Christmas 2018

Somehow, Christmas ended with Anders having acquired a large bowl of . . . slime. Goldie tried (unsuccessfully and for some time) to convince me it was soothing to play with (if I’d only try calling it a different name or thinking of it as a different color). But from the moment it entered my home I began mentally calculating how long it would have to remain before I could dispose of the revolting substance.

Also, . . . we gave Jesse a rock tumbler. I don’t know why it never occurred to me that tumbling rocks might possibly be loud. But never mind that. It only takes ONE MONTH of constant tumbling to polish those rocks to shiny, gem-like perfection!

(Mike did actually move it to the garage after a day. And I no longer hear it at all.)

However favorably or unfavorably you might view the above two situations, Christmas was a success. In fact, it was miraculous to me how smoothly it all fell into place. Gifts all purchased. Everything wrapped. Everyone tucked in bed (the girls — all cozied up together in the big, open room downstairs). And the house magically set up and somehow glowing with something more than gift wrap and filled stockings and lights. (What is it? Nostalgia? Anticipation? Coziness? I don’t know. But it’s real. And it always feels a bit hard to turn off the Christmas music playing hushed in the background, unplug the lights, and tear myself away from the low-level celestial vibrations that seem to emanate from that quiet, late-night scene.)

A few gift highlights?

Some type of fancy bike pump for Abe that can do something . . . that I don’t quite understand.

Magic Tracks for Jesse and Anders. (Who knew they’d like them so much?)

A calligraphy set for Daisy.

(Not actually pictured. I believe it’s Abe’s gyroscope being viewed here.)

A telescope for Goldie (plus a glowing owl lamp and FOUR dresses!).

A set of eight small baby dolls each with their own little swing or crib or high chair, etc. for Summer. (This was meant to be a joint present for the two little girls; but Summer clung to all the tiny babies so possessively, and Mette showed such indifference, that we ended up letting Summer have all the babies [and giving Mette the Little People princess set that was also originally intended for both girls].)

A Bluetooth microphone (and some small strobe lights) for Penny. (She’s forever having “dance parties” with the kids. And what kid doesn’t love using a microphone? Dancing or not! It’s been in more constant use since Christmas morning than any of the other day’s gifts except maybe for Daisy’s 1000 piece puzzle [which she sets herself to working on whenever there is a dull moment].)

Shoes and a little train set for Hans. (Oh alright. Those were no highlight. They seemed right up his alley as he is forever bringing me shoes to put on him and is fond of driving things about. But he seemed to lose his love of shoes at precisely the same moment as he got his new Christmas-morning pair. And the train set tracks seemed to be just tricky enough to set up as well as just easy enough to mess up once they were set up as to cause him primarily grief. His favorite gift was probably the four matchbox cars Daisy gave him on Christmas Eve (even though we already have matchbox cars and to spare!).

Some Sorel boots for me. (My feet haven’t been warm in snow for years and years!)

A snowmobile for Mike! (And the rest of us.) I always feel a bit silly mentioning these crazy big TOYS we get. But Mike really does adore them and, particularly with our regular cabin visits, we use them all a great deal. They have provided an incredible amount of memories and fun for our little family! (We will probably stick Mike and Abe getting it stuck in incredibly deep, wet snow on Christmas afternoon in the “memories” category as opposed to the “fun” category.)

Here and There (Or Neither)

It will give you a small glimpse into my mental state, perhaps, to know that somewhere around 4:30 am Friday night/Saturday morning it occurred to me that I would rename my blog. It would now be: They only throw up at night. And other stories.

I was quite confident about it. Several hours in to what would prove a miserable night for Mette (and an at least equally miserable night for me) it struck me as dreadfully clever, quite catchy, and a wonderfully literal and metaphorical summing up of the entire motherhood experience.

(Likely it seemed less wholly true to Daisy [who was tending when another incident occurred in the middle of the following day]. But it certainly seemed true enough again for me Saturday night and into Sunday morning. Sigh.)

After a decent night of sleep last night however . . . I can see that perhaps the title was not quite so inspired as it felt in those moments.

In other news, I have just sent Summer to put Mette for her nap. (???)

Although she is doing her very best to be both gentle and stern all at once, and to properly assert all the authority her extra nearly-13 months on Mette might allow her, the endeavor is mostly, from what I can hear, failing miserably (as I suppose I knew it would); but putting Mette to bed is nearly always an ordeal, and I thought, at the very least, sending Summer to try her hand at the job would buy me a few minutes to try and clean some of the waxy “window crayons” off of several windows in our house (a job that takes roughly one billion paper towels, an entire bottle of Windex, and . . . most of your will to live). (See windows in the background of the picture later in this post where Goldie is lighting Jesse’s birthday candles.)

Those window crayons are very much like the child-sized toy bus and scooter on the floor of our kitchen closet. I can’t bring myself to get rid of them. But I also . . . have never once had any of my kids get them out without my shouting, within seconds, for them to put the awful things back at once!

Jesse Frank had a birthday yesterday. He is now ten years old. And, if you do your math, you will be shocked to discover that living that long again will put him at age 20. (But its probably best not to do your math in these instances. It doesn’t matter how clearly you put it down on paper, or how many calculators you have handy, figures that add to such ridiculous sums will never make proper sense.)

