Visions of Sugarplums

Christmas.  What a heck of a lot of pressure I put myself under every year.  It has to be "perfect".  The kind of perfect that Martha Stewart and Norman Rockwell would create if they had produced a holiday.  This is whole-heartedly my doing.  I do this to myself.  No one calls me on Thanksgiving night and says "Now get busy making every weekend memorable.  Pack your free time with cookie-making, decorating, kid crafts, and most of all, [drumroll]… MEMORIES YOUR CHILDREN WILL TREASURE FOREVER.

So, we have been on a crazy roller-coaster of Christmas joyfulness of my own making, resulting in this morning's cookie debacle.  Yes, I know that there are pre-made sugar cookies that I could have sliced or placed and baked.  Santa wouldn't know the difference.  Having been raised on black and white Hollywood visions of holiday perfection however, this simply wouldn't do.  Don we now our 50's style aprons, fa-la-la, la, la, la, LA, LA, LA.

Stand mixer at the ready, ingredients for a double batch of sugar cookies ready to roll, I have eggs, sugar and butter whizzing festively 'round the bowl when I say to my elf-y helper "Now we need two whole eggs…"  (Notice my wording…Do you see what's coming?)  With a groan heard at least two streets up, I watched as my four year old threw two WHOLE (i.e. in the shell) eggs into the bowl, right into the maw of the KitchenAid. 

CRACK, slop, crunchety-OH NO!

Round two went slightly more smoothly until Little One got into the mix, pinching up the dough every time I turned my back and gobbling sugar and raw eggs and butter in a ratio that fast out-paced  her body weight. 

This is where perfect came in and bit me.   The memories my children will have of this particular Christmas Eve morning, should they not repress them  fully, are of Mommy sobbing hysterically;  egg shells and butter on two cabinet doors; a few Santa cookies with bizarre two year old fingernail tracks across  the abdomen, looking something like a holiday attack by Wolverine, and finally, if I'm lucky, they'll remember that we did start a second batch and we did spend the morning baking together and we did sing Christmas carols before and after the crying jag.

Time always renders our memories more bright and shiny…right?

Merry Christmas my friends.  Happy Holidays.  Best wishes for a bright and healthy, happy and certainly imperfect New Year.

XO

Free Therapy

Thank you for being my free therapy today. 

Admission:  I am at that stage of parenting where there are more challenges than not and more questions than answers.  In my house, we are on both ends of the toddler/preschool span; one turning two in a month and one almost five.  It all feels so terribly big and important; each decision is fraught with uncertainty.  I am stuck in a cycle of not being able to see the forest for the trees.

Parenting is not for the faint of heart.   I am humbled daily.  

I am lucky enough to be surrounded by a cadre of strong parents who are at every different stage of parenting.  I cannot recommend highly enough having a cocktail of parenting ingredients that looks something like the following:

·         A sprinkle of new parents to remind you why you got into this game in the first place and to give you a laugh over where you yourself have been.

·         A dash of parents in the same stage of parenting.  Misery loves company.  They are in the same foxhole and sometimes give you the one piece of advice you haven't yet tried.   And at the very least you can take turns driving each other home from asylum.

·         A handful of parents who are ahead of you.  These are your light at the end of the tunnel friends.  They can give you tried and true advice, tell you which parenting books to abandon and which are worth your precious little reading time, and remind you that it is a phase*.  They are also the friends who will bring their children over to play and entertain your children.  These friends are priceless.  Cultivate this friendship and tend it well.  (Something I am not always as diligent at as I need to be.)  Also, this is where the best  hand-me-downs come from.  The best stroller and the coolest winter jacket came from friends who have a child a year older than our oldest.  Her best party dress came from another friend blessed with two daughters.  Our oldest daughter looks on these bags of treasure as a year-long Christmas event.

·         At least one "airy-fairy" friend who can tell you that the child's behavior is caused by gravitational pull, tides, phase of the moon, barometric pressure, astrological sign, etc.  I'm not saying these things aren't all possible, rather that sometimes you desperately need to feel that the craziness stems from something that well and truly is out of your control.

·         A good dose of parents who have grown children to remind you that this is fleeting.    As aggravating and crazy-making as this stage may be, you will one day look back with nostalgia.  You will actually miss this day that can't end soon enough.  These parents also remind you that even children who resist toilet-training, turn up their nose at dinner, have tantrums and tease their siblings grow up to be productive members of society.   This friend helps to balance you out in moments of sheer desperation that it will ever turn out okay.

*Please note, nobody really knows what a phase is.  It sounds good and it is reassuring, but there is no time frame attached.  Nonetheless, the one thing about phases is that they do eventually end.  This part is true.  I swear.

Thank you to my friends who have been at my back with words of encouragement, liberal doses of humor and patience, and glasses of wine when they are needed. 

I do..

