Blame it all on my roots, there's piss on my boots

Fair warning about the potty humor here...literally.

A couple days ago I heard my mother talking to one of the many fans she has who have phoned to check in on her throughout her recover, and she called the week we were having "a comedy of errors."

At the time I thought she was just over dramatizing the situation as all that had gone wrong at that point was our pump in the basement temporarily backfiring as the result of a dead battery...but I had quickly fixed that conundrum with the help of my dad by phone: I switched it so the pump would be running off of adapter and not its battery (which had died)'s power.

Then two nights ago - the Christmas tree toppled over and three of the five of us kids were left sweeping up broken ornaments, re-stringing lights, and screwing the darn tree back into its stand.

And that was funny.  Especially since my poor mum had to lie there helpless as we worked on the repair effort, unable to even see the tree she so loves to look upon and talk about ala the character in this bit:



But last night we learned that comedy (not cash interestingly enough) is ultimately king.  And the all important rule of 3 was reinforced right in front of my face when the toilet bowl overflowed.  With a vengence.  Only full of pee water - it's the time of year to be grateful for all sorts of things - but so full none the less, that the bathroom floor was awash and I wound up with piss on my boots, because I didn't think as fast as my sorellina who didn't come into the bathroom with bleach and mop in hand until she'd covered her feetsies with plastic bags.

Did I mention she is a nursing major at BC with a 3.9 gpa?

10 to Go

10 posts to get up here in the next 10 days!

Here's a cheat borrowed from a chirp (inspired by Elizabeth Banks' aka Effie Trinket):

On having vs not having

specifically: 5 kids vs no more than 4

I am pretty obsessed with my sibs (obv).  I thank the Big Guy & my rents every day for the Naugler 5 and wouldn't trade having two brothers and two sisters for anything in the whole wide World.

But I've often had friends fantasize about having a big family or acquaintances ask whether I'd recommend they go for more when they've already got 3 kids or 4, so today I thought I'd post some of the wisdom I've shared with friends and random people alike on family size in general over the years.

First  - without a doubt, 2 kids is THE most manageable amount of offspring to have.  one per parent at any given time.  plenty of resources, time, energy and love to go around.  plus the little ones learn to share (sort of).

Second  -  if you have 3 kids, you're golden because you never have to upgrade from a sedan or small SUV to a car with a second back seat.  there's ample room for backpacks and sports equipment w/out needing the extra space afforded to you in a godforsaken minivan.  plus your kids get the practice of being friends with two distinctly different individuals which is clutch.  true you get a middle child, who's bound to have a middle child complex, but you're at least contributing conceivably well adjusted individuals to the world.

Third  - if you go for 4 kids, the good news is, between you and your partner you can hold all four of their hands when crossing the street.  this i deem a verrrrry important aspect of the child rearing process.  and maybe it's just me, but i think it's also an important symbol of attention division - if each kid gets one parents' hand it's fair to assume each kid is getting an equal amount of attention, love, and energy throughout their childhoods.

Fourth  - 5 kids... 5 is the real deal, guys.  THE REAL DEAL.  5 is a special force division, a basketball team, a LITERAL HANDFUL.  There are 5 kids in The Family Stone, and Diane Keaton and Craig T. Nelson did a damn good job with that fictitious brood.  I think mama and papa naugs really knocked it out of the park with the 5 Naugleberry knuckleheads in real life too, so it's not that it can't be done well, it's just that the decision to have 5 kids reeeally deserves SERIOUS contemplation and reflection ahead of time...

Fifth - same thing with 6 kids.  Calls for a SRS (I think that's how the kids are shortening serious these days) amount of pre-meditation.  Cause 6 must merit the lable of a gaggle right?  a flock?  a herd? 

Really, more than four is no man's land and anyone's game.  more than ten, obviously, forget about it... you run out of fingers to count them off on.  that's a crazy undertaking - just simply not for the faint of heart.

But who am I kidding?  Having ANY kids is not for the faint of heart. 

-- I'll give a simple nod in this split second to the only children and babymomma / babydaddies of only children out there now because that's quite the undertaking in its own right - you are responsible for successfully socializing that little one who's flying solo.  So g'luck with that.

