How’s everybody doing? This morning I ran into several moms I know, and while we watched our girls get their asses handed to them during a soccer tournament (they played well, but it’s a tough division), a repeating refrain was, “Yeah, Christmas was great, but I’m glad it’s over.” I wouldn’t go quite that far myself, but I do feel much better tonight after putting the house back together. After Christmas morning we headed up to Vermont to visit family, and we arrived home late last night. So the house was still in serious chaos when we got back from soccer: gifts still littering the living room, dirty dishes, damp ski clothes and other laundry, parched houseplants, the works. We spent much of the afternoon catching up on it all, and now I’m a little bummed that I’m too tired to stay up and enjoy it.
J came down from bedtime twice saying that her stomach hurt, but I think it’s only because she skipped all vegetables at dinner and then ate a generous helping of the failed “fudge sludge” from our freezer. Whatever, I’m just thankful that Holly the Elf has reported back to the North Pole, so I don’t have to fear the late-night wandering. Incidentally, in a shocking turn of events, I realized during dinner that M was eating roasted cauliflower AND roasted carrots AND steamed broccoli AND kale salad. Holy crap, when did that happen? Part of me felt like someone should be presenting me with my Mother of the Year sash, tiara, and scepter, but I also wondered if this was Malicious Vegetable Eating, because J clearly wasn’t partaking in any of it. When she realized that M was Eating Like a Grown-Up while she wasn’t, J felt bad about it, but not bad enough to actually eat the vegetables. Then M started counting up all the colors of the rainbow that she had on her plate and I had to change the subject before J collapsed into a heap of shame and guilt. But really, if their idea of Competitive Eating is in terms of vegetable variety instead of number of hot dogs consumed, I think I still get to put the meal into the Win column, right?
I’ve been gathering up some links for you, and here they are:
Troy’s The Record offered up a list of places around the Capital District who’ll give you something free on your birthday, H/T All Over Albany. We love free!
Toward the Stars has a list of 29 girls who showed some serious girl power in 2013.They’re doing some amazing stuff!
 Ilana from Mommy Shorts has this really lovely series of photographic posts of working mothers getting through Monday mornings. She explains how this series got started in this post, and this post includes links to several in the series. They show how much beauty and love are packed into the everyday frazzled mama life, and they make me wish that I could go back in time and get an awesome photographer to spend a morning with us back when the kiddos were little. Seriously, for photographers out there, I think this is an awesome business idea, because these pictures are freakin’ priceless.
A Mighty Girl offers up a list of 2013’s Best Books for Tweens and Teens as well as for Younger Readers.
And on Childhood 101, Debi Huang offers up a Family Camping Checklist. Okay, sure, the timing is off, but she lives in California, so it works for her, and if I wait until May to share it, I’m likely to forget. So there it is.
For those of you who overindulged this holiday season, you can join a 30-day Green Smoothie Challenge. I may or may not actually do this myself. Or you might try one of my Detox Dips.
