The Magic of the Season

This post goes over some of the "inner workings" of Zimmerman Christmas magic.  If you ever let your little Believers read along with you, I would advise you to keep this post to yourself.


I know that it's actually Halloween today, but I can't help but think ahead to Christmas.  I can't wait for tomorrow so I can finally focus on Christmas because it will be November 1st!  That's right, once it's November 1st I say that visions of sugarplums are totally acceptable, and at my house, they are wholeheartedly encouraged.  I absolutely ADORE Christmas and everything that goes along with it.  I LOVE the music, the decorations, the excitement, the gifts, the shopping, the wrapping paper, the family dinners, and on and on and on......  But, my most favorite part of the Christmas season, is all of its magic.

When my nephew became old enough to believe and anticipate Santa Claus, it gave Zimmerman Family Christmases new life.  It had been a while since any of us had believed, and Christmas morning just wasn't what it once was.  Evan made the holiday season 1000 times better than I could ever remember it being, and as his enthusiasm grew, so did mine.  And mine hasn't stopped, or even slowed, yet!  One of the key factors to our Christmas enthusiasm is Bernice.  Who is Bernice? you ask.  Allow me to explain.

When Evan was five, my sister Jessica and I went shopping in Tuscola and took Evan with us.  He was really well behaved for the majority of the day, but around lunch time he started getting impatient and his listening comprehension was a little lower than usual.  Jess and I decided we should go eat lunch and let Evan recharge.  We headed over to Pizza Hut to score some grub, and Evan was not in the mood to wait.  Aside from one woman dining alone, we were the only patrons.  Jessica tried to get Evan to sit still and wait patiently, but he just couldn't/didn't want to do it.  I eventually intervened.

I leaned in close to Evan and said, "You know, when it gets near Christmas time, Santa disguises his elves as regular people and sends them out to watch the little kids.  This way Santa knows if the kids are listening to their parents and being good."

His eyes were large and he was as still as a statue, "Really?" he asked in amazement.

"Really," I responded earnestly.  "I think I saw that woman over there has pointy elf ears."

Evan quit moving completely and stared, utterly transfixed, at our fellow diner.  "Aunt Dani, are you serious?" he asked again.

"Yes, I'm serious," I told him.  Immediately Evan dropped down to his hieny and zipped his lips.  He was an absolute dream for the rest of the meal.

After lunch we headed home.  We had been in the car for about 15 minutes when Evan asked from the comfort of his car seat, "Aunt Dani, was that lady really an elf?"

I couldn't believe that we were talking about this again.  It was just a little story I threw out to get Evan to eat well, and now he was really curious about it.  So, I decided to play it up.  I LOVE holiday magic, and getting the chance to create some magic for the most important "man" in my life was a dream come true.  "Yes, buddy.  I know she was an elf," I told him.

"Well, she is going to tell Santa what a good boy I am.  I listened to my mom and ate my lunch.  I'll be on the nice list," he avowed.

As we drove the rest of the way home, I was thinking about how I would continue to grow this little story line.    I finally decided to give Evan a call that night, claiming to be the Elf from Pizza Hut.  I was going to tell him I saw him behaving well for his mother and to keep up the good work.  I adopted a ridiculous "elf" voice so he wouldn't know it was me, and I named myself Bernice, sister of Bernard Elf from "The Santa Claus."

I called Evan that night, and while I praised him and told him all about Santa's helper elves, I never heard a peep on the other end of the line.  When I got ready to tell him good-bye, Evan began rattling off toy requests at warp speed and assuring me that he was an extra good boy.  I hung up the phone and was positively beaming.  Evan had just had a truly magical Christmas experience, and I knew that his head was absolutely spinning with amazement.

A few days later I decided to take the magic to the next level.  All talk around the Thompson household revolved around Bernice the Elf, and while I know that believing isn't seeing for a five year old, I wanted Evan to have solid proof of Bernice's existence.  I bought a kid sized Santa hat and a container of silver glitter.  I then printed out a list of names, Evan's name, Evan's cousins, friends from daycare, etc, and put two boxes next to each name.  One column of boxes were "nice" boxes, while the other column were "naughty" boxes.  I checked the "nice" box beside each child's name, and I left Evan's boxes empty.  I had all of the supplies needed for a truly magical discovery.

