I admit it; I have a fond relationship with glitter. If it were socially appropriate for anyone but trampy pop stars to wear it on all occasions, I would do so. As it is I must limit myself to stealth applications via body lotions, massage bars, and the like. And, of course, I have a large variety of it available for use in arts and craft projects.

Noticing an ominously long period of silence while eating breakfast this morning (if standing at the counter with a bowl of Cap'n Crunch counts as breakfast) Mr. Right Brain peeked around the corner of the dining room door to see the Peanut gleefully prancing through a pile of red and gold glitter about three feet in diameter. Like an idiot, I had left out my art supplies after class yesterday, forgetting his propensity to be drawn like a magnet toward whatever item has the potential to make the biggest mess.

I was getting dressed in the bedroom when I heard the commotion raised, and was directly presented with my son clad only in his diaper and a pixie-like dusting of sparkly red and gold, which, considering the season, was a rather festive effect. It wasn't until later that I discovered how much of the stuff had landed inside his diaper, and only prudence prevented me from photographing the truly hilarious results.

The temptation to use it as blackmail later would have been too much.

I thought our first year of decorating our home exterior deserved a commemorative post.

My family never did the lights-on-the-house thing. When I was little I guess Mom just couldn't be bothered, and after she remarried we always lived too far out in the sticks for anybody to care. So it hasn't been a habit of mine, and I've never felt an overwhelming need to go out and spend bucks on lights at a time of year when I'm already strapped because of gift-buying.

Last year, however, we were bequeathed a box of lights that weren't being used by Mr. Right Brain's elderly relative, so this year with plenty and to spare I decided to give it a whirl.

I got this far before realizing we had a couple strings of those fancy icicle-lights that are so popular. Oh well - maybe next year. Their very popularity kind of annoys me, anyway. We have a little ornamental tree to the far right, to which I plan to add some lights and hang a couple of those gigantic ornaments under it. Not too shabby overall, I think.

Given there was really nowhere to put it in our living room this year, we put the tree in the dining room so it would show out the front window. One of these years I'd like to branch out from the "frosty" theme we were going with when we initially bought our first ornaments, and do something a little more colorful, but for now it still looks nice. Notice the relative absence of ornaments on the bottom foot or so of the tree...this would be the Peanut's arm reach. He manages to snag a couple a day anyway, since I refuse to have the bottom of the tree completely naked, but hasn't broken any yet, and it gives him plenty of opportunities to learn that the "no touching" command is not optional.

Of course with the tree in the dining room, I couldn't be satisfied with the rest of the room looking shabby (not that it's even a separate room really, given our open floor plan) so I finally got my act together to make a table runner, which I'd been meaning to do for the last couple of years and finally had a good excuse. Of all the materials I could have chosen, pairing panné velvet with a satin/lamé blend was not the best idea given my limited skill, but I managed to make it work after a lot of grumbling and a million pins.

I love Christmas decorating. I'd have every room in our house done to the nines if I had the resources. It just makes me happy.

I am so tired of poop.

I tried a few days of ECing the Peanut when he was about seven months old. It petered out quickly; he was never one to "cue" when he had to go, and I am not one to haul my infant to the potty every fifteen minutes.

We have dabbled in potty training on and off since he was 18 mos. old and learned how to make himself pee at will. I can usually get him to do it in the potty if there is anything to do, but I have yet, to this day, to get him to poop there. Even when I know he has to go. He squirms, tries to get down, insists "all done" and finally starts whining until I give in, unwilling to make pottying a negative experience. Ten minutes later and I can smell his little rancid butt across the room.

A month ago he would at least come and tell me. "Poo-poo. Change." Now it's like he doesn't even give a flip, and I am imagining, in despair, a three-year-old who still blissfully wallows in his own filth.

It's enough to make me want to give up cloth diapering, which, for all its perks, is just undeniably gross when scraping poop into the toilet. I know I'll be dealing with it all over again when Deuce arrives, but in comparison to the foulness that is a two-year-old's excrement, breastfed-baby poop seems downright pleasant, a fact which has made me adamant about postponing solids as long as possible next time.

Speaking of smelling things across the room...

*sigh*

I had a dream last night in which my high school band had a big reunion and we were going to re-do the same show we'd done when I was in tenth grade by way of celebration. Everyone remembered the music, drill, and routines perfectly, although guard was missing a few props. My subconscious mind, interestingly enough, was logical enough to include only my high school bandmates in the narrative without mixing in anyone from college, although the end result was somehow a much larger band than the 50-some-odd I remember us having. Unfortunately the dream ended during one of the final rehearsals, so I never got to the performance part. Too bad.

I've had band dreams pretty frequently, but this one was definitely the most comprehensive as far as how many people it included, and I know it's due to the number of them I have recently run into on facebook. We've lately been swapping some blackmail-worthy photos from the time period and trading humorous barbs about each other's (and our own) attire and hairstyles.

This comes on the heels of reconnecting with two of my guard friends from college, who, it turned out, had both been searching for me as well. Internet has become something of a challenge for me to balance its allure with the rest of my responsibilities, but moments like these make me glad of it.