Tips for an Easier Christmas Morning

The dreaded wire-ties. If you have a child and have bought them a toy from a regular store, you know why I dread wire-ties.

My inlaws like to buy Fisher Price toys for my daughter, particularly the Little People. That's great, and they're fun toys, but it's usually very frustrating for my daughter because she'll open the present in 5 seconds and then have to wait 45 minutes for me to actually remove the product from the twist ties, wires, strings, cardboard, plastic and reinforced steel that toy companies use in their packaging.

Seriously, what is the purpose? Was there such a rash of shoplifting Little People that they have to practically glue them into the box now? On Christmas Eve when I'm frantically wrapping all of the presents I thought I could get ready in under an hour (ha!) I have been taking presents out of their packaging so that the magic of Christmas morning isn't interrupted by needle-nose pliers and a blowtorch.

There are a couple of ways you can avoid having to do all of the unpackaging yourself:

1 - Amazon Frustration-Free Packaging! Yes, there were already so many reasons to love Amazon, and now here's one more. They are on a campaign to reduce packaging for the products they carry. This year they have a very limited number of toys and items that will come with minimal packaging. If any of these things are on your shopping list I hope you'll buy them from Amazon to send a message to manufacturers.

2 - Buy secondhand: someone else already did all of the unwrapping and assembling. I know a lot of people don't feel it's right to give a child a second-hand toy as a gift. Some of my friends have said that it would make them feel like a bad parent, or like the child might think they didn't love them. I think that's so interesting. Because the kids I've known don't care whether something is new or not, so long as it's all there and looks good and works. And if buying second-hand means mom and dad have money to spend on MORE presents, they're even happier.

Not only are these both great ways to save yourself a lot of unhappy Christmas morning (or Eve) unpackaging, they both eliminate some of the holiday waste destined for our landfills.

I'd love to hear any other tips you have for avoiding the wire-tie blues!

Long Live the Retail Season

It starts with Halloween.
It ends with the January sales.

All hail the Retail Season.
Happy Halloween.
Halloween is over.
Long live Halloween.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Merry Christmas.
Christmas is over.
Long live Christmas.
Happy New Year.
New Year is over.
Long live New Year.
Happy January sales bonanza.
January sales bonanza is over.
The retail season is dead.
All hail the retail season.

Amazon Giveaway Winner!

Well, I procrastinated this all day because I was scared the random number generator would give me a super high number and I'd have to count comments all the way up to 500. I finally bit the bullet and generated the number - it was 139. Luckily, right after that I noticed how to collapse the comments so they were in a big easy to read list. And THEN I re-sized my window so it was 20 comments long and it wasn't hard to count at all.

Like you care though, right? You just want to me to say the winner so you don't have to figure it out yourselves. The winner is Linda of Another Piece of the Pie. I zipped over there to check out her site and she did such a fun drawing, writing all of her entries onto cards and then pulling the winner out of a jack-o-lantern.

After I saw that I wished I'd drawn our winner out of a pumpkin. I'm afraid I'm way too perfectly normal (meaning not nearly as fun or creative) for handwritten notes or jack-o-lantern drawings though, at least tonight.

My husband decided to whisk the sleeping baby off my lap earlier tonight and stash him in his crib where he would remain conveniently asleep until his (meaning my husband's) Plan A was accomplished. Unfortunately, whisking and stashing are not high on the baby's list of things he likes to do, so Plan A backfired and resulted in an hour of crying, inconsolable baby.

Since my Plan A was hold the sleeping baby on my lap while I wrote for a quiet hour, I didn't interfere. After a (very frustrating for him I'm sure) while, he returned the baby to my lap and vanished into some other part of the house, probably to work on plan B which I imagine is watch football and mope.

But let's not talk about moping husbands. Let's check out Linda's site which looks like another blog I'm going to have to start following. Maybe she can use her prize to buy that super cute kitchen for her daughter.

Thanks everyone for participating in our contest. I hope we'll see you again soon here at Perfectly Normal!

Christmas shopping the Halloween sales

I went in to Target this morning to pick up some discount Halloween decorations for a party next year. (Look at me being all optimistic and organized, haha.)

When I got to the Halloween section it was just crammed full of Halloween kid costumes all marked 50% off or more. My 4-year-old's FAVORITE thing in the world is playing dress-up. It was like the discount Christmas shopping jackpot! She'll be getting costumes to dress up as Batgirl, an angel (which with a veil can also be a bride), a flapper dancer, a(nother) princess, and Cleopatra.

She was actually there shopping with me, and we had such a great time trying all of the costumes on her. I wonder where she learned her vain strut, hair flipping and self-preening. It couldn't possibly be from me.

