Our Christmas was great. We played and played and played! We shopped until we dropped, crowds be damned. We drank hot cocoa by the tree and enjoyed all SIX of the board games Pumpkinhead received. Unlike Butterflyfish’s well-mannered son, mine lost every game and threw a wicked tantrum each time. I know this is a learning process he needs to go through, but I definitely agree with B-fish — as much as a Mommy is supposed to enjoy playing games with her child, I really don’t. Books are much more my thing and fortunately he’s into book variety (i.e., he asks for a different one each night so nothing gets too old).

Speaking of books, I purchased Pumpkinhead a bunch of Magic School Bus books for Christmas and he loves them! If you’re not familiar with the Magic School Bus, it’s a really fun PBS series about a cool teacher, Ms. Frizzle, who takes her class on field trips to places like inside the human body or into the world of a frog. When I was about 15, I babysat for an autistic child who was hooked on it and I was pleased to see that the series is still around on DVD and in books (not sure about TV).

Besides the board games and books, Pumpkinhead received a bike and the LeapFrog Clickstart My First Computer. He’s loving the bike nd I was very pleased at the ease of use of the Leapfrog toy. We’ve only played the Nemo game so far, but I think it will be a fun activity for us to do together.

Anyhoo, this week has been kind of sucky work-wise and I spent THREE HOURS at the damn doctor’s office today because she was “running late” but somehow they thought putting me in a room would make me not notice). Fortunately tomorrow is my birthday so my boss is not allowed to yell at me (at least I hope not!) and then I leave first thing Saturday for a week’s vacation in a hot, sunny, beautiful foreign country with my parents, Chapin and Pumpkinhead. I haven’t packed a thing because I’ve been so busy so right now I’m planning to fly by the seat of my pants tomorrow night and thank my lucky stars that WalMart is open 24/7. Just writing this reminds me that I don’t have any sunglasses! Argh.

I’m going in early to work tomorrow, planning to stay late, and hopefully that will help me accomplish what I need to get done work-wise so that I can leave without feeling bad. It’s hard to get into the vacation spirit when people make you feel guilty for taking the time. I bet the guilt will lift when I step onto the plane.

My vacation spot is Internet-free so I wish you all a very Happy New Year!