Rachel Callahan

Amazon Baby Registry … AND Spectacular Giveaway!

November 28, 2011November 29, 2011 Rachel Callahan Giveaways and Contests

Amazon rocks my world, bottom line. I was already a fan, but once I discovered free two day shipping and the world’s cheapest diapers delivered to my doorstep via Amazon Mom, I became a full-on addict. And Christmas season – well, Amazon makes Christmas shopping at least 567 times easier AND cheaper.

The Amazon Baby Registry is no exception to their greatness. There are just so many layers of awesome that the other registries just can’t compete.

For instance, your feet will much prefer Amazon. I’ve created registries in the stores, and after about five minutes, they are no longer fun – especially when your pregnant legs are aching and swollen and you’re SO OVER using the cool scan-gun thingy.

Plus, the stores are totally overwhelming. It’s much easier to sit comfortably with your legs propped up while you get your Baby Gear Bearings.

And if that wasn’t enough reason, Amazon makes it SO MUCH simpler with their awesome registry tools. As soon as you start your registry, they’ll offer you a Baby Registry Jumpstart, where they’ll gently take you through fifteen registry categories, giving you helpful tips as you go. They also have a compilation of the top 100 items most registered for to help you make sure you didn’t miss anything. Their Baby Registry Essentials and Baby Buying Guides give you even more awesome information and insight. And of course, you always have at your fingertips the voluminous collection of the Amazon consumer reviews.

Even though you can get pretty much every item in the world from Amazon, they willingly admit that there might be one or two items in the nether regions of Antartica that they can’t supply. So they offer a Universal Wish List Button that you can install on your internet toolbar and actually add items from other places onto your Amazon wish list! That way, everything is in one nice, neat collection for your friends and family to view and buy from.

Amazon also offers 365 day hassle-free returns for new unopened items (which you will really appreciate when you realize that you didn’t need the wipes warmer and you’re never going to have time to figure out how to use that bottle sanitizer). All you have to do is visit the online returns center, print a label, and ship it back – they will give you a full refund with no deduction for shipping!

But just in case you didn’t already love Amazon enough, they offered to let me give away a Britax B-Agile Travel System to one of you!!

This top of the line travel system retails at $399 ($339.99 at Amazon because, like I said, they ROCK), and includes a stroller, infant seat, and car seat base.

If you would like to be entered to win this fabulous set from Amazon, all you have to do is comment on this post!

If you’d like extra entries, you can get up to four extra entries by:

Creating your own baby registry at Amazon. If you already have one, that counts!
Tweet, blog, or Facebook about this giveaway.
Follow me on Twitter or Facebook
Subscribe to my blog

(be sure to leave separate comments for your extra entries.)

This giveaway is open until Monday, December 5th. The winner will be randomly selected and posted on my giveaway winners page on Tuesday, December 6th.

Good luck!!

Disclaimer: I was not compensated in any way to write this post. My opinions are always my own.

My Griswold.

November 25, 2011November 25, 2011 Rachel Callahan A Day in the Life, The Blissfulness of Life, Weird Strange and True

The following events transpired on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, long before the Christmas Police would approve. Suspects are now in custody.

There’s Clark…

There’s Clark’s Assistant…

There’s Clark’s Wanna-Be Assistant…

(And Admirer)

(And Taste-Tester)

There’s plenty of time to waste while Clark works.

Climbing trees…

Getting stuck in trees…

Swinging…

Jumping in giant leaf piles…

Hating giant leaf piles…

Sucking all of the fun out of giant leaf piles…

And admiring a job well done.

It’s beautiful, Clark.

Christmas, Eight Months Later.

November 22, 2011November 22, 2011 Rachel Callahan On a more serious note. . ., Tornadoes

April 27.

Two hundred and eleven tornadoes – in one day.

Two hundred and forty three deaths – in Alabama alone.

Six months have come and gone since that horrific day that forever changed our state.

And, even though it felt like it wouldn’t, life goes on. But not without it’s scars.

So many people’s lives were destroyed that day. They lost family members, houses, jobs, schools, and had their belongings spread quite literally throughout the southeast.

And yes, there’s insurance. But insurance isn’t easy, insurance isn’t enough, and insurance doesn’t replace lives.

Although we personally only had minimal damage, seeing others hurt so significantly from the storms definitely made it’s impact on our family.

At the breakfast table the other day, after finishing up saying the blessing, Ali elaborated on why she had prayed for us to have a good day.

“Sometimes I ask God that we can have a good day, because I don’t want there to be any tornadoes…and I don’t want God to forget.”

