Snow day

  Like most of New England, on Saturday morning I woke up to a house that was 59 degrees and falling, and a yard that looked like this:

 

But let's backtrack to Friday for a moment, when my husband's employer told him to stay home and work remotely. At 9 a.m. the flakes were just starting to float down from the sky, lightly covering the grass and melting as soon as they hit the pavement.

"Mommy, can we go play in the snow?" Mary asked, already going stir crazy in light of her snow day.

"When it covers the grass so you can't see any of it, you can go play in the snow," I said, hoping to minimize the amount of mud they would track inside. By lunch time, we had maybe an inch of snow, and clear roads. 

"Do you think we're going to get hit like they said we would?" I asked Tim. I felt a little silly for making sure our wood pile was covered in a tarp. Like we were going to make a fire. 

"I'm starting to doubt it," he said. Finally, around 3 p.m., there was enough snow that I sent the girls out to play. At least they got that, I thought. 

By dinnertime, when it was hard to see the house next door, we were no longer doubting Thomases. The lights started flickering for longer and longer moments. I cranked the heat to an unheard of in this house 72 degrees, in preparation of the inevitable power loss. And at 9:30, fortunately after the girls were long asleep, we heard a collective loud beep as everything electronic in the house shut itself down, followed by an eerie silence. 

We started a fire, but it wouldn't catch. So we piled extra blankets on the girls and called it a night. I put our fridge food in the snow in bags.

"What if an animal gets into it?" I fretted to Tim. He looked at me, looked at the ridiculous amount of snow I'd had to clear just to get out the back door, and raised one eyebrow.

"If any animal manages to get to that in all of this, he deserves it," he said.

Back to Saturday, or, the Longest Day Ever. Seriously, I don't know how frontier people did it. We had Baby G and her parents over because their house was also below 55 degrees and we have a working fireplace. And work it did. We had that sucker roaring. I hung blankets to seal off open parts of the house, leaving the heat for the living room and the girls' bedrooms. And so we sat, four adults, two preschoolers and two babies, from 9:30 a.m. until well past dinnertime. Our roads remained unplowed, only vaguely passable thanks to local rednecks in large trucks that packed down the snow. Baby G's grandfather showed up in a vehicle that could navigate the roads, gave us some firewood and spirited Baby G back to his house, where they had a generator.

But through it all, we tried to have fun. We made "snow party" jokes (translation: lots of booze after the kids went to bed for the night). We gave the kids whatever snacks we had out. We cooked pizzas on the grill at the neighbor's for dinner. We lit candles when the sun went down and made the place smell like Yankee Candle on crack.

People were kind. My voice teacher called me once cell service was working reliably again and offered us a place to stay for the night. Kids were antsy. I would not let them in the snow because I had no idea how I would warm them back up fully. Even with a roaring fire, the thermostat was barely touching 60 degrees. It felt like a sauna compared to the great outdoors.

At 7 p.m. the girls were asleep. It felt like midnight. At 9 p.m. my in laws, who inexplicably still had power, managed to navigate the roads and bring us a generator. When I heard the furnace click on, I could have kissed everyone. 

And when we woke up, we had power. The first thing I did was clean the kitchen. The second thing I did was take down all the blankets that had made the house look like a shanty town. And then I booted the kids outside.

"Can we have a fire again today?" Mary asked. 

Well, someone had a good time.

I dreamed it for you, baby

  When my then-22-month-old daughter began crying for all the world and articulating exactly why she was so distraught, I knew two things: 1) Mary was going to be very, very bright, and 2) My melodramatic streak evidently does not skip a generation. As we drove home from Cape Cod, my not even two year old sobbed because we had left behind a random pink folding chair that had been for sale at a roadside ice cream stand.

"My chaaaair!" she wailed, hitting the window with tiny palms and startling a newborn Anna. "My chaaaair is gone! It GOIN' AWAAAAAY!" From Eastham to Hyannis, all the way past Falmouth, she kept up the battle cry until passing out sometime around Fall River. 

