Christmas letter 2010

Wow. And we thought 2009 was a bad year! To settle it once and for all, no, you were not cut from the Christmas card list last year (ok, dad?). During this time last year, we felt that 2009 had been a tough year for us and couldn’t find the humor for our Christmas Card. HAHAHAHAHA, oh, how funny things can be in prospective. This year, we are going to focus on the positives. I am on glass (bottle?) two and on the first paragraph. This should be interesting…

Well somehow James and I have been able to raise one of the sweetest most selfless little girls on the planet. Her friend Jasmyn had been going through chemo treatments for 18 months so she decided to cut her very long hair in June. She is enjoying her shorter hair but really does not like it when the mom’s tell her she has the same haircut that they do (it is a very popular cut!). She is also loosing teeth at an astronomical rate which is both exciting and entirely gross at the same time. At any given time, her smile can be compared to the lovely women in the Tenderloin district looking for a man named John. As we watch our little girl turn into a big kid, we have learned a lot as parents. The main thing that we have learned is that the tooth fairy assigned to 102 Bampton Ct can’t seem to get her %$#@ together every time Alyssa looses a tooth. In the tooth fairy’s defense, I must say that Alyssa has this very unusual habit of loosing her teeth at about 10pm at night causing lots of “miscommunication” to occur between the Blackwood house and Tooth Fairy land. I feel like I need to sit the main tooth fairy down and have her execute a memo regarding what is and is not expected when handling the tooth versus cash transaction. All the tooth fairies really need to be on the same page regarding the tooth/cash transaction and the current value each tooth has in today’s market. For instance, Alyssa came home and said “Suzie is really mad because she has never got 20 dollars for a tooth before, but she gets fairy sprinkle dust on her dollar. And Megan is mad because she has never got 20 dollars for a tooth before AND she doesn’t get a dollar with fairy dust on it, but she gets a gold coin under her pillow when she looses a tooth”. I then have to explain the reason she got 20 dollars for the tooth was because her tooth fairy forgot three days in a row to stop by, and on the 4th day when she finally remembered, she realized that a $20 bill was all that she had and when she kept texting her neighbor fairies, they would not answer their damn phone, so she got lucky and scored 20 bucks out of it. The reason there was not fairy dust was due to the major fairy dust shortage that is going on in fairy land which is equivalent to the energy crisis that blares on tv every day. As far as the gold coin, to be quite frank, our tooth fairy didn’t even know the U.S. government issued legal gold coins. Plus it was tooth number 4, and EVERYBODY knows that when you lose your 4th tooth, that is the most special one and that is why she received the coveted $20 bill.

When our time is not devoted to having extensive conversations with the tooth fairy, we are trying to control our boy crazy daughter and remind her that she is 7 and not 17. Her boyfriend list gets longer by the day and now we have to write a letter to Santa to try to figure out how to get Justin Beiber under the tree. She sat James and I down a few weeks ago and told us that she wasn’t going to ask us for one thing for Christmas from us because of everything our family is going through right now. As my eyes filled with tears and my throat got tight she then said in the same breath that she is just going to ask Santa to bring her an IPhone for Christmas. I knew I didn’t lose my little materialistic girl for long

