3.5: Hours of sleep I got last night after Ribh's excessive wailing and waking. I swear, everytime she twitched anywhere NEAR the top of her sleep cycle, her head immediately spun around three times and she started SCREAMING AT THE TOP OF HER LUNGS. And while I was willing to let her sleep with my boob in her mouth, even THAT was not appeasing her last night. Plus, after all the nursing she did do, what with the smorgasbord of milky treats I left out for her all freakin' night long, there wasn't an ample supply of milk available anymore after about three in the morning and this Mama was getting sore and crabby. Not to mention that I am STILL fighting the Healing Crisis of Epic Proportions which left me feverish throughout the entire holidays and coughing every three to five minutes.
3: Hours of sleep I got after Ribh and my family got up this morning and Hubby (my savior) let me collapse back into my bed alone! Whee!
55: Number of minutes it took to disassemble the Christmas Tree this morning. After the three days it took put the dratted thing up, I'm pretty pleased. I still need to organize and wrap up all the ornaments and what not. But I do not need to clean up a million embedded needles.
18: The number of children I will complain have been "hanging from my body" when I am feeling overwhelmed by the collective force and chaos of my children. I come from a long line of gross exaggerators. This one is minimal. And feels quite accurate at times.
987: My favorite number* to use when establishing that there was really really A LOT of something. As in: It only took me 987 hours to put up that damn Christmas Tree From Hades. Sometimes I say 897, just to mix things up.
*I believe the birth of my use of this number began in childhood. I was recently watching the movie Annie (You know, the one with Albert Finney) and when the orphans escape from Miss Hannigan and run around New York trying to find Annie to warn her that her "parents" are really Hannigan's evil brother Rooster and Bernadette Peters (and who wouldn't be terrified of THAT) the orphans finally find Fifth Avenue and they realize they are at Number One Fifth Avenue, but they need to 987 Fifth Avenue, which apparently is Daddy Warbuck's address.
The utterance of this line of dialogue struck such a chord with me, a familiar twang of recognition spread through my body and I was reunited with the dialogue which begat my favorite exaggerative number. Aww, how sweet! And so, in celebration, I will bestow one more life changing line of dialogue from the movie Annie: "Buddha says, A Child Without Courage is like a Night Without Stars, Come!"
2: The number of times I have been the "Shalvaysta" in my entire life. This may be meaningless to you, but apparently it is even more meaningless than I ever suspected.
"Shalvaysta Day" is a family tradition of my childhood based on a Finnish tradition in which the last person to get up on December 31st is declared the "shalvaysta" or the Laziest Person in the house for the entire year! Cute huh? My mom was raised in a Finnish community in Northern Wisconsin and she taught us this little bit of folklore and I have handed it down to my family. But wait, it gets trickier! (Hang on family members who read this blog! Here comes the part when you will find out it is all A LIE!!!)
I look up the proper spelling of the word "Shalvaysta" on the trusty internet in order to appear intelligent and ya know, FACTUAL, and here the whole story falls apart. There is NO "Shalvaysta day" on December 31st! There is no mention of any word resembling Shalvaysta, which probably just means "sucker".
Actually, July 27th is "Sleepyhead Day" or Unikeon Paiva in Finland, and the last one up, the "Laziest Person", is actually called the "unikeko". And furthermore, this person is roused by throwing water on him or best yet, wrapping him up mummy style in his bedsheets and dumping him in a nearby lake! So, Big Brother Matt, you got off cheap all these years with just a little good natured ribbing. There could have been water play and cutting a hole in the ice so we could dump you in the lake. Well, not in July. But you get the picture.
I don't know if my mom's little backwater community somehow bastardized their cultural observances and brought "Laziest Person" days to the wrong solstice (the Fins are known to drink quite a lot) or if my mom just got creative on her own and somehow transported the holiday into New Years Eve Day in order to get her slacker children out of bed over winter break, but just to set the record straight: Tomorrow IS NOT "Shalvaysta Day" and you can all sleep in as late as you want without fear of recrimination. (I know many of you are enjoying such huge sighs of relief as you read this.)
But watch out on July 27th! I may even have to locate a nearby lake.
5 comments:
NO,NO,NO,NO!!!! It is more like Schulvasta Day and it is Swiss, not Finnish. Yes, I was sadly warped by growing up in the only "english" family in a completely Finnish town, (Actually Uncle Jim and I were the only non-Fin kids in our 4 room (8 grades)gradeschool when we started. There were first graders who spoke only Finnish, and had no kindergarten, in the combination First and Second grade room. How would you like to have been that teacher?)but my warpage continues because Gramma B was 100% Swiss, and she didn't even learn to speak English until she started school. So, Shulvesta Day is from the Swiss customs. And Yes, it does mean something like "Lazy Man". Now go look that one up. :-)
Nonny
Wait a minute! I did comment and it didn't show up in the comment count! Hum... Maybe I should check my facts, and just be thankful that my comment didn't post. Maybe I've been believing a falsified family folklore!! I'll ask great-gramma.
Nonny
So now Nonny is gonna blame poor Gramma?
If anyone can find evidence of a real origin to this word/tradition of the Schalvaysta, let me know! Google can only find the Finnish one.
isn't it interesting how convenient it was for Mar to claim there's no such thing as a shalvaysta when she was the last one up on new years eve. i believe there is such a thing, especially when it's her and not me... i may not think so next year, but for the next 365, she is the shalvaysta....hee!
Somehow I'm not surprised... of course you can't find any proof of a Schulvasta Day. It just makes sense....in some warped way.
I think I'd be dissapointed if you could find it.
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