Judecorp.

Busy holiday! We packed up the Punk and flew her to South Carolina for six days and five nights with my smurfbrother and his wife. They were very kind and thoughtful hosts and my brother made a yummy stir-fry our first night and a full Christmas spread on Christmas Eve, with turkey, mashed potatoes, SQUASH, stuffing, glazed carrots, green beans, gravy, and homemade cranberry sauce, which SIL followed up with a homemade chocolate chunk cheesecake with oreo crust. Mmm.

I ate a lot of junk when I was there, as we had take-out most nights (Sonic, mexican, pizza, subs, etc.) and of course ate a lot of airport crap. I also learned a valuable lesson on traveling with an infant - morning is WAY better than night. She was too distracted to sleep in the airport and was up most of the night last night. Oof. I am trying to get her back on track!

I got to see my maternal grandmother for the first time in about four years and it was really good to see her. I don't get to SC all that often so I don't know when I will see her again, and she seemed very happy to see me and have a family Christmas and that was worth a lot. I didn't get to be with my paternal grandparents, though (even though we did an early Christmas last weekend) and that bummed me out. I miss them. :(

I racked in some serious loot, which is always amazing to me because everyone always swears to take it easy on the gifts. Oops. Jen and I exchanged gifts before we left, and she got me some games and some clothes, and a nice book of pictures of Punk from Flickr. It was very sweet. My brother and SIL got me a digital photo frame and a gift certificate (yay!) and I got a puffy coat from my Mom but it didn't fit thanks to my new baby ass. Go ass. Mom also got Jen and I a video camera, which was super nice and not at all necessary. Look out, YouTube!!

Jen had arranged for another gift to arrive at my brother's place, and in all of the flurry of opening gifts, I assumed it was from my mom or my brother and couldn't figure out why either of them would get me a ruby ring! Thankfully my SIL saw my trout look and filled me in (because no one else was paying attention either, I guess!), because I was SO lost! Whoops! But very sweet.

Punker scored some major stuffage as well, with a good amount of winter clothes (thank goodness!) and some toys - for now and for later. They were minimally seizure-inducing and Jen's brother even ordered some of the hippie wooden stuff I had on her baby registry. Whee! Rick and Gretchen got her this stuffed car that she can sit in and we enjoyed watching her chill in her car. It even has a bottle holder, ha ha! She also was given the Fisher Price Sing-Along Stage. Normally I cringe at toys like this, but since we all know my Punk is going to be a superstar, I guess it's okay to get her started now:



And while I was busy cavorting, lynncc01 had a bouncing baby boy! YAY! Congratulations!!!

What the heck next? We just finished taking a ton of pictures of our kid sitting in, touching, playing with, and almost chomping on Christmas lights.

Ugh.

I have been an online shopping fool for the past two days. I am seriously knocking down the Christmas list, which is nice, without having to go to the mall, which is nicer. Now I just have to hope that everything arrives on time, and arrives correctly, and all of that junk. Whee!

I still have to find gifts for my mother and her husband, and for my grandmother. And Punk, but she's not getting much and she's easy, because I control her wants and needs. HA HA.

We ordered our holiday cards but we have to wait for them to arrive (poo). I also ordered holiday return address labels because I'm too lazy to write our address 100 times this year. And hey, we don't have any money so let's just SPEND MORE!!

We went to get a Christmas tree yesterday. We haven't decorated it or anything because it had ice and snow on it and we didn't want to get electrocuted. But it smells so good! I can't smell it when I'm sitting here but when I leave the room and come back in, mmm, smells good. It also goes right up to the ceiling. Oops. I should have listened to Jen when she said it might be too big. But it's not TOO big, so technically I'm not wrong. So there.

We're headed to smemily's house tonight for some Hanukkah candle lighting and pizza eating. Punk is taking a nice long nap right now (I keep going back in and settling her back down, heh) so hopefully she will be ready to go. We will be home past her bedtime I'm sure (bad mommies) but not too late so it should be cool. The weather is pretty yuck right now (light snow) and I am less than thrilled about dragging the baby out.

lelumama came over to play with me this morning! Yay! Good times, good times. And her husband came in to say hello and he didn't try to kill me with his scary chest hair. Double yay! They ended up not being able to stay here because said husband came down with strep and they didn't want to give it to us or Punk... so we didn't have houseguests (BOO!!) but we still got to play (YAY!!).

It's cocoa weather for sure, man. I wonder if we have some.

I'm taking my kid to see Mall Santa today. Holy crap, I'm a MAMA!

Also, my kid is such a genius. You see, we got a used exersaucer from FreeCycle, and I went and bought switch-out parts for some of the parts that were chewed on by the previous owner. One of the things I replaced was a teether. But what does my kid like to chew on? The mirror! She is going to pull the frickin' thing off trying to get it to her mouth, instead of, you know, chewing on the one that bends to her mouth!

