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Want to laugh? It is December 22 and I have YET to buy A SINGLE CHRISTMAS gift. I hope none of you passed out. That really wouldn’t be conducive to you reading the rest of my post.

I generally do shopping a week before Christmas, but not this year. It’s not that I don’t care about Christmas or that I don’t like shopping. I really have not had motivation to be out in the traffic and shopping at the newly built mall that is jam packed everyday because we all used to have to drive half hour to forty minutes for a decent mall to shop in. Thank God for progress and developers.

ANYway, I can sum myself up in one word. Procrastinator.

My friends would have much nicer words to describe me. No really, I asked. I have vastly improved though. I used to be the one that you would tell to be somewhere at 4 and I’d be there at 5. At some point people started telling me to be at a place an hour before I was supposed to be there just so I would be on time. <—– That was BEFORE children. Post birth, I started to be the one on time. Right on time actually. To the minute. Somewhere I realized that I was showing a lack of respect for other people’s time. Like they had nothing better to do with that hour than to sit around and wait for me. This goes back to my procrastination. I would wait until I had to be somewhere and start getting ready about 5 minutes before I had to leave knowing I needed a lot more time than that.

Years ago when I was in school, I would have a report that I knew about weeks ahead of time. Yet, the night before it was due I would be up all night writing the report.

My kids send home notices of events or money that might be due for something and I will wait until the night before if not the exact day it is due to do something about it.

Yep. That’s me.

While I want to play it cool and act like I’m not worried, I’m having trouble breathing just thinking about the lines, the traffic, and hell, the other stressed out procrastinators.

One thing is for sure about me. I am an evolutionary woman. I change when needed. I am convinced that I am and will forever be a work in progress. One of my favorite quotes is “Life is not about finding yourself. It is about creating yourself.” I’m still working on my sculpture.

I am guessing this might be a foreshadowing of some sort of an upcoming discussion about New Year’s resolutions.

Today I had one of those moments of tranquility and clarity that are sometimes rare for a mom to have in the hustle and bustle of our everyday lives (and no my children were not asleep when it happened).  It was very much noisy and they were right next to me. 

My husband and I took the kids out for a dinner favorite of theirs.  (teriyaki chicken and rice at the mall)  Don’t ask.   ANYway, while we were eating I couldn’t help but notice everyone with the shopping bags buzzing around, walking and talking with friends and family.  It felt like Christmas.  It’s sometimes hard to feel in the spirit of things when  you get no snow and the weather is in the 70’s and 80’s through  a lot of your winter.  We have a few cold days…which for us is in the 60’s.  Sad, I know.  Since I was feeling the spirit of Christmas I quietly said to Patrick, so the kids wouldn’t hear, “Hey, want to go see the light show at the new mall?  Maybe visit you know who?”  He nodded and said, “Sure.”

Off we went.  We got there right on time.  The show had started.  They had this huuuuuuuge tree all lit up and some smaller trees around it.  The music is playing and there are light’s shining on the buildings all around us.  All the lights are flashing in beat with the music.  Aryanna and I were bouncing around to the beat.  I had her on my shoulders  and Patrick was holding Jordyn.  We moved closer and just stood there.  It was really beautiful. 

There was something about being there in that moment with them that made me feel like there is no place I’d rather be right then.  For about 10 minutes I had no troubles in life, only peace and happiness.  I realized that I focused on all the woes in my life in the past so much so that I forgot about a lot of the joys in life. 

Just as quickly as I found my peace, it was taken away, not by the children, but when the show stopped.  The lights came on.  People scattered like roaches do when you flick the light on them, bumping and pushing their way through like the stores weren’t going to be there.  <SIGH> 

Have you had a moment of clarity lately about your life or maybe life in general?

In the past I have struggled with what to get for the both of my childrens’ teachers for Christmas. I usually wind up getting nothing, except for one year. That particular year my husband and I got to know both sets of teachers and assistants for the rooms that each of our children were in. In that case, we KNEW what each of those women liked because we got to talk to them so much throughout the year. In that case we bought gift cards for $20.00 to stores or restaurants that we knew they each liked. They were all thrilled with the gift cards they recieved.

Since then, we haven’t had the chance to quite get to know the teachers they’ve had as well as we did those other ladies. So I haven’t been getting anything. I personally feel guilty about this because my mother is a teacher and works with children who are severely emotionally and mentally disabled in high school. She doesn’t get paid NEARLY enough money to take care of those kids the way she does and yet she seldom recieves anything from parents showing any gratitude.  She does what she does because she is good at it and loves it.

My point is that teachers are teachers because they WANT to be and because they love their job, not because they are making the big bucks. We should be thanking them in some sort of way just to let them know we were thinking about them and appreciate what they do with our children. Let me just say, on a side note, if your kid is a badass heathon of a child you BETTER get their teacher something!!!

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