I drove to my sister's house and snuck into the yard.  I dropped the Santa hat on the ground and sprinkled the silver glitter all over the hat and around on the ground.  I then rolled up the nice/naughty list and put it in the branches of the bushes below the living room window.  I ran up the front steps and rang the bell.  When I got inside and saw Evan I told him, "You have to come outside!  I was just driving by and you will never believe what I saw!  Hurry, hurry, hurry, let's go!!!"

Evan pulled on shoes and a coat faster than he ever had in his life.  We jumped down the front steps and around to the side of the porch.  I pointed at the ground and yelled, "Look!!!  Look at that!"

Evan was staring directly at the hat, and barely speaking in more than a whisper, "What is that?" he asked.

I said, "That's a real life Elf hat.  I was driving by and saw Bernice outside of your window.  When she saw my car, she just disappeared."

Evan crept slowly toward the hat, and very slowly bent down to gently touch the elf hat covered it glitter.  "What's this?" he asked in reference to the glitter.

"That's Elf Magic," I told him.

"Oh, wow," he said in his small little five-year-old voice.  And oh, so gingerly, he lifted the hat from the ground and placed it on his head.  As he did, the glitter fluttered down around his glowing face, and it was a most wonderful sight to behold.  I directed his attention to the bushes. He carefully reached into the bushes, and using only his forefinger and thumb, extracted the rolled up list.

"What's this, Dani?" he asked in a still hushed voice.

I took the list from his small hands and unfurled it.  "It's a Naughty and Nice list.  It has everyone's name with a nice check beside it, but your name doesn't say anything yet."

"I'm good!  I'm nice!  It should say I'm nice!" he shouted.

I replied, "I know that.  I think I just scared Bernice away before she could check the nice box.  I'm sure she'll be back, so you had better be a good boy all day every day so she can tell Santa what she saw here."

"I will!" Evan promised and started running back inside to tell him mom and dad what he had found.

For the past four years, Bernice has dutifully served Santa by being the Personal Attending Elf to the Thompson Family.  She makes phone calls out of the blue, sends letters as reminders that she is watching, and has even attended school Christmas programs.  Her presence is felt by all members of the Thompson family, and is one of my most cherished elements of the holiday season.

This year will be Ian's and Eli's first year with our Personal Attending Elf, Skippy.  Skippy was assigned to our family, by Santa himself, last year.  Skippy will most likely introduce himself through a letter or phone call very soon, but will become a regular part of our holiday festivities after Thanksgiving.  He will watch us as we prepare for the Christmas season, praising us for our kindness and loving gestures and expressing his concern when we forget to use generosity and patience.  Skippy will visit us, I'm sure, and leave behind a personal effect to make his existence known to all members of the Anderson Family.

Personal Attending Elves are unique to each family, but each child within the family is watched by the same elf.  It takes a lot of time and energy for an elf to keep up with his toy building and the Nice/Naughty watch.  Elves are required to check in several times during the holiday season and each time the elf reports to Santa to tell him what they saw.  A Personal Attending Elf adds so much magic to the holidays it is just unbelievable.  Christmas is only 53 days away, and if you would like for Santa to assign a P.A.E. to your family, let me know.  I've got a guy, and we can make it happen.

I Never Wood Have Pegged You as Crafty

Wow, oh wow, are we having a big week......and it's only Monday!

First of all, Saturday night we decided to move Eli into Ian's room and turn Eli's room into a play room.  I am really not loving the new arrangement, but I'm pretty sure this is just the way it's going to be.  I hate that there is no room for a rocking chair in the boys' room, and it just makes it feel like we are past the "nursery" stage of life.  Now I have to rock them in the play room and carry them into the bedroom, and it's just not as cozy.  It makes me very sad.  :(

Second of all, the boys are not allowed to watch TV this week.  The boys love to get their day going with a little Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and then a little Jake and the Neverland Pirates, but this week they are just going to have to rely on my morning entertainment, Mike in the Morning on 97.5.  I don't really like Mike in the Morning, but my little kitchen radio won't pick up any other stations, so I've learned to appreciate it.

