If you were on my Christmas card list you opened your mailbox last week to find a Christmas card accompanied by a photo of my offspring and an insert that made roughly 80% of you want to call the cops and have my children taken away from me once and for all.
For the rest of you – who are by now bowing your heads and thanking the good Lord above that you weren’t on my list – here is The Matulich Family Newsletter that I threw into the mix. I’d plead laziness for reprinting the dreadful update here instead of a regular post except that the hundreds of empties on my desk and at my feet tell a different story. Anyway. Here goes:
Well what can I say? 2008 has been most awesome! And fabulous! So super-duper, in fact that I would like to exhaust my supply of superlatives and exclamation points just to convey how this! Was! The! Bestest! Year! Ever! Because that is what one is supposed to do when one sets about to write a “family newsletter”!
Charlie turned 8 this year and entered the 3rd grade. He has become a real champion speller, which I totally counted on since – duh! – I have a degree in English and everyone knows that grammar and spelling skills are capable of crossing the placental barrier. But you know what I didn’t count on? His precocious nature and nascent verbal skills turning him into a font of useless corporate jargon.
Do you have any idea how disconcerting it is to ask your 8-year-old how his day at school was and receive an answer like, “Dude, mom, my teacher was totally impressed that I’ve made great strides to elaborate in a solution-oriented manner so as to more adequately harness third grade platitudes that aren’t necessarily mission critical.”
“Huh?”
“Well, that’s lunch. Gotta go. Headin’ out for a hit-and-run with Mrs. Woods vis-à-vis the ‘tetherball situation’ on the playground at recess. You know, brainstorm. Develop a new paradigm. Engage in a little out-of-the-box thinking.”
Well at least I still have one normal child in Sophie. Or at least I think she’s normal At 3 years of age she has yet to develop a strong enough grasp of English to convince me otherwise although I’ll conced that she has a worrisome habit of licking windows.
Speaking of Sophie, 2008 has been a banner year for our girl, who has developed quite the fearless streak: she talks readily to strangers (particularly those with candy), jumps off tall objects and will try anything once provided it appears adequately dangerous and will give Kris and I a heart attack.
Side note: my dad has made a habit of pointing at my daughter and saying to me, “See? That’s what you get for jumping out of planes and swimming with sharks.” Then he giggles maniacally.
Anyway, Sophie has learned how to use a toilet, count to twenty and can even distinguish most colors if the color is “red” and I prompt her sixty-seven times. We plan to spend 2009 working on shapes. Specifically shapes that involve hearts, spades, diamonds and clubs. Also, we’re hoping this is the year she finally gets the hang of online poker.
Kris has remained loyal to his years-long endeavor to Stay Indoors And Never Leave The House Again. To this end, my dearly beloved has managed to add roughly 1,600 more hours of programming to our TiVo. Of course, this does not count the episodes of Dr. G that I managed to sneak onto the season pass between Battlestar Galactica and every UFC pay-per-view since the sport was invented.
When my hunka-hunka burnin’ love is not watching nearly-naked men make each other bleed or serenading me from the shower he has been filling in for his boss, who had a double-lung transplant several months ago
(I’m not sure if there is such a thing as a single lung transplant. I just like to throw in the word “double” because I am horribly insecure and I have a habit of trying too hard to sound smart.)
I guess it’s only fair to include myself in here.
In my constant quest to disprove the theory that really messed up people do, in fact, seem fairly normal until we open our mouths to speak, I have spent 2008 steadily increasing my Zoloft dosage. This is partly because my offspring resemble howler monkeys and partly because I secretly like it when Kris rolls the pills in peanut butter and then holds my mouth closed until I swallow them.
When I’m not pulling carpool duty or helping kids with homework I can be found working out or in school where – just this semester – I received the opportunity to participate in my first embalming.
So yes, the hands that touched this newsletter have been all over dead people.
…and if that doesn’t bother you then you are probably my brother Matthew.
