To feel better

So we've made it to the end of the year. It's the end of the Man-cub's school break, too. I had great, amazing, awesome, wonderful plans to do crazy fun stuff with him every day over the holidays. But I got sick.

I'm cough-up-a-lung sick. I'm cough-till-your-ribs-crack sick. I'm cough-so-hard-you-literally-see-stars sick. I think there must be a second throat inside my throat, and a little sprite has gone diving in my sinuses and is pounding in there with a mallet.

I've been feeling so guilty that I haven't done much with the Man-cub and Junebug.

But hey, we're supposed to go camping with friends this weekend and ring in the new year in the wilderness! Great as something for the kids to do, not so great when you feel like a twisted wad of heavy lint.

By the way, did you know lint makes great campfire kindling? It's true.

Before you get out your little violins, I'll stop now and just show you pictures of the Tropic kids and their Christmas adventures, which -- why yes! -- mostly involve trains, which we received from no less than four different branches of our family tree and which now are scattered throughout the house.









Happy New Year!

(and actually, I think heading outdoors for a few days is just what I need to feel better....)

Happy hollydays!

Merry Coughmas! Er, Merry Christmas. I have been coughing at least every three minutes, including when I sleep, so coughing has become a lifestyle for me. I am coughing so hard that I broke some little blood vessels on my face. At least my abs are getting ripped used.

Even though I've been sick, and even though the Man-cub can't eat many baked goods because of his food allergies, I didn't see any reason why we couldn't make a gingerbread house this year.

Only....

Of course...

It was a gingerbread train.

Things were going well until I took all the pieces out of the box. Then I told little Buggy he couldn't eat the gingerbread.



See the cute little bites taken out of the cookies?

I couldn't really keep him from tasting, though.



I did a lousy job piping the frosting on the cookie pieces, and now I am certain that the people who do this for a living either have better tools, or they make robots do it. And maybe they use some rubber cement.

I told the Man-cub and Junebug they were free to decorate the train however they wanted.



And that led to the train falling over. Several times.



I had to keep reminding myself this was the kids' project and not mine, and to just let go. I did. And so did the gingerbread train.



It's perfectly imperfect. And I love that. So it's going to be the centerpiece on the table at Christmas dinner when family comes over.

Merry Christmas!

Weekend by numbers

1: Baby with ear infections.

2: Rides around the live steam track.







3: Panic attacks over what to wear to...

3: Christmas parties in three days.





("How do you like dancing with me, Man-cub?")



9,000: Calories in the chocolate-strawberry cake I made.



???: Fun-loving, talented and warm-hearted friends.

Penguin craft for kids

Yet another penguin craft. I know. If it's not trains I'm writing about, it's penguins.

The Man-cub is taking over this blog.

Penguins are hot now, though. Do a search on YouTube for Pingu (thank you, Carabee) or Pigloo and you too can get sucked into the imaginary world of these Antarctic cuties. (I say Antarctic because pop-culture penguins are never from Africa or the Galapagos Islands like in real life.) Or kick it old school and watch your favorite Chilly Willy toons.

If you or your little chick like penguins, you might want to do this easy penguin project. Older kids can probably make this on their own. The Man-cub intended to help but got sidetracked. Probably by trains.

First, take an empty oatmeal container (you're going to make oatmeal cookies for the holidays anyway, right?) and peel off the label if you can. Then wrap a piece of black craft felt around the container, and trim off the excess.



(See the little penguin ornament in the background that the Man-cub was working on?)

Everyone is always raving about Mod Podge, so I joined the revolution and used it instead of glue to get the felt to stay on.



The smell was pretty bad, and I'm sensitive to smells, and it made me fumble my camera and take a funny picture of the Junebug.



Next, cut a strip of white fabric for the penguin's front and glue that on too.



More white stank Mod Podge goes just inside the opening of the oatmeal container to keep the head on.



The head is a foam ball. I think this one is four or five inches. You might want to take your oatmeal container to the store with you to get the right size ball.



Cut two strips of black craft felt, and shape into tapered flippers to glue on the sides.



To keep it all together while the penguin dried, I used the only thing I could find -- one of those Silly Bandz. It's true, they're everywhere. This might not have been the best thing because it left an indentation in my penguin, but we added a scarf, so it's fine.



After the penguin dried, the Man-cub put the googly eyes on. He even put them on level!



Then I cut the toe part off a sock for the penguin's hat, and another part off the sock for a tube scarf.



We could/should have added feet, but for some reason I didn't. The penguin sure is cute, though! The Man-cub loves it.

When is Jesus coming back?

When you become a parent, you are a changed person. It's true that some things in life will never be the same. Having a clean car, eating a family meal in a restaurant, going to the bathroom by yourself -- all challenges after having children.

The holidays have also changed for my husband and I. After we got married, it was several years before we even put up a tree. Why would we? We both were gone from the house 10-12 hours per day. A Christmas tree would have just been something for the cats to destroy while we were at work. A basic tree and a wreath on the door, and we were done.

But now.

Now, there are two little boys in the picture. Boys who ooh and aah at Christmas lights. Yes, even the baby, who tries hard to say "Christmas" (which comes out like "Hnfnifmuss" -- hard to spell.) Also, we are surrounded by neighbors who have children. They like to decorate their yards, even doing things up big for Halloween.

Because we don't want to look like scrooges or even the one house on the block that is comparable to Charlie Brown's pathetic little Christmas tree, this year, we decided to join our neighbors and put out some lawn ornaments.

We had a lot of deciding to do.

Large inflatables?



Outdoor Christmas trees?



Santa flamingos?



My husband is a bit of a traditionalist, and he wanted a nativity.

I refused to have the cheap plastic ubiquitous Holy Family in my front yard.



But the really nice nativities were several hundred dollars. Even thousands.



