Queen Teen's Holiday

I think the days between Thanksgiving and New Years are actually just a sanctioned time to not get any work done. Forget returning phone calls or finishing paperwork: it's the holidays. After grumpily trying to still manage my press while raising my daughter and organizing all of her doctor's appointments and documents, I gave in to the collective avoidance of work and relaxed. Once I did that, I had fun.

Tomorrow Queen Teen returns to school and I guess I'll have to get back to tackling my to-do list. But before I do, I'd like to write about my holiday with my girl.

Overall, it was a quiet season for us. No big trips or family plans. We spent Christmas Eve dinner with my brother and his family, but that was short and he only lives an hour away. Christmas Day was a stay home, stay in our pj's, open presents and eat when we want day.

I imagine this will be Queen Teen's last Santa Clause Christmas. She's 13. So seeing her face Christmas morning when she found her gifts next to the tree was extra sweet. Her eyes widened and she grinned when she saw that Santa had come again. He gave her a Groovy Girls Princess doll, several coloring books and new crayons, and a princess wand. He also gave her 10 Rugrats books, which she has read non-stop since Christmas.

Her favorite gift came from Rick; a Disney Princess play set with every classic princess. When she isn't reading her new books, she's playing with the princess figurines. I gave her a New York City snow globe to remember our trip to New York, and although she said it was pretty, she can't really play with it like she can Cinderella and Belle.

After Christmas came several days of boredom mixed with new toys. It's amazing how rapidly a teenage girl can vacillate between utter boredom to hysterical fun. One moment Cinderella is the best toy EVER and the next "there's nothing to play with!"

Fed up, I loaded us both into the car to visit my sister Tama at the Den of Chaos. My sister has four children, three girls and a boy, and with that many children under one roof things can get noisy. Queen Teen jumped right in, not minding the noise or tripping hazards of the toys lying around. She didn't want to climb the stairs this time, so Boo-Bug, Tama's youngest daughter, dutifully brought toys down stairs for Queen Teen to play with, which added to the confusion, but was better than climbing a flight of stairs.

Tama and I snuck out of the house for a couple of hours for some girl-time, leaving her husband in charge of five children, two of which have special needs. And neither of us felt guilty at all.

We were there for New Years and all the children did there best to stay up until midnight. Everyone made it but mine. We were watching the footage from Time's Square at 11:30, waiting for the ball to drop. I leaned close to Queen Teen and asked, "Do you remember when we were in New York?"

"Yes," she mumbled.

"That's what's on TV right now. We were right there in Times Square."

"Yes."

I looked at her and saw her red rimmed eyes were drooping and she was so tired she could barely lift her head to look at the TV. I took her hand. "Come on, baby. Let's get you to bed. I'll give you a kiss at midnight."

"Yes." I helped her stand and put her to bed. At midnight when I checked on her, she was sound asleep.

Back home, her boredom had vanished. I guess getting away from home for a few days is the cure. She helped me put Christmas away, played with her new toys and read her new books and is now excited to go back to school tomorrow. Me too! I can't wait to tackle all that work which was impossible to get done once Thanksgiving rolled in.