Find a Penny, Pick it up, All Day Long You'll Have Good Luck. . .

. . .Unless of course you have spent the last three days sifting through the poo in your 2-year-old's diaper trying to find the penny he swallowed on Sunday night.

I guess it was good luck that I actually found it, clearly we tried to drive home the message of not putting anything in your mouth, and Lord knows this mamma needs a little luck in her life, but this wasn't quite the way I was looking to find it.

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It is full on holiday time and this year I wanted to be organized and ready to go. I had my Christmas cards ordered and delivered by mid-November, I made lists for gifts for the kids, cousins (and even myself) prior to Thanksgiving and had an Amazon cart full and ready for purchase come Cyber Monday.

Not wanting to dive right into the Christmas season and bypass Thanksgiving, I decided that we would get all the decorations down post-Turkey day.

We had a busy four days. We were all over the place and we had a great time seeing family and friends. However, by the time we got back to our place on Sunday around 2:30 we were all done. I tried to ignore the list of things that needed to be done.

Number 1 on that list? The Elf on the Shelf.

Here is where the mommy mind melt kicks in. I have a vivid recollection of talking to my husband about the fact that we had to put the Elf on the Shelf away last year. He was still hanging around post-holiday tree take down and I wanted to make sure the kids didn't discover him on my husband's dresser.

I also kind of remember putting it in a bin.

Fast forward to 8:30 Sunday night, we were about 2 hours post-penny swallow and the kids were in their beds but not quite sleeping.

I sent my husband out to bring down the decorations from the attic of the garage as I tried to decide the best place to put the Elf. He called me from the garage to let me know he couldn't find it and he had looked in "a lot of bins."

I love my husband. He does a ton for our family, but less than 24-hours earlier this conversation happened while he was looking through our diaper bag in order to change QT.

Sweet Husband: Where are the wipes?
Me: They are in the bag.
Sweet Husband: I don't see them, are you sure you put them in here? (Add some tone to this.)
Me: Yes. They are in the bag.
Sweet Husband: They aren't in the bag.
Me: Ok. I am sure there are some wipes here. (We were at his sister's house and there were like 10 kids there)

One minute later I look in the bag and there are the wipes. I am not saying he didn't look for them, I am just saying maybe he should have looked a little harder. So, I was a bit skeptical that he couldn't find the Elf on the Shelf.

The next morning the Lady came down looking for the Elf. I did some quick thinking and said that he didn't come because we didn't read the book first. She bought this as an excuse and I told her he would come that night.

I got home from work and headed straight to the garage. I looked in the Christmas bins that my husband brought down. No Elf. I looked in a lot of bins in the attic of the garage and guess what? That's right we have a ton of stuff that we don't need and don't use up there. There is also a ton of stuff that I would love to use if we just had a little more room! Also, no Elf.

We put the kids to bed, I pulled on a heavy sweatshirt and headed out again. 40 minutes later. . .no luck. WTF? Where was this Elf? Was I going to have to go out to Target at 9:30 p.m. and spend another 30 bucks on this thing? Ugh.

My husband said he would go pick up a new one, but first maybe we should look under our bed. Lo and behold, there he was in his box, hanging out for a year or so, just waiting for us to remember that we never even took him out of the house.

Victory was mine that night and the kids couldn't have been more excited to see him the next morning. Please remind me to move him tonight though!

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This is an actual conversation that took place last night as the Little Lady was once again on our bed a full hour and a half after bedtime. My husband was watching some sports talk show on HBO about the documentary "Trophy Kids." They showed a clip of the doc with a little girl golfing. Here is what followed:

Little Lady: Do you remember when Tiger Woods cheated on his wife?
Husband and Me: Um. . .yes
Little Lady: That wasn't very nice of him and now she doesn't even want to be around him anymore.
Husband: Yeah, he wasn't very nice.
Little Lady: I think she went and moved in with her dad.

Actually Little Lady, I am pretty sure she knocked down and rebuilt some huge palatial home in Florida and is dating her neighbor, but I am sure her parents wouldn't have minded if she moved back in. 

The Turkey Trot

I did it. I ran the Turkey Trot, five whole miles in under one hour.

Granted, I barely slept for two days because I was nervous that I wouldn't be able to do it, but once I started running the adrenaline and the training kicked in. The weather cooperated, if it had rained or been any colder I am not sure how well I would have fared. Also, running the hills last week really helped. It gave me an idea of how the course was and once I made it over that last hill I knew that I could keep going. Mare (by best friend and running partner) stayed together and we had a nice pace going. I don't think I would have been able to even attempt this goal if I didn't have her to run with me.

I will tell you that the last mile was tough and at one point I couldn't figure out why these really fit looking kids in Cross Country uniforms were standing by the side of the course, that is until it dawned on me that these guys had already finished, hadn't actually stopped and in fact had just come back to wait for other people.

With about a half a mile to go we saw Mare's husband and her oldest kid on the side of the course with the camera. Let me tell you that gave me much more motivation then the random cow bell ringers and the bagpipers. When we finally rounded into the straight away we saw her twins, her dad, and her brother (who had also run the race and had finished a good 10-15 minutes before us). Then just a bit beyond them I saw the Lady all bundled up in her pink hat in her carriage with my husband, my dad and my little sister it was then we decided to sprint to the finish. It seemed like a good idea to finish strong, not so much when there was a quick second after we crossed the finish line that I thought I might puke. Luckily that didn't happen, although my sister said that someone had done just that in front of them not too many minutes before we made our way by.

Mare and I on the long stretch to the finish.

I can't remember running that far in a row ever, and now that I know I can do it I feel a little less

inhibited. I feel like I can accomplish goals that I set for myself and that is a good feeling. Will I start training for the NYC Marathon? Probably not, but will I continue to run? Yes, and I hope I can go farther and faster.

I just want to thank my friend Bill for all his advice and support. Thanks Bill!

The Turkey Trotters and the kids. (Yes, all three of those are Mare's)

Happy Thanksgiving

I just wanted to thank you all for reading (and commenting) on my blog. I hope that everybody had a happy and healthy Thanksgiving and are recovering nicely from either their hangover, food coma or too much family time!

The Lady spent her second Thanksgiving at both grandparents, ate primarily crackers and cookies, and spent a large part of the day meowing. She loves making animal sounds.

Just wanted to include two verses of a timeless Turkey Day song (by request). Enjoy.

Happy Happy Turkey Day
Happy Happy Turkey Day
Happy Happy Turkey Day
Happy Turkey Day

Happy Happy Pumpkin Pie
Happy Happy Pumpkin Pie
Happy Happy Pumpkin Pie
Happy Turkey Day