I know that taking Ali to see the devastation forever changed her life and mindset. She has a sense of anxiety about natural disasters that she was previously oblivious to. And I know that she, like me, lives with the fear of another horror-film-worthy day. But it has also instilled in her a new level of tenderheartedness.

She especially remembers the library. Every time we go to her nice, pretty, undamaged library, she recalls seeing this one:

“Mommy, the kids in Pratt City don’t have their library any more, do they?”

Because of her visit to Pratt City, Ali has a tender heart for the children that lost so much, and I want to help her foster that compassion and teach her how to use it to bless others.

So, after Build-A-Bear sent me the bears to give to random strangers which turned into such an amazing experience for Ali, I asked them if they would like to help provide gifts for children who lost everything in the tornadoes.

They quickly replied, and shocked me with their generosity.

“All we can send right now is 25 bears – would that be enough?”

Um, yes!! How awesome!

Soon afterward, Two giant boxes of a delightful mixture of bears were delivered to my doorstep.

To allow Ali and her friends to have a part in blessing their tornado-stricken neighbors, we had a Bear Condo Decorating Party.

We talked about the kids that lost all of their stuffed animals,

Explained that they had the opportunity to be a blessing to these children,

And set them to work meticulously coloring the Bear Condos.

They asked questions about where the kids were living,

and they talked about what it would mean to have their house hit by a tornado.

After they finished, they took great joy in picking out the specific bear they wanted to gift in their masterpiece of a box.

We will be delivering these bears for distribution to Alberta Baptist Church:

…or at least that’s what it used to look like, before April 27th, where it was in the direct line of attack.

(Thanks to Mary Kathryn of Mathews Family Happenings for sharing these photos)

Despite their own destruction, the faithful members of Alberta Baptist are tirelessly serving their community, a community which needs help desperately – this photo only captures a tiny slice of their damage:

It could have been us.

I don’t know if our state will ever fully recover from that day, but I am thankful for the opportunity to help Ali contribute a tiny bit to that cause.

The Hex of Chuck E.

November 21, 2011November 20, 2011 Rachel Callahan A Day in the Life, Blogging: the therapy., Just My Luck

I really should have known better.

With all of the inventory in the world of deadly and miserable germs with which to build his arsenal, of course Chuck E Cheese would attack me and my family for documenting my experience at his House of Horrors.

In fact, he probably has a voodoo doll in my image formed from Dehydrated Excess Tunnel Grime.

Here’s how it all went down.

Tuesday, 8:00 AM: I blog about The Chuck.

Wednesday, 3:30 AM: Noah starts crying. Since he will occasionally cry for a few minutes and go back to sleep, I let him cry.

4:00 AM: I finally decide that this is an instance that needs investigating. I step into his room and into a nightmare. A snot-covered, poop-covered baby in a poop-covered, slippery-from-snot bed. Major cleanup was required, including a complete bedding overhaul and the disposal of a non-recoverable pair of pajamas.

5:30 AM: I finally fall back asleep for a short while, totaling my sleep for the night at under four hours, thanks to other sleep-disturbing instances of Ali sleepwalking, me sleepwalking, intensely loud thunder and a tornado warning. ALL IN ONE NIGHT.

9:30 AM: The kids and I are eating breakfast. Noah is severely grumpy. I am a sleep-deprived emotional wreck.

And then, another tornado siren.

I turn on the weather – we are in The Polygon. I run the kids to the basement, Noah as grumpy as he’s ever been and Ali and I completely freaking out about the first tornado since…then.

10:30 AM: Tornadoes go about their merry way, and I finally put Noah down for his nap, hoping a little sleep will help…him AND I.

11:00 AM: Or not. Noah wakes up and refuses to go back to sleep. Resumes sleep-deprived grumpiness. I discover two teeth that are starting to come through, so I chalk up the grump, nasty diaper, and runny nose to this cause.

(All photos courtesy of a sub-par iPhone camera.)

3:00 PM: After enduring three more hours of an intensely fussy baby, afternoon nap begins. Or at least it’s supposed to. Grump the Babe spends the next hour fussing on and off in his crib.

3:30 PM: I turn off the monitor and find my happy place, remembering that the kids are going to my parent’s house on Friday so that I can have a much-needed day to myself to get some work done, followed by a delightful date night, a childless night of sleep, and then followed by the last Football Saturday.

Aaaaaah….

4:00 PM: Noah falls asleep.

4:20 PM: Noah wakes up, impressively more sleep-deprived than ever.

