December 2009 – Page 2 – My Truant Pen

Battle Lines and Blind Side

Sunday night, an hour or two miraculously appeared after the boys were in bed. As my husband finished the story-reading, I delved in our well-stocked game cupboard for a new offering for the evening. After sorting through various boxes “The claim that this game plays with two is a lie” “Why do we even own games that have a 3 hour play time?” “I don’t have the 2 hours we’d need to assemble this game”, we settled on Battle Line.

It’s a lightly themed logic and planning game. It incorporates significant elements of poker (to my disadvantage — I’ve never played) in terms of winning card combinations and card counting. You also can gain an advantage by having a poker face, or being able to read your opponent’s intentions. However, there are six “suits” up to 10 cards, and a deck of “break the rules” cards which kept play interesting and unpredictable.

We both loved it. We split two games. We’re champing at the bit to play some more (although if your partner is, like mine, an optimizer, this might be an appropriate game to break out the play-timer for). It’s a small, light game, which means that it just shot to the top of our list for travel. I think it could be even more compact if you replace the “flags” with regular playing cards (they’re simply place holders). This is also the rare game that I believe will be able to handle numerous repetitions of play. There are lots of games that are fun to play 2 or 3 times, or once or twice a year. There aren’t as many games (like chess) that have much higher play potential — that can be different every time you play them, even if you play them for a year.

Then on Tuesday, a second Christmas miracle occurred. We had a free night. And we had a babysitter. I know, I know. Astonishing. Seriously, I think our last evening out together was late September. ANYWAY, I’m a sucker for a heart-warming story, so I’d really wanted to see “The Blind Side”. Ah, friends! Go see it! It is a story of radical hospitality and courage. It is a story about small and great kindnesses. It is a story about the best of people. And, most of all, it is a true story. Mom, this one is rated “K”. I was inspired and warmed by this increasingly rare vision of people behaving with love towards each other, in a family full of kindness.

I also see the movie as a challenge. I wish I had her courage and compassion.

It was awesome to spend time with my dearly beloved, and to have the time so rich. Nothing is so disappointing as making all the effort to get out, and then have your meal/movie be a total dud. These two were the opposite of dud-ish-ness!

My son is trying to kill me

The other day I picked up a two year old girl. I’m quite accustomed to picking up young children, since one (not naming any names THANE) walks wonderfully well, but not in the directions I want him to go. Therefore, traipsing between engagements, he gets carried. So when I picked up this little girl, I thought I knew what I was doing.

I nearly threw the poor child into the ceiling, she was so light. Featherlike, even!

My son is not. No, not he. Not Mr. I’m Wearing 2T Clothes at 13 Months. Not Mr. I Eat More Than My Four Year Old Brother (Please Pass the Cheese).

We’ve decided to call him Mr. Moon, actually, because 1) he is entirely made of cheese 2) he weighs as much as a huge lump of rock.

I digress. That sweet child is attempting to kill me, his loving mother.

Friday when I went to pick him up from daycare it was slippery. I had just gotten my young son from Abuela and had given him his first 20 “I missed you” kisses on the cheeks and was walking down the stairs to the car, holding his massive weight in front of me. Now you think you know what’s coming, but you’re wrong. I can’t blame the fact that there was one more step than I expected on the slipperiness. I just plain missed it. I tumbled to the ground, using my body in ways it was not intended to be used in order to keep my baby from hitting the pavement. Better yet, Abuela was still watching from the door. If my body is going to already have to take a hit, couldn’t my dignity at least be unblemished? But nooooooo. FYI, he’s heavy and has a lot of inertia.

Yesterday I had a less than delightful day and was glad to be trudging home. My husband was doing aikido until about 8:30, so I was on my own with the boys. Grey was just telling me how his preschool teacher was unhappy with his attention span and filling me in on exactly which joke drove her nuts during Circle time, while I carried Thane to the car through the snow.

Flash back a million years to college. One year for Spring Break about 10 of us rented a condo and went on a ski vacation. This was possibly the most exciting vacation I’d taken without parental supervision, although we were the tamest, most polite bunch of college students you’d ever want to meet. (Except for the home made pudding. Don’t ask.) The very first day, my boyfriend (now husband) took me on my very first ski trip. We spent an hour or so on the bunny slope. I was doing well. Then we went down our first real run.

