My first cousin Annette, who lives in Florida, tells me all the time after reading my blogs about parenting that she really relates to the type of humor I find in raising my children. To demonstrate that we shared the same sort of “outlook” on parenting, she sent me a copy of a “family newsletter” she sent out a few years ago, during a time when she tells me that she was in “Toddler Hell” and had received one-too-many bubbly and enthusiatic mommy-and-daddy-love-the-babies-and-life-is-grand annual family update letters around Christmas. This proves that humor is genetic…and runs strong in my family. Enjoy!
Hello Everyone,
Well, 2006 has been an interesting year in our household. Richard and I continue to teeter between sheer madness and sheer joy with the two children God saw fit to bless us with.
Elizabeth is growing up so fast. She has jumped from little girl to fishwife in less than a year. He won’t admit it but Richard grows more in love with me everyday. Why? Because Elizabeth has taken on the role of nag in this house. She is quite good at it. She nags Richard the entire time she is around him. As soon as he walks in the door from work, in the car, etc. I have to admit she’s even better at it than me.
When she’s not being vexing, she is busy taking a newly fallen tooth from her mouth and putting it directly up her nose. Not to worry though, she sneezed it out a month later, no harm done and she still got a visit from the tooth fairy. She also enjoys her Girl Scout Brownie troop.
Benjamin is growing up nicely, too. Good news! He has finally given up (under major protest) his pacifier. It was a bit like taking cigarettes from a “pack-a-day smoker” but the mood swings only lasted about a month and nobody got hurt. He also enjoys “using his imagination” aka lying. We’ll work that out too, I hope.
Richard and I are fine. As long as we stay on top of recycling, our neighbors will never know exactly how much alcohol we consume in this household.
Wishing you and yours a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
Annette
Thanks for letting me share this, Annette. I took your last name out of your letter, for the same reason that you make recycling a priority. Love you.
Zohrbak's Blog 
I only have one thing to say: As parents, you often have to laugh to keep from crying.
Exactly.
Oh my – I may have to plagiarize this for Christmas… 🙂
I think it’s safe to assume that we will all take a little sumpem’ sumpem’ from this letter…it’s too good not to plagiarize.
I remember getting that letter. I laughed today as much as I did in 2006! Love you, Annette!
This is freaking awesome. I always wanted to write a letter like that – i get so tired of the ‘but everything is just soooo wonderful here,’ especially when all I can think to write about is how proud I am my two year old learned not to fall when running along the back of the couch and launching himelf to the kitchen counter in order to check if mommy forgot to put away the cookies!
Wow, that’s absolutely rich! Awesome!
O this is hilarious. So much better than the normal ‘smug’ Christmas letter…