9:00 PM: All kids finally asleep and tasks done, I fall in a heap on the couch.

Thursday, 7:20 AM: Ali wakes up crying. Her tummy hurts. Fortunately, The Baby Formerly Known as Grump slept all night and woke up happy, albeit impressively snotty.

I enjoy a morning of cuddling, thanks to snottiness and tummy aches.

10:00 AM: Ali throws up gigantic piles of neon Fruit Loops.

EXCELLENT.

What followed was a day of moaning, laying on the floor, refusing to eat, and many tears, but no more puke.

Noah’s status was an increasing crusty slimy nose and also joining his sister in refusing to eat.

8:00 PM: Kids in bed. Breath of fresh, non-puke-or-snot-filled air.

11:00 PM: Chris begins the Level IV Stomach Flu Rotation, spending all night awake and decidedly miserable.

Friday, 8:00 AM: I wake up to find both sickies on the couch, moaning and holding their tummies.

9:00 AM: Chris tests himself with coke and one piece of bread, and eventually goes to work (against my better judgment and strenuous attempts at persuasion), Ali continues her couch moaning, all day long, despite not throwing up again AND knowing that she can’t go to Gramamma’s until she feels better.

11:00 AM: I pitifully fail at having a good attitude as I watch my week-long focal point of a day to myself sift through my fingers like the slimy puke and snot I’d been cleaning up.

1:00 PM: Deciding that he’d prefer to stay near his own facilities for the weekend, Chris gives away his football tickets.

6:00 PM: Ali seems better and finally eats a little. Chris is better, Noah is better, I’m still untouched. We tell Ali that if we are all still better by the morning, she and Noah can go (albeit a day late) to Gramamma’s.

(Gramamma, bless her soul, is welcoming of this plan.)

11:00 PM: I go to bed, fully prepared to be up all night puking. I lay out a bottle of leftover-from-pregnancy Zofran in preparation for the fight.

Saturday, 8:00 AM: Everyone wakes up hyper, happy, and excited for the day to come. We ask one more time if Gramamma is SURE she wants previously sick grandchildren, and she assures us that she does.

Chris and I silently rejoice for the opportunity to finally get a moment to breathe from our nightmarish week.

10:30 AM: We drop the kids off and set out, free and unfettered, for a relaxing date.

11:30 AM: We eat a lovely lunch, no cutting of other people’s food required.

1:00 PM: I call and check on the kids. All is good. All are happy. All even ate lunch.

1:30 PM: We wander over to see our friends at Serra Honda just to dream about my latest non-minivan-Mom-Car-obsession (I finally decided that the Flex was not for me), the Honda Accord Crosstour.

2:00 PM: We’re on the salesroom floor checking out a Crosstour and about to take a frivolous test drive when I get the call.

“Ali just threw up. Twice.”

2:01 PM: We leave the salesman, dejected at our speedy departure, and head to pick up our again-ailing children, mourning the passing of our date as we drive.

2:30 PM: We arrive at Mom and Dad’s, and she informs us that Noah, also, appears to be sick – but only in the covered-by-a-diaper end of things…so far.

Ali also seems to have acquired Noah’s snotty nose, now making them both sick with two illnesses each.

We request a garbage bag for our trip home.

3:00 PM: We make it home with no substances expelled in the car and put the kids down for naps. We then sit comatose, with mochas, on the porch discussing, “What would we be doing right now if we were still on our date?”

11:00 PM: I go to bed, fully expecting to puke all night, this time setting out Zofran AND a ponytail holder in preparation.

Sunday, 8:00 AM: I wake up, again shocked that I haven’t puked, but with an extremely sore throat and stuffy nose.

Noah continues his diaper-ended stomach flu, resulting in the destruction of many clothes.

Ali goes back to tummy-moaning.

And I continue to await my true miseries to begin, Zofran, Ponytail Holder and cool washcloth at the ready.

And this, Dear Friends, is why you should never speak the truth about The Chuck. Because he will fight back. And he doesn’t fight fair.

I’ll Be in the Vault If You Need Me.

November 18, 2011February 15, 2015 Rachel Callahan Actually Possibly Informational, Denim Drama

Update: Due to significant changes in the company and a terrible downward spiral in denim quality, I no longer recommend shopping through Vault Denim. I now buy all of my jeans through Nordstrom Rack’s app, HauteLook, which regularly features my favorite brands of designer jeans at half the cost. I highly recommend it! My current favorite brands are Joe’s Jeans, Genetic Denim, Hudson Jeans, Frankie B, Mother Denim, and 7 for all Mankind.