I made it the rest of the way down the hill in the back of one of those ski patrol sled thingies. That was the first and last time I ever went skiing. I didn’t walk properly for about 6 months. As a permanent reminder, I have a torn meniscus in my left knee.

You actually need your knee ligaments for less than you might think. I live my life quite happily without it, most of the time. I backpack and play raquetball. I hoist my kids around. But every once in a while my knee is in some position where it needs the support of ligaments it no longer possesses. When that happens, I crumble to the ground in blinding pain.

And so it happened. I took a step. My knee collapsed into agony and so did I, once again holding Thane and attempting to keep him from hitting the ground with me. For a very, very long five minutes I was kneeling in the dark in the snow next to my car trying very hard not to cry while Grey (oblivious) whined about why I hadn’t opened his door and Thane squawked protest to my death-grip on him. And what can you do, so vulnerable, in pain, responsible? You pull yourself together, attempt to stand, buckle people into their car seats, and call various members of your family to complain.

My knee is very achy today. If experience is true, it’ll be sore and stiff for a week, and gradually get back to normal.

I’m hoping my “bad luck in threes” was actually fulfilled this morning. Right in front of me, a driver failed to notice the slowing traffic and plowed into the car in front of him, making a nice 4 car pileup that I had front row seats for. A state patrol officer was right there. No one was hurt — I pulled over to see if they needed my eye-witness report which they didn’t.

I do hope that there isn’t another fall ahead with me holding Mr. I Put Lead Weights in My Diaper, because I’ve been very lucky so far to only hurt myself.

Wish me good luck trying to avoid his next assassination attempt!

Little innocent me? Never. You don't have any cheese, do you?

Ernie

On Sunday, Grey and I went caroling with our church. Our first stop was an assisted living facility our church has a relationship with. Grey was the youngest of the carolers by a good two decades. Faced with a room full of the pale elderly, my tired son demanded that I pick him up hold him. He shyly waved his jingle bells, his back turned to the foreboding crowd.

As I sang the old songs, I thought about my relationship with the aged, or, as they were known in my youth, “old folks”. Frankly, I always loved old folks. You want someone to pay attention to you, go to a nursing home as a cute young thing. When I was an adorable kid, I quickly discovered a great affinity for these folks. They had wonderful stories, kind faces, and lots of positive attention to devote to me.

I’d like to now, publicly, apologize to my parents for a deed I did in my youth. Here’s the story.

I wanted money to buy candy. Bonanza 88 actually had things you could buy for 88 cents, and coins represented true value. I, sadly, was lacking in coins and being 7 or so years old, also lacking in the means to earn them on my own. (Sometimes I helped worm-pickers harvest worms on the practice field behind our house, but this summer day was apparently short on worm-pickers.) But I, a budding entrepreneur, thought I saw a way out of dilemma of no-candy. I sat down and drew 8 or 10 very fine pictures, took my portfolio, and went door to door with my best friend as an art saleswoman.

Some of the houses had no one there. Some of the houses had shy Mexican immigrants, who peeked through the tightly-held door and shook their heads at us. But a goodly number of the 20 or so houses on the block had my target audience: old folks.

I remember sticky ribbon candy, “healthy” popsicles, linoleum floors, antimacassars in dim living rooms, and kindly old ladies offering a quarter for a drawing.

The last house I remember visiting on that sunny day was the best of all. It was in that house I met Ernie. Looking back, I suspect Ernie was a WWI vet. He was at least 80 back when we became friends, in 1985 or so. His house was a wonder and a delight, and so was he. He always stayed put in his arm chair, weighted down by age and frailty. But somehow he remembered and knew where every single thing in his house was. He sent me downstairs to gape at the mounted trophy buck head, the hand-cranked light-bulb, the medals and odds and ends that were the remnants of what must have been a fascinating life. He sent me upstairs for the popup books of gnomes and giants, and cluttered guest rooms that must not have known his tread for years. He gave me tigereye stones and spun the age-old tall tales about how these would prevent tiger attacks (I believe his version contained details about his journeys in India – God only knows whether they were part of the trope or true accounts). I wandered through a week of my childhood fingering the stone in my pocket and looking for the warded-off tiger attacks, as is right and good. Ernie and I had a fine old time.

