I’ve been looking forward to today all week. Christmas tree day! The day our house will finally feel like Christmas. And, boy, did it start early. With that sickly sweet smell you can recognize as soon as you walk into a baby’s room. Vomit. Everywhere. And my child? All smiles because it was time to cuddle with Justin and me.

He made a pretty fast recovery, although he didn’t actually eat anything at all today. He had a few saltines and some Sprite, but that was it. Not even a bottle before he went to bed. I know it’s important to keep him hydrated, but it’s hard to force liquid into him. He does this every time he throws up; he gets wary about putting anything into his body, which I can respect.

What I appreciate the most about my son is his ability to persevere, even in the face of a stomach bug. Robbie happily climbed into his car seat for our trip to Tyngsboro to procure our family Christmas tree from our friend, Ken Times. We also took a family nap after returning home, where Justin slept, Robbie played, and I tried to sleep.

Finally, finally, finally it was time to decorate the tree! The moment I have been waiting for since at least two weeks before Thanksgiving. The tree went into the stand without trouble. The ornaments were in the living room. Everything was ready to go. Until Justin plugged in the lights. They didn’t work. The lights I have been using since 2003. They had a good run, but getting new lights really wasn’t in the plans tonight. After all, I was already on borrowed time with a sick, hungry, tired child. I quickly ran to the new CVS across the street to get more lights. After spending $9.00 on three boxes of lights, I darted back across Mass Ave., ready to decorate the tree.

Justin opened the boxes to put all the lights on the trees (this is a husband job) and found that the strands wouldn’t connect to each other. They were all dead-enders. With only 50 lights on each strand, there was no way we could decorate our tree with just one strand. A quick trip to the grocery was a fail, so it was into the car and down to Walgreens. Fortunately, they had strands of 300 lights and, in a fantastic turn of events, Christmas DVDs.

Unfortunately, at home, things were deteriorating. Robbie was cranky and inconsolable. Tree decorating was put off again. With the baby finally down (Justin rocked him to sleep in the way that only he can do), my P90X workout completed, dinner eaten, and shower taken, it was finally time to actually decorate the tree. Justin and I turned on A Charlie Brown Christmas and opened 31 years of Christmas ornaments.

Justin patiently listened to me recount the stories of the ornaments: the ones I made, the ones from my sorority years, the ones we made together the first year we were married, the ones from Robbie’s first ornaments. And, bless his heart, Justin didn’t give up when he saw there was a second box of ornaments. He just kept hanging.

I’m not sure if you can tell really what the picture for this post is, so let me explain it to you. There are three snowman snowglobe ornaments. One reads Erin, another Dad (they were out of “Justin”), and a third Katherine. We bought them in the Macon Macy’s the January I was pregnant. I went down to visit Justin while he was on active duty for 30 days, and we picked up the ornaments for about 75 cents apiece. I did look for a Robert, which they didn’t have. However, I was so convinced that we were having a girl, that I didn’t care. I bought the Katherine ornament, thinking that my daughter would really appreciate that I was so in tune with my body that I bought her an ornament without actually knowing she was a girl. Now I’m just hoping that Robbie will find the humor in the first ornament ever bought for him. And, knowing Robbie, I’m sure he will.

I’m not sure when I turned into an adult, but I know it was sometime when I looked forward to Saturdays because it would give me enough time to fully clean my house. And that’s how I felt when I woke up this morning. Justin had class all day, which meant he was out of my hair for the day. It was just Robbie and me. And a filthy house.

We avoided it in the morning by going to a craft fair, a greenery sale, and Wilson Farm. Robert went down for his nap easily, so I turned on the Kentucky game and got to work. Thank goodness I had the cleaning to distract me from the game… I only sat down to watch the last five minutes; I just listened to the rest of the game from various places in the house.

