The holiday season through Google searches

This is my brain on Christmas.

Early December

• Where to get live Christmas tree Austin
• Whole Foods Christmas tree sale 2019
• How to decorate plain wreath
• Blue mailbox locations
• Croup age range
• North Austin pediatricians 
• Klaus good for kids 
• Christmas lights song preschool 

Mid-December

• Where to stream Polar Express
• Grinch 2018 IMDb
• Santa trail of lights real beard
• Batiste dry shampoo  
• Reindeer food
• Ginger for baking

Christmas week

• Pictures of strep throat 
• Small white bumps tonsils kids
• Best funny movies
• Early HFM symptoms
• Wild Kratts live review 
• Rash amoxicillin
• Urgent care Austin 
• Cough ear infection
• Personalized Santa video 
• Experience gifts for kids
• What to feed caga tio 
• How much should 11-month-old nurse
• How to get rid of Christmas tree Austin 

Super powers of a mom with sick kids

Lightning-fast hands: to catch the vomit almost in time.
Her own gravitational pull: that makes sick kids glom to her no matter where she is or what she’s doing.
Heightened sense of hearing: to jolt awake at every fart, meow or house sound in case a kid is crying for her.
Search term prowess: to find the most terrifying disease on Google that matches her child’s symptoms.
Tylenol math super brain: to juggle dosage times, amounts and temperatures for each kid who then refuse to take any more medicine or have their temperature taken.
Ability to jump to conclusions: like thinking her soundly sleeping child must not be breathing so she better go wake him up just to check.
Grandparent-like compassion: to suspend any semblance of parental control or discipline and replace it with unlimited screen time, cookies for dinner and a new toy if the kid is pathetic enough.

Last-minute stocking stuffer ideas

For the toddler:

• Gift tags so he can re-tag all the presents as his. He’s going to open them all anyway and yell “Mine,” so capitalize on it. 
• Enough candy to bribe your way through Christmas morning tantrums.
• A hundred tiny crappy dollar store toys that the toddler will love leaving on the floor and you’ll have to pry out of the babies hands and mouth until 2020 when you give up and throw them all away.

For the baby:

• Let the toddler fill the baby’s stocking. Any trash, cast-off toys and choking hazards that come from the big sibling are the only thing that will make her happy.
• Cheerios. Just dump the box in there. Any that spill will just join the layer of them already coating the floor. 
• Saline spray because the snot never ends, not even on Christmas.

For dad:

• Anything that's also for you: chocolate, coffee, jewelry
• Anything from your grocery list: toilet paper, mac and cheese, kids vitamins
• Gas X
• No grooming products or he'll continue to age better than you.

For mom:

• Wrinkle cream
• Depuffing gel
• Dry shampoo
• A to-do list for Christmas morning so she doesn’t forget all the balls she has in the air while the rest of the house enjoys the magic she created.

What I've Learned in My First Three Months of Parenting

• If you have to ask, "Is that pee?" the answer is yes.
• Babies are noisy. Do not be alarmed. He will sound like he is choking, forgetting how to breathe, has a small animal caught inside him. He's fine.
• Your new nightly hobby is looking through all your photos of the baby and wondering how he's gotten so big. There will be tears.
• If you think you've got your baby figured out, don't say it out loud. If he knows you're onto him, he'll change and you can forget everything you thought you knew.
• Don't gloat that you put that baby to sleep. That baby is never really asleep. He's waiting until you start doing something you're really looking forward to. Like looking at your phone on the toilet or eating something hot or sleeping.
• Dad's way may seem lazy or wrong, but damned if it doesn't work out for him every time.

3 months old

P is 3 months old today! Today is also the day I was scheduled to go back to work ... except I'm not. I'm going to be a stay-at-home mom and do freelance editing/writing on the side. Will I go crazy? Let's find out!