3) My daughter is tenacious. 

So now, at five, Miss Mary is ready to embrace the life theatrical. She's seen me trot off to rehearsals and been to a couple of dress techs with variable success (she adored 42nd Street but loudly asked a fellow cast member "are all plays boring like this?" at another). And we've gone from "Mommy, can I come see your play?" to "Mommy, can I be in your play?"

"Soon," I told her. "Mommy will keep her eyes open for a play that's right for you, and when I find one, you can audition."

"What's audition?"

"It's where you go, and if it's a musical, you sing a song," I said. "And if you're right for the play, the director lets you be in it, and if you're not what he or she is looking for, that's okay, and you try again another time." (Way to sugar coat it, Mommy, but we're dealing with a preschooler here.)

"Okay!" she said, and promptly decided she wanted to learn "Castle on a Cloud" from Les Miserables. And she did. All three verses and the bridge. In tune. With hand motions. No, I'm not leaning on hyperbole here. Sometime I'll post a video.

"There are other things you can do, too," I said, when the subject came up again tonight. "There's a theater camp nearby and when you're old enough, we can sign you up for that."

"How old do I have to be?"

"You have to be old enough to read," I said. "Really read, not just know the words to your favorite stories. When Mommy can open a book, any book, and point to a word, and you can tell me what it says, you'll be ready."

"Let's start now!" she cried, dashing to the bookshelf. "I'll get a book!"

"Not 'Gossie,'" I amended. "Not one where you know all the words by heart."

She paused and grabbed another picture book.

"Not 'The Best Word Book Ever,'" I said. "All of the words are right next to the matching pictures."

Another pause, another book.

"That one is in German," I said. "The fact that you can't tell it's in German doesn't bode well for this experiment."

Another book. 'Farmer Boy' by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

"That says 'farmer,'" Mary said triumphantly.

"It does," I said. "How about this one?"

"Um..."

"Look at the letters, what letters are they?"

"B-o-y."

"Right, put those sounds together."

"B-o-y."

"No, the sounds," I said. "Buh--"

"Book!"

"No, hon, it says 'boy.' You're not ready yet, that's okay. You will be soon."

"HOW ABOUT TOMORROW?"

"Sure, baby. Tomorrow."

Like I said, tenacious.

Chicken little

 It's no secret that I am genetically predisposed to hate grocery shopping. My mom hates grocery shopping. I remember her   various attempts to make grocery shopping more enticing when I was growing up (coupons! But not just coupons, couponing parties with best friends and group trips to Stop and Shop - the BIG Stop and Shop - to shop together and see who could save the most money!) and it never worked. I used to beg to go with her and she'd look at me like I was nuts. I don't know if it's because she couldn't imagine why I would willingly want to go to the grocery store or if it was because once in the grocery store, I would start angling for Kidz Kuisine (which I would then never eat because they tasted like crap), expensive sugary cereal ("If you want a bowl of food dye and sugar I can give you that at home for free!") and books ("But mo-om, this is the Babysitters Club where they intercept a sex trafficking ring!").

Now that I have kids, I realize that it's a little of column A and a little of column B, with an extra dash of "doing anything with even one kid increases the errand completion time exponentially" thrown in for good measure. Then you add in the facts that we're essentially a one-income family with three kids and that even the "cheap" groceries are now blindingly expensive and it's a perfect storm waiting to happen. The kind of scenario when you eye the thermometer (freezing!), look at your kids (bouncing off the walls!), check your bank balance (haha!) and debate whether making mac n' cheese for a second night in a row will put you straight on the Mommy Bus to Hell (probably, especially when you're out of peas to go with). 

Today I had to bite the bullet and just go already. Our larder was making Mother Hubbard look like a hoarder extraordinaire and Shaw's was having a decent sale on chicken and beef. And frozen vegetables. And some random deal where if you get two frozen pizzas you can get two bottles of soda for a penny. (Frozen pizzas are GREAT for nights when I have an early call and Tim is stuck with dinner duty. Soda is great for company. There's my junk food justification of the week. Ta-da.) 

