Under Pressure and a PSA

Apparently I like to work under pressure. When I was in college and there was a big project or paper due, I was the one who ran into class in yesterday's clothes and make-up and turned in my work, careful not to smudge the ink because it was probably still wet, fresh from the printer. As I sat down with relief that I had finished and turned it in, I was always mildly surprised to see people who looked well-rested, like they hadn't stayed up all night working on their paper. When did they work on them I thought? Is there any other time to work on these kinds of things than the immediate 12 hours leading up to the deadline? Imagine my surprise when I heard people say they had been working on it for weeks. That's right weeks. And sometimes they even finished it days before it was due. Shocking. I would think maybe I should try this approach, after all they don't look nearly as frazzled or sleep deprived as I feel. But it never happened, not once. I guess it wasn't in my nature. (This work approach didn't translate into me failing all my classes either. I did pretty good, graduated, and even still remember some things I learned as I will illustrate later). So, the point of this long story? My nature doesn't change. There are 6 days left until Christmas and I have bought a total of three gifts so far. Two of those gifts are traveling to a far away land and our favorite missionaries. The other is the infamous Lego Castle set which I ended up buying on ebay. That means I have 99 percent of my gift buying left to do AND still leave myself enough time to wrap everything. To add a little more fun to the deadlines our 7th wedding anniversary is two days, another gift-buying occasion. If you are reading this and thinking "Great, she has me for Christmas this year", don't worry I do my best work under pressure. : ) So what have we been up to? Here are a few pictures...

When Tim was out of town for a couple of days, my mom and I took the kids to see Santa. They loved it. Braxton was even brave enough to sit on Santa's lap and mumble a few things he wanted. Jace was more than happy to recite to Santa his full list and when he noticed Brax was a little nervous and left a few things off his list, he let Santa know the rest of Braxton's list too. And just so Ashlyn wasn't left out, Jace told Santa all the things he thought she wanted too. I bet Santa wasn't sorry to see us leave : )
Since Grandma was there, they got to ride the train too. The loved riding in the caboose.

We also wrote letters to Santa. We didn't mail them, I have them up on the fridge. I told them we just keep them here and leave them out on Christmas Eve so Santa makes sure he leaves the right things. Here is Braxton's letter. He said the picture in the middle is a rainbow. I am not sure how that relates to his letter...but who knows how his little two year old mind works. (more on that later)

Here is Jace's letter. His pictures from L to R are Indiana Jones, a dinosaur, and a castle. He is doing pretty good with his reading and writing. He should be ready for kindergarten in the fall : )

Now here is my PSA (Public Service Announcement for those who are not acronym savvy). I will warn you right here that it is kind of gross, so feel free to move on to something else now. I am posting it despite this because I think that it may just help some poor mom like me sometime in the future. So Monday around lunchtime I went downstairs to get the boys for the delicious meal of Spagetti-Os I had prepared. Jace was engrossed in his latest Lego building project but Brax was kind of off by a corner trying to wipe his nose on his shirt and looking a little distressed. Jace called me over wanting to explain the design of his creation but I kind of kept my eye on Brax to see what he was doing. He kept trying to wipe his nose, even though he didn't appear to have a runny nose or anything. I called him over so I could take a closer look. He didn't have a runny nose so, like a good mom, I try to look up there to see if there was something stuck on the edge that I could wipe away for him. As I was looking, I didn't notice anything right away but then, waaaay in the back I noticed something white that didn't look like it belonged there. I had Jace run upstairs to get a flashlight and then laid Brax on the floor to get a better look. It was something pretty big and white and definently looked like a foreign object so I say, "Brax, do you know what is in your nose?" Brax: "Yes" Me: "So what is it?" Brax: " A Lego." A Lego?!?!? I try to stay calm because Brax is very sensitive but in my head I was thinking "Seriously?!? What in the heck possessed you to shove a Lego up your nose half way to your brain?!? After those thoughts subsided, now I was on to "What do I do about it?" I tried to reach it myself but just ended up shoving it further back there. Tweezers? No, that might tear up the inside of his nose. The vacuum hose? Besides completely freaking him out by coming at him with a big vacuum hose I was worried it might leave a big hickey like mark all around his nose and it wasn't likely to be successful. I really didn't want to load everyone up and take them to the InstaCare for this, plus have to pay a medical professional to extract a Lego from my son's nose. Then my college education came flooding back to me in a wonderful moment of insight. I had taken anatomy. I know how the airway passages work. I am CPR certified. So I push down the empty side of his nose to close it with one finger, then take a deep breath and make a seal around his mouth (if you are CPR certified you know what that means, if you aren't you should be, so look it up : ) and blow as hard as I can. The Lego shoots right out and hits me in side of the face. (I told you it was gross) Braxton jumps up, punches the air with his little fist and cries "You did it mommy!", and runs off without a tear. Now, if you actually got this far into the story you might be thinking "that was gross and she is really weird." I don't care. One day when one of your kids shoves something far up into the reaches of their little nose you will remember this story and then you, your untraumatized child, and your checkbook will thank me. Merry Christmas. : )