Jimmy. My sweet, innocent, little boy Jimmy. James got this wild idea in his head that Jimmy may be “babied” too much for his liking and that we needed to put him into Pop Warner full pad football for his Kindergarten year. Of course I agreed! What mom wouldn’t want to see their little boy in his cute little football uniform with his name proudly displayed on his back. Obviously, I did not think this through past the getting him into a cute little uniform portion of the football season. I would like to report that he is looking like the next Joe Montana of his generation, however, considering that his coach and other football parents will be receiving this card, I will honestly have to report that he is looking more like the next Rudy of his generation. His 1.5 hours of practice on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday’s (not combined people, EACH DAY) plus games every Sunday from August through November did teach him a bunch about the game, but you can’t teach talent folks. If I had to pick one defining moment in my son’s football season this year I would probably have to note that the highlight of the season for me came when I got kicked out of football practice. Yep, you read that correctly. Let me paint the scene really quick. Jimmy got the answer wrong to a question his coach asked him so he had to take a lap. Well, this was his 4th lap in a row and he cried the entire time running that lap. As his little bobble head swayed side to side trying to hold the weight of the huge helmet, he took that last curve in the ¼ mile track and it became too much for me to watch. It was a sweltering 76 degrees outside and as they broke for a water break, my son ran into my arms crying that he wanted to go home. As any responsible parent would do, I gathered up our chairs and water bottles and began to leave with my baby (big boy, dammit, big boy) in my arms. His coach ran over to us and said to me “Steph, this isn’t working”. I agreed completely with his statement and apologized for wasting his time. He then tore my son out of my arms (ok, so more likely gently lifted him from my grasp, but I like my version better). He explained that Jimmy was fine, it was me who was the problem. As he was speaking his gibberish to me, I could not comprehend what he was saying so I finally blurted out “Are you kicking me out of practice?” His response? “Yes, Stephanie, that is exactly what I am doing”. Well, like any classy woman of my caliber would have done in this situation I raised my head up, let go of my son and walked away while whispering (yelling?) some choice words that may or may not have caused me to donate a heavy fee into the bad word jar (there may or may not have been some hand gestures to go along with these words, but I am not at liberty to say at this point and time). I AM happy to report that Jimmy did finish the entire season, and I am also happy to report that I was totally invited to the end of the year pizza party (but really wasn’t invited to anything before that).

Which leaves us to James and I. In keeping with the positives notes, we will only focus on the positive things for the year. Hmmm, well, James was employed for ¾ of the year. That’s positive. I was a stay at home mom for ¾ of the year. That’s positive. Our marriage is pretty solid. Look at that, we are on a roll here. After an almost 5 year hiatus, I went back to work for an amazing company called Alacrity Services. It is very similar to what I was doing before, only now I manage contractors instead of body shops. I currently work two jobs, a chair for 2 different non profits and an active member of the Junior League. This ridiculously busy schedule now gives me a justified excuse for any future botox treatments that I receive! People ask why I work I continue to work two jobs. Well, for one, I may be the most loyal person in the world. Pottery Barn stepped up in one of the scariest times of my life and I will not leave them during the height of holiday shopping. Plus, I want some ammo when the kids get older and complain about something. I will be quick to throw in their face “I worked TWO JOBS so that you could have everything you wanted when daddy was out of work!” (The reality is I work two jobs so that I can have nice furniture, but we will keep that between you and me). James is at home living the life of a kept man, eating bonbons on the couch (actually, he tells me everyday he can’t get anything done, the kids make constant messes, he has no time for anything else, and that he can’t wait to get a job.) If nothing else, it has been a very eye opening role reversal for the both of us.

2010 may have been a hard year for The Blackwood’s but we have learned a lot of things about ourselves. We truly have the most amazing family and friends that anybody could ever ask for. I would not have a job without our friends, James would not have the leads he has without our friends and we would not be able to have the schedule we have without our friends. Eugene has truly become our home, but the support we have received from Eugene, The Bay and Southern California and beyond has been nothing but humbling. On a more sobering note James and I lost a dear friend last year after the holidays who had decided his time on earth should end. This heartbreaking decision left us whirling with emotions and wondering if he knew how truly loved he was. If you are receiving this card and letter, it is because you have touched our lives in an amazing way and though we may not take the time to tell you on a regular basis, you mean the world to us! A few weeks ago I lost a friend (one of my best friends sister) suddenly. Life can change in a blink of an eye which we learn every year. We may not know where life is going to take us in 2011 but we know that we will have an amazing support system guiding us along the way. In looking towards the positive, we welcomed a beautiful new niece, countless babies from our best friends (damn, those Catholics can produce!), and learned how loved we are by many. James is becoming Catholic and 2011 and Alyssa is going through her 1st communion. 2011 may not be our year, but here is to it being a better year than 2010. Cheers! Happy Holidays from our home to yours.

Love:


The Blackwoods