*So* cranky

Me, not the kids.

Steve is out of town again - this time at a wedding in Texas. He left yesterday and will come back late tomorrow. This morning, I decided to be fun mom and I took the kids to a Kiwanis pancake breakfast with Santa. Not too bad. We met Terry & Gwen and their girls, ate a breakfast that was as you'd expect, but not too bad, then stood in line to see Santa. Julie didn't want to stay with us and Audrey kept crying because she didn't want to talk to Santa.

As Audrey hid behind me, holding on to my back pockets, Caleb went right up to Santa, and Julie kind of skirted around the edges of the scenario. She finally go close enough to Santa for the "elf" to take a picture and we left.

Next stop: Children's Christmas Bazaar. It was bizarre. It was at a local church and they had a "no parents allowed" policy in the shopping area. Audrey was very torqued up about this - she was afraid she would get lost or "stolen" and didn't really want to go. But Caleb really wanted to do it, so I figured we'd get there and then she could make a decision. Emily, Terry & Gwen's oldest, offered to take her. Audrey decided that was a good compromise and went. This left Julie. She wanted to go, too. One old lady, when she discovered Julie wanted to go into the shopping area, looked at me and said, "What's the purpose of the baby going in?" I looked back at her and said, "She wants to go." Meany. When a shopping helper came to take her and Caleb in, she didn't want to go. So I was going to keep her with me. But that was unacceptable to her, too.

Gwen decided to ignore the "no parents allowed" policy and took Julie in. She said they didn't stop her. She reckons her Christmas sweater and the baby in her arms served to convince people she belonged there.

The upside of this whole thing is that all 3 kids got to buy gifts for me and Steve for VERY cheap, but the downside was that it about drove me batty waiting. It was crowded, there were no places to sit, and each of the girls came back crying. Then we had to wait for another long while for Caleb to emerge.

I won't go into the ugly specifics of the wait, but when we left, both girls were crying.

Yikes.

Now we're home. I'm cranky. I wish I would get something back about one of my manuscripts. We only got Netflix DVDs today. But that's a nice thing. I got 2 "Doctor Who" DVDs with the episodes from season 2 I haven't seen yet. So I'll be catching up this afternoon.

But I also have to make a sun/moon-on-a-stick for Caleb's school musical. I have an old broom handle I've sanded and painted dark blue and 2 36-inch-diameter cardboard circles I'm going to paint and attach to the stick. Before I attach the circles I suppose I'll get the celestial orbs painted.

Mom's on the phone. Gotta go.