Families with last names R-Z will have to wait until next Christmas.

Christmas comes on December 25th every year.  So, it's a little incomprehensible and unsettling why every year December 20 rolls around and I still have a list of 150 things left to do before the 25th.  It *could* have something to do with my procrastination abilities.  Like right now, for example.  I am supposed to be working on my annual family calendar - which was due to the printer yesterday.  The printer loves me so she gave me two extra days to finish (Family if you are reading this - I am sorry.  I $uck.)  So, I could be doing the calendar.  Or, I could be finishing paperwork from working today.  Or, I could be doing one of the prints in the pile of prints that lay taunting me on my desk.  Or, I could be mixing some cookie dough so that Santa's cookies will actually be ready before he comes down the chimney.  Or, I could be doing the rest of our Christmas cards.  But, I am blogging.  So, it goes.  When I am hard pressed to get things done I find at least 20 other super important things that are more pressing.  This list usually includes things like:  polish my nails, surf the net for random facts, examine the crises in the Middle East, attempt to begin a historical novel (I hate historical novels), reteach myself knitting, pin cool stuff on Pinterest, etc., etc.  THAT is the long reason of why I am bringing you a quick little list of:

Random Things You Might Need To Know Five Days Before Christmas

1.  It is harder to blog my one and only son's cherished birthday celebration than it is to do a procrastination blog.  Sorry.  I might get it done sometime before his 11th birthday.

2.  Consider this one a PSA freebie.  (You're welcome.)  Generally I am a fan of Christmas programming (Who doesn't need for their kids to watch Rudolph like zombies while they are frantically doing Christmas cards?).  This year I stumbled across what sounded like a great Christmas show my kids had never seen, Rudolph and The Flight Before Christmas (not to be confused with the traditional Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer).  Instead of zombie children and a nice break for me to get more Christmas crap stuff done, what I got were questions about:  fatherless children, sex before marriage, and living with only one parent.  Merry Christmas to me!  A trailer stating the following would have been super great.
"This show examines the life of a reindeer named Rudolph whose mother and birth-father had premarital unprotected sex one night during a 'flying fling.'  Little Rudolph goes in search of his birth-father who does not know his mother even got knocked up and wants nothing to do with him anyway.  Wolves which are evil and anti-Christmas decide to eat Santa and his reindeer.  All ends well when the chipmunk (Was it a chipmunk?  It's always hard to tell with animation.) decides that he has been a better father to Rudolph than Rudolph's own scum-bag father."
I personally want to thank ABC for teaching my three year old about vicious wolves that eat Santa and reindeer who father illegitimate children.  As far as a rating on this one - I'm not sure I was mature enough to watch it.

3.  My three year old displayed once again how she is headed down a path of destruction and demise when she refused to be a shepherd in the school pageant and insisted she was an angel.  Her reasons?  Shepherds are ugly.  Shepherds just watch Jesus' sheep.  Shepherd costumes are ugly.  Shepherds don't have stars.  Angels are sparkly.  Angels are beautiful.  She is an angel.  Blech.  Who are her parents???  Why can't they control her???

4.  Before my bedazzling cookie class, I made some extra Christmas cookies to frost and decorate later.  Later as in the next day or the day after that.  They have all been eaten.  Unfrosted.  Undecorated.

5.  And most sadly in my random list is the fact that families with last names from R-Z really get the shaft.  You guys probably won't get a Christmas card from me this year.  I go in order of my address book (yes, I still have one of those) and this year I got to "Q" and stopped.  I haven't started again and I doubt I will.  So, if you are a friend and you are a "R-Z," MERRY CHRISTMAS!  You got a post instead of a card - consider yourself lucky!

Countdown:  FIVE, my friends.  Peace out.

"These socks may or may not be clean."

Thank you for the honesty.  Now, you might think that statement came from the nine year old Boy.  But, no.  It came from the two year old baby.  And it made me want to share with you a Top Ten List I have been composing for a while. 

The Top Ten Ways You Know That Kid is a Fourth Child:

10.  She is TWO and had to be rushed to the ER after doing flips on a drainage ditch railing after seeing older siblings do it.  *Her parents may or may not have been watching her diligently.*
9.  She is TWO and can often be heard chanting, "I don't care, I don't care.  I'll pull down your underwear."  *Sometimes to her mother.* and *Sometimes in public.*
8.  She knows where the Give to Goodwill clothes bag is kept and frequently comes downstairs wearing 12 month size clothes when she is going to turn three soon.
7.  She often can be seen digging in her nose.  When questioned about it she says with complete certainty, "Bubba said there are treasures in there."
6.  She insists on practicing piano and doing her homework every night and if a comment is made about her not even playing piano or not even having homework she promptly throws a fit that makes even calm people want to hit their heads with heavy books till they pass out.
5.  She can often be seen and/or heard having long and detailed conversations with other children through the crack under the closed (and barricaded) door.
4.  She is two, yet she is often persuaded to do tasks which other birth order children would not do.  Such as:  asking mom if she and others can watch Sponge Bob, going back upstairs for the millionth time to retrieve a DSI that doesn't belong to her, reaching into the toilet to get our a matchbox car (that, again, does not belong to her), testing milk to see if it has gone bad, etc. ad nauseum.
3.   She does not speak in a normal voice.  She yells everything due to the fact that no one ever lets her talk.  She often and proudly tells her mom, "Daddy says I learned to whisper in a helicopter."
2.  Because no one ever lets her speak she is developing a stutter and is told by her older siblings (as they shake their heads and sigh deeply), "Sounds like you are going to need Speech."

And the number one reason you know that kid is a fourth child:

1.  Her mother has no idea WHERE she puts her dirty socks so when she comes downstairs holding a pair of socks the mother always asks, "Are these clean?' (after a quick sniff test which would indicate probably not) that TWO YEAR OLD child responds cheerfully, confidently, and very loudly, "These socks may or may not be clean."