Third, and most exciting, our peg people arrived!!!!  All 136 of them.  They arrived after lunch, so while Eli was napping, Ian and me ripped open the packaging and covered the living room rug in peg people.  I then fetched our washable markers, and we started to decorate.  Ian quit decorating pretty quickly and started requesting characters while he played.  I don't blame him.  Playing was definitely more fun than decorating, but I still managed to make a few cool peg people.

First up........meet the Anderpegs (and pretend I swept the dead leaves off of the porch before I took the picture).

Ian drew "eyebrows" on himself with a pinkish marker.  Not quite the color of his actual eyebrows, but a pretty fair representation of his scar.

Here are the Anderpegs with 130 of their future friends.  Two in the crowd are already decorated.

 Little pegs all in a row

What a good lookin' fam.

This was the original me.  The marker slipped while I was drawing my right eye, and then I tried to make the left eye match.  It ended up looking very "Black Hole Sun," and I was totally freaked out by my appearance.  This particular person might become kindling because I really don't like it.

The new me.  Much foxier, don't you think?  And way better hair!

  

A little construction worker/fireman.

This $30.00 bag of peg people was a GREAT purchase!  There are sooooooo many of them that neither Ian nor Eli can complain about not having enough to play with.  Plus, our imaginations are our only limitation when it comes to what toys we can have.  I'm going to start painting some of the pegs because paint will look better than marker and because I will be able to add more detail with a finer brush.  I'll update as our pegs become more and more interesting and diverse.

Oh, the Pastabilities!

Alright, so I stole the title from that Italian restaurant in Decatur, but it's still cute.  Right?  Right.

I've been wanting to make macaroni art with the boys for a while because I remembered when my nephew, Evan, did it when he was a small fry.  I FINALLY looked up how to do it and this morning I colored the pasta.  This is SO inexpensive.  The box of pasta was $1.00, the vingegar was $1.39, and I already had the food coloring.  In order to dye the noodles, you have to mix food coloring with white vinegar, which I believe is how you color Easter eggs.  I was so bummed out when I saw the directions.  Vinegar smells SO disgusting.

I remember the first time I ever smelled vinegar.  (I have a lot of food memories which probably comes as no surprise considering my, ahem, "pleasantly plump" physique.)  I was at my Grandma and Grandpa Zimmerman's house playing school bus on the open staircase of their 1948 farmhouse, and I know that I was either kindergarten aged or younger.  I smelled something odd, but then the smell went away.  I thought it was gross, but didn't have a clue what it was.  A little while later, I smelled it again but this time it wouldn't go away.  The smell was so disgusting I felt sick.  I walked down the stairs and into the kitchen.  My grandma was in there, and the smell didn't seem to be alarming to her.  I walked around the island to the stove, looked up at my grandma and said, "What is that smell?"  She said, "It's the vinegar I'm cleaning with.  Don't you like it?"  To this day I don't know if she was kidding or serious.  My grandma was a wild woman and it really could have gone either way.

This morning as I was measuring and pouring the vinegar all I could think about were the hours upon hours I spent at my grandparents' house when I was a little kid.  I LOVED it at their house!  My grandpa would pick me up from morning kindergarten everyday, then we would rush home so he could make me lunch before watching The Bold and The Beautiful.  And heaven help you if you dared to ask him a question while his show was on.  He was never mean, but you could tell he was seriously ticked off when unnecessarily interrupted.  I could write about times at my grandparents' for days, but this is about pasta......so......moving on.

I had red, blue, green, and yellow food coloring, so of course we used all of those colors.  Then I decided to make purple.  Well, wonders of wonders, I messed it up.  I am not artsy.  I don't understand "expressing yourself" through anything but straight forward words.  I don't get it.  I don't understand it.  And to be quite honest, I don't even appreciate it.  Art just isn't my thing, so it never occurred to me to check the "recipe" for purple food coloring.  I put in six drops of red and six drops of blue.  The result was disgusting.  It was just really, really, really ugly.  I was so disappointed.  Who would have guessed that you need to mix the red and blue in a 3:2 ratio.  What the heck, food coloring?