"Mama?  Do you remember when you married Dad?"
"Yes."
"How do you remember?"
"I just do.  It was a big day.  A big deal."
"Do you think Dad remembers?"
(insert adult punch-line here)  "I'm sure he does."
"What was I doing that day?"
"You weren't there.  You weren't born yet?"
(indignantly)  "Why didn't I get to go?"  (stomps off)

"I made this for you."

"It's you and Dad marrying."  (Clearly, Mom has been up all night based on her deep-sunken, completely dilated eyes.  Please note that Dad has also been in a recent fight as he is sporting a bloody nose.  I further offer that Mom is wearing a barely there slip-dress.  How chic!  Clearly no skirt was required that day.  Finally, shoe size has not been exaggerated for artistic effect on either party.  Sadly,....)

"That's beautiful Miss 4!  Look how happy we are!"

She scampers off and quietly works for another few minutes returning with the following:

"This is a better wedding.  See Little One and Miss 4 are there!" (I am clearly so overjoyed there is a balletic leap into my husband's mid-section,...or I am auditioning for the Matrix.  One of my children has succumbed to exhaustion, but happily, while the other stands by on one very, very long foot, grinning like the Cheshire Cat.  Clearly this is a happy day.  Veil, askew I gaze vapidly into the future, while my husband stares vacantly into space.  Actually, maybe this is a picture of parents with young children.   Dazed and glazed parents...child underfoot...sibling grinning mysteriously...Hmmmm.)

And before I can respond, she runs away and returns with the final episode of the trilogy:

"This is when we were jellyfish."   Gone is my jaunty leap, my fluttering veil and lithe figure.  Now I am a many-appendaged child-minder.  However, note that I am still happy.  I gaze lovingly at my tiny jellies.  I may be pulled in many directions, propelled by the ebb and flow of life around me, but it is okay.

"Do you like being my Jellyfish Mama?"

I do.  Unequivocally, I do.

La-La-La...I still hear you!

When I was a child, my sister and I could not chew gum or eat potato chips in the car because the sound would drive one of my parents right out of their tree.  It was one of the childhood moments that both mystified me and later became part of my list of things I would NEVER say as a parent.  How can anyone care THAT MUCH about a small noise I wondered?

Today I am humbled by the restraint it must have taken for said parent not to open the car door and leave us perched on the guardrails for the next available circus recruiter. 

For today, my oldest has followed me from room to room clicking her tongue, hissing, and singing in the vibrato soprano known especially to four year old girls for no fewer than two hours.  When this concert ended, the ghostly wailings and moanings began.  At the end of this round, we were presented with an operatic rendition of "I'm starving and I need a peanut butter sandwich".  (It closed to mixed reviews.)

It is taking everything I have not to scream and pull hair, (mine or anyone else's).   This is the kind of moment when I think I might be slightly too crazy to be a parent.    When I finally broke and snapped between clenched teeth, "Please go and sing somewhere else.  Away from me.  Away!"  She left the room singing in vibrato "Somewhere else, somewhere else, somewhere else."    I counted 32 repetitions before she moved on to random beatbox noises.

Are you freakin' kidding me?!?  I may not survive this.

Now that I have used my self-imposed time-out to fly the parenting distress flag, I need to go and be a Mama again. 

One with earplugs.

Just one more thing...

Tonight I spent the dinner hour with my parents, sister and her family, and my grandfather. 

It was humbling. 

Quite often I forget what it is all about.   Quite often I get lost in the "don't haves" and "can't do its" of my current moment in time.  So let me frame my evening for you with the following facts.

First, both children had napped, and were clean and smiling.  Second, my grandfather and I see each other every few weeks, but up until last year lived on the same plot of land, separated by a driveway.  Third, my grandfather has dementia and it is following the usual course.

 My youngest came out of the car seat and wrapped her arms around my father in a hug that lasted minutes.  My grandfather was happy to see all of us and seemed especially happy to get cuddles from his great grandchildren.  My oldest child was thrilled to be going to play with her "big cousin" and let out a shriek of joy when she saw him. The kids played nicely together, with the big taking care of the small, etc.

During dinner, my children ran, tipped things over, spilled, and did nearly everything but eat.  Just as my patience was about to wear thin to the point of snapping.  My grandfather looked at me and said "You've been blessed.  You have two beautiful and happy girls."   And you know what?  He's right. 

I am blessed to have them in my life.  I am blessed to have time with them that allows us to get under each other's skin.  I am blessed to have messes to clean up and teeth to brush and laundry to wash.  All of it means we are family.  We are living.  We are living together as a family.  It isn't always pretty, but it is a blessing.

And just one more thing, as we prepared to leave, my youngest climbed into her great grandpa's lap and leaned into his chest and began singing.  For a moment, I was able to see my grandfather as he was when I was a child; A mountain of a man who felt like the safest place for a child to rest.  Someone who would guard and guide me, protect and prepare me, and ultimately continue to teach me so much about life in very few words.  

I have been blessed.