It took me six hours, but I did it. The kitchen is clean (even after dinner, with a newly cleared dishwasher). The living room and dining room are in mint condition (even the Pack ‘n Play is organized). The bathroom? Don’t even get me started on how cute the new Santa rug is on top of the recently sanitized floor. And the three bedrooms? Let me just say that beds are made and laundry is put away. Even the laundry basket full of clothes I wasn’t sure where to put. Christmas presents are stashed appropriately.

And now? Now I’m blogging to try to procrastinate starting my Christmas cards because I just don’t know how to get started. I even did 90 minutes of yoga to avoid it. But now, yoga done and house clean and stamp supplies organized and blogging close to complete… I guess it’s time to start Christmas cards. Or go to bed. Hmm…

Robbie loves his ‘ish. He feeds him every night. He points to him every morning. And, if you ask him what a fish says, he will very proudly say, “Gulp.” I know, I know. A fish really says, “Glub”, but I say, “Gulp” every time Jake the Fish eats a piece of food. Robbie is very attached to Jake, and I’d like to think that Jake was attached to Robbie.

Yes. I said “was”. Being the responsible pet owner that I am, I changed Jake’s water last night because it had gotten uncomfortably low from Cookie Monster drinking it. I figured if it got much lower, he wouldn’t have any room to swim and would die. And, since I accidentally boiled my fish when changing their tank in college because I didn’t wait long enough for the water to go to room temperature (this is the first time I have publicly admitted that), I let Jake sit in a mug on the kitchen counter overnight. This is what I found this morning.

And, for the close-up…

I can only assume that a cat wanted some water and knocked over the mug. I don’t think she (yes, I’m assuming it was Grover since she loves to hunt or Cookie since she was drinking the water) meant to commit fishicide. But, when the water was knocked over, and the fish came flopping onto the counter… Well, what was she supposed to do?

I explained the situation to Robbie this morning, and he took it well. He was concerned about the missing fish, pointing at the place on his dresser where Jake lived for the past five months, pitifully saying, “‘Ish? ‘Ish?” I have a feeling he didn’t quite understand that a cat was the culprit here because he was loving on them five minutes later.

Robbie and I took a field trip this afternoon to Pet Supplies “Plus” (don’t even get me started on the name…), and Robbie picked out a new ‘ish. It’s not the same as Jake or Fake Jake (last night’s casualty). But Robbie doesn’t really seem to care. He proudly held the bag with his new fish in it at the store, saying, “Gulp! Gulp!” Somehow, I think he’ll pull through. I’m just hoping that I will.

This morning, Justin and I were sitting on the bed engaging in our usual witty early-morning conversation. All of a sudden, there was music playing. A nice Bruce Hornsby ballad, actually. It was as if we were living in a musical, where conversations burst into song mid-sentence. Startled, Justin and I looked around to find the source of the music: Robbie and my cell phone (which used to be Justin’s, explaining the Bruce Hornsby music selection). Robbie was sitting on the bed, phone up to his ear, rocking out to the easy-listening jam. It would have made the perfect video, but, well, Robbie had the phone…

Amused, Justin and I stopped talking and watched Robbie for a few minutes. Then, the song was over, and we went back to our conversation (obviously something very important that early in the morning). All of a sudden, there was more music. And it wasn’t coming from the phone. It was coming from Robbie. I don’t know if he was trying to mimic good ‘ol Bruce or trying to do a mash-up of easy-listening and Chinese opera, but he was getting a real kick out of himself.

Now, Justin and I have never heard Robbie sing. He actually has a sweet little voice, even if he doesn’t have any words… Apparently he practices his singing with Zhining most days. She practices her opera with the kids (it’s nice to have a built-in audience), and young QiQi often joins in (“big song” has two meanings – he sings loudly or he cries loudly).

