Last year’s Christmas was awesome, and I was a little worried going into this year that it wouldn’t live up, especially given the way much of 2009 has gone. But it was a great Christmas with exciting gifts big and small, and everywhere in between. But my favorite gift was the most unexpected, most thoughtful and probably the least expensive.

My sister made a 10  minute picture and video montage of Madeline and Max set to music and filled with visual effects. She gave it to us on Christmas Eve, and I’ve probably watched it 1o times already. That is a gift that will truly last forever. I got an extra copy for each kid because I know they’ll want them someday, even if DVD’s are no longer a common format. The kids and Ryan love it too. It’s almost as fun to sit back and watch the kids laugh at pictures of themselves, and each other. Hopefully someday they will realize the time and effort that went into making the video.

My favorite gifts have always been ones that show thought. My freshman year of college one of my best high school friends made me a video (on VHS, how times have changed!) of our high school years, also set to music, but with slightly less sophisticated special effects.  I was floored by that gift as well. To know that you (or your kids) are important enough to others that they would take the time to create such a unique and thoughtful gift is humbling.

Especially in these economic times, it’s a good reminder that the important things in life, the ones that will last, don’t come with a price tag attached. And that’s a good thing, because, as Mastercard would say, they’re priceless.

However, even with all that said, the family’s other most talked about gift is a trip to Florida, which I realize is not free. And I’m definitely appreciative and excited for that trip as well!

Last weekend, Madeline’s front tooth finally fell out. The girl’s been pulling at it for about a month. Unfortunately, it fell out in our car right after it broke down. In her excitement, she dropped it and it fell into the hole the seat belt buckle comes out of. The tooth was gone.
Madeline is our child that is typically less independent than her brother. She’s the one who still asks for help with almost everything, so I was expecting some tears and questions about how the Tooth Fairy would know to come. I was wrong. When I had came back from the gym later, Madeline had taken care of the situation by writing the following note:

I was so proud of her initiative to take care of the situation. The fact that she didn’t even ask for help is a huge step for her, and a lucky one. There’s no way my idea would have been as good. In fact, her problem solving skills were much better than mine last weekend!

The Tooth Fairy did come and left Madeline a note in return (along with a little cash). She was nice enough to leave me Madeline’s note so I could keep it.

We thought Madeline would be able to say “all I want for Christmas is my two front teeth,” but that was only the first one. The other one is still stubbornly hanging in there. But that missing front tooth really does make her look older. Maybe it made her act older too by asserting some independence and critical thinking. Who knows. But on Saturday, she took another step across the divide of little girl and girl. I hope she stays in “girl” for as long as possible, because the next step is teen. God help me!

As the calender marched steadily toward December 10, I grew more and more nervous. How the hell was I going to pull this off? Work, dance recital at 5:30, Christmas program at 6:30 and a second dance recital at 7:30. I was exhausted just thinking about it. I told everyone my eye twitch that appeared right around December 1 was probably work stress, and I’m sure that was part of it, but I think at least a few of the twitches were the result of thinking ahead to that jam-packed Thursday. I needed a whole series of things to go my way in order to get to everything, and I haven’t had much luck in that department this year. I was very, very nervous.

First up was getting out of work on time. It’s too easy for that one last small thing that should only take five minutes to turn into 10 small things that take an hour. But I left when I said I would. Step one down. Conveniently, my sister was in town to help both me and Madeline get ready. Miraculously, I had allocated the exact right amount of time to get myself ready and was able to leave for dance while Ryan and Kelly finished getting the kids ready.

As I got ready to go on stage for the first time in a decade and a half, I was surprisingly calm. I knew the dance, I just had to do it. It wasn’t until we were waiting behind the curtain that I starting getting really nervous. I was going to be performing in front of hundreds of people, who would be able to tell immediately if I screwed up.

When I was younger, I was a pretty good free throw shooter. I had my little routine (one dribble, spin the ball, three two-handed dribbles, spin the ball, one more dribble, shoot) and it worked well for me. I was able to get in the zone and block out everything else. But I can also get thrown out of the zone fairly easily if I overthink things. As I was waiting for the curtain to raise, I was going through my free throw motions in my head, hoping not to choke. Luckily, I didn’t have too much time to think about it because the curtain rose.