When a couple of Vault Denim reps found me this summer via my Mom Jeans post and asked me if I wanted to become a rep for their company, my first response (after I gagged a little) was no, no, no, and NO.

In-home parties make me squirmy, selling makes me squirmy, and combining the two made me nauseous.

(Nothing wrong with either – it’s just not for me.)

But I couldn’t shake the idea of the amazing service that Vault offered – designer denim at half the price – and how badly I personally wanted to take advantage of it. I had just finished losing weight, all of my jeans were too big and starting to look uncomfortably like Mom Jeans, so I was about to shop for some new ones. Vault would save me hours of searching for jeans on clearance!

So finally, I offered to co-host a party. I still refused the idea of being a rep, but at least this way I could buy some jeans.

The party ended up being one of the most fun things I had done in a long time. I got two pairs of awesome jeans for myself AND had the privilege of sharing the exhilarating feeling of what good jeans can do with several friends.

I mean, look at this!! It’s all in the jeans, people. all. in. the. jeans.

After writing about our party, I had many people ask me about having a party of their own.

Which got me thinking.

My Vault reps from Atlanta weren’t going to want to come to Birmingham this often, and I would be attending these parties anyway because I enjoyed them so much.

So. Why didn’t I want to be a rep again?

Oh yeah – the sales.

Finally, after what felt like the hundredth person asked me about having a party, I realized that I wouldn’t have to sell – people were begging me to hook them up!

And so, after some serious research about what it means to be a Vault rep and discovering that it was unbelievably easy, I became a rep.

(I seriously can’t believe I just typed those words. I feel like I need to apologize to in-home parties everywhere for my previous dissing behaviors.)

So now I get to take advantage of the great prices Vault has anytime I want, and even better, I can help solve the problem of Mom Jeans, one butt at a time.

However.

What I will NOT be doing is crowding up my blog with stuff about Vault.

I promise – this is not going to become a hub for self-commercials. The thought makes me squirmy all over again.

So, since I won’t be mentioning Vault here, like, hardly ever, here’s what you need to know from this one and only Vault post:

– I have two parties in December if you’re wanting to attend one: Monday, December 5 and Friday, December 9, both in the 280 area. If you’re interested in coming to one of them, let me know (via email or comment) and I’ll get you the details.

– I had many of you non-locals ask me how you could find out information about Vault in your area, and I previously couldn’t help you at all. Now I can. If you want to host a party in your area (and earn free jeans – hostesses get 10% of the sales credit toward their own jeans!) or if you’re interested in becoming a rep yourself, let me know.

– Vault will actually have online ordering starting soon (which will be AHHH-mazing), and will be available through the Vault website.

– If you want to join my Vault team and become a consultant, I’d love to have you! I’ll be glad to give you all of the nitty-gritty details and walk you through every step. Just email me at rachel@graspingforobjectivity.com!

So that’s it – you know where to find me if you want more information.

On Meeting The Party Friends.

November 17, 2011November 16, 2011 Rachel Callahan Kids: The Experience., Weird Strange and True

Ali loves to play on our Wii. She especially loves it because not only have we created a Mii for her,

myself,

and Chris,

but we have dozens of our friends in there also, which she easily recognizes as they pop in and out of her games because I am, if I may say so myself, a FANTASTIC MiiMaker.

When Ali asked to make some of her own Mii characters, I took it as an opportunity to meet some people that I’ve long been wanting to see.

You see, Ali has Party Friends that she plays with every day. They’re her pretend friends, but are called Party Friends because they have many birthdays each year, and, therefore, many parties.

Besides all of their birthdays, they regularly die, come back to life, get married, move next door, have their houses destroyed by tornadoes, and many other soap-opera-like story lines.

(They even have their own god – his name is James Brick. And he’s just like the real God, except that he’s sick.)

So, since I basically live with these Party Friends, I thought that it was a brilliant idea to let her create their Mii characters so that I could actually see these people that I feel like I already know so well.

So she started out with a more recent addition to her Party Friend Repertoire, Vowel.

After we finished the creation, she excitedly told me, “That’s EXACTLY what Vowel looks like, Mommy!!”

Let me introduce you to Vowel.

Vowel is now the definition of the word “creep” in our house.

Next, Ali wanted to create Samuel – her longest-surviving Party Friend, to whom she was also married to for a short time.

Also – he is Ali’s son.

(I told you it was a soap opera.)