So, now we are in a holding pattern.  I dyed one box of Rigatoni, and we are waiting for it to dry.  I think we are simply going to string the noodles to work on hand-eye coordination.  I also have some Trio building blocks that come with tall rods that I am going to put into a base of blocks for Eli to "thread" his noodles on.  I can't wait to see the end results.  For now, please enjoy my attempt of an "artsy" picture of our dyed noodles.  I think they look really great.

I Need....No, You Want

Christmas time is quickly approaching, and I couldn't be happier.  The boys and I have already spent hours perusing the goods at Hobby Lobby, and Ian is just as pumped up for Christmas as I am.  I know that I will have four Christmas trees this year for sure, but I would really like to have two more.  Call me crazy, but I don't think that Cole is going to be on board for trees number 5 and 6.  For our next "Date Night In" I might have to buy him a bottle of wine and discuss it at the end of the evening.  ;)

Anyway, I think that a portion of Ian's excitement stems from the fact that we are now visiting toy aisles in stores and looking at Fisher Price catalogs.  Cole and I do NOT just buy toys for our kids.  That sounds really strange, I know, but we buy them gifts for Christmas (~$75.00 budget/kid), birthdays (~$25-30 budget), Valentine's Day (~$15 budget/kid), and Easter (~$15-20 budget/kid).  They get SO much stuff from both sides of our family, that they have plenty of toys and don't need anything else.  I feel like our house overfloweth with toys, but compared to the majority of middle class households, we have a slight fraction of the amount of toys they have.  The boys never complain about not having anything to play with, and on gift receiving occasions, they are overwhelmed with glee.  We also do a gigantic toy purge before birthdays and Christmas to make room for the new toys.  This is the way we Andersons roll, and we are very, very happy with this.

I love to see Ian and Eli so excited about Christmas because in my humble opinion, it is the most wonderful time of the year.  I adore and savor every minute of it, even when Cole and I are rushing around, with two kids in tow, trying to celebrate six Christmases in a day and a half.  The one thing that has really bothered me about the anticipation this year has been listening to the boys say, "I need that!"  This probably sounds very minor and totally nit picky, but I really, really, really want the boys to understand the difference between needs and wants, and I feel like they should learn the difference from the very beginning.  So, I have been gently correcting the terminology every time I hear it, and Ian has caught on very well.  I am very proud of him.  I find it much more pleasant to look through the toys and hear, "I want that!" rather than "I need that."  I am very, very, very thankful that we have never had to struggle to cover our boys' needs, and their wants have always been fulfilled as well.

So, back to the Fisher Price catalog.  Ian has seen several Batman toys that he really wants.  They are all age appropriate, and I would have no problem fulfilling these wishes except the toys are pretty pricy and would eat up most of the Christmas budget.  Then, today at Mom's Group, I had an epiphany.  After spending the first hour of the two hour meeting in the play room consoling Eli, I came out to hear Kristi, crafter extraordinaire, showing off some wooden people pegs.  Kristi explained that she uses these people, which look exactly like old school Little People, whenever her kids want something like "a Sonic the Hedgehog" toy.  She won't buy those toys for her kids, so she will pull out the peg people and art supplies and her boys will make their own.  BRILLIANT!!!!  I love, love, love that idea!  The boys appreciate the toy more because they put the effort into creating it, and they get exactly what they want in the end.  I mean, seriously, how awesome is that idea?!?!  After Kristi gave her presentation on all of the different things she makes with her kids, we all had a chance to make them ourselves.  Unfortunately, my "pregnancy-nursing-nursing while pregnant-pregnancy-nursing" induced arthritis was wreaking havoc on my ability to hold things this morning, and I didn't get to try making any peg people.  :(  I did make a felt mouse, but it looked horrific as I was not able to use my scissors very easily and couldn't hold onto the small pieces.  Oh, well.  It was early, and I don't try to be dexterous until afternoon anyway.  That's what "elevated hormone levels" for three solid years will do to you.  Thank goodness my kiddos were worth it.

