Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Pt 1: Christmas Eve (NOT for faint of heart or weak of stomach)

 Ok.... so consider yourself warned, this blog contains some graphic stuff.


It has been an odd Christmas for the Kastners.....not necessarily TERRIBLE... just not the picture perfect kinda stuff you imagine. This first part of the craziness happened on Christmas Eve.....

I awoke on Christmas Eve to tons of snow coming down. This was not really a welcome sight for me because I had a rare and treasured hair appointment scheduled. As the mother of 4 who homeschools, works from home, and organizes a youth ministry, I don't often get time for frivolous things such as haircuts. My hubby got me a giftcard to the beauty school and demanded I use it BEFORE Christmas. Well.... it was snowing so I called the beauty school... yups they were staying open. Hooray! So I got to work on the mountain of laundry and way too many Christmas gifts still to make so I could get some done before my appointment.

I was not too thrilled with my spoiling hubby because the night before he stayed out too late after work with some of the guys he works with. Now I'm not one to begrudge him some recreational time; HOWEVER, we are not younguns and 3 a.m. is just a bit too late for a 42-year old. Especially one who works 2 full-time jobs and gets absolutely no sleep. Not to mention for about 2 days we had been suspecting that he might be about to pass another kidney stone.

So he was already on his first "nap" of the day at 10:30... the time I needed to leave. I asked him if I should cancel my appointment but he assured me he'd be fine to watch the kids. I wasn't convinced. I headed out for a little pampering, stopping along the way to get some Starbucks (compliments of my gift card from Elise).... well I guess because I have not had my hair professionally colored in at least 15 years, I didn't realize that I would be sitting in that chair for 3 1/2 hours by the time I was done having my hair cut and colored and my eyebrows waxed. My butt hurt. I was bored. I had TONS to do at home, and I was wasting time in this pampering chair of torture. Oh, and I was NOT at ALL confident that John was watching the kids at all. The texts I was receiving from home were alarming me, and then I got confirmation.... Sarah and Elise stopped over and then stayed to watch the kids as John was on his second nap of the day. You are an OLD man! You cannot go out with the guys after work! Not when work ends at midnight!!!!

So my hair turned out great but not my eyebrows (bald patch in one spot, stray hairs left behind in another) and she was NOT the best Vici student I have ever had. She did NOT do that cool scalp massage thing they are supposed to do when they wash your hair, and she did a CRAPPY job of styling my hair. Whatevs... the color is what I wanted (actually better than I had imagined) and the cut is GREAT so I'll deal.

So I rushed through Pick N Save now opting for a quick warm and heat dinner instead of a fancy homemade slow cooked one. I returned home to a GLORIOUSLY cleaned home. I was expecting to meet total chaos, but Sarah and Elise had been busy little beavers and my house looked great! Turns out they used cleaning as an escape mechanism to get away from my children who were behaving TERRIBLY. Whatever you have to do man, my house is clean!

I bought the kids some plain gingerbread men at the bakery for them to decorate, but then I knocked them off the stove and they had to instead start with surgery to reattach all the gingerbread amputations and even one decapitation. Whatever the more frosting to reattach a limb the better that gingerbread tastes!

Finally, I returned to burning my homemade DVD's and printing out the family calendars that it is my tradition to make for Christmas. Noah and Jeremiah warmed dinner while I did this. I was trying VERY hard to work quickly. My goal was to be in bed before midnight. Well midnight came and went and I was still up. The later it got the worse it got.... (here's where it starts to get graphic so zone out if you are squeamish) I finally gave up my day long search for Hannah's missing party shoe because I needed to search for my niece's missing present. When Hannah went through her present opening frenzy, we hid all the presents. Well Alyssa's AWANA bag got hidden too well (in fact it STILL hasn't turned up). Finally at about 12:30 I decided I had to get to bed, when I realized I didn't print out the stuff for Do You Hear What I Hear? I quickly printed the required materials. I had already thrown my jeans down the stairs cuz they were dirty. So now I was working in just my underwear and a t-shirt (this is an essential fact for this story.... I promise).... After printing the materials I needed, I went to the kitchen table and pulled out a chair to sit at the table and write a few things down. As my butt hit the chair (remember I'm only wearing underwear) I realized there was a puddle on the chair. (Last warning if you are squeamish turn back NOW!) As I jumped back to my feet all sorts of random facts started flying into my mind.... weren't those Hannah's underwear under the chair? wait didn't she disrobe for a naked run just before bed? puddle... what is this a puddle of? without thinking enough, I stuck my finger into the puddle and put the finger to my nose to smell.... YUPS you've I'm sure deduced it already: PEE! I sat (wearing only my underwear) in a puddle of Hannah's pee! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! I cannot BEGIN to describe to you my revulsion as I stood there with my daughter's pee running down my leg and my own underpants soaked exactly as if I were the one who had peed my pants. I wanted to scream and cry... this is CHRISTMAS! I'm supposed to be in bed dreaming of sugar plum fairies not standing in my kitchen, exhausted from hours of making and searching for presents, with my daughter's pee running down my leg. This is NOT Merry!

I felt like I was in Christmas Vacation 2.... I wanted to shout: Nobody's leaving. Nobody's walking out on this fun, old-fashioned family Christmas. No, no. We're all in this together. This is a full-blown, four-alarm holiday emergency here. We're gonna press on, and we're gonna have the hap, hap, happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny flipping Kaye. And when Santa squeezes his fat white butt down that chimney tonight, he's gonna find the jolliest bunch of idiots this side of the nuthouse. (Clark Griswold...Christmas Vacation.... yes I did change some of the text to make it PG enough for this blog)

But I wasn't. This was my real life and I had a choice to make.... so I chose to do what the mom has to do... I started laughing.... then I went upstairs to share my hysterical story with my already half asleep husband.... then I planned to blog this humiliating, disgusting story for all of your enjoyment, because it fits perfectly into my world view: if I must suffer through something hopefully at least someone else will get some joy out of it.... a good laugh, a little encouragement, or at least a "WOW! am I glad I didn't sit in a puddle of pee wearing only my underwear on Christmas Eve night!"

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night....stay tuned for more Christmas Day excitement.

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