Despite the Evidence You Are Presented with, Daddy Does NOT Have Boo Boobs (And More Christmas)

For some reason, this morning, Gabe has been obsessed with boobs. I mean, I can't blame him, really. Despite my advancing years, I find that thinking about boobs still fills a respectable portion of my day. But I sort of pegged him as a little young to be spending so much time on them.

We were sitting in the living room, sorting crayons (he got a box of 96, and the box all but disintegrated in the first ten minutes, so the crayons are living in compartments on the little plastic drawing table my folks got him for Christmas), because organization is FUN. He crawled up on my lap and started poking my chest.

"Boo boobs," he said.

I won't go into great detail here, but this is the sophisticated terminology that Gabe and Libby came up with for funbags. One of Gabe's favorite games when he's having his diaper changed is to kick Libby in the rack and say, "Kick boo boobs!" Libby has tried to discourage this game, for obvious reasons, but he persists nonetheless.

Anyway. "No," I said. "Girls have boo boobs. Boys don't." He poked me again. "Boo boobs," he added, matter of factly. I had to continue to argue the fact based purely on technical differences in the biological makeup of males and females, despite the fact that the evidence pointed pretty clearly to his observation being spot on.

It wasn't OVERWHELMING evidence, mind you. Until we got Gabe, I did a pretty good job of staying in shape. I rode my bike with fair regularity and walked about five hours a week. After we got Gabe, the bike rides went out the window (not because I couldn't do it--I could have bought one of those baby carriage ride behind things--but I had a pretty terrible track record of accidents and near accidents and didn't want to take the chance of crashing with a baby in tow), but I still walked four or five hours a week. With Norah's addition, however, I've had to all but give up on the walking. Partly because hauling two kids in a stroller isn't much fun but mostly because her addition coincided with Gabe's realization that the parks we had to walk by were FAR more interesting than riding in a stroller for an hour. Since then, exercise of any organized sort has been pretty much impossible. And it hasn't been TOO detrimental to my girlish figure. Yet. But I have to admit that I am probably sporting a solid A cup at the moment.

Nonetheless, Gabe persisted, despite my protests, and has continued to say, throughout the morning, "Momma has boo boobs" while looking at my chest, as if he's reminding himself of the simple facts of life at the expense of my dignity. It's a good thing that I didn't have much dignity to begin with, I suppose.

And here's some more Christmas pictures and a short video. These are from our visits out to my folks' house. Most of the pictures come from our small family gathering--my folks, my grandma, us, and my brother Jon's family. But I'm going to include some pictures and the short video I took from our big family gathering as well.

Butts in her new bib. People really should send these holiday clothes to kids well before the holiday happens. How appropriate will it be for me to use a "My First Christmas Bib" now that it's not the Christmas season anymore? I WILL use it, mind you, because I don't much care if I'm appropriate or not. But some people worry about such things.

Little Red Riding Butts. Or should that be Little Red Butts Hood? No, Red Riding Hood was actually the kids name in the story, wasn't it. Poor kid. Named after clothing that she is then forced to wear. In that respect, Butts isn't such a bad name.

Gabe, doing double duty with the suckers. I swear, the kid hasn't had more than two solid meals since Christmas thanks to all the sugary crap we have around the house. I could throw it away, of course, but I have a problem with wasting food of any sort. The suckers and most of the Pez are gone now, at least (Mom always gives us Pez for Christmas, and Gabe decided that he simply loves the stuff).

This will take a bit of explaining. Pictured here are the great-grandkids. The ones that were still there or who showed up, that is. I think we're missing at least a half dozen or so, possibly as many as ten. Personally, I don't know the names of more than five or six of them. Our family is HUGE. Dad has six brothers and sisters. With three kids, we have the smallest family. Two of the families have six kids or more (if I'm remembering correctly). The grandkids range in age from about 40 down to something like 10 years old. I am the fourth oldest. Now, most of the grandkids in their early 20s are starting to have babies--and most of the grandkids are in their early 20s. In the next five years, there could be as many as 100 grandkids and great-grandkids. Heck, we might have that many already, I don't know. Our family is populated with EPIC breeders. Of course, there isn't much to do out on the farm but have sex and get drunk. I had hoped that, with the addition of satellite television, breeding habits might change, but so far that hasn't really happened.

And, finally, a video to give an idea of just how huge my family is. We have to rent out an old school so we can have Christmas in the gymnasium. By this point in the day, several people have already left. I have no idea how many, for sure, but I am guessing we're short at least six grandkids and however many great-grandkids that would mean. Ponder on this the next time you're thinking about breeding. This could be your future.