Making good on those Christmas gifts

I'm sick.

I've been sick since Thursday. Ally came over to dye in the morning, and that was loads of fun, but I had that throat-tickling that precedes being sick. I pushed the liquids, won two rounds of Settlers of Canan, drank Blake's homemade egg nog, and went to bed.

I woke up Very Sick. I have continued to push liquids, cold meds, and even tried a Neti pot (ew). I'm too tired to do anything, and too dizzy to knit. I've been napping, on and off, and even managed to empty the Tivo.

Enough of that. Let's get back to the good stuff.

We gave the nieces all "gift certificates" for seeing "The Water Horse" the next morning all together. I know that since the tea party incident of 2005 I swore NEVER to do any all-niece inclusive event EVER again. It was at this event that one of my nieces was so ill-behaved that I developed a twitch.

But this year I had a plan. Two adults. Two cars. Four girls. Andrew picked up one set of nieces, I picked up the other set, and we met at the theater. Once we were there, I lined them up and told them how we were going to do this, stewardess-style:

"Cell phones will be off. We will be on our BEST behavior. If you must talk, whisper softly. If you need to go to the bathroom, you will take an adult with you. Do we all understand?"

They looked at me like I was being redundant. What they didn't know was that the reason we took two cars was that if any of them crossed the line, they were going home. Auntie Jasmin does not believe in second chances or bad behavior.

We splurged on a giant container of popcorn, a massive bag of Skittles, and water for everyone.

The movie started, and though other children were terribly behaved, the Four Nieces were angels. Throughout the whole two hour movie, they were impeccably well-behaved. I was shocked.

Once we were out in the lobby, I praised the good behavior, and mentioned that since this went so smoothly, maybe we would do it again.

It's nice to be pleasantly surprised- especially when it comes to kids. Maybe I'll be an okay mom after all.