Bottle junky, superb dinner, and ChristmaHannuKwanzaaKah
Current mood: contemplative

My baby is a bottle junky. Poor little Abigail, she just can't help herself. She sees a bottle and her eyes light up. I came home from school on Thursday and Stefan had cooked a wonderful roast for us for lunch. We settled Abby into her Bumbo seat on the table so she could be a part of this family feast. One look at my Fruit 2 O bottle and she was captivated. She reached and stretched her chubby little arms trying her best to seize the bottle that she thought belonged to her. I laughed and teased her a few times raising the bottle to my lips just to see the desperation on her face. Finally, I tipped the bottle in her direction and she grasped it before I could blink and put it to her mouth. This gave Stefan and me a good chuckle.



For the past couple of days, it's just been us girls in the Lewitt house. Stefan left for work on Friday to stay the night at his parents house so that his dad could drive him to the airport early Saturday to catch a flight first thing in the morning to Indy. The purpose of this trip is load a U-Haul for his brother to move his belongings here to the ATL where he will reside in March. We're all excited about that. I think his parents are bursting at the seams with excitement. Meanwhile, I have a newfound respect for single moms. Being alone with the girls is tiresome. I'm constantly being pulled in different directions to tend to the needs of one or the other. For that reason, I needed a break.

I took the opportunity to take my inlaws up on a babysitting offer and invited my friend of 14 years to join me for a girls dinner at the Melting Pot - a dinner we've been meaning to do since our birthdays that fell in May and July. What a nice treat! Since she had her son a year ago and with the arrival of Abby, we haven't been able to get together a fraction of what we have been used to over the years. Our Thursday night TV nights are a distant memory. The trade off is great (the kids) but we needed this time together. It was great. We discussed the possibility of a girls weekend to the mountains in the near future but we'll have to see if those plans come to fruition. It would be nice, though.

On the topic of discussion at dinner was the neuterizing (yes I just created a new verb) of the end-of-the-year holidays. How Christmas, Kwanza, and Hannukah have all been lumped into "The Holdays." My husband's family is Jewish and I can see their point that Hannukah doesn't gain half the attention of the others, but what is the happy medium. This "Happy Holidays" stuff crawls on my nerves.

This has been an issue on the radio lately with broadcasters asking questions like: "If a store refused to say Merry Christmas, would this affect your decision to shop there?"

Me personally, I don't know. I think each holiday should be respected in it's own right. I don't see that saying "Merry Christmas" is desrespectful to people of other religions especially if it is Christmas when they are saying it. Just like if some told me during Hannukah, "Happy Hannukah" I would see it as their way of saying "Have a Good Day." I don't know much about Kwanzaa, but I think the same applies. The person saying it is well-meaning and is just in the spirit of the season. But I think that if you lump everything under the umbrella of "Happy Holidays" that each observance loses a piece of its significance. There is a retailer (whose name has slipped my mind) who has an ad campaign that states, "Merry ChristmaHannuKwanzaaKah." In fact, if you google this term it comes up with 336 results. Is this the solution? Besides the fact of being outright difficult to say, I don't think it is.So, why can't we say "Merry Christmas" during the Christmas Season, "Happy Hannukah" during Hannukah, and "Happy Kwanzaa" during Kwanzaa? That way, each holiday is respected in its own right.

End rant. As Dr. Phil would say, "Save your emails." I know this is a touchy subject, but it hits close to home here and I just wanted to get my thoughts out.