I kept shopping.

And one random day before Thanksgiving when I went to buy a water filter at Sears, I rounded the corner and found a beautiful display of Christmas trees and holiday lawn decorations. The Junebug was enthralled. The lights! The ornaments! The Winnie the Pooh! The Santa Claus! The wiry reindeer that move! Motion-detector bells that play Christmas songs!

And no nativity.

Later, I told my husband that I looked around the store and even asked a man who was stocking shelves in the area, "Does the store have a nativity set anywhere?"

"A what?"

"A nativity ... a Holy Family?"

The man gave me a blank look. Maybe English wasn't his first language.

"Do you have a Jesus? You know, a baby Jesus?"

"No, nothing like that," he said.

"Are you expecting for anything like that to come in the next few weeks?" I asked. It was before Thanksgiving, after all.

At this point, my husband interjected, "Wait, did you ask him when Jesus is coming back?!"

"No, I asked if Jesus was coming in," I clarified. And maybe I swatted him.

But all in his good time, Jesus did appear with his family.



Um, and so did Mickey Mouse (for the Junebug) and a penguin (for the Man-cub).



And a train for both of them.



And the Man-cub and Junebug love it all.

Happy holidays to you!

Weekend by numbers

(Weekend plus today.)

(Because my husband was in a class all day Saturday and Sunday and it didn't feel like a weekend at all.)

(So I am making up my own three-day weekend.)

1: Crash I witnessed in which a truck went airborne in front of my car. A crash that could have killed the Junebug and me.

1: Time the Christmas tree got knocked over by "the cat." So says the Man-cub. Hmm....

1: Trip to Bass Pro Shops where the Man-cub watched the model train and played with r/c monster trucks and race cars and ate a little popcorn and where I got a fishing hook in my knee when I bent down to check on a sleeping Junebug. Because what's a trip to Bass Pro Shops without a little fishing drama?


(And when I forgot my camera, so this is what the train sort of looked like but not really. And I should know, because we stood next to it for about 20 minutes. If I did have my camera, I might have been tempted to photograph the boys in the sleigh, but it was pulled by taxidermy reindeer, which kind of creeped me out.)

1: Chance to meet Frosty the Snowman and see "snow" fall at an event put on by a friend, which we missed because the Man-cub was having issues.

1: Trip to the playground.

2: Lumps on my baby's forehead after falling.



2: Free balloons for the boys.

13: Christmas presents bought.

4,552: Heart attacks at seeing the car crash.

Palms at sunset

One lucky penguin-filled day at SeaWorld

SeaWorld is known for its whales and dolphins leaping through the air.



And its awesome scream-worthy roller coasters.



Which I was too chicken to go on all by myself

But fewer people seem to know about the penguins.

Um, penguins?

Yes, do you know the story of the penguins? I'll abbreviate it for you.

Once, there was a little boy who had a tiny stuffed penguin. He asked where its parents were, so one stuffed penguin became three. Because of doting grandparents, three turned into a family of five stuffed penguins that had to be fed, cared for, carried and ferried, nested and nestled. Day and night.

Not a black-and-white bird sighting goes unnoticed with this little boy's sharp penguin radar.

So when my family visited SeaWorld, that little penguin boy, er, the Man-cub, couldn't help but notice this:



Or SeaWorld's sweet Penny Penguin.



Whom the Man-cub went up to three times in one day

Naturally, he was overcome with excitement to check out the Penguin Encounter.



And take a special behind-the-scenes tour.



Oh, for the love of penguins!!!

We got to meet Peepers, a young rockhopper penguin, one of 17 or 18 species of penguin.



(And yes, that's my son wearing a Happy Feet penguin shirt and carrying one of his own penguin family members.)

Peepers got along great with the Junebug because they are close in age.



And later, Peepers bit my silver bangle bracelets. Which everyone on the tour thought was funny.

We also got to meet Atlantic Puffin Nano, only a few months old:



(Penguins are found in the Southern Hemisphere, but puffins are found in the Northern Hemisphere. Penguins don't fly, but puffins do.)

We all learned a lot about penguins, like the fact they have more feathers than any other bird (70 per square inch), which helps keep them warm. And that they poop about every 15 minutes, making the SeaWorld people very dedicated to their work of caring for the penguins. We also learned emperor penguin eggs are great in omelets.



OK, just kidding about that last point.

Also, that's not a real emperor penguin egg. Don't e-mail the Fish and Wildlife Service.

Parting was sweet sorrow, but we had a train to catch.



SeaWorld's Christmas Celebration (Fridays-Sundays until Dec. 17, when it's every day until Jan. 2) includes the Polar Express ride, just like the movie/book. Trains are the one thing the Man-cub loves more than penguins! Also, he's seen the Polar Express movie probably 15 times.

We also had to check out Shamu's Happy Harbor play area.



(It's great to be a kid at SeaWorld because with every adult admission you buy online through Dec. 31, you can get $5 admission for a child 3-12 -- which is donated to nonprofit organizations supporting wildlife conservation projects!)

We had to experience Believe, the killer whale show.





My husband the diver had to check out the Shark Encounter.



In the Manta Aquarium, it looked like the rays were flying above us!



And look at the goodies in the Cypress Bakery! Because I can't pass up a bakery without at least looking.



They even sell the non-allergenic Divvies brand treats, which my Man-cub could have! Score!

"Today was my lucky day!" the Man-cub told me.

Yes, it truly was!

We missed the chance to ride the Skytower, see the Dolphin Cove and Manatee Rescue, the hilarious Clyde and SeaMore and Pets Ahoy shows -- and the special Sesame Street Christmas, which filled up fast!

We will just have to go back.



SeaWorld gave my family a free pass into the park and the Penguin Up-Close Tour. Opinions and silliness are my own.