After I got back home, I was so pumped to check out the website for the wooden peg people.  They were all less than a dollar a piece with most costing in the 20 cent range.  Plus, if you order in lots of 25 or more, you start benefiting from quantity discounts.  I checked out the peg people and decided they were a must have.  I ordered, geez I hope Cole doesn't read this, 136 peg people for $30!  To me this is an absolute steal.  I got peg men, peg boys, peg construction workers, and even some peg females.  I think this will be a perfect way to satisfy Ian's "wants" for new toys and different characters.  I know that Ian will need a little more help in creating his people than Kristi's oldest son, but I think he will get a real kick out of it.  He loves "doing a craft."  We will be able to make his Batman wishes come true, but he will also be able to have Joker, Penguin, Robin, and whoever else Batman associates with (even though I don't know who else that may be).  Plus, we can have a Bob the Builder, Sir Topham Hatt, maybe the Super Why Super Readers, who knows.  The point is, I'm excited for this fabulous idea, and I can't wait for the bag o' wood to arrive.

The OTHER thing I saw on the website was wooden Christmas bulbs.  How adorable would these be all painted up with green and red glitter paint and strung as garland?  Uh, try super duper adorable!!!  I didn't order the wooden bulbs yet because I don't have a tree with coordinating decorations, but hopefully after next Wednesday's "Date Night In" I'll have one in the works.  :)

All Aboard!

Today was a great day in Anytown.  The local Railway Museum had "Railroad Days" this weekend.  Last year it was a huge deal because the Museum's steam engine had just been restored and was on her maiden voyage.  Yesterday was the first day for Railroad Days, but we had plans.  So, we promised the boys that we would go ride the train today, just like we did last year.  Not that they could remember that.

Railroad Days 2010

Railroad Days 2011

This morning when we got ready to leave for church it looked like it could rain any second, but we made there without experiencing any more than a sprinkle.  However, it was full on raining when we left.  We came home for about 30 minutes, and then we headed out for a day of riding the rails.  The boys, like all little boys, love trains.  But, I like to think that their love runs a little deeper as my Grandpa Zimmerman, Great-grandpa Wieldt, and Uncle Fritz have all had lifelong RR careers.

Too much going on to get a decent picture

When we got to the station it was fairly chilly so I was glad that I had dressed the boys in their new sweaters for the day.  (Side note: I bought these outfits for the boys to wear to my sister's wedding reception in a few weeks.  After I bought them, Ian informed me he needed a tie for the wedding.  Apparently my selection just isn't formal enough for his liking.)  I, however, had made a poor choice by remaining in my skirt after church, and Cole was wearing a short sleeved polo shirt.  But, the boys were cozy and warm and that's what mattered most.

Lookin' good in their new duds

We rode the steam engine from the outer station into the depot in the middle of Anytown.  We then walked up to the square to eat lunch.  As you can imagine, this went over like a lead balloon.  Ian was FURIOUS that we were leaving the depot when he still wanted to ride the steam engine.  It was a torturous three block walk.  He was in a bad place, it was cool and raining slightly, and Eli....not the lightest kid on the planet and he's still not big enough to keep up with our pace.  We had a delicious lunch of Mexican food and headed back to the depot.

Finding out what Anytown's Railway Museum has to offer

We returned to the depot with a few minutes to spare before the next train was leaving for the main station.  We rode back out to the main station, toured a 100 year old passenger car that had been built for the Vice-President of a RR company, a U.S. postal service car, and a couple of cars with RR "stuff."  Shortly after, we were running back through the rain to get back on another train.  Back to the Anytown depot we went.

Ian would not give a legit smile, but close enough

This trip was a bit, ahem, less fun than the previous trip.  We were NOT riding the right train.  We were riding "Chuggington," and Ian wanted to ride "Thomas", who Eli kept referring to as "Mavis" which sent Ian into a tizzy.  The conductor told us that the best strategy to get back on "Thomas" would be to hang out in town for almost an hour and then hop on "Thomas" at the depot (where we were about to arrive), not the main station.  You have got to be kidding?  An hour?!?!?! I thought.  Yes.  An hour.  So, I suggested we hop over to the library to replenish our books.  Forty minutes later, the boys had six new books to read, I had three, and back to the depot we walked.  Keep in mind, it has never quit raining and we have been hopping trains like hobos and vagabonds for the past FOUR hours.  We are cold, wet, and tired.