And I did it! Was I the most amazing dancer to grace the stage that night? Of course not. But I danced, pretty well I think, and it felt great.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have much time to revel in my excitement. I had a Christmas program to get to. I was shocked when I looked at the time. I could actually make the program, and on time! I raced to my car, drove over to the kids’ school and was in my seat just before the program started. I got to watch Max sing “Happy birthday Jesus” and Madeline recite “Twas the Night Before Christmas” in relative calm.

This was followed by a frantic dash to find Madeline, grab her dance bag and get her in the car. We raced back to the dance recital (which by the grace of God was only 5 minutes away). We ran across the parking lot and into the building where the dancers waited. I took her to the bathroom and put her tap shoes on right as her class was called to line up. We had made it! Barely, but we were there. She did her dance, I did mine and the crazy night was over.

December 10 wasn’t just a night where I needed everything to go right, I needed it to be seamless. I couldn’t have asked for it to go more smoothly, except for maybe a little more leeway right before Madeline’s dance. But all the stress was well worth it. I got to see my little stars on stage and I got my chance to shine as well.

On this day I am thankful for a life that is extra-ordinary. This year has not been an easy one, and today I am grateful for contentment and consistency. It is during times like this that the normalcy in your life is what makes it extraordinary.

On this day, I am thankful for many things. Here are just a few:

• Every day for the past year, both my husband and I have gone to our ordinary jobs in our ordinary cars. For this I am thankful.
• We have been to the hospital or the emergency room exactly zero times. Aside from childbirth, I can say this about every year of my life. For this I am thankful.
• For family both near and far. Whether I talk to them every day, every week, or only once in awhile, I have been surrounded by an exceptionally wonderful, supportive family my entire life. For this I am thankful.
• For technology like Facebook and Skype, which allow me to keep in touch with friends and family from afar. It’s not easy to have people you care about spread throughout the country and this helps, if only a little bit. For this I am thankful.
• For a great school for my kids, and a fantastic community around it. More than anything, this school has finally made Sacramento feel like home to me. For this I am thankful.
• For a job a truly like, surrounded by coworkers I enjoy spending my day with. For this I am thankful.
• For my dance lessons. I’ve missed them more than I even realized over the past decade or so. Every Wednesday, I look forward to dancing again. For this I am thankful.
• For Madeline and Max. They are happy, healthy, smart, beautiful – they are everything a parent could hope for. For this I am infinitely thankful.

Happy Thanksgiving to all and to all a good day!

My fantasy football game today was almost as exciting as the Patriots-Colts game. I entered into the afternoon games holding a modest lead, with one player remaining. My opponent had four. All five of our remaining players were in the Packers-Cowboys and the Eagles-Chargers games. He had a QB, runningback and two wide receivers. I had my tight end (insert joke here). “Who the hell is B. Celek?” I moaned. In our fantasy league, there are very few tight ends that consistenly contribute. For every Tony Gonzales, there seem to be a dozen Zack Millers. If you’re asking who Zack Miller is, that’s precisely my point. The odds were stacked heavily against me.

To recap my season so far, I lost my first game after posting the third highest score won my next six, and then lost the next two. Last week, I had the second highest score in the league. Unfortunately, my opponent was the high scorer. If this were a roto league, I would be dominant, but in a head to head, points only matter as the tiebreaker. Essentially, this means I really needed to win this week. All these thoughts swirled around my head as I watched my lead whittle away. And then, I was losing. I thought I was toast. I thought it was over, and then I remembered – I did have Brent Celek. As I watched the gametracker on the computer, I willed one of the blue lines signifying forward progress to be Celek. A touchdown was my only hope.

Even as I watched I was trying to find comfort in my impending loss. I was tracking the progress of the other teams in the division hoping they too were headed for a loss. And then I saw it, touchdown Celek!!! What? Really?! Back up by 10, I had to helplessly watch to see what his four players would do. I alternately ran to watch the Packers-Cowboys game on TV and back to the computer to track the Eagles-Chargers progress. Meanwhile, my daughter waited my the door for our Costco run, which kept getting pushed back based on the games’ progress.

Well, as of now, the score is SacTown Estrogen Bombs 208.5, opponent 206.5. Somehow, I may just have pulled this off! My husband warned me that in a game this close, I should wait to celebrate in full until after the NFL has made any statistical adjustments. I hope, hope, hope this win stands (if it doesn’t, it’ll be another week where my score is in the top 2-3. Those are the hardest losses.) If nothing else, it’s given me a new appreciation for my entire team. This week, it wasn’t Drew Brees that was so exciting to watch, in fact he was kind of painful. It was a blue line on a computer screen, representing a tight end I can’t even remember if I drafted or if I picked up off the waiver wire. That’s why I love this game.