However, as much as I knew about Samuel, I didn’t know until I met his Mii that he is apparently some sort of human-gopher halfbreed:

(Fortunately, they’re not married anymore, as Samuel died and came back to life unmarried.)

(Also fortunate, there were no part-rodent grandchildren produced from their union.)

She was on a roll, and was loving introducing me to all of her friends. So next came the witches. They usually live in Mississippi, but they visit sometimes to cause trouble.

There’s Nice Witch,

the aptly named Silly Witch,

And, the most common visitor and curse-word-teacher, Serious Witch.

(Serious in that she’s not happy and she’s not mad – she’s just “serious”.)

Finally, there was the newest Party Friend, Door-Fractions. There was some debate over his (yes, it’s a he) hair color, but she finally decided on red.

However, that didn’t stop her from panicking the next day, while we were in the car and couldn’t do a thing about it, over the fact that his hair NEEDED to be yellow, not red.

I’m sure it will ease your mind to know that this great crisis has now been put to rest.

Ali’s Party Friends have considerably spiced up the appearance of our Mii lineup,

But now that I’ve met them in person, I’m having nightmares about waking up in the middle of the night and seeing HIM staring down at me.

The Chuck.

November 15, 2011July 21, 2020 Rachel Callahan A Day in the Life, Blogging: the therapy., I'm a Glutton for Adventure, Kids: The Experience., Pop Post, Popular Posts

E. Cheese, that is.

Chris and I made it four years, ten months, and three days into our parenting career without crossing his threshold. And we were well pleased with ourselves.

Then we received an invitation to a good friend’s son’s birthday party. A friend that Ali would be disappointed to miss his celebration.

(A friend whose mother agreed that I should write this post, for what it’s worth.)

He had been begging his poor mother all year long to have his birthday at Chuck E. Cheese, and despite her attempts at helping him pick a more lovely place, his heart was set.

I didn’t think about the invite for too long – I knew Ali would be thrilled to go, and my parental guilt of not taking my kid to the place Where a Kid Can Be a Kid earlier in her life temporarily eclipsed my intense desire avoid that GermHole at all costs.

Plus, it couldn’t be as bad as I imagined, right?

I was so deluded in my planning for our attendance that I even nonchalantly agreed to take both kids alone if Chris wasn’t able to leave work early enough to join us.

Fortunately, God did not smite me that ruthlessly.

We set out as a family to The Chuck. Our first clue of what was to come should have been the fact that there was nary a parking spot available.

No, all of those cars definitely weren’t there for the eerily empty looking Japanese Steakhouse next door.

Nor were they there for the ABC State Liquor Store on the other side.

(Although I have a feeling that more than a few parents have been driven to it’s doors after visiting The Chuck.)

(In fact, I now have a strong suspicion that their choice in location was no accident.)

No, all of those cars were there because the fire code was being grossly violated at none other than Chuck E. Cheese.

Chris dropped Ali and I at the door, and he and Noah set off in search of a faraway and mythical parking space.

Ali and I crossed the threshold.

…and were both immediately in shock.

I have been to the Circus. I have been to the mall during Christmas. I have been to many Alabama football games with the attendance over 100,000. But I have never seen so many people crammed into so little square footage in my life.

It was bone-chillingly frightening.

And deafeningly loud.

And there was a very distinctive odor.

So distinctive in it’s unique mixture of vomit, feces, and germs in their most natural form that it was the first thing Ali pointed out.

Not the arcades, not the blinking lights, not her friends (that she couldn’t see through the throngs anyway), not the prizes behind the counter…

“Mommy, it smells really bad in here.”

“What baby?? I can’t hear you!!”

“IT STINKS!!!!”

Maybe this was all because it was a Friday night… and Veteran’s Day… and that they had obviously booked as many birthday parties in one night as would possibly fit in their building AND the empty steakhouse next door… but whatever it was, it was more shocking than I could put into words.

I only managed to get one picture of the madness, and it doesn’t do it justice at all. But to give you a small taste of the ocean of people…

(See that tunnel in the sky in the background? Remember it – it’s important.)

After several minutes of trying to schematically figure out how it was possible, Ali and I squeezed and pushed our way through the multitudes to find our party. We got some tokens and headed into the Corral of Crazy.

I am no germophobe, but the inch-thick layer of grease (that I’m sure could be grown out in a lab to reveal several new mutations of filth) on each and every arcade game about did me in. However, I held in there, began to get amused by the situation in which I found myself, and dove into the deep end of the germ pool.