After trying on so many costumes I had to get just one for her (I managed to buy the rest of the presents on the sly without her noticing). She opted for Daphne from Scooby Doo. Which, I should add, she wore for the rest of our errands today and is insisting on keeping on tonight for dinner out.

Happy Halloween, now lets talk turkey

I know, I should have the decency to save this post til after Halloween. But I can't.

Because, it's funny, and real.

Thanksgiving is coming up.

It's Hubby McRed's FAVORITE holiday because it contains two of his favorite things in the whole world: a Turkey Feast, and Football.

I know this, I've known this since I met him.

So you'd think with both his parents (divorced and remarried each) living here, we'd be in for two Turkey dinners... a Turkey Bonus Feast... something... but alas, no.

His mom is having the holiday in early November, and, decided to do... HAM!!!! He was horrified. He despises ham.

The other ones? They do a fancy Turkey feast. Homemade stuffing with walnuts, fresh green beans mixed with asparagus, but no green bean casserole, a 'turkey roast' that's lean and nice, healthy gravy... there won't be one 'bad' thing there. All the food will be fancy. Hoity Toity Turkey. Hoity Toity Feast.

"I'm not going."

"What?"

"I can't go. I can't go there. I NEED Turkey, with stuffing, candied yams with too many marshmallows, green bean casserole, and NOT with the crappy low-sodium soup and NOT with fresh green beans. And piles of gravy. Piles and piles of it. I can't go and give up my Turkey Feast, I don't want healthy, good stuff. And I want leftovers. We can't go. You have to find a way to explain I can't go because I hate the food. I'm sorry, but you have to do damage control."

Well. I may not be able to get the PR job I'm most certainly qualified for, but it doesn't mean I don't know how to use my mad damage control skills in times of crisis.

The best damage control is preventative.

"Okay honey, look. Here's what we do...

"We go to your moms, and have her make you turkey cutlets, so you can eat.
"We tell your dad and step-mom you'll show up.
"The Sunday BEFORE Thanksgiving, we'll have our own feat. We'll do you up a Turkey, in the oven, with pan gravy, while you watch football all day. We'll buy bagged stuffing without walnuts, do mashed potatoes with way too much butter, candied yams with too many marshmallows, and green bean casserole. Even a pecan pie."

"You'll do this for me?"

"Yes."

"And I can have leftovers for a whole week!"

"Yes.... now, so... it's a big meal... do you want to invite any of our friends?"

"WHAT? And give away my TURKEY FEAST?!!!?!?!?!"

'No dear, of course not..."

My Little Commando

After my 4-year-old got home from preschool today I sent her to change into play clothes. The school clothes aren't really nicer, but they are all either brown/pink and they are for cold-weather. By sorting them like this and keeping them in their own drawers, she actually wears outfits to school that are season appropriate and sort of match.

This little trick helps me avoid confrontations like the one we had to have over the outfit pictured here on the right, which was deemed (by her) appropriate to wear out shopping.

In any case, after I asked her to change her clothes she showed up with a new outfit in hand and proceeded to change in front of me. I don't understand why she prefers to change in the room I'm in, but I don't question these things.

What I DO question is why she went to preschool this morning without panties on. I had no idea until she changed her pants that she'd gone commando. Does this mean we're going to have to start doing panty-checks before she leaves the house?

I can't even imagine what kind of clothes issues we're going to have when she's a teenager.

My Wedding Dress...

...zips up.

BOOYAH.

It's a silly tradition, I put my wedding dress on at some point on my wedding anniversary. Last anniversary, I was five months pregnant and wasn't zipping up anything except an oversized hoodie.

Okay, so I can only hold my shoulders in one specific posture. But can't I blame that on temporarily enlarged nursing breasts? I mean, as soon as I'm back to flat chested fabulousness, it'll be zipping up and down like a toddler on diet cola. Probably.

I'm not trying to lose weight. Whenever I try to lose weight I put on five pounds. I'm not trying to diet, either. If someone gives me a bag of Cranberry Moose Munch, clearly there is a divine hand pushing it towards me.

I'm also not trying to care that things are just in new places. Like back fat. Why do I have these two little flaps of pudge on my back? I didn't carry the baby on my spine in some kind of camel's hump. And saddlebags. I'm sure I didn't have those before I had the baby, and again, I didn't have pregnant thighs, but there they are, little pony express bags.

But as promised... nine months up, nine months down, not counting ten extra pounds. How long did it take you to lose that last ten after your baby? Did you ever lose it? Do you really care, deep down, as long as your old clothes can zip?