I need to bust out some holiday frillies for the aforementioned Santa visit. I wonder if she will cry and be traumatized. That's part of the fun, right?

Also, my kid has learned how to arch her back when she is ticked at you, and fake a cough. Oh yeah, she's going to be t-r-o-u-b-l-e.

~//~

I guess pitching a fit at the pedi's office works for something. Punk has a hip ultrasound tomorrow and an appointment with the chief of staff of the local Shriner's hospital on Monday morning.

~//~

So I'm letting some people I hardly know (don't know at all save teh internets) come and stay with us for about 5 days with their 1-year-old daughter. Slumber party fun, or axe murderer scary? Thank goodness for those FAA regs! ;) (But they have promised not to have sex in our guest bed, so they can't be TOO scary!) Bring on the four adults, two infants, three cats, one bathroom! YAY! I think it will be fun. We can ALL be up at 3am!

I got out of the house a little bit today - out to breakfast down the road and then to run a couple of holiday errands. Disgusting things were going on with my body but it was kind of nice to be out in the land of the living. And it was a positively gorgeous day. At 11am, it was around 55°. So lovely!

We managed to knock four gifts out with gift cards. Score! We have three more gifts to buy, and two of them will likely be gift cards. Do you sense a pattern here? We also decided today not to get a tree or decorate for the holidays this year. It's sad, because I love holiday decorations, but our hearts aren't really in it and we have too many other things that we could be doing around the house besides bringing more stuff in.

I watched hours and hours and hours of a "Little People, Big World" marathon. That is quite an addictive show! I just love them. I can see why Peas loves the show. It is so Peas. Then Jessica came over and I made her watch it, too. I probably bored her to death but that's my exciting life these days.

I think I'm going to call it an early night and hope to get some good sleep. I have been having fitful sleep because I'm so worried to wake up to unhappy surprises. I need to get a good, solid night of sleep. Stat!

I love weekends. I wish Jen never had to go to work. I love it when she's around.

The other day, Jen and I were casually hypothesizing about how her mother might refer to me to friends and other relatives. This came on the tail of my BIL and SIL's holiday letter that called me Jen's "partner." So we went back and forth and Jen said her mom (who, even though she has never been unkind or unwelcoming to me, seems to have a tough time [still!!] with the whole 'Jen likes girls' thing) probably also used "partner" even though she very much knows we're married.

Well, over our little holiday visit we got the definitive answer to that speculation: she doesn't refer to me at all. I simply don't exist in the grand scheme of Jen's mom's public life, excepting close family members and close family friends who talk to Jen and therefore can't be fooled.

I would be lying if I said that didn't bother me. After all, I consider these people my family and I go out of my way not only to be nice to them, but to interact with them and learn about them. I picked all of their holiday gifts this year, and they were all smashing successes. Hello, I'm doing my part!

So I was more than a little irritated when my MIL's friends came over (they know of me, they're close with Jen) and my MIL was telling them all about the karaoke machine that Jen bought for her. Right in front of me! (We'll leave out the part where she said of me, "I know her name is Jude but I call her Judy anyway," which totally went straight up my butt.)

But that was nothing compared to the sting of when one of my MIL's friends called and they were chatting about their houseguests, mentioning that "my daughter is here, and so is my son and daughter-in-law." She also pointed out that, "my daughter is leaving today, I'm taking her to the airport, but my son and his wife are staying for a few more days." She later said nearly the exact same thing to another friend.

You know, I could fool myself that she wasn't specifically leaving me out if she hadn't mentioned M's wife. If she just mentioned her kids, okay, whatever. But no. M, his wife, Jen - the houseguests. In the car on the way to the airport, my MIL said that one of her friends on the phone wished us a safe flight, and I wanted to yell, "Not me, [MIL], because you neglected to mention that I was in your house."

Somehow I think I would rather be called Jen's partner. At least then I would exist somewhere in the picture. I don't like being the person that someone is too embarrassed to mention - let alone my own MIL.

I know the issue is her own homophobia rather than something to do with me, but that doesn't really make it hurt any less.

Well, I now have one of the cleanest houses ever. I was a machine today, managing all of the following: hanging the holiday cards, sweeping and mopping the kitchen and bathroom floors, sweeping the other floors, cleaning the kitchen counters, doing the dishes, putting the dishes away, doing the laundry, changing the sheets in the guest room, running to the store for more cat litter, cleaning the cat boxes, moving the stuff we brought back from RI, cleaning out the fridge, and probably some other things I've forgotten. I've run out of steam so I probably won't get to the bathroom sink/mirror but oh well, I'm over it.

After dinner and presents, we still have to pack for the trip but it will be fun to put things like bathing suits and tshirts in a suitcase instead of sweaters and winter hats! And maybe some new holiday stuff.