I just had my first business trip to Las Vegas. I’ve done business travel, and I’ve been to Vegas a few times, but I was a little apprehensive as to how the two would fit together. I think my overall evaluation is that it was just…different. I’ve never been to Vegas when I had to be up and alert by 8 am, and I’ve certainly never been to a business meeting where I passed ladies dressed in corsets and panties on the way in.

There were good things – plenty options for food and entertainment and the whole “Vegas” vibe that helps you find energy when you want to drop. There were bad things – just as Vegas is coming alive, you realize it’s past your bedtime if you want to feel human the next day. With so many options, the networking that usually goes on at these things does not happen as  much because people are spread in every direction. I was lucky to be there with people I like and had fun with, which was good because this was certainly the most tame Vegas experience I’ve had since I turned 21.

Usually, the highlight of Vegas for me is the clubs. You can go in and dance like crazy there are people from every age group and every walk of life around you. I love walking around the strip and the shops, people watching and looking at items I’ll never be able to afford. I love admiring all the different decorations in the casinos. This week, I hardly left Planet Hollywood (where the conference was) the entire time we were there. A quick trip across the strip to the Bellagio for dinner and a walk through of Paris next door was as far as I got. The most dancing I did was alone in my hotel room, blasting my iPod before dinner. I did spend more time gambling, even though I hardly spent any money. I’m a nickel poker kind of girl, at least until I’m brave enough to approach a table. One thing, however, was the same as every other Vegas experience I’ve had – the utter exhaustion. Man that city wears you out!

More than anything, being there made me want to go back, but on vacation, where I could do all the things I would have done if I had more time and my own schedule. Now if only I could find a little time, and a little money for a vacation…

For my birthday this year, my gift from the hubs was to sign up for dance lessons, something I’ve wanted to do for years. Madeline started at a studio this year and they offer tap and jazz for adults. Well, I decided to start small and just add the jazz, plus a zumba class for good measure. My ulterior motive, aside from wanting to dance again, is to lose weight in the process.

I dusted off my jazz shoes from junior high and headed to my first class, both nervous and excited. I loved that we did ab and leg work before getting into the dancing. (Well, at the time, I didn’t love it, but I know it’s good for me.) The floor work (going across the floor in twos doing a simple step like a pas de bourre) was fun as well, once I got over the whole class watching what I was doing. Then came the choreography. Important note – the class actually started a month before, so I was starting late. The class reviewed the new steps from last week, and I was able to mostly catch on. Then they took it from the top.

The inner monologue in my head went something like this: “Okay, I can do that. Okay, got it. Got it. Wait, what the? Oh crap. I’m screwed.” I was desperately trying to hold on to the excitement of dancing again and fight the urge to run out the door. Then it got worse. They said, “you’re gonna be in the show right?” Wait, show? The spring recital, right? Surely I can catch on by then. But, no. The show is in early December. I gotta say, I left that first class feeling a little deflated.

But the good news is I practiced all week and our teacher was nice enough to come in early the next week to review all the steps. Yesterday, before my third class, I did the routine through twice with no mistakes. Is it perfectly polished? No. Do I have a lot of work to do before the show? Absolutely. But now I know going back to class was a good idea and I’m hopeful I can get through the performance without embarassing myself.

I got my new driver’s license in the mail yesterday and I realized two things – my picture I took at 23 will be my license picture until I’m 34, and I’ve now lived in California for more than five years.

It’s funny how time works. On the one hand, it doesn’t seem like we’ve ever lived anywhere else. On the other hand, it seems like just yesterday we were taking the huge leap of faith – moving to California with two small children and no jobs. We moved from a small town in Nebraska where you could get daycare for all your kids for less than $100 per week. Where making California’s minimum wage would provide a middle class lifestyle. Needless to say, it was quite a change. Where driving to work in the morning entailed one stoplight and less than 10 minutes.

I remember the apprehension and the excitement. I’m not an impulsive person, so moving halfway across the country without a plan was scary and exhilarating. Of course, Ryan and I were still awash in the post-grad belief that we could get any job, anywhere.