Back to bringing any amount of babies into the world... it's got to be easily the craziest career choice out there and nearly EVERYONE's inclined to do it.

But if I have learned anything in this week of "caretaking" in Newton, it's that ANY number of dependents is significant.  So you really just gotta know your limits, cast your lot and then play the game to the best of your ability.

It's kind of like that old Hasbro toy Kitty Surprise (a Christmas favorite in '93)

I had the "breed" of cat below back in the day.

...and she had a litter of 4 (exactly what I'd been wishing for as an 8 year old) so I named them Alexandra Marie, Marie Alexandra, and then two boys names in the same back to back just reversed ordered... Charles something?  Something Charles was it?  needless to say, I have come to realize I could never handle having 4 kids.  I should have figured that out in fourth grade when I couldn't even come up with 4 distinctly different names for my kitten surprises.

Schooled

10 Things I've learned while my mother's had to lie on the couch in one position for the past four days and I've been (for all intents and purposes) babysitting for her....

1.  if you get a funny feeling the tree looks like it's going to fall over....it's going to fall over

2.  if you put Mario Lopez and Melissa Joan Hart in a Hallmark Christmas movie together....you get an instant classic

3.  if she hadn't heard a contestant on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" say she had "a height thing" my mother may have been more worried that I was my own worst bachelorettenemy

4.  if Nanny Janny says she has the same jacket I complement her on in gray and she'll bring it to me tomorrow what she means is she's glad I like the one she was wearing:

which is warm and modern and plum colored and just my size, but she wouldn't mind giving me this one:

5.  it's official, 28 is synonymous with adulthood.

6.  if my mother was Melissa Joan Hart in "Holiday in Handcuffs," she'd kiss A.C. Slater

7.  Annie Camden on the TV show ruined my mother's life by having those damn twins because she'd already had her tubes tied

8.   i am notsogood at hiding the glass pickle

9.  i had my furry gray jacket from nanny hanging over the chair in the den my mother is supposed to sit in awkwardly when she needs a break from being horizontal over the course of these ten days and it scared the s*** out of her when she walked into the dark den just now

10.  my sorellina is destined to date this boy Johnny McSomethingIrishSounding she knows at BC right now

True Story

I am playing nurse this week for my mamadukes, who had emergency surgery on a detached retina Friday night, because my pops is off to Dallas tomorrow on a business trip with his new company (the cool wiz kids who brought this fancy speech recognition software to the aid of oldfolks everywhere who would much rather just talk to their newfangled computers, tablets and smartphones than they would single-finger type on their gadgets' tricky keyboards and keypads). 

Part of my mother's recovery plan apparently involves watching the endless stream of Christmas movies airing on ABC Family, Lifetime and the Hallmark Channel.  And part of my nurse duties involve me sitting by my mother and taking in all of the holly jolly the fine writers of these programs have to offer in the way of cookie cutter love stories and santaland sagas.

Here is the funny part.

I sit and watch predominantly wondering how many of the actors in these tv movies have mfa's vs espers' studio training, commercial vs print careers, broadway vs improv roots...and thinking I hope I can play an elf who comes down from the North Pole to find love someday!!!!!

Gotta run, my mom just rang the jingle bell we gave her to use when she needs something during the next 10 days of bed-rest she's been prescribed.

The Reason for the Season's

good will and good energy has never been so clear to me.

People start getting excited about the way they'll feel in a couple weeks when they're carrying out their New Year's Resolutions.  Even if they're being hot messes between now and the first of the year, they're just so hopeful and proud of the plans they've got.

....

In 2010 I stopped saying the word "should"

In 2011 I was on.the.ball. with a bunch of resolutions

In 2012 I ran the Boston Marathon but I knew that "crossing it off my list" was a copout since I'd been planning it for about 5 years

In 2013 I'm not sure what my M.O. will be, but I'm already jonesin' for that clean 1/1 slate

...

in the meantime, I moved my desk to be by my window and I'm regretting that decision (hopefully my last poor one of 2012) because the view I have is of my neighbors' fire escape and what appears to be honest to god a headless pigeon perched on an air conditioner.

gross.

12 - 12 - 12 - 14

Orange ya glad I'm not just writing about the date?

