Stuck in Frump, Striving for Fab

Jericho has gone to plenty of activities at other folks houses. Birthday parties, work parties and even overnighters with his friends.

But tonight he has something going on that just 'felt' different to me somehow, and I was trying to put my finger on exactly why that was.

I suppose that because when we've been as involved in the church as we have been all his life, we are present or on the same campus as he has for just about every activity he's ever attended.

But tonight, we came to a definite "y" in the road.

Tonight Jericho is headed off to a junior high Awana Christmas party at his leader's home.

A place we will not be. And that's okay.

Except that it's a place he will also be with lots of girls, a couple of which flirt shamelessly with him.

And he's at that age when he's beginning to enjoy the attention.

How did this happen, this whole growing up thing?

He was just that little boy who didn't want me to leave him at the door in Kindergarten, and now here I stand looking at a strapping big wrestler nearly as tall as me and with a faint fringe of a mustache and a crackly voice?

It's one of those 'firsts' that kinda snuck up on me.

And for the first time, I've realized that he's really getting past the stage of my taking pictures of such things for the scrapbooks.

And (Lord help me) we still have the big school-sponsored all-nighter at the pizza place in a few days.

There comes a point where we moms, who have been clucking and fussing over their little chicks for so long, suddenly step back and realize...wow...he's not that little yellow, fuzzy chick taking shelter under my wings any longer...

He's starting to strut across the yard like the young rooster that he is, not needing us quite so much as he did in the past.

Just takes some getting used to for the mother hen, I guess.

And somehow I know it's going to be a whole lot harder than I ever expected when he goes off to college.

:: :: :: ::

It started off as a good idea, this business of our collecting Nativity Scenes.

Adding the toy versions were meant to get the kids familiar with the Christmas Story from a young age, and give us the opportunity to foster in them an appreciation for the true meaning of Christmas.

When we found the toy sets, I had visions of the boys quietly playing with them by the light of a fire or in that ambient Christmas decor lighting, pondering Jesus' birth.

Generally, while trimming our tree, we bring out the toy Nativity scenes and allow the kids to play with them for a while, cautioning them that while it is okay to play with them, they weren't to get silly...the toys represented something that was never to be regarded lightly.

Recently, however, after bringing in several tubs of decorations from the garage to get things ready for Christmas, we found the boys had already rifled through the tubs we'd brought in earlier in search of the toy sets and were playing with them...all this before we'd given our usual 'talk'.

Things were going fine until we were midway through the tree-trimming process and heard a terrible commotion from across the living room, complete with the kind of sounds the boys usually make when tons of Army guys are scattered around the floor.

"You know the rules, Jericho...nobody in the Nativity scene is supposed to be shooting anyone" I commented, eyebrow arched as I glanced in his direction.

"But mom," he said as he held up the Wise Men, "They look like terrorists!"

Perhaps we missed something somewhere along the line in his training?

:: :: :: ::

While I realize that our oldest is, in fact, growing up, I did have to chuckle that he drug me through the toy aisles at WalMart to show me the toys he "wants to get Judah" for Christmas.

Buzz and Woody from Toy Story fame.

"Uh, huh. Sure they're for your brother" my skeptical expression must have read, because he suddenly got very defensive. "Seriously, mom. He'd love them."

Somehow I'm thinking that the only reason he'd be willing to fork over the hefty $49.99 those particular toys cost and even moreso to deign to 'play with his little brother' would be to re-live his own childhood a bit without asking for the same toys for himself, lol.

While our niece was visiting over Thanksgiving break, we made 'Gingerbread' houses.

Though I've baked actual gingerbread in the past, this time there was no baking involved.

When you're short on time or have tons of other stuff to do, graham crackers are a very convenient substitute. , and though we kept it simple this time around, they can be assembled into very elaborate structures.

To begin, you must have the right kind of icing. Royal Icing dries hard pretty quickly, which is imperative for holding the walls of your structures together. It also securely holds candies to the houses.















Jericho made the Picasso-esque house in the upper left. Cousin S made the one in the upper right. Judah and I assembled the one on the bottom left.

Jericho, our resident artist, said after looking at the three completed houses together, "Everyone is going to think Judah made mine and I made yours", and sure enough, when his friends arrived that evening, they all said that very thing, lol.



And just to clarify, that would be the pointy ice cream cones, not cones of sugar.

We make the trees at our annual Youth Group Christmas parties.

We line a couple of long tables with festive Christmas wrapping paper, give each person a paper plate and a cone, set out bowls of candy and few bags of fresh Royal icing down the length of the tables, and (as HisGirl would say) POW! Super-easy group activity!