It goes without saying that when I got home with my $2 in small change, flush with the afternoon of delights I’d experienced, my parents were, um, less than pleased. I believe I got quite a lecture on talking to strangers and inviting myself into their homes, selling my wares, eating their popsicles and scavenging their basements (although I must’ve managed to convince them that Ernie wasn’t a stranger because I knew him now! At least, that wasn’t the LAST time I visited him!). And of course, with the poetic justice of childhood, it was hardly a week or two later that I badly injured myself a mile from home and insisted on accepting no grownuply help from the kind folks who noticed as I trudged past my bloody, weeping face because “I wasn’t allowed to go to strangers homes” to call for help.

Did I mention, mom and dad, that I’m really sorry? And I’m sure I’ll get what’s coming to me?

But I still smile and think fondly of Ernie. With no pictures, or other folks in my family who knew him, my memory of him is dim, as if a dream. I remember his chair and some of the marvels I saw. I know I went to visit him several times, to hear the stories and have adventures. He must be gone by now — I know that 7 year olds tend to underestimate how old people are, but he was truly quite old.

I find I miss old folks. I’m much less irresistible to them now than I was then. Sadly, no one could describe me as waif-ish, and I have that bustle that parents seem to accrue to themselves. I simply don’t have a ready supply of old folks to delight. I certainly hope my sons will discover the delight of the company of the lonely and slow-moving. There is a great joy in that relationship between the very young and very old, that we middle-life-dwellers have either forgotten or do not yet know.

I hope my sons find their very own “old man” to tell them the traditional lies and spoil their dinners and to show them how to brighten lives.

No-knead wheat bread

My husband’s recipe for wheat bread was called for after my post yesterday, so here I am being obliging.

We have some dedicated gear for this. My husband makes it in batches of two, so we have two large Rubbermaid containers for rising it in. I apparently lack the vocabulary to force Target.com or Amazon.com to disgorge the exact version, but it’s kind of circular, tallish, has those snaps on the side, maybe 3 quarts, and has a red lid. That should do you. We also have two dutch ovens (they’re expensive, but I got one for Christmas last year and another one at Costco for cheaper – I bet they’re a dime a dozen at yard sales).

He usually makes the dough in about 15 minutes at night, and then bakes it on his work-from-home day so he has fresh bread for lunch. Tough life.

It makes FANTASTIC pressed ham sandwiches and toast. Also, for reasons that are unclear to us, the whole wheat version of this bread seems to stay soft and tasty much longer than the regular version. This bread is a rock-star with a good soup. Enjoy!

No Knead Bread
Ingredients
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 cups bread flour
1/2 Tbsp salt
1/2 tsp active yeast or bread machine yeast
1 cup very warm water
1/2 cup beer (I use Budweiser, Sam Adams light is also nice)
1 Tbsp White vinegar

Instructions
Whisk together dry ingredients and then stir in wet ingredients until all ingredients combined and a shaggy ball of dough forms.

Leave in a large, airtight container in a warm place to rise for 8 – 12 hours (I leave it overnight).

On a lightly floured surface form dough into a ball and knead 15 times.

Shape into a ball, spray surface of dough with oil, and leave to rise on a piece of parchment paper. While rising, put a large pot with lid (I use a cast iron Dutch oven) into oven and preheat to 500 degrees for 30 minutes.

At end of 30 minutes, reduce heat of oven to 425 degrees. Slice shallowly through top of dough and, picking it up by the ends of the parchment paper, place it inside the preheated pot. Re-cover pot and replace in oven.

Bake for 30 minutes. Remove pot lid and bake uncovered for an additional 20 minutes.

Remove bread immediately to wire rack to cool.

Note: if you want to make this recipe without the whole wheat flour, replace it with 1 cup of bread flour and reduce water to 3/4 cups.

Foodie identity

Yesterday’s post on hospitality actually started out as a foodie post. On Tuesday, as we have done so often since the week my husband brought me home as a blushing bride, we gamed. And as we have since that August of 2000, I made dinner for the gamers.

When I first got married, I couldn’t cook. I was both proud and defensive of this fact. I recall joking at our nuptials that I picked my husband so he could cook for me. This was entirely untrue. I really picked him so that I’d have someone else to get up with the kids in the morning. Anyway, suffice it to say, I had very little practical experience in the kitchen. My first job out of college was as a telecommuting programmer. Ah, 2000! What a time you were! This left me home alone a lot, with practically no responsibilities. Out of boredom and cheapness, I started cooking. The weekly arrival of other people at a game provided a motive and opportunity for me.

