Not necessarily a nursery rhyme, but it's close

Soooooo. How's things?

Me? Well, let me give you the run down:

This morning I awoke with my right eye swollen shut. Ick. No gooby goop, but just really red and swollen. Could it be from crying myself to sleep last night or could it be from the shoe that I kicked off my foot in an angry rage that then ricocheted off the ceiling where it left a nice large dent and then hit me in the eye? I'll leave that up to your imagination.

After I went in to wake the kiddos up for school this morning, I went in my bathroom to wash my face to try and see if that would make the swelling from my eye go down. No dice. Corrine came in my bathroom to do her hair and I began to tell her about something really important like, "You know you should never leave your socks on when you sleep because your feet might mold," or something similar, but she kept looking away. Finally she looked at me and says, "OK. I can't take you seriously with that eye. You look like Mad Eye Moody."

Nice.

She seriously made my day.

As you can see from the photo above, we went and saw Jolly Old Saint Nick over the weekend. He was the coolest. We walked in the building just before closing, and literally ran right into him. "Santa!" I said. "Hi! We were just coming to see you!" With a smile on his face and his candy cane bucket in hand, he knelt down and wrapped an arm around my littlest piglet. "Have you been a good girl?" he asked.

She nodded.

I blinked.

Corrine hummed a Linkin Park song.

"Do you want to come and get your picture taken?"

Another nod.

Another blink.

Linkin Park in the background.

You'd have thought we traveled to the land of Linkin, Blinkin' and Nod, what with all the blinkin', singin' and noddin' goin' on. (How's that for a not necessarily correct over usage of an apostrophe?)

Then he led us back to his faux workshop and proceeded to grill the girls.

"How are you liking school?" to Corrine.

"Fine." She's a real talker, that one.

"What's your favorite subject?"
"I don't know." I sure wished she would stop talking.

To give the man credit where credit was due, he kept asking questions to get her talking and to find out her interests; not just what she wanted for Christmas.
He was very sweet.
Corrine kept giving him one worded answers, and ducking her head and darting her eyes around to see if anyone she knew was looking.
Finally, the question, "What do you want for Christmas?" It was like he had opened the flood gates. "An iPod. And lots and lots of books."
"Well, little one. I have a hard time saying no to books." Then a wink in my direction and on to Laynee.

Laynee.

"Are you helping your Mommy out a lot?"
"No."
"Do you help your big sister?"
"No."
"What do you do?"
"I yell and then I go to time out."
Classic.
"What do you want for Christmas?"
Now here is where I waited on pins and needles because this child's Christmas list was as follows (as dictated by herself to Corrine):
A horsey, a chain, a key, a pencil with a flower on it, a paper horsey, a unicorn, a round thing, a pink cat, a light, a pink unicorn, and a baby.
All of these items just so happened to be laying in close proximity to her when she demanded the list be written.
But as soon as she was asked the magical question by The Big Man himself, her eyes lit up and she said, "A unicorn at the store with pink on it's face."

A bit of background info. Laynee has an imaginary horse that she rides around the house. She has been seen mounting and dismounting the invisible animal, tying it up to the cupboards, and feeding it sticks. It goes with her everywhere. To the school, the store, the bathroom. Everywhere. And so the other day when Michael took her to the store with him and she came galloping around the corner, he was very surprised to see that her horsey had become visible. It was a stick horse unicorn and it had pink on its face. She has not forgotten it since.

I sure hope Santa comes through for her this year because have you ever tried to attach a horn to a large mammal only to find out that the superglue tube had a hole in it and you inadvertently glued your hand to a ginormous wooden dowel? Me neither. But I keep dreaming about the consequences.