In other news, the house is now as decorated for Christmas as it’s probably going to be. Except for the tree, which we’ll get on Sunday. And, thanks to some lovely candles, it smells like Christmas. Maybe I’ll have visions of sugar plums dancing in my head tonight… We can only hope…

That sleeping-through-the-night thing? Didn’t happen. There were two: one at 10:43 and the other at 1:25 when he kicked me in the head for the sixth time. Since there were no tears at bedtime tonight (probably due to a late and fabulous Chipotle dinner) and I gave him a dose of Tylenol, I’m confident that I will be sleeping through the night tonight. At least I think I’m confident…

It used to be that when I got to daycare, Robbie would open the door, smile at me, and run away. He wanted little (if anything) to do with leaving his friends and going home. After all, things are so much more interesting in Chinese than in our bland English-speaking home. He would kick and scream as I put his jacket on, picked him up, and carried him to the door. It really did a lot for my ego after a long day at work…

Something changed over Thanksgiving. All of a sudden, Robbie is excited to see me when I come to get him from daycare. He opens the door, smiles at me, and gives my legs a big hug. He stands still while I put his coat on. And (maybe this part is my imagination), he nearly leaps into my arms to go, giving his friends a big “I-love-my-mom-so-much-and-I-can’t-wait-to-go-home-and-play-with-her” grin as we go out the door.

And, with a dance party like we had at home, who can blame him? http://www.youtube.com/get_player

I took Robbie on his first Christmas shopping extravaganza this afternoon. I have a few suggestions for the people at Kohl’s… Well, really just one. Fix the stupid shopping carts! I’m not sure if you’ve been to Kohl’s recently, but the child seats are in the front of the carts, lower than the handles, and facing out. This is extremely problematic.

Robbie got a kick out of facing front in a cart and seeing everything that was coming toward him. He was also a big fan of grabbing everything at his level. In case you’re wondering, that was most of the merchandise. The seats in the carts are on the same level of all the tables and shelves. I looked down at one point and saw four towels in my basket. And they did not match my bathroom decor… This got particularly nerve-wracking when we were near the china.

Luckily, we survived without any casualties. And Robbie did make some friends while we were there. He blew kisses at a group of employees who came to find him before we left to say good bye. I also got all of my shopping done for one person on my list and I got some goodies for my yet-to-be-determined Secret Santa at work.

And now I’ll sign off, hoping to sleep straight through the night without a 2:00 wake-up call (’cause that’s what happened last night…).

While we were out of town, young Robert found himself very off-schedule. There were short naps and inexcusably late bedtimes. And now I pay the price…

Last night’s bedtime was epic. It was a two-hour bonanza of ear-piercing shrieking. There was no escape from Robbie’s shrill demonstration of displeasure. I put him down at 6:20 (I know because I called my sister right after he went down and checked my call log to see how long he had been screaming – a mere six minutes). At 6:26 I went in to get him. Normally, I would have waited much longer, but it was that screaming you can feel in your bones.

The screaming continued for another two hours. We tried to rock and soothe Robbie, which just made him more irate. We let him play quietly in his room, which was fine until he realized we were doing other things. We put him back in his crib to see if he would just get tired. Nothing worked. Not even when we drew the big guns: a bottle of milk.

The only thing that worked was Justin, who decided to try soothing Robbie two hours after the whole sleep ordeal began. How did that work out? Mmhmm… He had Robbie asleep in five minutes. Where, I ask you, was this man when the whole thing started?

Don’t think it was over… Like we did. We were lulled into a false sense of security that was rudely interrupted at 9:30 when Robbie woke up and beckoned us with his war cry. It was more attempts at soothing, this time with all of us trying to go to sleep. Unfortunately, only two of us went to sleep. I woke up at 11:00 with a little smiling face two inches from mine, saying, “Hi!”

I naively hoped that one day at Zhining’s would have Robbie back on track. Surely playing all day would get him so tired that he couldn’t help but go straight to sleep. Of course. Not. The young one screamed as soon as we put him down. I took a shower, hoping he would fall asleep in the meantime. No such luck. I took him up a bottle of milk, as that usually does the trick (see big guns, above).

