, watch more Christmas movies, sing some Christmas songs!  And we only have two days to do it all in!

Oh well, one thing is for sure, the older you get, the faster time goes, because it really felt like it was just Thanksgiving yesterday.  It's a hard pill to swallow, the time going faster and all.  I do have one question about the phenomenon, do my kids feel the speed of time the same way that I do?  Or is it just me?!

The quickest recap of the last five weeks, and then the slate will be cleaned for Christmas.

We had a totally low key Thanksgiving.  But it was really sweet too.  Trader Joe's mostly catered it.  We did throw in some homemade rolls which stole the show, and our traditional Thanksgiving chocolate cream pie.  My kids hate pie, and that's kind of what Thanksgiving is all about.  So I've turned chocolate cream pie into a tradition, just so that my kids can feel a kinship with the Pilgrims, or something like that.  Anyway, it was all lovely.  It was followed up with a Thanksgiving night viewing of "Tangled".  And then, just like that, it was all over.  Came and went, zoom.

The North Carolinian autumn was stupendous.  I would be out running just dying over the colors and the leaves.  By the time we finally got the family gathered up for a photo shoot, we had mostly missed the colors.  But these faces were stupendous this autumn as well.  Take a good look at them.  There are no babies here anymore.  These are mostly big kids.  It's a new adventure everyday.  Lots of mornings I wake up with the thought, "I was a really good young mother.  I did babies really well.  These kids are a mystery to me."  But they are bound and determined to grow themselves up.  I'm trying to lead, or rather, be guided with grace.  I love them.

 
 

Throw in some Thanksgiving parties at school, some corn husk doll making, several days of substitute teaching (that's my new job now), and we woke up and it was December.  Time to get ready for Christmas?!

Did you know North Carolina is either the number 1 or the number 2 exporter of Christmas trees?!  That means we have a tremendous selection at really competitive prices.  Let's just say, fresh cut Christmas tress are SUPER expensive in Korea!

 I really wanted to chop our own tree down, so I found us a tree farm.  But when we got there on December  2nd, the chop-your-own-tree-down variety, were very picked over (what?!).  You've gotta chop early here in NC.  But do not fear, the Major was not disappointed in the least bit that he did not have to saw my tree down for me!  He was happy to watch the eager high school boy carry my pre-chopped tree to the van.

Better luck next year!  But our tree really is beautiful.

And thus ended our interactions with the Major for the following ten consecutive days.  He was fully "Heads Down", all camped out at the dining room table.  There in body, but far, far away in mind.  He thought he was going to flunk all of his classes.  He thought he had left everything to the last minute.  I tried to be sympathetic.  But, you know when you know someone, and can see them in a way that they can't see themselves?  He has since learned that he got straight A's.  He's acting surprised.  And in a way, I think he really is.  But I'm not.  I knew it all along.  I wish I had a picture of him freaking out at the dining room table.  Those were good times.

Next came the flurry of Christmas parties and performances:

Jane's class presentation of "The Gingerbread Baby":

Then followed a literal flurry of snowflakes.  They amounted to about an inch.  Probably less.  No one was even enticed to play in it.  But school was cancelled one day because of it.  And delayed two hours the next day, when it was already supposed to be a half-day of school that day.  We were not proud to be from North Carolina on those days.

And thus ended all the school days in 2010! 

And before we could really soak that in, George turned 9!!!

Highlighted by a sacvenger hunt around the house:

To find the bike we had hidden in the laundry room:

Which we were sure was going to be his most prized birthday present, until his cousin Oliver sent him a Marshmellow gun, which instantly trumped the bike!

But maybe not the giant container of cheese balls that are proudly on display in George's bedroom as I type.

Late on Sunday night, after putting George to bed on his 9th birthday I felt all kinds of pride (I hope the good kind), in who he is becoming.  It's hard to be a George.  He's got so much inside of him.  And yet, he looks like he's just a kid to most people, and to his parents.  And sometimes he really doesn't think before he acts.  But other times he's thinking so, so much that I feel completely inadequate to teach him anything.  I love him to bits and pieces.  I tell him that some nights.  I drag it out as long as I can, using words to describe smaller, and smaller measurements of things, and concluding that I love him that much.  Maybe it doesn't makes sense right now, and though most times when I do it he says, "whatever" (with a smile on his face), but I know he feels it.  His mama loves him, and in the end, to be loved unconditionally is what we are all after. 

Well, I've lost an hour and a half of my time composing this post.  And it's probably too long to stay interesting to most folks.  But hopefully, in the grand sceme of things, when I look back, it won't be time lost, but a precious gift I gave to myself a decade from now, when I can't remember any of the details anymore. 

Merry Christmas.  Ready or not.