Maybe I just don't understand Christmas newsletters....

The best little holiday treat came in the mail today!  Yes, I know, January 2nd, but the last straggling Christmas card with newsletter arrived today.  Now I've gotten newsletters before, and they are usually pretty cute and happy and point out where the family is in life, maybe some milestones, in a few paragraphs.  However, this gem was the longest 2 page humblebrag I had ever experienced in my life!  It was golden!  It was the perfect mix of "this very awesome thing you probably would die for is just SOOOOOOOOOO hard." and "oh our flawless offspring are so talented and beyond compare, it's simply inconvenient!"  I certainly hope I can capture the essence of this literary masterpiece for you.  It may not translate quite the same way as the original did as I read it aloud to my husband, in the appropriate "I probably even breathe better than you do" voice, but feel free to read this aloud in whatever obnoxious, yet so much better than you could ever be, voice that you feel fits.  So, of course, this is MY version of the newsletter.  Some facts have been changed, except for the number of vacations... that is pretty accurate, although it is hard to tell if some of the work travel was also used for vacation purposes, so if anything I UNDERestimated.  All names have been changed, per usual.  I didn't exaggerate as much as you think, but I will admit she didn't use the word "fucking". 

Dearest Family and Friends,
  Where can we even begin?!  This year has been such a excitingly, fantastic, bittersweet, difficult, awesome, feel free to add any more adjectives challenge!  We have been so busy, but we have been taking it so slow.  Everyone moves so fast in this world, but OUR family had to take it down a notch.  I mean, we have another child this year.  Yes, we found out we were having another baby, and wouldn't you know it, he was born about 9 months later!  How does this keep happening?  I'm starting to think it's something we are doing.  Nah!  No one could've told me I'd have 3 kids, let alone have to be a mother to 3 DIFFERENT kids!  Did you know you don't have the same baby more than once?!  Well, we have learned this ultra important lesson in life.  Heck, one is even a boy!  Amazing.  

I should remind you all that we have very important, busy jobs, and we travel loads.  We get to bring our kids along or each other, and the company provides the airfare and babysitting and stuff, but I mean it's just so hard.  I mean could you imagine it?  I mean if you were lucky enough to have those kinds of opportunities.  Having the choice to travel to other countries with your family or leave them with your nanny?!  Who can live like this!  Such changes!

Oh yes, we got a Nanny.  We had to.  3 kids is like an entire herd... Remember, they are so different.  They are even different ages!  The one is always getting into stuff, and she's only 2!  Who knew 2 year olds are so busy?!  She actually needs stuff to play with.  Our other kid was just happy to sit and watch the walls while holding onto a piece of tape.  But this one, she wants to move and play.  When she gets angry at us she has the audacity to use her sign language that they taught her in her exclusive day care to sign "Help!" and if we don't answer "Help please!"  Then she redirects herself.  She's such a difficult child.  Thank goodness for our Nanny, Jessica... she helps complete "Team Katie" as all my other ladies who lunch friends call me.  

So, after getting a nanny, and having that extra baby, we had some friends and family pass on, so we decided it was time to just get away, the two of us, to Ireland.  But, we did eat lunch where the cure for cancer was discovered!  So, it was not just a vacation, but it was an ultra important one because something beyond what you are personally capable of doing happened years ago in the very same location where we ate a sandwich.  Then we got to go on 9 other family vacations, ski vacations, destination weddings, visiting family and friends all around the country, oh and we just cannot stop traveling to Hawaii for work!  It's been so rough.  Now you can see why we are taking it so easy, because it's so hard to have 3 kids, a nanny, and this many vacations.  Can you imagine?

When I had the baby, it was summer time, and it was hot!  It was not winter at all.  It was probably a good time to go to the beach or to hang out in our huge home with central air.  We stayed inside all summer, seeking refuge, with our nanny.  We did some organizing and learned how to be a family with 3 kids and a FUCKING LIVE IN FULL TIME BABYSITTER.  I don't know how we do it, but we're up to the challenge!  The kids also got lice on one of our vacations.  Why they had to do that while I was on maternity leave rather than when I was at work and leaving it completely for the nanny to handle alone, I don't know.  Life is just so not fair.

Well, our baby has been studying with Bruce Lee and Mr. Miyagi, and is now a baby ninja.  Our first grader learned to read, AND is the modern child Mozart, AND she still finds time to "take care of the babies".  I'm just so relieved she learned to read.  That just opens doors for you!  I wish she'd find time to just be a little girl, but I keep having these babies so the nanny is pret-ty busy and really needs her help.  That nanny helps ups with every single thing we do.  She is there day and night.  I get sick of it and think I'm done with help, and then realize I need more!

Two of our family pets died, and here, let me give you the full description of this horrifying freak incident that killed the second one (yeah, I won't do that to you because you don't need to have a panic attack from a Christmas newsletter) If only we had hired a pet nanny.

Our car ran out of oil, and I was like "Hey, shouldn't our car nanny be changing that or something?"

So, anyway, I'm sorry this is getting to you a little late, but my secretary took forever to type it up, and then the nanny forgot to mail it from our vacation in South Africa.  I'm so embarrassed!  I hope everyone can forgive me!  

I hope this letter brings you up to date on our little, slow paced lives.  I hope you can forgive us for not being in a lot of touch with all of you, but we just have to go slow.  With 3 kids you just have to sit back, get a nanny, and play defense.  I can't wait to see them all when we get home from this cruise we are on.  I wonder if there will be a new baby there!  Maybe it will be a DIFFERENT one than the ones we already had!  

Life is amazing!

Love,
Katie

Oh and Jeff and the Nanny, Jessica

Oh yeah, and those kids, all 3 of them, they each have their own name, too!


So, in summary, Merry Christmas!  Your life sucks.  Our life is so superior that we just cannot even stand it!  (And you're probably reading this with your brood of kids running around half naked, covered in jam, chasing your terrified family pets around, in your own home, not on vacation, by yourself, with no pesky Nanny.)