Looking back on those early meals, I flinch. I recall one attempt at alfredo where a guest pithily asked if I had just poured a jar of mayonnaise over some noodles. I couldn’t blame him for wondering. But gradually, I got better.

I now have an extensive collection of well-thumbed cookbooks and collected favorite recipes. I have fallen head-over-heels for America’s Test Kitchen and everything they’ve ever written. Their Best 30 Minute Recipes was an exceptional find for my lifestyle. (Note: Just plan on buying fresh thyme every time you go grocery shopping.)

I’ve branched out from those early days. I specialized then in, er, mostly cheap meat slowcooked for long enough that you didn’t notice it was cheap since non-cheap meat can’t stand up to that sort of treatment. I still almost never serve dishes where a cut of meat stands alone. I’ve come to revel in the breadth and depth of casseroles — the housewife’s delight. I also make a lot of soups, that go delightfully with the chewy no-knead bread my husband makes once or twice a week.

Tuesday night was a culinary masterpiece (in addition to a role-playing gem). I made this Pork and Prune dish from the 30 minute recipe book. It sounds… unlikely. I would not have eaten it 10 years ago. I would not have made it 5 years ago. It was gobsmackingly good. Even Grey offered a hesitant compliment. (It was so good I have every intention of making it again tonight. Yum!)

A while ago I served a meal to my family and looked at what was on the table:

Main dish: home made from scratch
Bread: Adam’s no-knead whole wheat bread
Butter: produced from Grey’s whipping cream experiment
Jam: the plum I put down this summer
Veggie: from the farmshare

Stepping back to look at it, I marveled. How did I end up being this and doing this? I survived entirely on pizza pockets my senior year of high school. When did I decide that food was so important? I don’t have time to read books for fun, but I produce 3 – 4 meals a week that would’ve been past my ten-years-ago best effort. I make my own jam. We almost always have home made bread on hand. I have a jar of homemade pomegranate molasses in the fridge, and recipes to use it in. My slowcooker gets more use than my Wii.

I’ve started to wonder what role this all plays in my identification of myself. For example, I don’t consider myself a foodie. This could be because I don’t know what a foodie is, but I do know that I still enjoy Arby’s and Pizza Hut on rare occasions, and therefore I can’t be one. I seek novelty in the dishes I eat and serve, but I am by nature a novelty-seeker. (It took my FOREVER to realize that not everyone was.) I take pride in what I serve guests, and am glad to see my sons eating what I cook. On the other hand, once every week or two I look with despair at my recalcitrant 4 year old and food-tossing baby and wonder, “Why the heck did I put this much energy into feeding THEM this tasty stuff?” Or worse, I get knocked back significantly when a recipe doesn’t work out, especially when I’ve invested heavily in making it. And obviously, not all recipes work out.

What do you think makes a “foodie”? How do you feed yourself or your family? Do you eat out? Have prepackaged meals? Do you cook simple things? How often do you cook complex things? Is it the same stuff regularly, or do you love branching out? What’s your favorite source for new recipes? I’m not sure I know what “normal” is for feeding a family!

Hospitality

When you, dear reader, think of Christian values, which ones do you think are at the top for importance? I’d forgive you if you said sexual purity — some days it seems like all you ever hear from Christians in the media is talk about sex and how it’s bad. But no. Jesus says hardly anything about sex.

Some of the values I see most when I read the New Testament are:
– Being loving to all, including yourself
– Not being a hypocrite (especially not a religious hypocrite – for an example, Matthew 23:13 “‘But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and when others are going in, you stop them.”)
– Sharing what you have
– And today’s topic… hospitality.

As I understand it (and it should now be noted that I != Biblical scholar), hospitality was a critical virtue in the ancient world in which the Bible was written. There were few inns, and pretty much no restaurants, quickie-marts, C-stores, or even cars to take shelter in. The earlier you went, the rarer the inns were. So if you had to go anywhere, you relied on hospitality and that hospitality was a sacred rite and obligation.

For example, in Genesis 19:6-8, Lot welcomes two angels into his home: “Lot went out of the door to the men, shut the door after him, and said, ‘I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly. Look, I have two daughters who have not known a man; let me bring them out to you, and do to them as you please; only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof.’” Lot’s obligation as a host here trumps his obligation as a father and caretaker to his daughters (harsh, huh?).