Robbie gratefully took the milk. As I turned away, he threw his arms up in the air and started screaming, “Mamamamamama!” Sensing that this was not going to go well for me, I picked Robbie up and went to the rocking chair, where we sat for the next half hour. Robbie drank his milk and stared at me like he did when he was a little baby, making googlie eyes. He nestled in a little closer and smiled up at me, closing his eyes for a little longer each time he blinked. And then he fell asleep. It turns out, all he wanted was a little time with me. And, since he has been so independent about sleeping for so long, I’m not going to question whether or not I’m starting a bad trend. I’m just going to enjoy that, tonight, my little boy just needed some more time with me in order to fall asleep. Oh, and that I didn’t need Justin to come up and finish the job for me. At least not for the moment.

Justin and I celebrated our sixth anniversary today! I’m not sure how long six years is supposed to feel. Six years is all of high school and half of college. Six years is all of elementary school. But being married to Justin for six years doesn’t feel as long as all of that. I guess it’s because when you’re in school, there is an end in sight which can make the time seem to drag on. But, when you’re on a journey with someone and don’t ever want it to end, it flies by.

On our way out tonight, we attempted to recap the highlights of our marriage. It’s interesting to try to define a marriage in a matter of minutes. We focused mostly on the positive things that have happened to us, although I think we’re more changed by the challenges we face. For us, when the negative had the opportunity to draw us apart, our marriage got stronger. I think this is, in part, because our first two years were such a challenge. We were two independent people, neither of us used to compromising. But somehow we figured it out and have been able to become closer with every curve ball life has thrown at us.

It’s so nice to be in the middle of a life you love, especially when you are with someone you absolutely adore, especially when you hear of so many people who are in a loveless marriage but can’t leave for any number of reasons. There’s no one else I ever want to go on this journey with. Justin’s the only person I can tell a story with simultaneously and know just where to pick up and leave off again. He knows to never keep grape jelly in the house. He gets up with Robbie every morning, even on the weekends. He clears the dishwasher and does the laundry – not because he likes to but because he knows I abhor those chores. Justin does the grocery shopping and helps make dinner. He drives wherever we go and always gets the luggage at the airport because those are, as I describe them, “husband jobs.” And he makes me laugh and lets me know how loved I am every day.

In the past six years, there have only been a handful of days that we haven’t talked. I know that may sound silly, but Justin typically travels a lot. He’s been to Japan, Chile, Colombia, England, Germany, and France for extended work trips. He hasn’t always had phone access, but we’ve done everything we could to make sure that we get to talk at least once a day. Those days when I couldn’t hear his voice stretched on forever.

And now I think I’ll close this sappy post. It’s probably been a bit of an overload for you – after all, I just counted my blessings on Thursday. And now you’re forced to read about how much I love my husband? Oy! So, as reward for indulging me, I will leave you with a video of the Manna child eating an apple (with a cameo of Justin’s singing – he only knows the word “dynamite”, so you’ll recognize his harmonizing).http://www.youtube.com/get_player

Visiting family is exhausting on its own. It is exponentially intensified when you visit with a young child. Since we flew to Annapolis, we were not able to bring the appropriate amount of child paraphenalia to successfully survive three days. There is no Pack ‘n Play to place the child in when he has undone an entire rack of CDs for the fifth time. Or when he’s gone digging in the litter box. Or when he’s grabbed all the ornaments off the now top-heavy tree. I have never been so exhausted in my life.

There have also been benefits, though. Robbie is much more cuddly when we travel, probably because he’s in unfamiliar places with people he doesn’t really know. He fell asleep with me last night and then cuddled up with me again this morning.

We leave for home in just a few hours, and I’m hoping we survive the trip. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that Robbie will get tired and crash, but I’m not hopeful. I do plan to take a few Tylenol PM when I get home and get a really good night’s sleep. There’s something about sleeping in the same room as Robbie in a hotel that doesn’t let me sleep well.

