Still Toothless

I Can't Even

There are times when I question if I have created a self-fulfilling prophecy by saying that Mila makes bad choices sometimes. Like, if I say it, I'm probably focused on catching those bad choices, and then there seems like there are more of them.

Annnnd ... nope. The kid just knows how to find chaos. It's her speciality. She is a good kid, don't get me wrong, but sometimes she'll be standing in the living room and a pencil will "accidentally" end up in her hand and the next thing you know, she has "accidentally" drawn a bunch of stars all over the wall next to the television.

"Accidentally" is her word, by the way. It doesn't matter what I catch her doing, it's always "an accident."

Like, it was TOTALLY an accident when the day after the graffiti, the kid managed to hang on the doors of probably the only nice piece of furniture we own. It's a buffet sort of thing and holds the TV. Seriously, it may be the only piece of furniture in this entire house that wasn't a scratch and dent or clearance item. Alas, Mila was hanging on the doors AGAIN and one of them completely broke off, splintering wood and generally making sure that I bring up this story at Mila's graduation, wedding, and every family event ever.

"Accident." It's such an interesting word.

For what it's worth, when I asked Mila how many times I've told her to not touch the doors to that cabinet, she answered, "At least a million." So, SHE DID HEAR ME. Interesting.

Immediately after that little event, Mila lost access to pretty much everything she holds near and dear. She decided her punishment should be losing her phone for three years (yes, THREE YEARS) and that somehow seems fair to me? Regardless, I have her phone. That means Mila had to find another way to entertain herself. She opted to steal her sister's dry erase board.

And then she wrote on it.

With a Sharpie.

By the way, she literally wrote the word "Sharpie." As in, she took a Sharpie to a dry erase board and marked it always and forever (sort of - I know how to make it mostly fade) with the word "Sharpie."

But it was an accident. She was just trying to see if she knew how to spell the word "Sharpie." It's not like she LOOKED DIRECTLY AT THE SHARPIE IN HER HAND TO SEE HOW TO SPELL IT AND HAD A CHANCE TO REALIZE WHAT WAS HAPPENING.

I'm just ... I'm done. I'm duct taping the kid to a wall and locking myself in the pantry with a gallon of ice cream. I'll see y'all in 2022.

Christmas Crazy 2021 Begins ... NOW!

Why, hello there! Have I mentioned that you're looking absolutely smashing lately? Did you do something with your hair? Truly, it looks great.

All that complimenting has nothing to do with the fact that I'm about to ask for your help. OR DOES IT?

Anyway ... it's time! Christmas Crazy is somehow back for another year of joy and chaos. If you already know what this whole thing is and you just want links, great. Here you go - the Amazon Wishlist is officially live, albeit limited to books at the moment. That will change rapidly in the next few days, so if books aren't your jam, no worries. Give me until Saturday and you will be sure to find something of interest. You can also join in by sending whatever amount of money makes you happy via PayPal. Here's that link. (These links automatically break after a few days because of things that I can't control. Just ping me on twitter or via email if you run into broken links and I will fix them pronto.)

For those of you who perhaps are unaware of the total and complete magic that happens in this little corner of the internet each year, let me explain by going through a few FAQs.

What is Christmas Crazy?

Christmas Crazy is my way of channeling some holiday joy to kids who may not otherwise have it. We've been doing this thing for 13 years where the kind people of the internet work with me to send toys to a Pittsburgh domestic violence agency. That agency makes sure the right toys are matched with the right kids.

Why send them to a domestic violence agency?

There are multiple answers to this question, but the short one is they need and deserve the help. I worked for a company that built software for such agencies approximately a zillion years ago and saw the good they do for the world, learned entirely too much about the people they serve, and wanted to make a difference when I was in a position to do so. Not only is the need HUGE, though, it's largely a gap in the holiday season give-a-thons that exist. For example, children living in an emergency domestic violence shelter are unable to receive toys via Toys for Tots because they do not have proof of residency and they generally don't know they have the need in time to meet the deadline for application (Pittsburgh's was October 31, 2021 this year). To put it bluntly, kids living in DV shelters are living in the cracks of a system that is intended to help them, but fails them. That's where Center for Victims comes in, and we help them fill those cracks to the brim.

Why Center for Victims?

Because they're incredible people doing incredible work. I have been familiar with them since about 2001 or 2002. They've changed names and had lots of staff come and go in that time, but they've always been centered on assisting all victims of violent crimes. Their domestic violence programs are particularly robust. Center for Victims is also not the first DV agency that comes to mind for most Pittsburghers, which means they tend to not be the agency that gets large random donations. They fly under the radar, doing just as much (if not more) work, but hustling harder to fund that work.

Also, Center for Victims is -very- social media friendly and understands this thing we do, so I'm able to collaborate with them much more than I would an agency that was suspicious of internet strangers. It's a little hard to put words to that whole "suspicious of internet strangers" thing, but I can tell you that there was a year I had $1000 worth of gift cards to give an agency and two declined my offer because they didn't understand the whole twitter/blog thing and thought it would result in a security breech somehow. Spoiler alert: I will never ever reveal a detail about the work that Center for Victims does that could compromise the safety of anyone they serve. They know and understand that, which means we can have great conversations about how you, lovely reader, can best help. Also, I sometimes get to hear the stories of the impact that we've made which is just plain spectacular.

So how does this work?

I'm so glad you asked. There is an Amazon Wishlist that you can shop from that will result in toys being sent to a central address. I collect them all, take a super awesome photo of the impact that y'all have had, and then deliver the toys to Center for Victims. From there, the agency's staff sorts the toys then matches each one of them with the kid who requested it or will love it. Often, the kids' mother is involved in that requesting, sorting, and selecting, which is an extra level of awesome because every mother should have the ability to pick the just right toy for her child.

If you prefer, you can also throw some money into the pot and I will use it to fill any gaps at the last second. That is super helpful because, inevitably, a child will show up at Center for Victim's doorstep a day or two before Christmas and they will drop everything to make sure that child still has some joy for Christmas. Also, sometimes y'all are fickle and randomly pick out more toys for small kids or big kids or whatever, so I'm able to use the pot of money to balance the universe as needed.

So, let's go! This year's deadline is December 10th because COVID is a stupid doo-doo head and we have to leave enough time to work around appropriate safety precautions. But, we've done this thing spectacularily in other hard years, so I'm confident we can do it again.

Thanks as always for all each and every one of you do to help with this little project.