Throughout the New Testament there are stories of hospitality. Jesus’ very first miracle (by tradition — this miracle is only recorded in John) was helping a groom out of a predicament when the wine ran short at his wedding – a failing of the expectations of hospitality. Jesus then goes on the ACCEPT the hospitality of the unacceptable. He sits down with and eats meals with sinners, prostitutes, soldiers, tax collectors (who were probably as popular as drug dealers are for us), turncoats and traitors. When the disciples go out to spread the good news, they are told to shake the dust off their feet from any town which does not offer them appropriate hospitality.

Hospitality is harder than it was, because we’ve lost the habit of it. We don’t invite the homeless to come eat dinner with us because they might be sociopathic kleptomaniacs who will sleep in our front lawns for the rest of our lives if they know where we live. Strangers to our land, the aliens who also populate the Bible, do not expect a welcome to our homes. Instead they book rooms in Motel 8 and buy food from the “Excellent Mart” we’ve never been to; and we glance away across the gulf of culture at each other on the rare instances our paths cross.

I think about this imperative to welcome and nurture when I set the table for company. We do sometimes feed others, although it is usually friends. I wish that I had more courage to be more outrageously hospitable, and welcome the too-talkative, the kind of weird, the left out, the unknown to share a meal with my husband and I, and our two screeching sons. I meet people in those few margins of intersection, and I wish it was ok for me to say, “You look cold. Would you like to come in and have some dinner? There’s plenty.” I’m afraid to. I’m afraid that they will be offended. What if they’re perfectly well off and see my offer as pity? I’m afraid of the disruption in my tightly slotted life. I’m highly cognizant that culture is constantly telling me to be more afraid than I am. I’m supposed to teach my four year old “stranger danger” and it’ll be all my fault if he’s abducted by a dangerous pedophile because I never taught him that people he doesn’t know are enemies until proven otherwise.

Still, I’m haunted by the hospitality I don’t offer. There was the man and his two children, trudging up the hill our house sits on too late at night. Where was he going? Did he have a place? He seemed so quiet, and they so subdued. Would he have welcomed some warmth in the darkness, or was he just going on an evening constitutional?

There was the other man with the Santa beard — his name is Hal — at the grocery store. He was there the entire time I was. I bought $175 worth of nutritious produce, milk, meat, cereals — a veritable bounty. He, after looking in the scratch-and-dent section and walking all through the store… he bought a jar of sauce. Was he lonely? Bored? Hungry? Broke? Did he have a place to go? I wish I had the courage to ask him to come home with me, and I would fix him up a nice dinner and we would talk and he could be filled with company and food.

Did you know that is simply not done? And as a woman and a mother, it is particular verboten for me to do it. Risking my self (and my sexual purity and property) is bad enough. Exposing my sons to such risk, and my husband to such inconvenience? Keep it to a smile and small-talk. Even that, I’m told, is risky and only marginally appropriate.

I’m afraid to even pray for the courage to offer hospitality, because what if that courage arrives? Never ask the Holy Spirit for gifts you will not accept.

I don’t know how to end this rather rambly essay on a snappy note. I will say this, however. If you tire of the tropes of Christianity, why not pay attention to a different virtue this holiday season? Instead of being sparkly pure and blameless, like I know you are, why don’t you try to be courageously hospitable? Risk a little in the cause of kindness. Whether that’s eye contact where you would usually look away, or asking the homeless person you see what their name is, or even inviting someone to share your meal with you, tell the tsking voices to be silent for a moment.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Saturday was tree day. After several cumulative hours of aikido and a few tantrums because it wasn’t tree time RIGHT NOW we finally went to go purchase our Christmas tree. As we stood in the bitter winter afternoon winds, surrounded by swirls of evergreens, Grey demanded candy instead and promptly pitched a fit about not getting it. Then when I had my back turned he “went to find daddy”. Ahhhhh fun times. Then when I applied what I thought was an overly mild punishment (loss of DS use for leaving mommy) he cried so hard he threw up. All over the car. I think on purpose. And I broke the external screen on my phone somehow – I don’t know how.

Merry Christmas!

Happily, life then improved. We got home and cleaned up the car. We put an exhausted Thane down for a nap, and erected our festive boughs in the living room. Grey helped decorate the tree. Only two ornaments have been shattered so far. And as we decorated, it began to snow — the first true snowfall of winter a white benediction on our celebration.