Engineer Eli

So we got on "Thomas/Mavis" and a fight broke out because Ian wanted a window seat.  Big deal, let the kid have the window seat, right?  Wrong!  Ian wanted the seat by the OPEN window and was hanging his upper half out of the window into the rain 10 feet above the concrete platform!  Uh, no.  I'm sorry, let me be more clear.  Uh, HELL no!  Then there was a battle of the wills while Cole secured the window in its fully closed position.  Ian then decided that our seating was completely unacceptable and wanted to find someplace new.

Checking out the world from the comfort of the train

At this point, we already knew we were on our last ride of the day and we were kind of in an anything-to-get-us-through-the-last-twenty-minutes-of-this-excursion kind of place.  We went in search of a new seat, and Ian decided that he wanted to ride on the caboose.  We hopped off of the passenger car and ran back to the caboose at the very last possible minute.  This seemed like a great Grand Finale, but we clearly didn't assess the position of the train before we took our seats on the red velvet upholstered benches.

Engineer Ian

From where we were sitting we could see right through the open back door.  The train was driving in reverse so we were the lead car of the train.  And......the wind was blowing in and we were getting rained on and the whistle was too loud and it was very uncomfortable.  It was definitely the most uncomfortable ride of the day, but it was also Ian's favorite.  He LOVED riding the caboose.  Other than being very cold and very wet, we had a fantastic day.  The weather left something to be desired, but such is life.  I'm already jazzed for next year.

It's Time to Start Stitching!

I am not the craftiest woman.  I can create some fabulous ideas, but the execution is usually up to someone else.  Last Christmas I did manage to create elf costumes for the boys for our Christmas card picture.

Pretty cute, huh?

As a kid I was never pumped up about Halloween.  I liked the candy part, but I didn't really get into the dressing up part.  I would have rather saved the money on the costume and just bought candy from the store.  But, for whatever reason, I want my boys to like Halloween.  I think it's just because I like to dress them in the cutest costumes possible.  Ian's first Halloween, he was a turtle.  The cutest turtle in the world, in fact!

The next year Ian was a dragon and.......he hated it.  I then realized that buying fancy costumes just wasn't going to work for us for a few years.  I decided the following year I would dress the boys in costumes that were more like clothes.  So, as last Halloween approached I looked around online to find inspiration for a pair of costumes, because I like for the boys to match, and I came across Thing 1 and Thing 2 from The Cat in the Hat.  I was SO excited!!!!  I couldn't wait to see the boys all dressed up, and I wasn't about to use some store bought blue wig that looked nothing like the Things' hair.  I was going to make the wigs!

Since I don't have a sewing machine, I recruited my mother-in-law, Karen, (I have two mothers-in-law so I always specify to which MIL I'm referring) to make the shirts.  She did the most fabulous job!  They looked amazing.  And after four hours of stitching feather boas to sock hats, the wigs were amazing too.  HOWEVER, Ian did NOT want to wear the wig, and getting ready to leave my in-laws' house to Trick or Treat was a nightmare.

How cute are these two?

Ian is not liking the wig, which isn't even on right.

Eli is happy, Ian is miserable, and Cole is showing how much he enjoys parenthood.

The wheels are already turning in an attempt to top last year's costumes.  I burned the Thing 1, Thing 2 idea WAY too early.  If only my younger, more naive self had known what I know now.  I've had a few ideas for "clothes costumes" this year, but none that have gotten me so excited I ran out the door to go to Hobby Lobby.  Here are some of this year's ideas.

*Salt & Pepper Shakers
  White sweatsuit with an "S", heather gray sweatsuit with a "P", and metal colanders for hats.

*The Hamburglar and a Hamburger

*Yellow (Ian) and Red (Eli) M&Ms

So far, the only ideas I have are a total snoozefest.  I'm going to have to get inspired soon or I won't have to time to craft my masterpieces, and Heaven forbid we miss Trick or Treating since Ian doesn't even like it.

