Miscellaneous Holiday Highlights

Among other things, during the week of Christmas we continued our beach football games that we started over Thanksgiving. As an incentive for those who preferred not to be tackled while trying to enjoy their time on the beach (i.e. me), my younger son added a separate sign-up spot for cheerleading for any parties looking for an alternative. So when I voiced my interest, my son signed my name for me.

I think I almost like this spelling better than the correct one. Unfortunately for the small people, poor spelling appears to be a strong genetic trait in our family. Son, meet spell check and become closely acquainted.

After Christmas, we ventured off-island and were able to see most of our family during the week that followed. One highlight was seeing the youngest member of our family. My beyond-adorable nephew is now a year old, so he basically does two things with his life: he runs and he eats. After a couple of days of observing him, I’ve decided the most effective New Year’s diet plan available to humankind involves a toddler whose well-being is your responsibility. If you are the responsible party in a toddler’s life, you are constantly moving, trying to keep up and assess the danger potential in every seemingly-innocuous item before he or she reaches it. And, the few times you do sit down, it’s only to feed the toddler, which means you yourself will not be eating much of anything due to the vastly time-consuming and absorbing nature of toddler feedings.

Disclaimer: As appealing as good health and a rockin’ physique might be, An Island Mom in no way advocates having a child for this reason. Toddlers eventually get bigger, learn to feed themselves and keep their fingers out of electric sockets, and instead do things like wake you up on the one morning of the week that you are able to sleep in, just to ask you questions like, oh, I don’t know, say, “So how much did the Beyblade you got me for Christmas cost?” Just so we’re clear here.

After years of playing ATV video games, the boys finally did the real thing New Year’s Eve. At the last minute, on our way to a big family get-together, we stopped off at a family member’s house to take a quick spin around the yard on an ATV. Needless to say, the boys were pleased with the last-minute turn of events.

And here you see a picture of my most fastidious relative. He’s like this all the time.

In this picture, it’s New Year’s Eve and we’re borderline running late for our family get-together. Suddenly I hear him mumble something about having to sweep the end of the driveway, and off he goes, broom in hand.

Honestly, I can’t even form a mental picture of LCB sweeping a driveway; it’s just beyond the scope of my vast imagination. If he spilled a giant bag of chips and was late for, oh, well, perhaps sitting on the couch, I doubt he’d even flinch. I love that man dearly, but it’s the truth.

Finally, my eldest, thanks to his cousins and his aunts, learned the fine art of card playing on New Year’s Eve. My sister-in-law told me he picked up on everything quickly, and he clearly loved every minute of the several hours he spent playing. As you can see, he also took his moments of defeat rather well.

No clue where he gets that from.