I need to figure out how to do better with naps. Despite my attempts to get him down in the afternoon, yesterday Thane’s nap was about 1/2 hour of driving time from church to home (via Staples). By 6 pm he was weeping at everything. And Grey really does still need an afternoon nap most of the time, but NEVER takes one anymore at home. This leads to unnecessarily stressful weekends.

Yesterday I put all three boys down for a nap. First Thane (night night little Pookie!), then Grey (Robby, please make sure Grey goes to sleep), then Adam (he didn’t need much urging). Only Adam got any sleep, and that was 15 minutes while Thane was bopping around his crib before he started being unhappy.

While the boys were Not Sleeping, I was attempting to update my ipod (and mostly failing — my old one has a battery issue) and uploading pictures (and mostly succeeding). Here, for your viewing pleasure, are the latest and greatest in the our familiy snaps!

Early December pictures

Evaluations

I got Grey’s first formal evaluation from preschool today. I suppose that ranks right up there with first tooth and first words, eh? I hope you enjoyed the hiatus, son, because you’ll be evaluated for the rest of your life. (Like next Friday, when I take you in for our town’s preschool screening. Mauahahah!)

They did not measure his equestrian skills

I can’t claim that his evaluation holds any huge surprises. Let’s see. He does exceptionally well counting. They only attempt up to 20, and I’ve heard him count to 70 before he gets bored. He can count to 10 in three languages (English, Spanish and Japanese — thank you aikido). He is at “mastered” for shapes, colors, sorting, “one to one correspondence” — what is that?, mathematical concepts and puzzles. With letters, he has the “mastered or exceeds” letter names (exceeds – there are only 26 of them!), speaking clearly, expressing verbal needs, recognizing his own name (which one?), concepts like “more/less, big small”, body parts, repeating rhymes, complete sentences and interest in books. He has “exceeds” in copying letters, knowing letter sounds and printing name. He is at expectations in class discussions, relating sequential events (since he starts nearly every conversation these days with “When I was 2” I’m surprised he did that well), and using sentences to describe a picture.

For fine motor and gross motor skills, he has top marks for all areas analyzed.

With emotional development we have a long list of top marks for the first bit, with stuff like: is confident, is able to wait his/her turn (really?!), uses bathroom independently, has appropriate control over feelings (again, really?!?!), table manners, and has a good self image. Then at the bottom of the page we finally get to Grey’s achilles heel.

Does not disturb others while working: NEVER. That’s a big fat 0 folks.

I can see it now. Everyone is happily tracing their letters and Grey is happily trying to distract each and every one of them. Yup, that rings true. He also gets low marks for “Responds appropriately to discipline”. Wilmary said that he cries every time he’s thwarted. And that he doesn’t sit still for circle time (which jives with his statement that he hates preschool because there’s circle time).

Practicing table manners and social skills at Thanksgiving

Finally, they list their goals for him. They include:
1) We’re going to work on how to work during circle time with his classmates.
2) We will be working on reading simple words (Note: he’s already doing this, but it’s good to do it at preschool too)

On the whole, I think this is a pretty accurate evaluation of young Master Grey. And it certainly brings up some areas where his teachers and parents need to focus attention. That’s what an evaluation is supposed to do.

Just one problem. How do you teach your child not to disrupt other people? Especially, how do we teach him that skill at home? I think that his bounciness and distractability is pretty normal for a four year old boy, so I’m not upset about it. But I don’t really know how to teach this very important ability. (And may I add that it would be nice for my home life if Grey was a little less talky at inappropriate times, such as in the morning before it’s time to get up and he’s snuggling.)

Any advice out there? Mom? How do you teach a child to let other people work and save up questions and comments? Is it possible? Is it worthwhile? Or do we just let him be himself at home and trust to preschool and later kindergarten to begin working on these class behavior issues?

My productive day off

I contributed to global warming yesterday. It’s much better for the environment when I just come to work and sit here under the warm glow of fluorescent tubes. (Actually, I can’t complain. I get tons of real light, and in winter have a lovely view of the river.) But yesterday was my Random Day Off!

My first trip out the door was to get the boys to their appropriate daytime locations. We were LATE for preschool, because our dudes have started sleeping later (glory be!) which is fantastic for weekends but less fantastic for school days. On my way home I: washed and vacuumed the car, got a nummy breakfast sandwich, and bought many needful and useful things at Target.

I returned home and unloaded the trove of loot. I immediately went back out for round #2, which took me to Michael’s (where I completely struck out) and AC Moore (where I did nominally better). This time I returned with waning daylight, Christmas light hooks for the front porch and a bunch of inexpensive (er, let’s be honest, cheap) picture frames.