A Little TLC

I am a very particular person.  I like the bath towels folded just so, one particular stripe on my comforter to line up perfectly across the end of my bed, sleeves of shirts to be tucked in the folded product in a very particular manner.  I want the TV volume on 11, and only 11, unless it is late and then I want the volume on 8 and only 8.  The only exception is when watching Mad Men DVDs the volume should be at 19.  The dishes need to be stacked in a certain order, the 40 pairs of shoes in the coat closet need to be placed on the shelves in their precise locations according to my classification system.  Eli's diapers and Ian's Pull-Ups need to be stacked in perfect rows in the diaper basket with Eli's on the left and Ian's on the right.  And don't even get me started on the "proper" organizational flow of a closet.  In other words, I'm super easy to live with and a riot at parties.

Last night Cole was working late because he watched the boys over his lunch hour while I went to class.  By the end of the evening, the boys were near unbearable.  Neither had napped and therefore had the attitudes of junkyard dogs.  They were driving me crazy, but it was too early to put them to bed in good conscience and I hear that sending your children to the yard unsupervised is frowned upon (don't worry I would never actually do it), so I watched TV instead.  Oh, calm down.  We only have one TV and it's in the living room where the boys play all day so it's not like I went to a movie at The Beverly.  Anyway, I tuned into Hoarders since it was the only "G" rated show on at the time.  Ian and Eli were brawling by the train table so I didn't think they were paying much attention, but I was wrong.

Ian slowly began inching toward the TV.  He was blocking my view, but he was no longer assaulting his brother so I really didn't care.  He then spun around, his eyes as wide as dinner plates, and said, "What is that mess?"  I said, "It's just a really messy house, buddy."  He turned back to the TV, completely transfixed.  He then turned back to me and asked, "What are they going to do?"  I said, "They are going to try to clean it up."    He glanced around the floor of the living room which was so cluttered it looked like storm wreckage.  "We need to clean this mess up!" he declared with a look of terror on his face, and he then proceeded to pick up toy after toy and toss it into his wagon.

I don't know if Ian was concerned that our house was going to turn into a scene from hoarders or what.  His own mess has NEVER concerned him before.  Our house gets trashed on a regular basis.  I don't really care.  It's never anything permanent.  I let them play with whatever they want all morning, pick up during nap time, then let the boys do it all again after they get up, and pick up again after they go to bed.  A messy house means that a lot of creative play is going on.  I'd much rather wade through toys than have an immaculate house because the boys were couch potatoes all day long.  My confusion stems from a complete lack of understanding why Ian couldn't care less about disasters he makes but PANICS over messes made by someone else.

Eli enjoying first birthday cake

Ian panicking because, "Eli a mess!" while enjoying his birthday cake.

Yes, Ian bawled hysterically and had to be held by my sister because Eli had cake on his face and hands.  This wasn't the only time he has been driven to tears because of a food related mess.  And the stripes we painted in the kitchen last weekend........

....he doesn't like them.  Why?  Because we made a mess in the kitchen while we were painting them.  I thought he would be jazzed to have super awesome stripes on the wall.  Nope.  Not even close.

At Easter my cousin Jennifer told the most hilarious story about watching Hoarders with her five-year-old son.  They were watching together and while cleaning was going on in this house, a hissing opossum jumped off of a fridge and scared the hell out of Jenn and her little boy.  He then wanted her to change the channel because he was so freaked out.  A few days later, her little guy was refusing to help clean up his play room and Jenn said, "If we don't clean up the house will get really messy and then an opossum might make a nest on the fridge."  Her son immediately snapped to attention and said, "Okay, okay.  I'll clean up!!  I don't want a possum in our house!!!!"  (Please keep in mind that Jennifer is the most loving, doting mother on the planet and doesn't regularly use scare tactics to get her son to behave.)

I wonder if TLC realizes what a gold mine they are sitting on?  What parent wouldn't pay for a season of Hoarders on DVD if it got their children to quickly and dutifully clean up their toys?  In my opinion, it might almost be worth paying the extra DVR charge so I can record episodes and just happen to play them right before bed every night so Cole and I wouldn't be the house elves every night.  I mean, at some point in time those houses had to be clean.  You don't move that much crap into a house on moving day.  Is there really any harm in using Hoarders as a modern day "Scared Straight" to keep your kids on the straight and narrow and away from the fast paced, dangerous world of messy houses?  I think not.