So we dropped Mary off at school and headed to the supermarket. It was a good time to go. I only had two kids with me, the temperature was actually in the double digits, and it's pretty quiet in the aisles before 9 a.m. Which was good because we started out with Lily in the cart and Anna walking alongside, and that lasted until we got to just outside the entrance.

"Mommy, can we use that cart? Please? I LOVE IT."

Parents reading this blog probably know exactly what cart Anna was pointing at and are cringing along with me. For those not in the know, "that cart" is one of the behemoth carts that has a plastic car stuck to the front, with two seats and two steering wheels, complete with beeping horns. It steers like a Mack truck, and that's when the wheels are all in alignment and not completely wonky, which never happens. It shudders and rumbles and takes up the entire aisle. And usually I have to remind Anna that beeping the horn loudly and shouting "OUT OF THE ROAD! BEEP BEEP! CAR!" is not polite. 

The store looked pretty empty, so I signed, tranferred Lily from one cart to the other and let Anna climb in to the car portion, where she immediately dropped her coat on the filthy floor of the vehicle. The static electricity made her hair stand up  completely. Mercifully, the horn appeared to have been broken by one of the local miscreant youth. I performed a 27-point turn to get it out of its spot, and we shook and rattled our way through the produce section. Stock clerks turned and watched us rumble past. Lily shouted. Anna turned the steering wheel. We were off.

We picked up jelly and cilantro and basil. I grumbled to myself that it appeared the cost of jelly that was not 99 percent corn syrup had gone up again. I picked up bags of carrots and potatoes (free with purchase of chicken) and vowed that this time I would actually remember to use the potatoes before they went bad. 

Grabbed the pizzas, checked out the reduced price freezer section (or, as I fondly call it, "the scratch 'n dent") and stuck a bottle of chocolate milk in the cart for a treat for the girls. Noted the bakery scratch 'n dent had already been picked over by the earlybirds and that the grocery SnD contained only cleaning products. Found a mismarked roast for $1.89 a pound, and mentally paired it with some of the potatoes. Picked up some ground beef. Felt like children would no longer starve (I'm weird like that). Cart got stuck approximately 1,001 times. Got a bunch of frozen peas and made our way to the checkout.

Somehow I wound up trapped in front of the cart, reaching over the ridiculous car to load the grocery belt. My purse remained at the back of the basket, just out of reach, taunting me.

"Anna, stop, we are not here for candy. Lily, sit down. Lily, stop trying to touch the raw meat. Hi," I said, finally, to the woman at the register.

"Do you have your Shaw's card?" the cashier chirped, as I attempted to wedge myself between the cart and the candy rack, nearly removing a rib in the process and causing Anna, who was lovingly petting the bags of M&Ms, to retract her hand in a hurry. 

"Maybe," I said, digging through the abyss that is the bottom of my bag. "Maybe. No. Wait, wait, yes. Yes I do," I said triumphantly, producing.

"See?" the cashier said. "I knew you could do it! Never doubt yourself."

"Oh man," I said, bagging my groceries and attempting to pay (protip: accidentally selecting the 'cash back' button not once but three times will delay this process). "I have three kids. Most days I doubt my ability to remember pants."

It starts with a bang

  My day began at approximately 6:30 when I heard Lily hooting like a monkey and blearily crawled out of bed to attend to her every whim. The temperature outside was a balmy nine degrees and I was moving like a sloth after a night punctuated by Lily's outrage at cutting yet another few teeth. 

"NONONONONO," Lily caroled, chasing after the cat.

"I'll be out in a minute," Tim called from the shower.

"No one is calling you," I said. "You're fine. Lily's yelling at the cat."

