Last night on Christmas Eve, C and NC – along with J and E and cousins ET and MT – participated in the Nativity Pageant at our church. The toddlers played sheep in the pageant, and we talked 14 year old J into playing the part of a sheep as well, for the sole purpose of attempting to keep C and NC in line during the service. She was a very good sport about the whole thing.

Hilarity ensued.

These photos don’t do justice to how hard J had to work to try to keep the two naughty little sheep from escaping from the Nativity Scene in which they were supposed to remain in place up on the altar at the front of our church sanctuary. They kept wriggling free from her grasp, then crawling commando style down the steps before easing themselves out between the altar railings. Then they would grin at the audience, trot back up the steps and do it all over again.

They did this throughout the pageant, even as all the OTHER children behaved very well. Look how irritated J looks by the final photo in the series…and can you blame her? Wild, marauding lambs were going berserk, and she had no shepherd’s crook with which to whack them or hook them…or whatever it is one does with a shepherd’s crook.

Guess which one of The Baby Cousins was the instigator?

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

Our Halloween this year was off-kilter. Because I was really sick in the weeks leading up to the actual event, our usual family pumpking carving event with the cousins didn’t happen.  On the night we finally got it done, I was still unable to get out of bed, so my mother and Dr. Neighbor (the guy professor edition, as opposed to the female MD edition) helped Jon oversee J and E in getting their respective jack o’ lanterns carved at our kitchen table. My mom had come up from Bell Buckle to spend that night following my first full day back at work since I had gotten sick. She helped with dinner and with general kid wrangling because she knew I would be exhausted. And she was right.

All three younger kids have been anxious and out of sorts  in the past month due to my illness (which really did end up lasting an entire month, start to finish) and other challenging family issues that we are dealing with at the moment, including the fact that our plan to have Eldest Child live at home after his recent return from Big Learning Experience has fallen through. We have all been struggling with this, each in our own way.  His younger siblings were stressed by the conversations that led up to this decision, and are now stressed by adjusting to their big brother’s absence from our house, which wasn’t what we expected after his eight months away.  All of this has made for a really hard autumn season for our family, and as a result, no one seemed to have their usual enthusiasm for the jack o’ lantern carving.

But somehow, with the help from my mother & Dr. Neighbor that night, it got done. J started out by insisting that she had NO interest in joining in without participation by the absent H and her cousins (she was feeling very glum about everything), but the grown-ups insisted, and within just a few minutes, she had cheered up and gotten into the spirit of things.  C thought it was great fun, as this was the first year that she understood what was going on. By the end of the evening, the children had turned out three pretty good jack o’ lanterns, although definitely not our family’s most impressive efforts ever, and Dr. Neighbor had done this wonderful saute/roast thing with the pumpkin seeds – best pumpkin seeds I have ever had, hands down.  We did the best we could considering the gloomy household mood.

A few days later, it was time for Halloween. J and E’s schedule happened to have them at their father’s house on Halloween proper, so 2 year old C was the only child in the household that day.   All week, she had been enjoying dressing up in various loaned costumes (bunny, dragon) passed along by an older cousin.  She surely would have enjoyed some trick or treating up and down our street. But on the 31st, it was pouring rain all day – a bad harbinger for Halloween night activities. Then, for only the second time in her life, she refused to nap. That meant that by the time she and Jon returned from the church Halloween party in the late afternoon, she was hysterically exhausted.

Note glazed expression and flushed cheeks. Portrait of an almost-sick bunny-toddler.

It was also pretty obvious by Halloween afternoon that she was getting sick  – fever erupted within 24 hours. Her cheeks were flushed and her mood was rotten. She had clearly been picking up on my stress, and that day, she finally began letting us know that she was stressed, too – whining, clinging, and flinging herself on the floor in floods of tears if you looked at her wrong.

By 6pm, she was out for the night.  This left Jon and me in the unusual situation of having not one of the four kids around for the actual holiday festivities. It ended up being a very low-key, all adult Halloween. And frankly, that was fantastic.  Dr. Neighbor hung out for part of the evening and fixed a yummy pasta dish that involved spicy sausage. He prepared a special beverage I have been known to enjoy – one that only he makes as well.  I laid around on the couch in my bathrobe and we three – Jon, Dr. Neighbor and I – listened to Girl Talk (not appropriate with kids in the room) with the guys answering the occasional doorbell to hand out candy to the few trick or treaters who braved the drizzle in the ‘hood to approach out front door.  I was feeling so antisocial that evening that even offering cheery greetings to kids in costumes seemed daunting.

So yeah, we’ve had a rough go of it lately at our house, and in some ways Halloween seemed like the denouement.  But at least we had pumpkins. Back in 2005, I stupidly waited until the last minute to go out for pumpkins, only to find that no pumpkins were to be had anywhere at any price in the greater Knoxville area.  In a fit of desperation, I brought home….decorative gourds.

Yes, my children had GOURDS instead of pumpkins that Halloween. They were pretty good natured about it actually.

As you can see, E actually fell asleep on the floor at my sister’s house that night, clutching his gourd. He really took to it. I finally had to insist that we throw it out when it began attracting fruit flies in his room, where he kept it for longer than a good parent would have allowed

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I really have no excuse for The Year of the Gourds except poor planning on my part. I’m sure it’s one of the stories about me that my kids will tell in therapy.  But I can now take small solace in the fact that my wildly capable and well organized friend K had a similar experience this year. She couldn’t find pumpkins either, and her kids ended up with….jack o’ loupes.

Here’s the video from my guest spot on the ABC News “Moms Get Real” show this week, with Juju Chang and Romi Lassaly from True Mom Confessions. The topic was drugs and kids, and as a guest panelist, I discussed the VERY significant ways my views on parenting teenagers has evolved over time, based on having now seen one child to the age of 18.

I plan to write a lengthy, detailed blog post on this very soon (maybe over at TMC as a guest blogger), but for now, you can watch what I have to say on th show, should you have any interest. If you don’t have any interest in watching it, here’s the thumbnail version:  just imagine washed out Katie, without enough lipstick or cheek color (NOTE TO SELF: MORE MAKE-UP FOR ON-AIR APPEARANCES! WAY MORE.), explaining that she sure wishes she had been stricter with Child #1, and more intrusive and bossy, and that she intends to be far more intrusive, bossy and mean with Children 2,3,4 during the high school years.  Imagine that, and no need to watch the video

J, writing a paper for school. C, watching You Tube videos of sea turtles (yes, she is wearing a bunny suit. Yes, she IS that cute.)

J to me: “Mom! I had the WORST dream last night! I dreamed that The Real Housewives of New Jersey were my AUNTS!”