Merry Christmas

May your cares be light, may your heart be bright, may your children sleep all through the night. Merry Christmas one and all!

We wish you a... what was I saying?

Today was my crazy, try-desperately-to-tie-up-all-my-holiday-loose-ends day. I took the kids out for a little play, then it was a trio of errands (in the rain, no less), followed by an exhausting afternoon of sewing, ironing, painting, and cooking. Plus an evening haircut for M. But in the end, everything is done. Mostly. Almost mostly. Okay, not really done at all. But closer.

On the bright side, I made $45 selling a couple old toys on Craig's List. Apparently the week before Christmas is prime time, because they went quick as a wink. Did a little crying when the annoying Elmo tool bench went on its merry way. Its song was so annoying, but I can still picture little M pushing the button when it was still in the box, giggling and smiling. And I can still see K sitting on the ground in her pajamas, playing at the wooden activity box. Not that she played with it any more since she could walk and climb and do all those more exciting things. But at one time she was little, and sitting, and playing. People don't know that they're buying a piece of those memories too.

And I forgot my address today. Yes, that's right, my address. Couldn't for the life of me think of the street number of our house, the one we've lived in for almost three years. Had to actually walk outside, in the rain, and look at our mailbox. Holidays aren't for the weak.

Who has a baby in December anyway?

Throwing a baby shower tonight. Been a little crazy, trying to put together this shower, what with all the doll making and card sending and present wrapping and cookie making and regular household stuff getting in the way. Thought it might be helpful to print out a baby shower checklist.

Not helpful if, upon realizing that your shortcomings begin in the "Two Weeks Before the Baby Shower" section, you promptly burst into tears.

Who needs nine months?

All it took was a couple days and a sewing machine. And a can-do-attitude like "I've just got to embroider her face" and "This looks like a dart". And low standards. Very low standards. Hey, I'm just teaching K that we're not all perfect, but lovable anyway. And she will love her. Oh yes, after all this, she will love her. See, it's all in the attitude.

Baby's not the only one in tears

Finally missed a few days of blogging, courtesy of the FRANTIC SEARCH FOR K'S CHRISTMAS PRESENT (oh yes, it comes out just like that in my head: bold and all caps, only louder). I feel as though K often gets shafted because she loves her brother's toys so much that we hardly get her anything new, so it's especially important to me to find K something special.

Enter the doll.

K loves the fakey cheap baby doll that we bought M in prep for her birth. Absolutely loves it. Carries it around, puts it to bed, offers it up for hugs and kisses from others. Baby even cries if we are away from the house for too long. Apparently baby gets lonely and scared. But plastic doll faces give me the willies. So I got it in me that we should get her an actual doll, Waldorf-style, that's soft and cuddly but ready to be a friend instead of just an object for which she cares. Only do you know how much Waldorf dolls cost? I mean, seriously--they're just fabric and wool!

And also, have I mentioned that I'm cheap? Very cheap?

So I won't buy the beautiful Waldorf doll. I'll just make one. I download templates. I buy fabric. I realize I need more guidance. I buy a pattern. But this is more a baby doll, and not a real doll. Besides, I have no idea what dart and baste mean. And I'm not exactly rolling in free time.

It's back to the store again, this time making the rounds of slightly nicer places in search of a nice, soft, non-Waldorf but still not plastic friend. And we find one! Eureka! We pull K over, ecstatic, and introduce her to this lovable companion. Which she hugs sweetly. Then hands back with the instruction, "Up," as in "Put back UP on the shelf."

"No, no," I insist, handing the doll back, "she can be your new friend. Don't you just love her?"

"Noooo," says K, shaking her head and pushing the doll back. "UP."

We go through this a few more times. Really. I'm can be kind of dense. Exasperated and confused, we are about to leave the store when I think to try one more thing. After searching around, I find what I'm looking for: another plastic face baby. And when I offer this one:

"Baby! Baay-beee!" K squeezes baby tight, tucks her under her little arm, and toddles toward the door.

So back to square one. Which means I guess I'm going to learn what dart and baste mean after all. Lucky me!

Home is where the mop is

I just finished mopping the floors, at least the ones far enough away from the bedrooms. After two events in four days, they needed it. Badly. I spent the whole time thinking about my friends who have housekeepers. It's a scarily high number.

