"Khristmas" with the Kids

What I have learned in the past four days:

Little kids need constant entertainment. A fifteen minute car ride with three kids equaled at least ten rounds of hangman. Imagine what four days with six single-digit aged kids were like.

And they all wondered why I needed to sleep until noon every day!

(That "sleep" in my cute little cousin's Hello Kitty bed, under her Hello Kitty sheets and her Hello Kitty comforter was not, by any means, undisturbed - an entire army of stuffed animals were pelted at me over the four day period by the little kids who played every sport under the sun and had amazingly strong little arms and impeccable aim.)

They also have boundless energy. Sitting still, even for five minutes, was a no-can- do for these kids. The words, "I'm bored!" accompanied by an eager "ENTERTAIN ME NOW!!" look on their faces translated to hours-long games of hide-and-seek in my aunt's new three story mansion, elaborate tea parties with topping-less pizza and pieces of princess wedding cake, and the baking of hundreds (seriously, hundreds) of cookies, and lots and lots and lots of origami.

Speaking of cookies...

Kids LOVE cookies. I have never seen a sheet of fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies disappear so quickly before. Once I pulled a sheet out of the oven, placed it on top of the metal Winnie the Pooh cooling rack on the counter and turned my back to put another sheet of cookies into the oven, at least half of the cookies disappeared. Within ten minutes, the sheet was empty again.

Baking with kids meant lots of spilled flour and sugar, broken eggs, and attempts to stop one kid from eating all the raw cookie dough ("... but it's so yum-my!" she pleaded) and the other from eating all the chocolate chips out of the bag; in other words, PURE MADNESS.

"Pure madness" summed up my four days in New Jersey pretty accurately.


But I loved every single minute of it.

(Trying to get everyone together for one picture on Christmas day was like graduation all over again; which camera do we look into?? Hopefully one of the other cameras got a good shot.)

Now that I am back in the hustle and bustle of New York City and away from the zoo of my relatives' suburban households, I actually kind of miss being surrounded by kids twenty-four seven.

No worries though, I will be heading back into the fray (our next adventure will take place on the snowy slopes!) on Thursday evening.

Three Hours Ahead

The four short days I spent in San Francisco before hopping on my flight to New York were the four most stressful days I have had in a very long time. All of my first quarter of adjusting to college life and the first of many hellish finals weeks to come combined did not even begin to come close to how stressed out I was by the time I walked into the cabin of my jetBlue plane on the night of the fourth day.

I could not even find solace in baking - the one task on my long to-do list that I was actually looking forward to doing while at home.

There was less than two hours left on the clock before I had to leave for the airport, a mountain of undecorated cookies was glaring menacingly at me from their designated "cookie cooling spot" on the counter, all of the clothes I had brought home in the huge duffel bag that I had to summon my "Super Girl" strength in order to carry all the way from San Diego back to San Francisco with me were strewn haphazardly on the floor of my room, I still needed to shower because my hair was unspeakably disgusting, AND THE FUCKING WHITE CHOCOLATE SEZIED ON ME.

Seriously???

Sneaky drop of water in the bowl I tried to melt my white chocolate in?

Fuckyoufuckyoufuckyoufuckyou.

Long airport procedures made even longer by the entire jetBlue computer system throughout the airport going on the fritz the moment I got up to the counter and gave my name to the friendly face and a long, cross-country, red-eye flight FULL of parents with young children who all felt the need to scream their heads off for the full four hour and forty-five minute flight (not counting the hour or so I had to wait on the plane before the scheduled take-off time, thanks to the fucking computer system) did nothing to alleviate any of the pent up stress.

Being the filling of the screaming-child sandwich for nearly six fucking hours thanks to my seating arrangement nearly drove me CRAZY; I was a cranky and very sleep-deprived zombie upon landing and having to wait over half an hour for my bags just gave me more bitterness with which to fan the fire of the horrible wrath of vengeance I was about to release on the unsuspecting New York City.

Fielding call after call from relatives, especially ones who speak in nasally voices and refuse to end one-sided "conversations," all day was almost more exhausting than my flight.

Is it crazy that the only relative I enjoyed talking to on the phone was the one person I was not related to by blood?

I was going to go see the Rockettes on Christmas Eve courtesy of one of my suburban aunts, but apparently something went wrong with her ticket order so we won't be going this year. Instead, I will most likely be skiing down some snow-covered mountain.

Yes, skiing.

Only my non-blood related aunt would be able to convince my uncoordinated self to spend the holidays with her family on some mountain, risking a broken leg and possibly being beat out by my single-digit aged cousins on the slopes.

By the way, forty degrees here is "uncharacteristically warm."

And it started raining.

Ahhh...