Brownies, I'm a Scrooge, bedtime woes, poop (of course), and snow

• I really love the Little Debbie Christmas Tree brownies that Steve's Aunt Amy sent us. I mean, I really like them. Lucky for me, it's that time of the month week for me to take out the massive load of recycling (always more fun when it takes 30 minutes to deck everyone out in snow gear!) and I can get rid of the box before Steve realizes we ever had Christmas Tree Brownies. God bless Aunt Amy. And Little Debbie.

 

• Why the sudden binge on brownie trees? Well I made some sugar cookies the other day. The recipe (courtesy of Pinterest and the search button that yields results for searches like "easiest simplest foolproof sugar cookie recipe no baking powder") told me to bake for 11 minutes, or until the edges begin browning and appear done. Apparently "done" in my language is the equivalent to burned. They were brown all right. And they'll take out your front tooth if you forget what you're biting into.
• I've been having a hard time finding my Christmas mojo this year. Last year I did the Advent activities and really planned everything out. The only problem was that last year, no one was old enough to care. This year, people are more aware of what's going on and I just have no desire to do any of it. We only packed our nativity set and naturally, there is nowhere to put it without risking a wise man's head. Molly is very grabby these days. If something is set out on a tabletop, she assumes it was put there for her to have. So even if that requires her to move a chair, climb it, and then scale the kitchen table so she can walk on top of it over to the counter and lean into the kitchen sink? Yeah, that dish soap is hers. (It's always fun to be fully soaped up in the shower and have Sam wander in saying, "Myer on the table!" Cue my soapy panic attack.) So no nativity scene. We have a few decorations from the Korean dollar tree and we even got a Charlie Brown-esque tree and strung some lights on it. It's even SNOWING OUTSIDE for Pete's sake and I'm finished Christmas shopping and we read Christmas books and..... nothing. 
• In an effort to get into the Christmas spirit, we made gingerbread houses with a friend the other day. Well, we attempted to make them. It was a nasty mess of pieces that sadly kept letting gravity affect them and while we were all dying of laughter at our sad little houses, the kids were biting off Snoopy's head and dumping massive bags of marshmallows everywhere. Crafty, we are not. 

• Also, I am starting to wonder if they give out the crafty mom gene at the hospital tour. I didn't go to any hospital birthing classes or tours before having either child so I'm wondering if that's where I went wrong. I literally have no motivation to do it. I finally got Sam a pair of safety scissors though, so maybe he will go to kindergarten only needing to learn how to write, color, play with playdoh, use an inside voice, stand in a line, and use the potty. But the boy will be able to cut multiple jagged edges into a piece of construction paper, dammit!
• Steve took command this week. Yes, he's still a lieutenant, he's just an overachiever. Actually, Steve's commander went back to the states to spend the holidays with her family, so he is just filling in. But I told him I wanted to come up to work and take pictures of her handing him the assumption of command papers ("change of command"). Just for shits and giggles. And maybe we have a touch of cabin fever.
• I think we might convert Sam's bed into a toddler bed soon. Am I crazy for giving up the cage when it's clearly still working so well??? I really love opening my eyes on my own volition instead of having someone kissing me in the face and yelling that it's time for Thomas and OH YEAH THERE'S SNOW OUTSIDE! I ALSO PEED THE SHEETS AGAIN! YAY MORE LAUNDRY. (He thinks anyone can be awakened by giving them a kiss. It's a little lie story we started so that he would start showing us some affection instead of just jumping on us and assuming we are awake instantly.) My only reason for wanting to convert his crib is so that he doesn't end up in some sort of therapy later because of it. ("I slept in that crib until I was 10 and now I can't get a job and I just want to live in my parents' basement and eat Doritos forever!") For the record, he's only 3. But he has no job prospects and loves chips so there's my concern.
• Related to above: I literally wash his crib sheets every single day. He insists on drinking a bunch of water before bedtime and I have resorted to giving him one of Molly's sippy cups so he will stop wailing at me that he's "soooooOOOOooooooo THIRSTY! MOMMY! I need WATER! PLEEEEEEEASE MOMMYYYYYYYY!" Even without the sippy cup he was soaking through his diaper (which is an overnight kind). What's more concerning is that he now walks around the house asking where his pink princess sippy cup is. (Santa might bring him a more manly sippy cup, just sayin.) Steve says I should just ignore him and he will eventually stop asking for water at bedtime, but I hate to sit in our shoebox-sized apartment and listen to him wail and cry about being thirsty and go to bed on such a sour note every night. I can't ignore it! I can't! WHAT TO DO. (PS. I'm well aware it's a bedtime stall tactic. He's very skilled in this department. I just have no clue how to zap this behavior completely other than letting him stay up later, which NO. Not an option.)
• I ordered my Christmas cards the first week of November. They're still not here. And I don't think there are words to describe how much this is killing me. I emailed the company and complained and the customer service lady said that since they hadn't arrived yet, she could label them "lost" and send me a new shipment. I asked if she could send them priority mail so that they would go on the plane instead of the boat and she said they could only send them to APO's via "USPS Budget." I'm sorry, I didn't even know there was such a thing. I've never seen an option like that when I check out at the post office. The post office is all, "You can $hip your package$ $tandard or Priority, which is $uper fa$t. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$" Friggin rip off. ANYWAYS. I still don't have Christmas cards. No one will get them from me in a time frame that I deem acceptable and I will most likely be rudely demanding kindly asking for a full refund. And word to my APO friends- don't use Mixbook!
• Molly appears to be infinitely more potty-trained than Sam. Mostly because she gets this horrified look on her face and clutches her bottom right before she goes #2, so she's very easy to read, and thus, gets whisked off to the potty quickly. Sam just plays quietly and after it's been awhile, you start wondering where he is and then he emerges from some hidden place with a big smile and a proclamation of "I have fwesh poo poo!" Except Molly apparently enjoys just not wearing a diaper, so she will fake a poop approximately 4 times per day, and even though the lazy in me wants to tell her to just crap her pants, I realize that that's probably counterproductive (and bad parenting) in terms of potty training. So we do the whole song and dance and we sit in the bathroom and mostly she just gets up and walks around without her diaper on. She played this game yesterday for the fourth (and final) time and when I stepped out of the room for two seconds to put laundry away, Sam exclaims that Molly pooped! Finally! But on the side of the toilet and then it fell on the floor. I should include the fact that Molly brought the potty into my bedroom, so she pooped on the floor right next to my bed. MY LIFE- SO GLAMOROUS.
• And now some snow pictures. Which is apparently acid snow. Thanks, China.

Myer didn't care for the snow that day.