A few days later after finally finding a parking spot and fighting his way through the front door, Chris and Noah found us. I barked out stringent orders to not let Noah come within eighteen inches any surface anywhere, and Ali and I went back to playing.

Then Ali saw the PlayPlace in the sky.

“I wanna climb in there!”

“What?? I can’t hear you!!”

“I WANNA GO CLIMB!!!!!”

“OKAY!! TAKE OFF YOUR SHOES!!!”

And she headed off.

Chris stole a few tokens and headed to the Skeeball machine, leaving me to commiserate visit with some other Mommies and watch for Ali in the windows above my head.

A few minutes in, I could see that the other guests were beginning to congregate in the birthday party area. I watched for Ali to pop up in a window, and when she did, I waved for her to come on down.

At which moment, she realized that she didn’t know which direction to crawl to get out.

She was only around one corner from the slide and the stairs, but she inherited from her mother a gene of panic-first-when-out-of-control.

And I saw it happen, in silent slow motion.

She had a meltdown, up in the sky tunnel.

She began crying, which drew a crowd of other tunnel dwellers around her.

But Ali also has a severe issue with her personal space being invaded by strangers. So the crying turned to weeping, and the weeping turned to screaming.

All silent, of course – at least from my spot on the ground. I’m pretty sure it was reverberating nicely in the tunnels, though.

I tried to silently comfort her from my spot and point profusely in the direction in which she should crawl.

Complete panic, no room to pay attention to me.

One of the other Mommies sent up her daughter, a year older than Ali, to retrieve her. Ali loves Abby – surely this would work.

I watched as Abby arrived at Sky Zero and began to comfort Ali and tell her that she knew the way out.

Nope – she was completely frozen in her all-encompassing panic attack.

More kids were crowding around, except this time they looked angry with the panicking, tunnel-barricading child. Ali reached for me, crying pitifully.

I had no choice.

The way up to the tunnel were those half triangles that are purposely impossible for adults to snake through – I am pretty sure I had to bend my backbone in four different directions to weave up eight levels of germy plastic to make it to the tunnels above. I finally made it up, and was gaggingly horrified at the thick layer of dirt, mud, probably a little poop, and botulism that coated the floor of the tunnel.

I wish I were exaggerating, but it was thick, dark, and I had to put my hands all up in it to crawl to rescue my daughter.

As I was turning the corner, I heard a kid screaming obscenities. He was coming around the corner towards me, still screaming with his head looking back over his shoulder. AT MY DAUGHTER.

He saw me, and instead of getting polite in the presence of an adult, he started screaming at me.

“You better get her ass outta here!! GET HER CRYIN’ ASS OUTTA HERE RIGHT NOW!!!”

That kid was so lucky that there was a slide at his feet. He popped through it and disappeared, as I began to shake with lividity.

I reached my hand out to Ali and led her back around the corner to the stairs made for invertebrates. We made our way down together, her crying, me boiling with horror and anger.

Of course, by the time we made it to the bottom, the eight-year-old cuss factory had disappeared into the masses.

I picked up my poor, sweet, innocent, panicking daughter and held her close.

She told me in my ear that she got stepped on – twice – and that it hurt.

And that kids were mean to her.

I managed to not begin weeping with her and apologized for the fact that there were awful, nasty, mean kids in the world.

We both made it to the birthday party, at which point I showered Ali in hand sanitizer, and she was soon lost in eating Pizza and birthday cake and watching a six-foot-tall electronic mouse dance the night away with his fake and nightmarish smile.

Fortunately, children are infinitely more resilient than there parents. Because I can guarantee you that I was the one that left the most traumatized that night.

…Well, me and the poor Mom who had to throw the birthday party – her row was a far worse one to hoe than mine, and she deserves the hugest of Mommy Scouts Badges for making her son’s birthday dreams come true.

But the next time we saw each other on Sunday morning, we pinky swore (or the Mommy equivalent of pinky swearing, anyway) that no member of either of our families would ever, ever, EVER step foot into Chuck E. Cheese ever, ever, EVER again.

The Sequel can be found here.

Treasure Heads.

November 14, 2011June 18, 2012 Rachel Callahan Actually Possibly Informational, Anal Retentivity to a Fault, Homeschooling: Not just for the socially awkward anymore., I'm a Glutton for Adventure, Kids: The Experience., Newsflash, Shamelessly Plugging Away, Storytime

My Mom has a special sort of Homeschool-Mom-Genius-Gene that I really, really hope I inherited. She was able to expertly turn everything into a learning experience, yet somehow make it extraordinarily fun at the same time.

