The Week in Review

Let's sum up the last week:

1. Jack took to man-handling everything in sight that wasn't nailed down or locked up. He also took to sprinkling Swiss Miss packets in the washer, the heat vents, and the sinks.

2. Jack developed an itchy mystery rash which has been totally bugging him.

3. The mystery rash = chicken pox. The week before Christmas.

4. Did you know that your kid can get chicken pox even if he has been vaccinated for it? Anyway, he can. And it will drive him so crazy that he will open his car door while you are doing 60 mph at the point of the mountain. We both lived. Seat belts save lives.

5. Jack determined that I didn't really need to keep my new "Jane Eyre" DVD intact---the recent Mia Wasikowska/Michael Fassbender version. The totally perfect one.

6. Charlie was the cutest little Santa-obsessed five-year-old ever, who wore pajamas to school on Friday for Pajama Day, but not before asking me if he could also wear underpants and shoes. For the record, my answer was a resounding YES.

7. I subconsciously decided to bring back the muffin top by way of the nonstop Christmas season dessert-fest.

8. I fulfilled yet another viewing of yet another version of Pride and Predjudice, thus ending a lovely, if obsessive, foray into Austen's masterpiece. I feel complete. I'm ready to part for now with Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy. Unless somebody cranks out a new film adaptation or an Austen-inspired novel. Then I'll be right back in.

9. Truman's hair grew approximately six inches.

10. I found that when Jack is plagued by a pox, the spirit of Christmas ebbs and flows around here. Mostly, it's been ebbing. The nature of Jack's discontent is to overtake the entire household. Maybe the Christmas spirit will return, like a high tide.