So Tim was hustling to catch his train and in my mind I was already ticking off the schedule for the morning: Get kids up, start breakfast, greet Baby G, make Mary's lunch, track down socks and shoes for all, find missing mittens, remember to warm up car well in advance. I was picking out clothes in Lily's room when I caught an unmistakable alert: Someone, and I won't say who or get into graphic details, had had far, far too much fruit last night and I was going to pay the price before the sun was even up with a ServPro-level cleanup job.

"Tim," I called, banging on the door. "Now I need you out. Get out of the bathroom!" Clearly I had agreed to live in this house with one cursed bathroom before knowing I'd be stacking children like cord wood within its walls. One. Bathroom. 

"Coming," he said.

"THERE IS A MESS EVERYWHERE, GET OUT!"

I run back to the bedrooms, collect the offending child and walk her to the bathroom. Tim comes out, takes one look and is probably immediately grateful that no, he really can't do this one, he has a train to catch. Mentally, I am also dashing for that train, but physically I am warming water, wetting washcloths, cleaning someone. My God, the mess. The mess defies the laws of physics, chemistry, every science I either didn't take or barely passed in high school. I clean, I strip beds, I almost throw up.

"I have to leave," Tim said, giving me a kiss as I jab buttons on the washer. Sanitary cycle. Sanitary with an extra hot extra rinse. Hell, can I just burn the bedding and start over? "Have a good day."

"Have you been here for the last five minutes?" I mutter, still groggy, still mentally in a warm bed or on a fast train bound for a city far away for the day. "I think the tone has been set." I start washing my hands like Monk might. 

But surprisingly, the day picked up. I don't know if it was because it could only get better from there, or because I was trying my hardest not to let Casa Cirque be forever mired in the morning of Gross, but breakfast went off without a hitch. No one fought or complained about clothes, teeth and hair were brushed with minimal screeching and no one had a messy diaper two minutes before we had to leave for school. (I love baby G to death but I swear, that child can sense something in the air when it's 10 minutes until we have to leave, and, no matter what time it is, create a fantastic mess for me.)

When we got back to the house, Baby G had fallen asleep in her carrier and I settled her in a quiet, dark room. Lily rubbed her eyes, cuddled into me and fell asleep in five minutes. I sat on the couch, checked my e-mail, Zulily and various sales (oh, J Crew, how you taunt me!) and Anna came into the room.

"I need a snack," she said. We negotiated Goldfish and she went off pushing a doll stroller with more "babies" than a Duggar Christmas special jammed inside. 

A few minutes later she was back. I looked at her dark little bob and those huge, blue eyes. She was adorable in her little cotton dress and brown boots.

"Anna Beans," I said fondly.

"I need another snack," she announced, not one for beating around the bush.

"Come here and give me  hug," I said, and she did, climbing onto my lap and resting her head on my shoulder.

"Mommy loves you," I said, breathing in the scent of her shampoo (horrible fake strawberry from Target, but on her, it's sweet).

"Yeah, except guess what?" she asked, pulling back. "I'm still hungry. I need a snack."

I laughed and pulled her in for another hug.

"Forever and ever," I said.

"I love you too, forever," she said. "And I'm still hungry. Can I have a snack now?"

She's two feet away from me, eating an entire apple. And when I say the entire apple, I mean when she's done she'll go to the trash and toss out a few seeds and a stem. 

"I'm gonna go throw this in the trash," she just announced. "Then I gonna want another snack. I'm still hungry."

"No more snacks right now," I said. "Come get a hug."

"Okay. Can I have a drink? How about some juice? Can I have some juice?"

Well, we all show love in different ways, I guess.

It's going to be a nice day after all.

You mean Oreos aren't health food?

  Today was a relatively kid-free day. Mary was at school, Baby G goes to her grandma's house on Fridays, and Tim took a vacation day and wrangled the remaining two monkeys because I had a slew of random appointments that were better attended sans ankle biters.