(Okay, most things were fun. Finding my little brother’s dissected frogs in brown paper bags in the fridge was decisively NOT fun.)

One of the avenues in which she perfected this gift of FunLearning was through our many entrepreneurial activities throughout the years. My absolute favorite one of those forays into capitalism was our Christmas Treasure Heads project, with which we earned money to buy Christmas presents for our friends and family.

Treasure heads are crepe paper wrapped hand-painted heads with toys inside. They make fun Christmas decorations and stocking stuffers, and then can be ripped open and unwrapped to find toys hidden inside.

(What?? Encouraging kids to rip the face off of an angel or reindeer just to find a bunch of toys inside is perfectly healthy!!)

For many years, we made hundreds of these and sold them at all of the local craft fairs, including the King of all Craft Shows, Christmas Village.

Mom would let us each make as many as we wanted, while she kept up with our production numbers and paid us accordingly.

Being that I’ve been a geeky accountant since birth, my favorite part of the whole process (besides making sure that I made more than my brothers) was figuring out how many heads we had to sell to break even, and then how much profit I personally made per head, and how much money I was raking in. Starting at the age of four.

This year, it hit me that Ali was four – nay, almost five.

I was falling behind!!

So last week, I spontaneously decided that it was time to pick back up the family tradition and recreate this experience for her, except this time without all of the craft fairs, but instead with the help of Etsy and Shop Birmingham.

I called Mom and somehow managed to twist her arm into joining our project, then set out (with Ali’s help) in an obsessive journey of picking and ordering toys, crepe paper, deciding what kind of faces we would make, and, of course, figuring out our profit and loss margins.

Boxes of fantastic toys began to arrive on our doorstep, and Ali was thrilled with the treasures that were enclosed. We immediately started work, wrapping our treasure heads.

Ali loved picking out the specific toys she wanted to go into each head, then meticulously matching her crepe paper to the toy color.

It took her a little while to figure out the coordination of holding onto the toy AND wrapping it up all at once, but she got it…eventually.

She also helped with many other tasks involved, like measuring out the hair for the angels, tongue out and all.

I wrapped the outer layers and prepared the faces for painting,

And Mom came over and helped us paint our characters.

We updated classics from my childhood such as reindeer and angels,

But our favorites were our modern addition to the Treasure Head Enterprise: Angry Birds.

Each Treasure Head has seven toys inside, somewhat akin to these,

And Ali is eagerly selling them here and here, if you’re so inclined to buy THE BEST STOCKING STUFFERS EVER.

But if not, I’m sure she’ll just as eagerly rip the faces off of each and every one of them, keeping every single magnificent treasure all for herself.

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Happy Holiday Wars!

November 11, 2011November 11, 2011 Rachel Callahan "Deep" Thoughts by Rachel, Survey Says. . .

Obviously, as I’m not about to have a baby, this post is from last year. However, I’ve noticed the wars already starting on Facebook, as The Police complain about the rise of Christmas decorations, and The Liberalists cheer while they gleefully listen to Christmas music. So I couldn’t help but bring it up again this year and ask the question: which are you?

There are two types of people in the world: Holiday Liberalists and The Holiday Police.

The Liberalest of the Holiday Liberalists consist of the people who choose to start playing Christmas music in stores, put the decorations out in malls, and start selling Christmas Candy, all on the day after Halloween.

(Oh, and of course Hallmark that starts selling ornaments on July 1st. The Hallmarks are the undisputed Liberalist Royal Family.)

The Holiday Police are those who believe that never ever should you even mention the C word until after Thanksgiving – nay, maybe not even until December 1st.

And, thus, the two factions immediately begin their war each year at the end of October, spouting off indignant statements in each other’s general direction.

From the Police regarding the Liberalists…

“I can’t believe that there are Christmas decorations up ALREADY!!! What about Thanksgiving?!!?!?”

(as if there aren’t Christmas decorations up at this point every year.)

From the Liberals to the Police…

“Oh, don’t be such a Grinch! Thanksgiving IS part of the Christmas season!!!”

(Horrified Gasps ensue from The Police.)

I was raised in a Holiday Police Household. We spent the month of November putting red and brown and orange feathers in our quilted Turkey each day, signifying what we were thankful for. We didn’t dare start our Christmas lists or ask for Christmas music until after the Cornucopious Holiday of Thanksgiving was over, along with it’s trailing long weekend.

(I think my Mom might have even hidden the Sears Dream Book until the appropriate time for us to have thoughts of such things.)