Once again I returned to our abode and unpacked, hung festive lighting on a precarious ladder, and then went to reframe and hang our family portraits.

The cheap frames didn’t have the hanger thingies attached. You had to do it yourself with these TEENY TINY CHEAP nails. I’ve had more fun. Happily, the boys weren’t around to learn any new words from mommy.

Then I went back up North for another hour and a half round trip to get the boys. Traffic northbound was ugly.

I brought the boys back home and delighted them by feeding them pancakes. I’ve noticed that it doesn’t matter whether Grey professes his undying adoration of a meal or his inimitable disgust in the offering — he still doesn’t EAT it. Thane, on the other hand, has an “if it doesn’t move it’s food” attitude which I’m beginning to find rather refreshing. After bath time (an increasingly soggy affair) and story time, I was off to church for Prayer at the Close of Day.

Phew! Happily, the Christmas lights are up, we have enough diapers and new toothbrushes all around, the looming project that had been mocking me first thing every morning is accomplished, dinner is in the slow-cooker for tonight and joy abounds!

Now if only I’d gotten any Christmas cards done it would’ve been perfect!

Sadly, this morning I feeling woogly. My throat is scratchy. I’m tireder than I should be given several nights of good sleep. I hope that a good dose of Zombie Cowboys (long story) clears things up!

Christmas was coming and Darcy the Dragon was thinking…

I love Christmas. This is probably not a shocking admission. Heck, you probably love Christmas too. There are people who, for various reasons, do not like Christmas. They are a minority.

My very absolute favorite part of Christmas is the Christmas music. Music is intensely evocative to me and holds the flavor of a moment even if I listen to it often. In this case, Roger Whittaker’s Christmas Album (specifically Darcy the Dragon) transports me magically back to a golden stage of childhood when the trees were 12 feet tall (no really), the packages under the tree held unutterable delights, we made Christmas cookies, and the weather cooperated and provided snow. There’s a flurry of light and darkness, sweet scents and spicy, excitement and peace all wrapped up into a gift of memory.

When I turn on the Christmas music, it transports my daily passage of life into a memory to be created, and reminds me that we are in the special time, the time apart.

Tonight I will bring out the Advent calendar that I bought last year to help Grey count down the days. In the past twelve months he’s learned about seasons, months, holidays and repetitions. Of course, he still doesn’t QUITE understand how it all works, but I think the count-down will be very meaningful to him.

This weekend, we will go get our tree and decorate. (I would have done it this weekend, but I was completely exhausted from keeping Thane out of trouble in our normal, reasonably childproofed house. Add in a Christmas tree, and he might never get out of his high chair again.) Grey will be feverish with delight, and with the candy canes, hot cocoa and Christmas cookies I plan to ply him with. The UPS guy will renew his “nightly stop” status. I’ve already begun my Christmas cards, and if all goes really well they might get mailed out as early as next week. (Really, really well. OK, probably the week after.) I love the Christmas cards because I sit and I really think about the person I know and love at the other end. It’s like a prayer, or meditation of love to write the cards. (By the way, Grey has started noticing that he doesn’t get any mail. If any of you are planning on sending us a card, Grey would LOVE it if the card was addressed to him!)

I also save up my “sick time” each year — usually nearly a week. If no one gets sick (and we’re disgustingly healthy) then I take a day a week off for the month of December. So tomorrow I am taking off. No real plans, but to enjoy myself and the season.

And of course the Christmas tableau! I won’t be playing the part of Mary this year, and I do not have a baby to offer up as the Christ child (both my sons — October babies — served in that role). But I’ll play my trumpet and there will be light and darkness and children and songs.

The older I get, the less the stuff of Christmas matters. I get so much joy out of buying presents for the small people in my life, I really don’t covet much for myself anymore. (In fact, for Christmas this year I’m requesting donations to Path International.) I’m sure my 4 year old son doesn’t feel that way. I didn’t at four, or fourteen for that matter.

Perhaps the greatest gift of Christmas with children is wondering how this will all play out in their minds and memories. I remember the cardboard fireplace my parents put up the year I was four. I remember the cabbage patch play set I got the year my brother was born. There are so many glimmering, golden memories of anticipation and delight. I can only hope that my sons’ memories are as full of Christmas goodness when they set about celebrating with their own children some day.