For two nights in a row now, after NikkiZ goes to bed, I hang out in LilZ’s room and wrap presents while watching Season 2 of Veronica Mars. I had turned his room into Santa’s Workshop since he wasn’t going to be home until Friday. Since I picked him up early, but I still have a billion presents to wrap for our Christmas on Saturday, I’m still working in half of his room. He has already seen the entire season of VM and gets anxious every night for me to watch it. He wants me to be, “…finished already! It’s sooooooo good,” as I’ve heard a million times in the last 48 hours. I love VM, so I have no doubt he’s right, but I also can’t stay up all night watching the DVD. I think my boss might be a little miffed if I called in to work the next day with a TV hangover.

However - this is one of those examples of why I don’t think TV is evil. LilZ is getting old enough now that we don’t have a whole lot in common anymore. He likes scary horror flicks and I still like the cheesy family comedies. He tolerates a lot more pop music than I do (although Money Maker is my all-time favorite running song), and he still doesn’t get into the same books I do as an adult. Although he does read the ones I read when I was his age. TV, on the other hand, is still something we can bond over. We sit around watching the DVDs together and pausing periodically to discuss something. Maybe some character reminds LilZ of a jackass at his school. Maybe we scoff over how unrealistic their million-dollar school dances are. We’ll talk about it during the day, he’ll ask me what I think is going to happen. Or, we’ll have inside jokes built around certain parts of the show.

I know we probably watch too much TV as a whole. But - I only watch my shows after the kids are asleep. When LilZ is awake, we watch our shows. Like How I Met Your Mother, or The Class, or The Soup…shows we both love and get excited about. It gives us common ground and something to get excited about together. TV creates a gateway of conversation for us…and when you’re parenting a tween and you need to establish a good repor for future talks (or current talks) about sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll…conversation starters are priceless.

And…we loooove TV.

I was lucky enough to be able to pick LilZ up from his Dad’s yesterday: five days early. Where it sucks for LilZ because his trip got cut short, it rocked my socks off because…well…duh, he’s back home! It turns out his Dad let him do his own Christmas shopping. Can you guess where he asked to go? Come on…guess! He’s my son. Where would I ask to go if allowed to do my own Christmas Shopping?

The office supply store, of course!

Normally we prefer Staples, but the town he was in had a better Office Depot, so that is where they went. I will share with you some information about his loot in the same manner he shared it with me.

“MOM! I found the NEW BEST PENS EVER!”

(God, you gotta love miniature office-supply addicts!)

Now, he let me try one and it was truly AWESOME. I’ve never seen them before (probably because we never go to Office Depot) but it was called “Foray Fine Point Porous Point Pen.” He got quite an assortment of colors and he let me carry the pink one around in my purse so I can make sure to look for them the next time I’m at an office supply store. I recently decided I had picked all of Staples new pens’ dry, so this is exciting! New Pens!

(Where are you going? Come back! Am I boring you?)

Anyway - he also bought several binders, some book covers, some pens, and some retractable highlighters. It was like he had died and gone to Supply Closet Heaven. Since he’s home early but we won’t do Christmas until Saturday, I let him open one of his presents from us last night. What was it? Pens and Highlighters. But different ones. Seriously. You thought I was joking about our addiction to pens and such, didn’t you? Well…here is the proof…the story Christmas 2006 - The Year Of The Pens.

I have a confession to make. Remember how I ran that half-marathon in Tucson two-and-a-half weeks ago? That was the last time I ran as of yesterday. The first few days I can easily blame on post-marathon recovery and the nastiest blisters ever in the history of blisters (ask my family, they’ll vouch for that). Then it became an issue with sick kids and no time. And then it became Christmas prep and no time. And before I knew it? It was yesterday and I hadn’t run in two weeks.

I won’t get into the guilt issues I feel about that and how hard I worked to get to that point and how dare I do something that stupid. What I’ll get into instead is the fact that I ran last night! I went to the Y and still managed to run almost four miles. And it felt FANTASTIC. Seriously. My body was telling me, “Damn straight, beeyatch.” I mean, I felt energized and my emotions (which have been a wee crazy this past week) stabilized and I just felt good. That is what this training has done to me, it has made my body unable to function properly without running. Part of me is like, “Hell yeah! My body is changing and wants me to run! Who knew a lazy body could do that?” But then the other side of me is like, “Well shit. So long beautiful laziness. Hello damn exercise.”

Of course, it also felt good considering the last two weeks of no running combined with excess eating have added a few of the hard-earned lost pounds back onto my body. I’m blaming those pounds on my mom’s sinful chex mix and my mother-in-law’s sugary-coated-pieces-of-heaven/hell walnuts that I could NOT stop eating even after I made myself sick on them. Damn the women in my family and their culinary skills.

Either way. Running is good. Food is evil. Then End.

One of my favorite Christmas traditions in MrZ’s family involves his Dad making scavenger hunts for the kids’ big gift every year. It’s something that MrZ loves so much, he relished the chance to continue the tradition with LilZ once we got married. Every Christmas Eve, MrZ stays up late writing and hiding clues for LilZ to hunt for his big gift the next day. This year, since we won’t do Christmas with LilZ until Saturday, it was his MrZ’s Dad who was up late writing and hiding clues for the “kids” (ages 17 to 31, probably not quite “kids”). I was surprised Christmas morning to find out that I had a scavenger hunt too! I was soooo excited I might have squealed a little bit. Yes, I’m 12.

MrZ documented my first scavenger hunt, but since I’m still in my pajamas and unshowered, I decided to put them in a collage. Here are the clues I had to decipher:

1) “What a proud couple! Hope their presence doesn’t interfere with your Sunday meal!”
- It was behind a picture of MrZ’s parents in the dining room. I found it in like two second because I’m AWESOME.

2) “You’ll find me when you visit for a non-caloric content cola beverage”
- With the diet cokes, of course! Although I first looked in the fridge but they were actually in the pantry.

3) “I’m used for many things but guests usually visit me when the come and before they leave.”
- The coat closet, of course!

4) “In the family financial nerve center, you might find what you are looking for. Face the library wall and find the item in question.”
- In the office by the bookshelves! I got a stand up easel frame and it totally rocked.

I braved Target this morning for the post-Christmas sales and it was hysterically insane. I saw one couple that were EACH dragging two buggies (shopping carts for you non-southerners) through the Christmas section. TWO. I was simply there to get Christmas cards for next year (when you send out over 100 every year, it’s a smart move) but I had to squeeze betten buggies and reach between bodies to even get to them. I just kept thinking, “I’m really glad I’m just here for cards.”

The good thing was the crowds were only around the outdoor decoration section, once you got to the other Christmas sections in the store (housewares, linens, BAKING) there weren’t many crowds. I found gobs of stuff on the 50% of shelves that weren’t even obviously Christmas items. They had rockin’ awesome cookie sheets $3. You know, for all of the baking I do. I can’t think of anything that will get used less than those cookie sheets, but I bought them anyway. THREE DOLLARS!

I have several other errands I need to run today, so let’s hope the crowds stay at Target because I used all of my patience before Christmas even started.

Lucky for us, Christmas is not even over at our house. We still have our biggest celebration on Saturday. Santa comes twice to our home, because we’re special. It will truly feel like Christmas then because the whole family will be there. As awesome as yesterday was, we all agreed that it seemed a little off since we were missing LilZ. So, on Saturday? It will feel complete. And just as important? A chance to eat obnoxious amounts of turkey and casseroles all over again.