I hope my Jennifer likes all of the things that Santa Claws brought for her! I am such a sucker when it comes to giving gifts - I just like it so much.

I hope everyone on my FL had a merry solstice, has a happy festivus, a merry christmas, a happy hanukkah, a happy new year, and that eid and kwanzaa and every other holiday also brought lots of joy to your heart.

xoxo

Thank you to everyone who sent us a holiday card this year. We love mail.

Thank you to Carina, who always thinks of us with little trinkets (even if we haven't opened them yet).

Thank you to Tim for the DVDs. You are such a good friend (and not just because you buy us stuff).

Thank you to Emmy for the copy of the Harry and the Potters CD. I have heard so much about them but now I can't wait to give them a listen!

Thank you to some of my families who went out of their way to get me gifts for the holidays, which is totally unnecessary and not at all part of the job.

Thank you to my brother for the fat cat art. Viva la fat cat!

Thank you to everyone who has helped make 2005 a little less sucky. We LURVE you!

I just got back from the doctor and we received a good spread of holiday cards today. Yay! I was starting to think that we weren't as loved as we were last year but I guess everyone was kind of slow with the cards this year, not just me.

In the decidedly yay column, my grandmother sent a card addressed to both of us. Not just inside the card but on the envelope, with both full names. That was nice. I don't think she's ever done that before. I'm pretty sure she usually sends the outside of the card to just me. My grandparents, God bless them, are really amazing people for 80somethings. They've been really great about including Jen in family things, and I'm sure it wasn't always easy to do. So yay, Grandma!

Jen's oldest brother, M, and SIL, R, send those printed notes every year with everything they've done, all the trips they've taken and how great everything is and blah blah blah. And somewhere in the printed sheet they mention that they're going to Florida for Christmas to see M's parents and that "M's sister, Jen, and her partner, Jude will be joining us for part of the time" and, hello - we're married. Nothing against the word 'partner,' after all, we used it for a while ourselves - and let's face it, it's nice to be included at all - but we're married. Married! Bring on the married words, people!

Then again, I'm probably overly snarky and sensitive because R (SIL) is now some sort of consultant for Sandals resorts (she's a wedding planner) and Sandals is ridiculously homophobic and disgusting and won't let same-sex couples into their resorts. Really. Only opposite-sex couples can stay in their resorts. So how anyone with queers in their family can go SLEEP WITH THE ENEMY is beyond me. So yes, the snarky snark. Snarkeroo! (To be fair, I get equally indignant whenever my mom and her husband stay at Sandals resorts, because I've told her a million times that they hate the queers and they give them their money anyway. Argh!) ETA: Okay, so apparently Sandals dropped their opposite-sex-couples-only policy quietly last year. Weird. I wonder why they don't advertise it?

Thanks also for the little packages from crena. We'll save them for when we open up all our gifts on Christmas Eve. :) You're so sweet!

There has been a distinct lack of updates not because I've been shot somewhere in my neighborhood while en route to recording my next hip hop album, but because I've been desperately trying to fight off creeping illness by going to bed at ridiculous-thirty every night. I'm not the sort of person that gets sick terribly often, certainly not "have to lay in bed" sick, but between working with a million germy children and working with other adults who work with a million germy children, sometimes it can't be helped. One of my officemates is one of those people that seems to catch everything that's going around (and doesn't take really good care of herself), and Coworker Gina was quite ill on Sunday when we went to her house for the Survivor finale. So, doomed.

My efforts have definitely been working, as I've been kind of run-down but mostly symptom-free for the majority of the week, although I did feel pretty crappy this morning which caused me to beg out of an assessment I was going to do earlier so that I could get home at noon. With the weather being as crappy as it is, I just didn't have the energy to fight out another two hours of work, and the assessment was with a little baby and I didn't want to bring my germs over there. Or something like that.

We have all of our holiday boxes ready to go out in the mail to South Carolina, Florida, and New Jersey. Now we need to take them to the post office and hope they arrive in time. Of course the day to do this is the windiest, rainiest day of December. Of course.

Since the tree is in the stand but undecorated (where it's been since Wednesday) and since I have a stack of holiday cards sitting on the counter that have been begging to be written while I've been languishing in bed, I'm hereby calling this year The Half-Complete Holiday. The goal is to get the tree and the cards finished this evening before passing out at another early hour. This means I won't be able to go to Jenny and Lisa's party, but they don't really want my germs anyway - TRUST ME. I'm hoping to be well enough tomorrow to still hit skreeky's place, since I'm dying to see her house and really, how many of her parties/gatherings/invites am I going to cheese out of at the last minute, hunh?

In other news, Heat-Misering is working. This month's gas bill was only $15 more than last month's, and it's been colder outside. This is especially good because due to a receptionist screw-up, I only got paid for 25 hours in this week's check (rather than 40). CRAP! Wrong time for a halved check, people!!