One of those was a trip to my doctor. I know I've written here and there about my ADHD (as if my writing itself weren't a dead giveaway and speaking of giveaways if anyone knows of anyone looking to get rid of an Ikea Expedit shelving unit, let me know because I want to put one in the family room and...right. Anyway), and right now I am attempting to get the right dosages straightened out to make me a saner, more functional individual. So we meet fairly regularly and discuss how things are going, tweak things, adjust or leave as-is accordingly, etc. Simple, fast, and the most painful part is usually the co-pay my insurance insists upon every. single. visit.

Today, as usual, I met with the medical assistant before seeing the doctor. She asked me how I was doing, asked me if I had any pain (I'm still not sure why they ask me every visit, but that's okay), took my blood pressure, and while that was merrily turning my arm purple, she pressed the button on the electronic scale. It beeped. The numbers on the blood pressure readout spiked just slightly.

"Are you weighing me?" I asked. 

"Yes," she said, disconnecting the cuff. As my arm returned to normal, I leaned over to take off the huge, heavy winter boots and mentally kicked myself for wearing a heavy sweater, jeans, big old belt and probably a cinder block, and stepped on the scale. (While I am comfortable with my body image, I do not enjoy being weighed at doctor's appointments. Towards the end of my pregnancies, I would thank my lucky stars that it was warm weather so I could get away with thin shorts, a tank top and flip flops. Yes, I did look classy, why do you ask?) Despite the heaviest garments in my wardrobe, the scale read five pounds less than my last physical. 

The medical assistant looked at the number, walked back to the computer and input it. 

"Make sure you get the point-two," I said, referring to the decimal place, because surely that was important. (Heavy sarcasm.) At this point, the MA obviously got some kind of new screen, because she began reading off of it.

"Do you feel it is important to incorporate healthy eating and exercise into your daily routine?" she asked, almost by rote. I cracked up.

"Aw, your computer is telling you I'm fat!" I chuckled. She looked up in surprise and gave me a half smile. What? I know I'm not skinny. Whatever. (Insert appropriate body image comments here along with the footnotes that I'm also pretty damn physically strong and have had no complaints in the appearance department from those who are interested in such things.)

She waited for my answer. Apparently she couldn't move on until I provided one.

"Yes," I said. "Yes I do."

"On a scale of one to 10, how committed would you say you are to providing healthy food at home?"

What, seriously?

"Um, eight, I guess? I mean, I cook dinner every night and try to avoid processed foods (except for these dinosaur chicken nuggets BJs sells because they are so. damn. good., but the package says 'all natural' so let's just go with it)..."

"On a scale of one to 10, do you think you will be successful in this goal?"

"Sure, I guess, why not?" 

"I need a number. Seven? Eight? Nine?"

"Sure, any of those. Eight? Surprise me." We have entered the Twilight Zone, people. I am tempted to say my Healthy Food Give a Damn meter is set squarely at zero and I consume only cans of refined lard that I get from behind the TGI Friday's, but something tells me that's not going to go over well.

"And is there anything in your way of acheiving this goal?"

"No?" I mean, I have a three year old who thinks the epitome of fine cuisine is a jelly sandwich, but she'll eat peas and stuff, and my five year old seems to think candy is a food group but I don't give her that much and the baby considers food to be concept art.

"No?"

"Food is expensive?" I offer, and she types something in. "Hey, I've lost weight since my first appointment," I add, and kick myself for saying so. She can see that. It doesn't matter anyway.

"I need to take your blood pressure again, it seemed a little high," she said. 

"Well that's probably because you told me you were going to weigh me," I offered helpfully. The next readout is a nearly perfect 115/78. 

"That will do it," she said with a smile. "The doctor will be right in."

We chat, we troubleshoot, we come up with a plan that should correct some of the minor issues I've been having with my current dosage. She makes no reference to my weight, gives me a new prescription, tells me to call her if I have questions and sends me on my way.

On a scale of one to 10, how random was the fist portion of my appointment?

I'll give it a six and go grab some chips. But the baked ones. Because I am Committed to Healthy Eating. I'm at least a seven.