But I married a definite Holiday Liberalist. Always excited about Christmas in the most Griswold of fashions, my husband loves to “get just a little head start on the Christmas decorations” … “You know, because we’ll be so busy Thanksgiving weekend and all. And wouldn’t the house look pretty to be lit up ON Thanksgiving night??”

And I have to admit, as much as it’s going to break my Holiday Police Mom’s heart, after almost ten years of marriage, he’s completely won me over.

(Although I do have a fair amount of guilt over the fact that I have done no fallish-colored Turkey Feathers of Thankfulness with Ali.)

The logic that tipped the scales this year was when he reminded me that “we’re going to miss a whole week of Christmas while we’re in the hospital having Noah – we need to get started celebrating as early as possible if we’re going to have a proper Christmas!”

And so, for the first time ever, I started playing Christmas music…on my own…Last Week.

(Shameful, I know. I can feel my Mother’s saddened, distressed, and tear-filled eyes upon me as I type.)

And, since I knew the flammably controversial issue that this sort of musical behavior was, I mentioned it on Facebook (citing my least favorite Christmas songs and asking what everyone else’s were), just for the pure entertainment of watching the arguments pour in, as people right and left identified themselves by their objections or cheers as Holiday Police or Holiday Liberalists.

It was pure Facebook War awesomeness.

But in our family, it is official: the Christmas holidays are in full swing.

And so, if you pass our house, you might see that our Christmas lights are already up.

And, if Chris finds the time, you might even see our Christmas tree in the window very soon.

And, because he wants to make sure to raise another little Liberalist just like him, you might even see a very happy little girl, staring wondrously and gleefully at her already decorated-for-the-holidays dollhouse:

…And I have a feeling I may have just won myself the inheritance of that Quilted Turkey from my childhood…after all, The Christmas Police don’t let people leave their party easily, especially when the fate of their Grandchildren’s holiday loyalty is at stake.

Smashing Misconceptions Right and Left.

November 10, 2011November 10, 2011 Rachel Callahan A Day in the Life, Kids: The Experience., Storytime

I was around six years old.

I was hanging out at the ball park with my group of little friends – aka all of the little sisters who were bored to death while their older brothers played YET ANOTHER baseball game.

We were standing around behind the concession stand and admiring the clouds.

One of the other girls said, “I CAN’T WAIT to touch the clouds one day!! I want to see what they feel like. I’ve always thought it would be like touching the softest cotton ball ever. It’s my biggest dream in life!”

Before I could stop myself, I blurted out, “You can’t really touch clouds – they’re like steam. Your hand would just go right through them.”

She looked at me, horrified and crushed.

And then I realized: I just killed her dream.

Dead.

Pulverized.

As in, she had nothing left to live for. Six years old and her life was over.

One of the other girls looked at me with a glare. “How could you tell her that?? She’s ALWAYS talking about how she wants to touch the clouds!!”

I slunk away, back to the safety of my spot on the bleachers next to my parents. I’m pretty sure that little girl still hates me, as she wanders aimlessly and dreamlessly through her shattered life.

The other day in the car, Ali was musing from the backseat…

“Those clouds look so soft and fluffy!! I wonder what they feel like…”

I was immediately transported back to that ball field. Guilt washed over me. Dream Slayer.

Ack!! Should I tell her?

I mean, it doesn’t sound like it’s her lifelong dream to touch them yet, so maybe I should go ahead and give her a dose of reality NOW, rather than letting her be crushed later.

Yeah. That sounds about right.

“They’re like fog, honey. Your hand would go right through them!”

“Ooooh….okay!”

whew. Right call.

We got to where we were going – Birmingham Children’s Theater to see their rendition of “Cinderella”.

Ali loved the entire play, never even noticing that Cinderella’s Stepmother was abnormally tall, had a strange voice, and oh – stubble on his cheeks.

We were walking out of the theater and she was talking all about the play – how funny all of the characters were, and asking in particularly about the Stepmother’s long nose (which was, by the way, also fake.)

Should I tell her?? How many questions will it raise??

(ahem)

“So honey – did you notice that Cinderella’s Stepmother was actually a man?”

(screech)

“WHAT?!?!? What do you mean??”

“She was a man pretending to be a woman.”

“How could a man PRETEND to be a woman?”

“Well, by putting on a dress and makeup and talking in a high voice…”

“NO. A man CANNOT pretend to be a woman!!”

“Well, it was a man alright.”

“No, no, no!! It couldn’t have been a man!!”

…and then she refused to say another word about the play. I may have horrified and confused her, but at least I didn’t slay her dreams.