I remember the pain of saying goodbye to some of the best friends I’d ever made. They were my safety net in Nebraska, and I was going somewhere where I knew no one beyond my immediate family. We were also moving away from my in-laws, who while not in the same part of Nebraska as us, were still a major source of support and companionship for us.

I remember driving across the country with my mom, 2-year-old Madeline and 3-month-old Max, with Ryan in the U-Haul behind us. I remember listening to the Twins playing the Yankees in the playoffs. That year, Nathan gave up a game winning run too. I believe the Yankees swept the Twins. Some things change, some things stay the same.

When we moved to Sacramento, the Kings were good, the housing market was booming and Schwarzenegger was popular. Obviously times have changed. But as I looked at my chubby post childbirth face smiling up at me in the driver’s licence picture I took when first moved, I can’t help but wonder just how five years have passed already. And what that means for the next five years. No one ever told me my twenties would pass by at the same speed as my freshman year of high school.

But amid all of California’s woes, which have certainly affected us directly, I still know that it was the right choice to move here. I just hope the California of five years from now is more like the one that existed when we moved here. In the eyes of my 23-year-old self, I see hope and innocence, much of which has been lost slogging through adulthood, and parenthood, in a recession. When I go in for my next photo, I may look a little older and, God-willing, my address will have changed, but I hope that sparkle still exists. The one that says, “watch out California, here I come.”

First a huge asterisk on this entire post –  I originally titled this “My Day as a SAH Mom,” but I quickly realized that was not realistic – stay-at-home moms work much harder every day than I did yesterday. I fully realize that being a stay-at-home mom is challenging and just as hard, if not harder, than working full time. I think many of us, whether we work outside the home or not, yearn for days like this and I’m just so glad I got mine.

But yesterday was Columbus Day. For whatever reason, the kids had school, but I had the day off work. Any one with kids knows time to yourself is a rare luxury, and it did not disappoint. It was glorious! I stayed up late on Sunday and caught up on chick shows. On Monday, I drove the kids to school, then went back to bed. I got up, at my leisure and then gradually made my way to they gym, where I finished my daily workout before noon. I decided to treat myself with Chipotle. When I got home, Ryan was there, having left work  because of some system errors. After I guiltily disclosed my Chipotle for one purchase, we spent the afternoon together alternately cleaning and lounging until it was time to pick the kids up, which we did together – for the first time.

When we got home, the kids played and did homework, something they rarely get to do until after dinner. I caught up with Glee on Hulu and prepared a casserole to be cooked while I took Madeline to soccer. By seven, dinner was cleaned up and I had the rest of the night free. I even had time to read before turning the lights out at 10:30. Simply amazing. I don’t know if that’s ever happened before.

While I’d like to say today has followed suit, laundry, showers and bedtime stories await. Obviously, we can’t have days like that all the time but I’m hoping yesterday will propel me through to the weekend and until my next day off – Thanksgiving.

A couple of seasons ago on American Idol, Randy Jackson called Minneapolis “Minnehopeless” because of the lack of quality contestants auditioning there. While I cringed to hear the biggest city in my home state criticizied, I realized that he could have been describing Minnesota’s sports scene as well.

But lately, being a Minnesota fan has gone from being painful to being fun again. The Vikings look great, and I can use the word “look” literally, since they’ve actually been broadcasting many of the games out here in Sacramento. I’ve been able to watch with more confidence in the team than I’ve had in years. And it’s pretty damn cool that Monday’s Packers/Vikings game was the most watched event in cable history, even if it is because of all the hype around Favre.

And then there’s my beloved Minnesota Twins, the only one of my sports teams I’ve ever seen win a championship. Many, including me, had counted them out this season after initially expecting them to take the AL Central easily. It looked like just another disappointing season, until out of nowhere Detroit decided to fall apart and Minnesota was able to capitalize on it. This past weekend series was some of the most exciting baseball I’ve followed in my lifetime and last night’s game was amazing. The Twins became the first team in history to be down three games with four to play and win their division. Again, it also provided me a rare opportinity to watch my team on TV. Even if the Tigers/Twins were just playing for the rights to get swept by the Yankees, it was still damn good baseball. If the Twins can give the Yankees any kind of series, it will be a resounding success of a season.

And then there’s the Timberwolves – well, their (regular) season hasn’t started yet, so at least there’s nothing bad to say about them!