And seven eight (ate) nine.

Nine chips.

No one can eat just one. 

Sunbeams

Today was a stressful day. Not because of any one thing, or any big thing, but rather a bunch of tiny things that wore away at my sanity little by little.

There was paperwork to compile for an appointment tomorrow. There was the knowledge that I had managed to book an 11 a.m. appointment and a noon appointment 15 miles apart, and neither could be moved.

There were school runs to do and gas tanks to fill and budgets to mend in the aftermath of the holidays.

And my girls, in true kid spirit, ignored me much of the day until those crucial moments when I had a phone in my hand, trying to sort out paperwork, switch our homeowner's insurance, make appointments. When Baby G had gone home and Lily was finally napping, I stretched out myself, knowing a nap was out of the question but trying to relax, only to be bombarded with multiple requests to play Memory or to 'snuggle' (which sounds cute but is about as relaxing as cuddling a whirling dervish when Anna isn't really tired). I got texts with things that had to be handled immediately, followed by phone calls, until I gave up on relaxing and started dinner.

But in between, there were some wonderful moments.

I was driving Anna to school and Mary was fiddling with my phone, which she knows she's not supposed to do.

"Mommy, that thing kind of looks like a snail!" she announced. I had no idea what she was talking about so I just went with it.

"Nice," I said. "Mommy likes snails." (I do, and have for years. I have no idea why. I also like llamas and owls, in case you were wondering.)

"ME TOO," she said with joy. "I love them because they're all slimmery."

I couldn't help but grin. It was such a random, made up, perfect word for a snail. I laughed.

"AND SLIMY!" continued the girl who hates to be dirty or sticky or unkempt.

"I like them because they carry their houses on their backs," I said.

"They do," she confirmed. "So if they get scared, they can just pop back in! They don't need to run home, they're already there!"

She sounded so confident in her assessment and proud of herself that it made my morning and I insisted we call grandparents so she could share her knowledge.

This afternoon Anna brought delightful randomness. It started when Mary approached me and asked if it was true that you should never tell secrets.

Now, I'm a child of the 80s. I was raised on Stranger Danger and all the paranoia that goes with it. Yes, I know statistically the odds of a kidnapping and such are low, but that doesn't stop me from worrying. So I started in.

"Well, sometimes," I said. "If it's a fun secret, like a birthday present. (It should be noted my kids are crap at keeping presents secret.) But if it's a secret that could hurt someone, you should always tell Mommy or Daddy so we can help."

Mary nodded solemnly.

"And if there's smoke, get on the floor!" Anna muttered as she walked by.

Thank you, Fireman Sam.

Then I walked down the hall and saw that the dress up tote had exploded all over Lily's bedroom floor. Anna was in a state of disrobe and Mary was walking on discarded dresses.

"No!" I said. "Pick up in here, and Anna, put some clothes on. Put on a dress up or put on your school clothes, but you can't be naked."

"I DON'T WANNA HAVE CLOTHES!"

"Put some clothes on or you're going to lose a privilege."

She glared at me but pulled on her shirt and leggings.

"Thank you Anna," I said. "Do you want a tutu?"

"No, I want three," she said, tugging on her shirt.

And suddenly, I wasn't annoyed about clothes anymore. I tried to suppress a smile (when Anna is growly she does not like to be laughed at).

"Okay," I said, "but do you want your black tutu skirt?"

"No fanks," she said, and wandered off, bad mood forgotten.

And somehow, dinner got made and appointments were confirmed and bills were paid and documents were collected. They even managed to sneak in a game of Memory with Daddy while I was on the phone handling insurance stuff.

And we have a new word to boot.

Oxford English Dictionary, I'll be consulting you about adding 'slimmery' to next year's edition.

Dreaming of a white Christmas

  Yes, I know. I have been a very, very bad blogger. Blame it on ADHD. Blame it on four kids, the holidays, four shows at the same time, the cats (we blame the cats for everything anyway), blame it on the cold weather. I have slacked.