Better go… Robbie’s screaming and throwing his head into Justin’s chest. This does not bode well for our flight…

I get so wrapped up in life that I often forget to take into account all the blessings I have. I’m so busy getting to work and daycare on time, stopping by the grocery, cleaning the house, and taking care of all the living beings who live with me that I forget how amazing life is. And so, if you will indulge me, I am going to take the time to count my blessings.

1. I have the perfect husband. Well, perfect for me. He loves me unconditionally and supports me in anything I want to do. He believes in me more than I believe in myself. He is my best friend. He is the one person I want to wake up next to for the rest of my life, morning breath and all. He knows how to hug me to make everything better and how to make me laugh when the rest of the world makes me cry. He puts thought into gifts and romantic gestures (yes, he’s been known to be romantic!). I am so blessed that we met each other 14.5 years ago and even more blessed that he returned my call over 8 years ago. Thank goodness he finally gave into me begging to marry him (yes, it’s true; I begged to marry Justin Manna).

2. I have an amazing son. He greats every day with a cheer (seriously: “Yay!’ and lots of clapping over and over and over). He loves to laugh and smile and he loves me. He is happy and generally thrilled to be alive. He makes me want to be a better person. He makes me want to get up every morning and live more of my life than I did the day before. Robbie learns new things every day (today I asked him to say “turkey” and he responded with “chicken” – a word he’s never uttered in his life). I am so blessed to be able to see his smile and sparking eyes and hear that sweet voice and get those beautiful kisses every day.

3. I have an incredible family. My parents and brother and sister believe in me and are there whenever I need them. We talk almost every day (sometimes two or three times…). They are a part of my best memories and the only way I got through the not-so-good memories. I hated being apart from them for another Thanksgiving (this makes six), but I am so thankful that this is the family I got.

4. Justin and I have enough. I read an email forward about a family that always wished each other “enough.” At first, this struck me as sad. Shouldn’t we strive for more than “enough”? But then I realized that wishing for enough is a perfect blessing. And, in a time when so many people don’t have any, to have enough is more than we can ask for. We have a house that we love, reliable cars, food on the table, heat in the radiators. And you know what the best part of “enough” is? Knowing that when you have it, there’s nothing else you need.

5. I love my job. It is the perfect job for me and exactly where I need to be in my professional life right now. I am working with incredible students who make me laugh (and, in all honesty, frustrate the hell out of me sometimes). I am excited to get to work every day, and I don’t even mind Mondays anymore. I love my job so much that Thanksgiving actually snuck up on me; I wasn’t counting down, hoping to survive until Thanksgiving like I’ve sometimes done in the past. I have fantastic colleagues who make coming to work even better.

6. I am no longer in grad school. I know this is old news, but it is so fabulous to not be in class or doing a practicum. I didn’t realize how much of my life that consumed until, suddenly, I wasn’t doing it any more. I can come home at the end of the day and just be. I can just be Robbie’s mom and Justin’s wife and (on really lucky days) just Erin. It’s an amazing feeling to just be finished and know that you don’t ever have to go back. Of course, I said that the last time. But this time I really think it’s true. I don’t think I can read another professional article and pretend to care about it for a class.

7. I am healthy. Justin is healthy. Robbie is healthy.

8. My friends are incredible. I have the friends I am closer to now that we have kids and new things to talk about. I have friends from miles and miles away who can pick up the phone and feel like no time has passed, even though it’s been two and a half years. I have childhood friends who I see when I go home and new friends who I see for football. It’s so nice to know that there are people in my life who care about me and aren’t related to me. And it’s amazing to have so many friends who play different roles in my life.

I know I have so many more blessings, but these are my top eight. Right now I think I’m going to end this and grab one of my favorite blessings to cuddle. He’s still awake, but I think I could convince him to go to sleep if we had a little hug time. Last night, he fell asleep with his head on my lap, stretched out perpendicular to me. These moments are few and far between, so I’ll enjoy it if he’ll let me.

Happy Thanksgiving!http://www.youtube.com/get_player