Hello from the Blackwoods. Happy Holidays to all. I can not believe that another year has gone by. Wow, how time flies. We have been in Eugene, Oregon for almost 3 years now and it is undeniably our home. We have a great life here and are very lucky with our extended family in Eugene.
Last year James was a little hurt that he was not included that much in the Holiday letter. This year, I decided to dedicate the entire Blackwood Holiday letter to James and his year. He was able to take me to Maui in January due to his supreme performance at Aramark (a performance that he completed again this year winning another trip to Maui for January 2009). In April, we decided that two children were blessings enough and decided to not have any more children (take that for what you will, I will not be spelling it out for you!). James was ever the trooper and took one (two?) for the team. Oh, there is James yelling out from the living room. He no longer wants the letter to be about him. Needless to say, I will never look at a bag of frozen peas the same way again!!! James did have a stellar year at Aramark though, and was able to move his company to another building just a few weeks ago. Life with him has been very good.
Alyssa. Oh, where do I start with that girl. She will be 6 this April going on 16. No, really, her only two wishes in life are to 1. Get a dog (not going to happen) 2. Be 16 years old. She went through her first rite of passage this year and got her ears pierced. She then immediately proceeded to ask when she could get her belly button pierced. Oh Dear. How do I answer this without sounding hypocritical? How about after you are finished having children and your stomach has been stretched from here to New York . If you are able to look past the stretch marks and distorted belly button, I will have no problems with you piercing your belly button. She did not seem to like that answer. She has already decided what type of car she wants for her 16th birthday (a car with no top on it, read: a convertible), who she wants to date (one of the Jonas brothers, I can’t keep their names straight), and what other boys are available to date if the Jonas Brothers are no longer available. Anybody who has been around her this year knows that she is very boy crazy. She has also become quite the social butterfly and party organizer (ironically, this is more of her father in her than me). I do not mind a get together every once in awhile, but she plans one every other day. I get to cancel all of the parties she plans on the playground when she invites 20+ kids over for a slumber party/sneaker party/movie party/high school musical party, or whatever themed party she comes up with that day. May seem cute until I get to tell some poor 5 year old that my daughter was mistaken and no, we are not having a party where I am hosting 20 children overnight because there is not enough alcohol in the world for me to induce in order to undertake that kind of torture. She is a very sweet young lady though with a very high moral standard and follows all of the rules (unless they are mine). Her current favorite sayings are “Chillax mom” (a combination of chill and relax) her inner 16 year old talking and “You said a bad word” her inner police officer talking.
Jimmy. Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy. If I do not have an ulcer yet from Alyssa, than Jimmy will surely step in and provide that last dose to push me over the edge. It took some time (a very long, long time) but he was finally potty trained this year. He too went through his first rite of passage as a boy, which evidently is making bodily function noises at all times of the day by any means possible. This usually comes when I am at the middle of shopping at the grocery checkout lane with a few other customers and makes said noises (he does this by blowing on his arm really hard; he is a precious one that boy) and then points to me and yells on the top of his lungs “Mommy tooted”. As I look around, red faced, trying to convince my fellow shoppers, that no, mommy does not do that because she has class, I whisper something very special into my son’s ear which is then promptly followed by a yell by Alyssa screaming “You said a baaaaaaaaad word!”. Needless to say, I do not go grocery shopping with my children anymore. Jimmy has a very sweet, yet mischievous temperament. He is also an inquisitive young man with his favorite saying being “Why?”. His questions are never ending and have me constantly evaluating how in the world I was ever able to receive a college degree with the obvious limited knowledge I have on useless information. Case in point, I pointed out to him how wonderful and green our garden was this spring. Of course he wanted to know why it was so green. I don’t know. Something having to do with photosynthesis or something, I replied. “What is photosymfasis” he asked. Oh, Geez, I don’t remember, something to do with the sun and the plants. “Why” he asks again. I don’t know, look it up on the computer. “I don’t know how to use computer” he responds. Well then, I guess that it is a good question to ask your teacher (yep, I am that kind of mom). When I am not constantly being berated by his questions, he likes to push me even closer to the edge with his personal quest to break a bone, any bone, in his body. If he is not riding down an icy driveway on a razor scooter, he is diving from the couch to the wall to see if he can stick to it like spider man. Just yesterday I caught him putting his head in the Christmas tree stand and trying to tighten the screws so that he can intentionally get his head stuck in the stand (why there is no Christmas tree in it is a story for another day my friends!). Chasing after him is more than a full time job. He started preschool this year at the Catholic school Alyssa attends, so at least I have some time to calm down before the bell rings.
Mom. Well, not much to tell except that even after almost 6 years, still trying to figure out this whole mom thing out. Just when I think I have it down, there are some other moms around to prove you wrong. This summer I got into a conversation with two other moms who were explaining to me how upset they get when they hear children say “What the…”. I replied “What the what. What did your kids say” salivating because my kids may not be the only children on the block who accidentally come up with a cuss word. They explained to me that they did not put a cuss word after the statement, it is only that a cuss word is IMPLIED after saying “What the…” that makes it a bad word. I looked on bewildered because I had no idea that implying a bad word makes that a bad word. I thought saying a bad word was the cardinal sin. As they shook their heads at me with pure pity on their faces I learned two things. 1. Their kids are not coming over to play at my house, because I use “What the….” all the time in my household and I DO finish it with a quote unquote bad word. I am like Mad Libs with that statement. It is like, what kind of cuss word can I put at the end of this statement today? It is really fun. You should try it sometime. 2. Yet again, I am no longer a contender for mother of the year (and if that did not disqualify me, the fact that Alyssa knows the entire song to “I Kissed a Girl and I Liked it” should be the nail in the coffin!) Oh well. Even if I can’t hold my head held high in a grocery store because people think I expel bodily function and cuss like a sailor from my children’s antics I know one thing. I do have the perfect family. I have a supportive husband and two kids who are perfect in my eyes (cue in the awwws now).
We hope everybody had a good year. We know that 2008 was not kind to many of our friends and family, but if ever there is a time to show how special you are in our lives, that time is now. We love and appreciate you all, and hope that 2009 will make everybody’s dreams come true. If you are on Facebook, you can find both me and James on it and if you enjoy getting these Christmas letters, you can check out our blog at:
www.blackwoodsblogtales.blogspot.com.
Sincerely,
The Blackwoods
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