We had a wonderful Christmas party with the Mascot family over the weekend, where the kids learned to be spoiled rotten by Nana, Papa and Cousins and Aunties. Today we have the Spencer Christmas party at Gramma's house and then tomorrow... well, let's just say that even if Santa doesn't come, the kids still have it made.

One of the best gifts ever came last week and I'm so looking forward to sharing it tomorrow. Greg and Sheri sent CHICAGO PIZZA! It is a great gift because it's delicious, memorable, delicious, sentimental, and delicious. I'll also make the usual Mascot Christmas Chili, but the pizza is the best part of tomorrow (and Santa).

I hope everyone has a wonderful and safe Christmas!

Last night Tori came and babysat while we went to a Christmas party (where Marc was coerced into wearing an inflatable Santa suit while brandishing a bottle of wine- without even having consumed the wine). Anyway, while Tori was here, Signa made her Santa letter. She wanted it ready for today- Breakfast with Santa Day.

It had been my plan to use the power of suggestion when she asked Santa for gifts. Using my Jedi mind control, she was to say, “Dear Santa, I would love to have Legos for Christmas and not some stupid giant dinosaur.” However, since I was not close enough to use the mind control, here is her list:

Koda
Webkinz camel
Maggot

Love,
Signa

So Koda is a giant dinosaur that you ride on, much larger than the other giant dinosaur that I thought the kids wanted. Santa, if you bring Koda, I will send hate mail to you all year. Webkinz camel- go for it.

A FREAKING MAGGOT?!?! Seriously, my six-year-old daughter wants a maggot for Christmas. Oh, and not just any maggot, but a crawling toy maggot that was at Target TWO HALLOWEENS AGO. Santa, if you bring this (I can’t find it cheaper that 20 pounds in England with a shipping fee of 80 billion pounds), then I will send you love notes all year. And really not because it would make Signa happy but because then I would get to remind for the rest of her life that Santa came through and got her a maggot for Christmas when she was a child.

Here is the letter, in case you don't believe me. I made her add Legos.

William was cribbed to say, “Indiana Jones figures.” But last week, he changed it up and said he wants a candy cane. Look at your hands. Look at the left hand and say, “Candy cane.” Now look at your right hand and say, “Maggot.” Which one is super cute?

Yeah, it’s pretty even.

Anyway, breakfast with Santa was fine. Especially since Will waited to get home before vomiting profusely from both ends. Thank you, dear William, for not doing that on Santa in front of an auditorium of people. I will personally buy you TWO candy canes for that.

But I’m charging you three for the dry cleaning that my wardrobe from today is going to need.

In other cute stories, William is in love with Christmas cookies (sugar cookies with frosting) and the cutest part of it is how he says it. “Kitmas cookies.” Kitmas is just my favorite.

Today Signa was watching something about this family that hatched baby chicks from eggs. She came running in to where I was getting changed from Vomit Attire and said, “So they put the eggs in an imbitator. What’s an imbitator?” I explained the idea of an incubator keeping them warm and getting the eggs ready to hatch. “Well, that’s dumb. Why didn’t they just bring home a chicken to sit on the eggs?”

Yeah. Why?

William has been particularly humorous lately. The other night when we were in bed, he was tossing and turning and talking and messing around. I was getting increasingly irritated with him and then he said, “Momma, you very, very pritty.” I said, “Ahhhh,” told him that was nice of him and he said, “And Willyum Macot cool!”

He is very into seeing two “O”s next to each other. “Yook! Two ‘O’s!” everywhere we go.

Nothing yet everything has been going on. Nothing much to write about, but enough so that we are too busy to write. Will is getting cuter and cuter by the day, but also more and more stubborn and “independent.” He wants to do everything by himself (“No, help! I do it myself!”) and he wants to do everything his sister does (“No, Wull do it, too!”). Oh, and just about every sentence starts with, “No.”

He has taken to enjoying any and all small injuries and frequently tells us, “I have to go to the doctor.” He hasn’t completely mastered telling us what he wants, but he does tell us what he likes. “I like it beebos.” “I like it milk.” Always the “it” between. He introduces himself to everyone with a handshake and “Name William Mascot” while pointing at himself. He also runs around making sure everyone is happy and knows what time of day it is. “Momma, I happy. You happy? Good aternoon, Momma.” (or “Good morning, Momma” or “Good night, Momma”).

Signa is just getting smarter and smarter by the moment and loves to use her imagination. She has an art class, a science group, a gymnastics class and a few playgroups each week. Last week, she had a three-hour long, three-day “Pre-engineering” class at the community center. “Pre-engineering” is actually Legos, which they used to build many cool things and, more importantly, had fun with in a big group. Signa’s teacher shared with us that she is a fun child and asks a lot of questions. But she asks them before he is done explaining. He said she is also very helpful. She helps all the other students, even when they don’t ask for help. As he said, as problems go, these are very good ones to have.

Thinking back to her dance recital at age 3, some things just haven’t changed at all.

Today we were playing store and Signa was the shopkeeper. I was shopping at her store and mentioned that I really should get the toy elephant for my son, as he really likes elephants. As I added it to my basket, she said, “Your kid probably also likes this dinosaur.”

“No,” I said. “The elephant is enough.”

She whispered at me, “No, for your GIRL kid.”

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Edited to add the following Will-ism from today at Gramma's house:

"William, I told you to leave the lights alone! Go to your trouble sofa!"

He sat at the trouble sofa (equivalent of a Pooh Sofa that we have at home) and then I said, "Okay, you can get down. Go say you are sorry."

