The deconstruction begins

I started taking down a few Christmas decorations here and there, since Larry decided to invite everyone over New Year's Day to play poker ALL DAY, I figured I'm going solo on the housekeeping again.
I took down the kids' advent calendars and they asked "Why are you doing that?" and I replied "To put them away for next Christmas" "Oh, YEA, YEA!" the both cheer. I think that they think I'm getting ready to start it all over again... now. Um... NO.
Last night we went to my mom's new "house" here in Bellingham and had pizza with her and Bill, then drove to Lynden to get a last peek at Christmas lights. It was nice except my children are a lot noisier in a car vs. minivan. And especially when I'm sitting right next to them and not 8 feet away. But they weren't fighting, so you have to be happy with happy noise. I think B & N worked Grandma and Bill's nerves pretty good though regardless of their behavior. It's amazing how much I tune out, I feel that when I finally notice the noise level it looks like I'm neglectful, when in all reality, tuning out is a coping device that moms develop. I can still hold a conversation with all the noise, while others find it too distracting to even think, let alone multi-task. But I think we mom's instinctively know what to listen for and what not to (like I hear the "butt/poop" talk amidst all the playing and immediately cue into it, I might not do anything about it, but I heard it.)
Oh well, the grandparents chose to move closer to the kids, they'll have to re-introduce themselves to the "tune-out" technique that they haven't used in so long (of course, my mother never tuned my and my brother out) Ha!