He was living in a state of equal parts excitement and dread for days leading up to his tenth. And no reassurance from me could shift the balance solely to “excited” for long. A birthday is a glorious thing after all, but, there is the chance it won’t be a good day. And who can face that after all the build up? 

“Why wouldn’t it be good?” I questioned.

Well. Ignorance.

He and Anders might fight. Someone might be mean to him. The little girls might break his presents; why, they might simply crowd around too much – infringing on his present-playing enjoyment! 

But, it turned out to be a very happy day with very little that went amiss. True he still had to go to church (which struck him as a slight loss), but the bishop, who generally gives birthday kids one treat, gave him TWO (it was the bishop’s birthday as well it turned out – a situation that called for such extravagance); we had caramel topping for his ice cream; Mike read the Hobbit to him (which he loves far more than I would have guessed – sometimes I just look over and see him smiling delightedly to himself as Mike reads); and, he managed to trick us into letting him stay up until 10:30 to work on his new Star Wars Lego ship.

And now, in just two more days, Abe will up and have a birthday as well! 18 years for him. I added the figures once about this happening too. They never did add up, so I’m not sure how we’ve gotten here. There must have been some odd equation that I didn’t consider in my calculations (the quadratic formula? V=lwh?).

In any case. Off I go. (But not before telling you that Mette is, at this point, not in bed at all. She has come upstairs, thrown several rolls -- that were meant for dinner – out to the chickens, received a giant pile of dry-roasted peanuts from Summer, and is now sitting on the floor across from me – drinking out of a water bottle and asking me to cut an apple for her. But that’s the glass-is-half-empty way of looking at things. The half-full way of seeing this? Well, at least she isn’t throwing up.)

Wait. Don’t go yet! Here is my dearest, little Hansie boy. Oh I adore this person. (And how he closes his eyes at you if you try to sing to him because he doesn’t know how else to respond to such a thing as being sung to.) We all were in love with his hair that stuck ten feet up into the air. We never made any attempts to tame it. But, alas, it eventually got a bit too out of control and had to be cut. He screamed as if death himself were upon him. And so Mike buzzed it as fast as he possibly could – while I lost all feeling in my arms restraining the little fellow from flight. (Also, never buy your kids Lucky Charms . . . because no matter how many promises they make, they will only eat the marshmallows. And also, never buy them Fruity Pebbles because. Well. Just don’t. Unless you like sweeping. Then, by all means.)

Thanksgiving Weekend

We haven’t properly established a Thanksgiving that is always any one particular thing. Some things are consistent of course. The older girls like to help the kids make gumdrop turkeys. And the three of them have started doing pies with me – while we officially break out the Christmas music -- the night before Thanksgiving. And it’s Mike’s favorite holiday. He loves getting the newspaper that day, turning on the parade and the dog show, and letting me get out for a run (where I inevitably see groups playing football at every park I pass – no matter how cold it is).

But some years we join my mom – with whichever siblings happen to also be joining her that year; and some years we join Mike’s family -- with whatever siblings happen to be joining them that year; and, in recent years, we’ve even done some Thanksgivings on our own (which, we really quite enjoy!). So, the details change a bit from year to year.

This year my mom flew to Texas to be with my sister Shannon’s and my brother Aaron’s families. And we joined Mike’s family.

Mike’s mom had reserved a church gym – which turned out to be great for the kids -- as they had plenty of room to run about, play games (even a few rounds of Lightning were played once tables were moved a bit), and even use Legos! (Mike’s brother brought an entire kiddy pool full of Legos. I don’t know how he managed to carry it to his car, but Jesse in particular was in heaven!)

We brought the pies we’d made the night before (to join with the pies others had brought) as well as mashed potatoes and gravy. (And here we must mention that Goldie peeled and cut ALL of the potatoes! And we probably did over 20 lbs. She made the gravy too!)

And then . . . I snuck back home a bit early, turned on Christmas music, and cleaned the house. (Perhaps not the most Thanksgivingy thing to do. But we’d decided earlier to leave for Bear Lake Thanksgiving night. And the kids had packed that morning, but I can’t bear to leave on a vacation . . . knowing I will have a messy house to come home to. And, there is nothing so nice as cleaning a house . . . when nobody is there messing it up at the same time. So I cleaned up, Mike and the kids returned home, and off we went.)

Here was an email I sent to Mike’s family that summed up our weekend:

Shortly after the party, we loaded up the van and came to our cabin. The kids are currently out trying to sled (even though we brought no snow pants and even though the snow isn’t truly deep enough for any real sledding). Anders has remained inside however and has been talking to me for the last twenty minutes straight about the marvel of how it occurred to him to build a yeti out of Legos when initially he’d only intended to draw a yeti (and when he was actually rather tired and wasn’t sure he had the energy to carry out any yeti plans).

Yesterday we drove to “the big city” (Montpelier)— certain that with it being Black Friday it would be a happening scene. “Happening” turned out to be a craft fair, Family Dollar, and a stop at the one small pizza place in town. Not even the Butch Cassidy museum was open. (Though the kids loved imagining the faithful officer who, the sign told us, borrowed a bicycle and pedaled with all of his might after Butch and his men — who easily outdistanced him.)

Anyway, love you all,
Nancy

And love to you all, blog readers! Farewell. For now.