Conversation with my 5 year old daughter

5 year old: Do you want my autograph?
Me: Are you famous?
5 year old: No.
5 year old: Do you want me to sign your shirt?
Me: Are you famous?
5 year old: No.
5 year old: What's famous? Does that mean I'm rich?
Me: Not necessarily. It means you're well known.
5 year old: I'm well known. Katie knows me.

Can I just say it's 8:40 a.m., and I haven't had my coffee yet. OMG this child is funny.

When panic attacks

I am the queen of not overdoing it, of not overscheduling, of taking it easy and staying low key. I wasn't always this way. But I have gotten to know myself better these 39 years. So it was odd to wake up in stress mode this morning with heart palpitations and a cold sweat in full effect.

I still don't know what really set me off. My first thought was that I didn't hit send on an Usborne Book order, and that it wouldn't arrive in time for Christmas gifts. As I took some deep breaths to calm myself, I realized I did see an order confirmation come through. But to reassure myself, I checked my shipping tracker. Cool; order is set to arrive tomorrow. Worries over, right? Not quite.

Didn't Deb and Lee-Ann ask me to send some announcements out for PTA stuff? Don't I have some auction calls to make? Aren't I missing a Girl Scout payment? What about Christmas gifts? Do I have everything bought and ready to wrap? Do I need to revisit the kids' lists to make sure I got at least one thing they specifically asked for? Oh yeah, my mother-in-law arrives on Tuesday, isn't it time to clear the laundry off the guestroom bed?

This isn't major stuff. It's remedied by making a list and taking it one thing at a time. So I can't really imagine that this is the cause of the current tightness in my chest. But then again maybe I'm a little more overwhelmed than I am used to. Who knows? I'm going to put on a movie and fold some more clothes.

Last thing I read

I was up until 5:30 a.m. reading this book: http://www.amazon.com/Unleashed-Spring-Chronicles-Nancy-Holder/dp/0385740980/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1323298958&sr=1-2.

Forgoing sleep to read is such a bad habit! I guess the fact that I stayed up all night to finish it gives the book a pretty good recommendation though.

It's young adult fiction targeted toward the Twilight-loving crowd. Some weird, wolfy things are going on in a small Arkansas town. Being from Arkansas, I think it's cool the book is set there.

It was a quick read. I'd be interested in reading the rest of the series. I'm kinda bummed that it's a new series because that just means I'll have to wait forever for the next book. I prefer coming into a series that's already done or close to it, so I don't have to wait!

It's not a tree trimming until someone cries

We have a pre-lit, artificial tree. You'd think it would not be hard to get it put up except for 30 minutes all I could find where plugs and not the ends to put them in. What the heck?! After many attempts at plugging and unplugging, I finally have lights on all parts of the tree. Success! It was bad there for a minute when I actually thought untangling strings of lights would be preferable. Little Miss Middle Child put the angel on top. And now I'm wondering, do we really need ornaments?

To pass the time until the hubster gets home to find the big Christmas box in the attic, the kids are supposed to be putting the train track together. We usually have the Polar Express heading around the bottom of the tree each year. Judging from the squeals in the other room and the mess of tracks all over the floor, I'm guessing they've given up on this endeavour. Maybe they're feeling the same way that I did about the lights.



Notice all the pillows on the floor? So that's what those squeals were about!



Who needs a track? I'll just go around these socks here.

And now the crying begins...it's 8:20 p.m. The track still isn't done. And a certain someone is crying because it's time for bed and no ornaments are on the tree. Three guesses who. "I don't want to go to bed! I want to watch the Polar Express and do the ornaments!" And that's how we know it's Christmas time in our house.

Happy Holidays!