The holidays at Casa Cirque were wonderful, busy, full of light and noise and craziness and I am exhausted. I love hosting Christmas at our house. My husband, who gets to put up with my obsessing over menus, and domicile cleanliness, and decor, for weeks ahead of time, is slightly less thrilled but enjoys not having to drive anywhere, so he goes along.

So a quick catch up and then I promise I'll give you something interesting to read tomorrow.

Mary and Tim sang "Do You Hear What I Hear" in church on Christmas Eve and let me tell you, I might be veering sharply into Mama Rose territory, but I was so stinking proud of my little girl. She practiced her heart out, and then literally five minutes before she was supposed to sing, something broke on her brand new doll and she started to cry. I sent her in the back with Tim, hoping she'd calm down, but I wasn't too optimistic. At the last second, I got the doll's skirt fixed (my dad is the real life version of MacGyver and every now and then, a glimmer of it manifests in my gene makeup) and showed Mary. She dried her tears, walked out in front of a packed church, and sang like nothing had happened. She was on key, she was cute, she smiled, and I would have cried except I was also trying to keep Anna and Lily in the pew. 

Christmas morning Lily woke up at a quarter to five, raring to go. She was grinning, she was chatting. I gave up and started breakfast, and we were opening presents by 6:30. Around 8 I totally crashed and took a nap before my parents and brother and sister in law arrived at 11. 

No one got food poisoning. No one fought. Nothing broke. Anna got her "working owl" and was thrilled. My brother made the girls a doll house and they spent the next four hours playing in peaceful bliss. Seriously, there was not one time out on Christmas and that right there is a little miracle in and of itself. 

The tree came down on December 26 because I put it up way earlier than I usually do and it was making me twitch to see it in the corner once the holiday had passed. I was somewhat tempted to take it down after the girls went to bed on the 25th but I was too tired.

OH. OH. On the 26th I went out in search of my white Christmas tree. I knew a full size one wasn't in the budget this year, because even at half off the ones I liked were still going to be close to $200. I went to Target, where they had had cute little two foot tinsel trees. None, and the place was a madhouse. I went to WalMart where it was also a zoo and the only white trees they had were tall, expensive and looked like you'd expect a WalMart tree to look on a bad day. I got some wrapping paper for next year and called it good.

I tried HomeGoods and found a cookie cutter for $1 but no tree.

TJMaxx had nothing. 

Then I ventured to Kohl's. I was on the phone with Tim.

"I see a pink tree. They have a pink tree and it's little but no white tree and- OH MY GOSH THEY HAVE A WHITE TREE I GOTTA GO."

There was one. Just one, and it was a floor model, about four feet high and thin. A table top tree. I looked at the boxed trees. The two foot trees were $6, but they only had pink and blue. The four foot boxed trees were either pink or gold. I hailed two clerks before someone could help me. By then I had pulled it off the display and was holding it.

"So can I just bring up a pink boxed tree and have them scan that?" I asked.

"Um...I guess..." said the guy who looked like he was in college and wanted to be anywhere but working retail the day after Christmas. (I did it for years, friend, I understand.)

"Will that mess up your inventory?"

"Maybe...I don't know. They'll sell it to you, though."

"Good enough!" I said, grabbing a boxed pink tree. It was hard to hold them both. 

"Do you need, like help?" I tried to make eye contact around the boughs and nearly lost an eye.

"No, I'm good," I lied. "I'm good. Just gotta grab a cart." I tilted and veered to the front of the store, bushy white branches blocking my view. People stared. I put them in a cart. The top of the tree stuck out merrily. I went back and grabbed some mini purple ornaments and a little teal garland and called it good.

The sales clerk at the register looked at me like I was nuts but gave me a small "floor model" discount. I gave her a boxed pink tree. 

$15.

I got all of it for $15.

Sure some of the lights don't work (as in, the top half of the tree). I don't care. It's cute and light and I love it.

And I'll probably leave it up until August at this point.