I've come close to getting a housekeeping a few times, even took down the number and nearly called. It would give me more time to write--maybe even make a buck or two--and more time to rest in the short periods that I have free. But the truth is, I like to be the one cleaning our house. Not that I like cleaning. I mean, I do like the end result of shiny floors and shelves put back in dusted order, but it's time consuming and tiring and endless. Ever so endless. But I like to do the cleaning. As I clean, I think of the feet that came across that floor: friends and their children happily running to the playroom, a holiday party with a house fully filled, Ivory dusted kids coming in from making their first little snowmen. I think about the cookies that made those crumbs, the hands that left those fingerprints. I realize how solid our home is: how the floor feels under my hands (scratched and dented as it might be), how tight the corners and doors, how much space is ours.

Cleaning makes me realize and appreciate what we have. I know there are lots of factors that play into people getting housekeepers, such as age and jobs and physical capabilities and time, but if I'm not doing it, someone else would be. They would still put out an insane amount of time and effort just to take care of of something for which I no longer made time. Only it'd just be a job for them. So at least when I clean, I come away remembering I have something, a whole microcosm of tangible and intangible memories, right here at my fingertips. Pass by the rug and remember sitting on it and entertaining M in an empty room as the floors were installed around us. Dust off the shelves to find myself staring at the old photo of B and I back when we were just kids ourselves. Clean out the playroom to find a leftover party treat. I know they're just things--trash, dirt, relics--but at the same time, they aren't just things. I love that I still remember, sometimes, that they are underneath. I'll live to regret this, I know, but I kind of hope that if it ever gets to be too much for me to handle myself, that I'll realize, maybe, that I didn't need quite so much in the first place.

Desperation loves company

Are my eyes deceiving me? Is Christmas really little more than two weeks away? Because I still haven't filled the Advent calendar we keep opening every day (but we talk about what fun event we're doing that day. That counts for something, right?), I still haven't ordered Christmas cards (let alone sent them), and I still don't know what to give two-thirds of the people on my list.

Two weeks? Seriously? Anyone up for a December do-over? Anyone?

Condolences

Okay, I had a whole post here that I wrote and rewrote as the news turned worse, but after the tragedy of the FA-18 crash, I couldn't bear to leave it up. Just seemed callous to put anything about a soap opera next to such a saddening event. My heart goes out to all those affected.

But I am leaving my main point: constant news coverage of events such as this one turn a personal tragedy into the public's entertainment. I know, they are giving us interesting and pertinent information about something that most people won't ever experience. But this was a family devastated, lives lost, homes destroyed. For a select, unfortunate few, this event will forever mark a terrible turning point in their world. We have no right to share in it just to satisfy our curiosity. Just my (still irritated) two cents.

Eating the snowman

But they really were the best sugar cookies ever, so wasn't it all worth it?

Okay, so all the happy, smiling people may actually have been the best part, but the cookies, they were a close second.

Frosting the snowman

It was all going okay until I got around to decorating the sugar cookies. See, it's been years since I decorated sugar cookies, besides just a little sprinkling of sugar or a little smear of frosting. I'm anal (this was probably already apparent). Decorating sugar cookies becomes a thorn in my anality: this line is too squiggly, these eyes are too close, the stripes on the candy canes are straight instead of slanted, the knife stuck in the gingerbread man is in the lung instead of the heart (just checking to see if you're still reading). I spend hours engrossed in their growing imperfection.

And I fail to trust myself. I knew I didn't need to pipe the edges. But I did so anyway, then hated it. I knew all the colors for the trees would take too much time, but I planned them regardless. Deep down, I knew that there was a reason why I hadn't decorated sugar cookies in so long, why I'd sworn to never decorate them again. But I still thought that maybe I was mistaken, and that maybe this time would be different.

It wasn't, of course. But on the plus side, I came to that realization before I'd wasted the entire night, quickly whipping through the last half my style. And was that ever satisfying. But for the record: never decorating sugar cookies again. NEVER.

My guilt over missing part of M's movie night was tempered by the fact we did spend forty-five minutes in Blockbuster together looking for the only movie that will do, which the salesperson cheerfully informed us had one copy left misfiled somewhere in the store. Because your three-year-old will hear that information and continue to wander the aisles whispering, "It's supposed to be here," over and over until you finally find it. That kind of needle-hunt has to be worth something, right?

K's Newest Additions

Again: As in "(I know I just jumped in the water but I'm still using my first breath of air to ask to jump in the water) again!"

