Books, books, and books. Christmas was great, except that I ate too much chocolate and had a bad time with some Christmas spirits (the kind from the bottle, not from Dickens), and ended up sitting on the bathroom floor in the middle of the night, firmly telling myself that I was not dying. I would not throw up, I would not burst a heart valve, I would live. I just hate scotch a lot.
And I did live. "We won't see you for a week!" my mother said as I read my pile of new books, and then she kept interrupting me for the next three days. I read a few paragraphs while putting Gavin down for his nap. I found myself with a whole page uninterrupted this afternoon, and then Mike wandered out of the kitchen with a beer, pondering the meaning of life. I lowered my book an inch and stared at him. "I'm sorry, I'm bothering you," he said, and then he sat down to play the violin. After a few minutes, the terrible sounds he was making discouraged him, and he turned it over to pluck it like a guitar. I kept reading, resigned.
The book is Inconsolable, how I threw my mental health out with the diapers, written by a friend of mine on the joys of postpartum depression. It's a funny and sharp look at society's expectations of motherhood, and it was resting in the passenger seat of the car as we finally dragged our late and irritable bodies into the RSCDS Boxing Day party last night. The party hall has Art Deco architecture, with a wide fireplace and Frank Lloyd Wright lighting. I ended up outside on the terrace with the other mother, Nicole, watching our children hold hands and dance to the music. Nicole has two little girls, one a year older and one a year younger than Gavin. She is pregnant with a third. She homeschools. She is my age. Her husband elbowed Mike and told him he had better get cracking on knocking me up again. Nicole laughed about how angry she has been this pregnancy, smiling benignly down on the kids with hollow eyes. I kind of laughed, too, though I didn't find it funny at all. She watched her girls run shrieking in circles around Gavin, who reacted by lying on the floor and letting them use him as a hurdle. The younger of the two slipped on her small legs and clocked him solidly in the head with her boot. He waved his hands quickly and said, "No, no, I'm not hurt," as I stepped forward to check on him. "You have a boy, and my girls are so much rougher," Nicole said, trying to smile again. I thought about the book in the car, wondered what she would think of me pressing it into her hands and whispering, "Fuck Dr. Sears, Nicole."
But Christmas came and went again. Tonight I made a Thai curry out of leftover roast beef ("Oh, the roast beef!" Mike says; he loves large hunks of meat) and Polar Express has taken center stage on the television as Gavin nurses a holiday head cold. We had my aunt and her husband over for cornish game hens, the old tensions lubricated by the flow of wine. Gavin caught on to the mistletoe enthusiastically, distributing dozens of kisses. Chris stuffed as many cookies as he could fit into his face. Mike worked, but at least toted a pound of meat with him to the theater.
Burns Night is coming up, and I have been nominated to serve as Poosie Nansie, the bearer of the celebratory scotch to accompany the haggis. I get to wear a wimple for the first time, tactfully offset by a pushup bra, I think.
edited to add:
Fluffy stuff: Gavin was so inspired by the sight of Nicole's pregnant belly that he has been pushing chocolate into my hands, saying, "Eat, eat, mom! You need a fat belly too!" He thinks I will pop out a baby for him if I eat large amounts of candy. He may be slightly misled.
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