Bloggy Battle

It's been going on for a while now...this battle in my mind of what to do with this blog. Maintaining a blog for AAB is important to me, so that isn't what this is about. The problem is, I may have a little blog addiction going on. I have 3 blogs, but I only write consistently on this one. One of them is private and I never write on it and the other has only been used once in the last year and a half. But here's the deal. I miss blogging about little family things and really NEED to be doing that because it's kind of like T's baby book...which means that his "book" has a 1 1/2 year blank spot in it. I've made up my mind. While this blog was originally for AAB news, raising awareness about orphans and adoption, etc., we're going to shake it up a bit. There is only so much I can say about Guatemala and such before things get repetitive (don't say anything...I know it already is pretty repetitive at times). Here's the twist...there will still be a lot of stuff here about AAB (it's going to stay primarily AAB/Guate/orphans/etc. related), but since "Wherever He May Lead" is sometimes nowhere but to our yard to play with our almost 3 year old, it's time to add a little of our actual life here.


Because for those of you that do not actually know me, we really do have a life outside of AAB that is often as entertainingly funny (according to some sources) as any King of Queens or Everybody Loves Raymond episode you have ever watched. For instance, what could have pushed my decision over the "oh what to do" stage to "I so have to blog this" stage?


Tommy.


The mall.


And Santa.


Oh. My. WORD!!!


The mall...I despise it. No, really. I will do just about anything to avoid it. And when it's Christmas...well, let me just say that rarely do any of the gifts I purchase come from the mall because unless it's to visit Santa, I won't step foot inside such a mad house.


So, Monday night we took the cheap route and headed to Bass Pro for a free picture with Santa. Tommy was ecstatic. For a child that is super shy when he first meets people and will not even think of letting me walk further than 1/8 inch from him in the presence of a stranger, he certainly has new found love for Santa Claus. It's bordering on obsession, I think...right up there with Jesus and snowmen...his 2 favorite topics. He loved shaking Santa's hand before pictures and went right to him for the big photo op. No smile because he was in absolute shock, but he was happy and made that perfectly clear the rest of the night as he talked non-stop about him. Sadly, the picture was horrible. You get what you pay for, I guess. I wanted to use it for Christmas cards this year, but that wasn't going to happen.


Last year, one of the malls did a free photo. It was adorable! Even though you had buy a package this year to get a free photo, I decided it would be worth it to spend $12 to get a good picture and went out in the cold and rain to, of all places, the mall. There was no wait to see Santa. I could almost hear the angels sing as we walked right up to get our Santa pass and as Tommy RAN up the ramp and all but dove onto Santa's lap, all the while yelling, "San Cause! San Cause!" Still no smiley photo, but trust me, he was happy. Because no one else was at the mall to visit Santa, Tommy spent about 15 minutes playing patty-cake and singing songs with his new best friend. (Big shout-out to the Cortana Santa...that guy rocks!) If he happens to remember this years from now, he will probably say it was the best day of his life. Again, Santa was the main topic of conversation for the rest of the day...and snowmen...and gingerbread houses..and always, Jesus (seriously).

Close your eyes and skip down if you know you are on our Christmas card list. I hate to be a spoiler, but this is the picture that's on them.


We had to brave the mall again today, thanks to Old Navy's shortage of toddler coats and because I refuse to miss the Festival of Lights this Friday night even if that does mean I have to walk into one of my nightmares since it's going to be cold enough for a "wintry mix" that night and Tommy has finally outgrown the coat that he has worn for the last 2 years. We went to JCPenney (I call it Penney's, OK...that's what it will be referred to from now on). On our way in to Penney's, we had to pass Santa. So far so good...Tommy was busy being a social dragonfly (Danny refuses to let me call him a social butterfly) waving and saying, "Hey...HEY!!" to everyone that we passed. We grabbed a coat that is a size too big and not at all cute and headed to check out. From the register, he could hear the familiar sound of bells..the bells Santa let him play with yesterday. Head turning, arms flapping, spinning on his heels ensued and I barely grabbed my receipt in time to grab his hand before he took off. Yelling started. "Hey San Cause! Hey! San Cause! I love it now!!" (Don't ask me...he adds "now" to everything now.) I bent down and explained that we had to hurry to pick his daddy up from the doctor and we couldn't take another picture with Santa because we already had one.


You see where this is going, don't you?


Santa was all alone again today and obviously enjoying himself as he stood there drinking a bottled water and chatting it up with the girl that is in charge of taking photos. Tommy was holding my hand and seemed to understand that we were not going to talk to Santa today and he sweetly waved to him as we passed by. But my boy is a little prankster. Just when I thought we had escaped without drama, Tommy yanked his little hand out of mine, ducked behind me and faster than ever began running away from me, up the ramp to Santa, yelling at the old guy the entire time. All I saw was a bottled water almost hitting my kid in the head as Santa tried his best not to spit out what he just put in his mouth because he was laughing so hard. Tommy got to his feet and froze...he just stood there looking up at him as I ran up the ramp to get him. It was all very dramatic and "you just had to be there" funny. I grabbed his hand and told him we had to go. "No." "Tommy, let's go." "No!" I scooped him up and he proceeded to have the biggest fit ever! Oh, it was a lovely sight. Again I was thinking (because honestly, I know I'm not the only one that has ever had this thought)...white woman in the mall, brown kid having a fit....obviously out of control....I could almost see security running over after getting a call about a kidnapping suspect at the Santa center. And there I was...in my mall nightmare. So I put him down, while holding on to him, and told him if he did not stop acting that way, he was going to time out (yes, in the mall). He calmed down immediately and then, repeated the same thing...took off, running to Santa, almost knocking down a woman that was in his way, laughing as if this were hysterical. Don't tell him, but it was pretty funny. So I ran back up the ramp, turned him around in mid-run, scooped him up and quickly exited the mall. Crazy kid! I adore him!!


There you have it...my reason for deciding to blog personal stuff here sometimes. See, outside of what I've always written before, there is life here. And I could not be more thankful for it!