Ne-ne: AKA bunny. Bunny happened to be sitting at down to breakfast with us courtesy of M. K just wanted to make sure that Ne-ne got his share of pancake and juice too. Apparently we were ignoring him.

Eat: First used clearly today, in reference to a bagel in the hands of another child. To be clear, K does not like bagels, and especially not with cream cheese. But seeing them makes her want to try again anyway. Then spit the bagel out. Then complain that she was given a bagel in the first place. Kids these days...

Inquiring Mind

1) If I use butcher paper as a table covering, leaving out pens for the children to color, will people think I'm creative or cheap?

2) When the manager hands you a bottle of water to give to your choking baby, do you have to pay for it? Because if you do, I just shoplifted.

3) If I serve two-buck Chuck as my holiday party's wine, will anyone be offended? And by offended, I mean drink less so that I don't have to buy more than two bottles?

4) Does it count as dusting if you just blow real hard at flat surfaces?

5) Cheese plus cereal makes a complete meal, right? Bread, protein, dairy... wait, how many food groups are there?

Go ahead: call me a Sisy

Today's lesson: Greek mythology. I know--what? But bear with me. I've been thinking about Sisyphus, the king condemned to roll a boulder all the way to the top of a hill, only to watch it roll right back down to the bottom. Again and again, up and then down, for eternity.

Any guess as to how I'm feeling today?

It's not just today, though, but lately. It seems I've had my share of moments recently that make me feel as if I'm performing the same tasks over and over again, with little to no change, with no satisfying or meaningful results, without anything to show for it in the end.

If there was a Greek myth about a woman pounding herself in the head with a hammer over and over, I might have chosen that one.

The boulders I'm rolling are secondary, since I'm more concerned with my actions. After all, we can't often control the boulders. Push one to the top, and it's going to roll to the bottom. I'm choosing to push. I'm choosing an object over whose essential shape I have no control. I'm choosing this object, pushing it up, over and over again, to watch it do what it was bound to do. Who's the real fool?

But leaving it at the bottom: is that acceptance, or indifference? Is it giving in, or giving up? Because I don't want to give up. I hate to give up. I like to believe that things will change, hopefully for the better, and that each failure is a chance to start believe that things will be different the next time around. I have to believe that maybe Sisyphus felt that way too, that hopeful moment when he reached the apex that maybe this time, the boulder would balance on end, and he'd be free.

It's a lot of effort, though. A lot of repetitive effort. A lot of energy lost with the effort. A lot of lost energy that might be better spent on things that were a little less likely to dissatisfy. But is that selfishness--to want to focus more on the positive, satisfying experiences--or just plain smarts?

So if I don't want to give up the challenge, then my mind turns to the transformation of the boulder. I can't help but be reminded of Shel Silverstein's sequel, The Missing Piece Meets the Big O (sorry for the Silverstein kick). Short and sweet, the missing piece transforms his shape by sheer effort, turning from a triangle to a circle by wearing down his edges as he flips over and over, finally becoming the circle he always wanted to be.

Right: change the boulder. Give it a lip so it no longer rolls. Heck, turn it into a chair and take in the view from the top.

But that's not easy either. And that, in most cases, requires a spirit of transformation in the object to be transformed. And a slightly egocentric belief on my behalf that I know how to make the boulder better than it already is.

Some things are just boulders. And some efforts always futile. So press on or give up? Transform or accept? I want to always be the optimist, but it's hard, sometimes. Optimists have feelings too.

Communication Glitch

You wouldn't think, even in three-year-old-ese, that you could mistake the word edge for the word ass. But when he's sitting on the toilet, you can't help but go there first.

It wasn't where he went, thank goodness, but it gave us both a good laugh nonetheless. Let's just hope he was only laughing because I was laughing. Otherwise, it's going to be a very, um, colorful Christmas.

Insert cliche here

Faithful reader: "There's nothing of interest in this post. Are you, perhaps, just posting to keep up the momentum of thirty solid days?"

D: "That would be correct."

FR: "But after a week away from home, you don't have anything interesting or insightful to say about coming back?"

D: "Refer to Dorothy, a la Wizard of Oz. Other than that, I'm going to need a few more days to catch up on my sleep, unpack my clothes, sort out the Christmas decorations, and otherwise adjust before my brain has room to function again. But thanks for the vote of confidence!"