12/12/12's cool and all, but I'm writing this morning - before 8am - having gone to a 6:30 spin class already - bright eyed and bushy (pony)tailed - to set myself a little end-of-year-goal.

14 posts in 14 (to 20) days.

Totes doable and totes necessary that I at the very least write as many posts in this, my 3rd year in the blogosphere, as I did in 2010, my first.

How is this for a "How far we've come" moment: in December of 2010, I wrote my final younameitnaugs blog posts in the basement of my parents' home in Newton on the desktop HP computer I'd gotten back from the bosslady... this year I'll write the final goldilocksnyc chapters of 2012 on my Carrie Bradshaw-esque MacBook Pro from here:

Yup that's the Hudson yonder.

Moving right along, moving right along...

Um, and because this was too good to not pay forward:

Those are banana dogs.  Chiquita banana dogs.

This is going to be a gooood day.

Photo Book aka my most advanced use of multimedia to date / mama naugs' stocking stuffer

Click here to view this photo book larger

Shutterfly photo books offer a wide range of artful designs and embellishments to choose from.

Confessions of a Boston Girl in the Big City

"this feels right too."

it's also universal.

I first saw Sweet Home Alabama not much more than a month into my first year at college.

At the time I had not had a "serious" relationship last for more than 2.5 weeks (unless you count my platonic elementary school romance of 5+ years with the boy with the big droopy brown eyes).  Of course that hadn't stopped me from being convinced I might one day take back up with that high school sweetheart, marry him and settle down in the suburbs of Boston to coach our kids' little league teams and do hair & makeup for their middle school musicals and plays, but the point is, I could hardly be empathetic to Reese Witherspoon's character as she sat lamenting having to fully part with her past in order to properly move forward with her fiance, Dr. Patrick McDreamy Dempsey aka Andrew, who was waiting for her to clear up the little lingering issue of her divorce from her husband/stillborn's babydaddy (that's awful I know, but I'm attempting to stretch myself here), Jake, which she'd had to high tail it down to 'Bama to resolve....

Nevertheless, the tears poured down my fat Freshman face as I sat beside my roommate Fife, who was from Long Island and about as prone to crying as it's prone to rain in Arizona.  This was way before my dr. roomie would become my cousin and way before she'd come to learn that while her $40k/year tuition had gone to helping her understand anatomy and physiology, mine had gone to learning how to draw from my emotional well and cry on cue like a good theatre major.

My tears at Sweet Home then and to this day are entirely authentic though.  Since that night 10 years ago when I first watched the movie, I've pretty much cried from the time Melanie tells Jake as they sit on Bear's grave at the pet cemetary that "this feels right too" through the remaining 35 minutes of the film.

Whether I've had a Patrick Dempsey in my life at the time or not.  Niagra Falls.  Just the saddest tears.  Ask my roommates, ask my sisters, ask my bff, ask the parents of the kids I babysat during college summers who came home one night to see me all red eyed and had to try to not laugh/fire me on the spot as I explained that this movie just GETS to me every time.  Every time.  I can never not watch it if it happens to be on when I happen to be watching TV.

Anyway - tonight it hit me.

Because I came home to my swanky new apartment and my Texan roomie was listening to Country music as she unpacked her (amazing) wardrobe and I realized I bet that part of the movie gets her too.  I bet it gets anyone who's heart feels equally at home in their hometown as it does in the big world they're out trying to run.

A part of me always knew that even though I'd only gone 7 minutes away from home for college, one day I'd go far far away, and I'd have to, because my heart would be restless if I didn't let it go after its dreams, and because I had so much support from all of my family and friends it would be a shame to waste their belief in me and my confidence in myself, but a part of me must have also known that things like Christmastime would always tug at my heartstrings, because I'd know I was going home to the safety and comfort and "right feeling" of Boston a few times over the course of the holidays and I'd have to wrestle with myself.

And seriously ask myself, whether I'd given my whole heart away a long time ago...whether I was a Smueter or a Carmichael.

I've got many more Christmases to keep asking myself, and only time will tell of course.  But the real confession of this Boston Girl in the Big City, is that ideally I'd get the Best of Both Worlds.  That's right, Hannah Montana style.

Good thing there's no rules that say a 28-year-old girl can't dream.