Kissing My Own Ass

Rojo has an expression, "I'm kicking my own ass!" when he's killing himself, or otherwise driving himself crazy. Kathleen and I have taken it and run, but today I decided to give it a twist, because, basically, I am kissing my own ass, so pleased with myself, I simply must share.

First, I decided this year I simply could not, as in could. not. take Rojo to see Santa. For those of you that think it's cute and sweet that he still wants to go, I beg you to stand in line at the mall with the babies and toddlers, and your 5'10" 16-year-old, and tell me it's cute. It's not cute. It's brutal. Plus, Rojo had kind of opened the door to me not taking him when he said, "Would it break your heart if you didn't take me to see Santa this year? Would it be okay if Dad and I went to the one at Home Depot?"

I knew that STM's Santa-ability was even less than my zero ability, but I decided to make that Rojo's problem. "No, it would not break my heart. Work it out with Dad."

I asked a couple more times if he and Dad had a plan worked out, and Rojo would always say, "He's thinking about it." I knew that the longer it took to get the message to Santa, the more stress I'd be under trying to find whatever weird and random thing he pulled out of his butt to ask for, so I started getting panicky.

"You know, you don't always have to ask for something, you can just say to Santa, 'Surprise me!'"

Yesterday he was digging all over for "flavored" hand sanitizer, another of his obsessions. I had a stroke of brilliance. "Rojo! Why don't you ask Santa for flavored hand sanitizer for Christmas! He can bring you all kinds! AND, you don't even have to tell him in person, you can e-mail him! He just needs to know what you want, he doesn't have to actually see you."

"Do you just e-mail him at Santa.com?" he asked.

"Yes!" I said, having no idea if that were true.

I scurried to my BFF Google shortly after and found out that yes, you can e-mail ol' St. Nick.

Rojo's happy. Care is happy. STM is happy. Santa's happy. His clean, well-sanitized hands will be happy!

Then, the second big awesome accomplishment of mine, right on the heels of this one, was the Christmas card. Let's just say there were some bumps along the way, and in a frenzy I ordered a bunch without really counting how many I truly needed. When I printed out the labels I realized I'd ordered quite a few too many, and they weren't cheap (but I am). Here's the part where I get awesome: I made a list of people that weren't on the list, but should be. That was fun! They were, for the most part, people that are angels in Rojo's life, who aren't necessarily friends of the whole family, but they are his friends, therefore, ours. You know what I mean.

Ho, ho, ho!


* Photo from www.antiochchamber.org