days of waiting...

For the kids, the days before Christmas are all about waiting. Waiting for the presents, waiting for Ben to come home. Waiting for their stockings. But for the mom...oh dear. I have lots to do still. A few gifts to buy. Things to wrap, stockings to fill. Margaret is turning 16 on Saturday, yes she was born on the 22nd day of December. 16 years ago...I brought home a beautiful little Margaret Cheryl on Christmas eve. She is my ninth child, the first of the five-girls-in-a-row-in-five-years. When she was born, Emily was 11, Abigail 10, Benjamin 8, Mirielle 6, Joseph 5, Aaron 4, Mali 2 and a half, and Samuel 16 months old. That Christmas, Mirielle got sick on Christmas eve, so I drove all the other kids and that newborn Margaret over to my brother's house because Christmas wasn't Christmas for our kids without spending Christmas eve with their cousins...and it was the better of two hard options...staying home taking care of a sick child (cleaning up yucky messes) with a newborn, or going to my brother's house and just holding the baby while the Aunts and cousins help with my kids...anyway. I do go on, don't I?

Margaret is turning 16 this year on the 22nd, so we are having a party for her. She likes to cry about sad things, so we are having a Sad Birthday. (what does she like to cry about, you might ask? Well...a few weeks ago Paul took the little girls and Jon to chorus practice...they had to wait a long time for the older ones to finish their practice, and they were very good and patient. So he stopped at the small expensive store in town and bought them a cake...that made Margaret cry.) So...I still need to get Margaret a present. All she wants for Christmas is a U.S. Passport because Emily is taking her to Norway soon. So for her birthday, I want to get her something nice.

And I still have to do that.

I also need a classroom gift for Jon, and to wrap the Barbies I got for Char and Camille to take in for their gifts.

Lots of them are bringing things in for their parties. So I have to make/buy that stuff.

And...the little girls are excited as can be because I sat here with them the other day when they were burning with fevers...and let them spend their Christmas money from Gramma at the Disney store online. It was great fun, now they are asking a hundred times a day WHEN the mail is coming. They are getting the Rapunzel wedding doll with the short dark hair, a toddler Ariel doll, a Belle doll, and the Eleanor doll from the movie, "Brave.".

So they wait, I procrastinate. Today I hope to get some things done though.

I did clean up a large mess this morning, thank you Suri. While we were at the dome last night, Evelyn made brownies, Suzanne made a chocolate cake. The brownies were left on the kitchen table. Suri jumped up and crashed the glass pan of them to the floor. She managed to eat them all and leave a nice big pile of clean glass there. I am really hoping she is okay. If she swallowed any glass, eeks. She knows she was bad though, when Paul tried to call her over to the pile, she would not come. Dogs shouldn't eat chocolate, but she seems fine. I am a bit worried about her...glass, chocolate...if anything happened to this dog, the kids would be devastated.

So, never a dull moment here. The girls are feeling better. Better enough to take all the Fisher-Price Little people stuff out of their closet, have a tissue "snow-ball" war, and fool around like crazy. They do not want to watch any shows or movies, thank you, just catch up on all the things they couldn't do for the last few days.

So...I have to buy food for Margaret's party and for Christmas eve. Our Christmas eve theme this year is Mexican. Margaritas, Pina Coladas, tacos and fajitas.

Oh, it is so much nicer to sit here and type about all the things I have to do than to actually get up and do it.