"Long lay the world, in sin and error pining!"

Buck playing with one of his new favorite toys - a wine rack made by his Uncle, "Uncle." Notice there is no wine as Buck has shaken this rack like crazy and actual bottles would become dangerous.
This is Buck's face when he is doing something that he is not supposed to be doing and waiting for me to tell him to stop.

I am currently avoiding finishing our Christmas cards. The fronts are nice - please ignore the inner typo. I have 20 cards to go - of course I've heard that the post offices are like insane asylums here at this time of year. I'll fit right in.

Today was a crazy day (theme? Insanity) Spent 3 hours with my Regnum Christi team at our Christmas party at a place called "jumpin' java." It's a coffee house with an entire section devoted as a play area for children. Normally, these places are loud and dirty and dangerous for little ones who barely walk. When I first walked in, I was pleasantly surprised at how clean and calm the place was. Daniel was able to hobble about and ride in the plastic cars to his heart's content. Problem is that we all (there are 12 or 13 of us moms) brought the loud action with our group. Everywhere I followed Buck, moms who were not with our group were complaining about the some 10 or so children who came with us. Now...it's funny because I'm relatively new to the group, so I had nothing to say really. I think I seemed approachable because I have this friendly little pseudo-toddler compared to the normally rambuncious 2-5 year olds of the rest of the moms (funny that if we had had our way, RKZ and I would have a number of children this age at this point). So the moms with the other small babies kept coming to me to complain about the children with our "group." What does one do in this situation? Do I go to my new mom friends and tell them about the complaints or do I just smile and commiserate with the complaining moms while tacitly betraying the moms of my RC group?

Well - I decided to pretend I didn't speak English. I would just raise my shoulders and say "no habla" since no one here speaks Spanish. OK, I didn't do that. I mostly just tried to follow Buck around the room unless our group was meeting for some reason. The politics of "mom-land" are tough and I'm just a newbie. My favorite comment was made by one of the women in my group - "I think that a few of the moms (not with our group) are frustrated because our boys are acting like boys." Since I have a boy, I will see how the truth of this plays out in my own life. I would love any comments by those of you who are currently raising boys in the 2-5 age group - or even particularly active girls.

Until then, I will do as RKZ recommends and "be Wes. I'm outta' this mess." Well said, honey. Well said.

oh, and I left my baby bag, which contains my wallet, our health cards, my credit cards, my cel phone and just about the rest of my life at the coffee place. I'm just glad this is Calgary, or it would be gone. Instead, about 4 people turned it in and a friend of mine went back to the place to pick it up because she "had a feeling" it was mine. So nice.