Will walked by me and went straight to the light switch. "Torry, yite." When I didn't say he could go play (because I was trying to laugh silently), he said, "Torry, yite switch. No more play."

Too funny.

I'm so sorry for this. But I'm going to get political again. I can't help it. This is just too much for me to bear without writing about it. Again, move along if we've agreed not to discuss politics or politic-like by-products. It's just that I have hot-buttons and one has been pressed. The one right next to Sarah Palin.

I've been married for 20 years (and three months). That's a long time (especially in California). So my real question is this: what the heck does someone else's marriage have to do with mine? I'm offended that people imply so. I see people every day who are married and happy, married and miserable, unmarried and happy, and unmarried and miserable. How do any of those have anything at all to do with my own marriage? I do not feel undermined by anyone else's marriage- even if I think their marriage is a bad idea.

And then to say that someone's marriage actually affects my family, not even just my own marriage? How? My children like toads and snails and Daleks from Doctor Who. They do not (I repeat, do NOT) care who, or if, you marry (unless you happen to have a wedding where there is dancing UNTIL NINE THIRTY! in which case, they plead that you marry and invite them to the wedding- see notes about Unkee's wedding if this has confused you). They love to see people happy (see my last diatribe about Will's favorite conversation), if you are a man and want to marry a man, they are all for it (especially if you have dancing UNTIL NINE THIRTY!). And we applaud that because, really, why should we be allowed the easy, "We've been married for 20 years," and they will have to use up all the oxygen in the universe to say, "We've been domestic partners in a legal union for 20 years." Seriously, California? You are going to make them say THAT stupid ass thing? What is the big deal here?

So you don't like gay people- then don't be one. So you don't like gay marriage- then don't have one. Period. But why is it so hard for you to let other people do what you don't even want to do? How does their happiness take away yours? It's a rhetorical question, I know. There is no way I can convince you to change your mind and no way (in hell) you can change mine, so I guess I just leave this here as a way to voice that I personally completely and totally disagree with the passage of Prop. 8 and will be calling today to see what I can do to help overturn it in court.

But at least the eggs I eat will be eggs layed by married chickens. Oh. Wait. I guess I read Prop. 2 wrong. Chickens can't marry, either. They can now just lie down, turn around and stand up in their domestic partnerships.

We've been busy for Halloween! Signa and Marc went to a Halloween party and to escape the wails of, "No! Will Halloween party, too!" we had our own Halloween party. We made mummy pizzas (English muffins with string cheese draped over it to melt like mummy wrappings and olives for eyes), pumpkin cupcakes and spooky popcorn (okay, just popcorn, but I told him they looked like ghost poop). We did crafts, like the hanging Happy Halloween spider that only came with six legs and I knew Signa would have a hissy fit and talk about it for her whole lifetime like the time I made her wear shoes without socks because the outfit was cuter that way and she got blisters and every time we pass the park near Gramma's where it happened she brings it up even though that was three years ago, so I made two extra legs for the damned freaking spider craft.

For Halloween, Will was Darth Vader and Signa was a Dalek from Doctor Who. We went to our downtown Halloween parade on Wednesday and it was a lot of fun. Few people knew who Signa was, but it was a great costume even if you didn't know. And the cool part was that if they knew what she was, they thought it was amazing and really even more cool than cool. On Halloween itself, trick-or-treating, no one knew who she was, but again, it didn't matter because everyone thought it was still amazing.

For the cute/funny stories, Marc is taking a sculpting class and needed a rubber band to wrap around his tool case. He courtesy-asked Signa if he could take one from her jar as he took one from her jar (she's saving up to make a rubber band ball ala PeeWee Herman). Seriously, within 1.2 minutes of returning home from class, Signa had taken that rubber band from around the box and returned it to her jar. Without saying a word. It was just gone when he turned back around and she was calmly returned to the sofa.

We went to a play date at the park and one of the little boys brought his tricycle. To show how bad we are at taking the kids out for bike rides, William sat on it and then said, "Needs batteries."

Speaking of Will, when he gets in trouble lately (which is kind of a lot), he cries a so very sad cry and looks at you with the saddest face you have ever seen in your whole life and says, "But Momma, I'm your friend!" If he weren't so very bad (think, hitting, fighting and general wreaking amazing havoc without any fear of any repercussions), it might actually get to me. Instead I laugh evilly and say, "Not right now you aren't buster!" (Okay, I don't, but sometimes I want to).

William is obsessed with Happy these days. Here is a typical conversation:

“Will’s Happy, Momma. Momma happy?”
“Yep. Momma’s happy.”
“Daddy happy?”
“Yep. Looks pretty happy to me.”
“Dister happy?”“Sister’s happy, too, BuhBuh.”

It’s actually really cute how he does it.

This will only be funny to those of you who like Mystery Science 3k. There is an episode where they spoof the Amazing Colossal Man. Joel acts like he’s the amazing colossal man, Glen, and says, “Oh, I’m huge! What kind of a sin does a man have to commit to get to be so huge?!?!” And he throws the backs of his hands down on the table for emphasis. This morning when I came out of the tub, Will was playing in the kitchen with a bee from the Bee Movie. I heard, “Oh, huge! Sin and huge!!!” in the same voice as Joel doing his Glen impersonation.

It also cracks me up how he introduces himself to everyone. He walks up, taps himself on the chest and says, “Name William. Daddy name Marc. Momma name Debbie. Dister name Digna.” And he’ll shake their hand and say, “Hello, (whatever they said their name was).”

He is such a little man.