Christmas 2012: the fattening

Can't talk. Candy. Roast beast. Wii. Guess who danced like a turducken and still got high score on DDR?

This person. These children have NO COORDINATION.

The cat was worse, though.

This year I made another knock-you-naked fruitcake. It had half a bottle of brandy soaked into it over a period of 3 weeks. And more in the hard sauce. And my family wouldn't let me eat it, of course, because I am hugely pregnant. That is gratitude for you.

But there was pie. Sadly, I seared off part of my thumb taking it out of the oven, and then a cat stepped in it while I was administering burn treatment. He didn't notice, tottered off, discovered pie on his foot, licked it off, and stared around, bewildered as to where it came from. Lucky cat.

I decided to serve the cat-print piece to whichever guest annoyed me, and then accidentally gave it to myself. Damn.

The kids wrote notes, left booze and a fretful gingerbread man, hung stockings, then ran to bed to read Christmas stories and toss sleeplessly.

"And stay in bed until 5am!" I said.

At 5am I was jolted awake by hands on my shoulders. "MOM IT'S 5AM SANTA CAME COME ON." 

5am. I did this.

By 7am, the house was demolished. It was perfect and wonderful.

Judging from the loot, Santa had opinions about what kind of year I've had. He gave me a banana slicer.

The pudding blazed. We need to get rid of the Braddah Kimo's rum before it sets the rafters on fire.

Whoops.

Successful holiday. And nobody has to catch a plane the next day.

the kid turns 10

Ten years ago, I had a baby. Dr. B shuffled in with his arms outstretched and his hair sticking up, let a nurse swoop a gown and gloves over his pajamas without breaking his stride, caught the tiny person like a football, and plopped him on my chest. He had tufts of hair on the tips of his ears (the baby, not the doctor), and a headful of dark hair which made my mother crow about her wily recessive genes.

Now a decade has gone by, and my boy is a creature of long legs and derpy laughs and goodness.

He sat beside me when I was upset over the news in Connecticut, and cried when he saw the picture of the principal who's children would have no mother for Christmas. I held his head against my chest and he kissed my belly.

His birthday was perfect, though. He conspired with his grandma for a homemade neapolitan cake with fresh buttercream, old enough now to choose flavor over novelty air-sprayed character cakes.

We watched the Hobbit (odd, I don't remember the parts in the book about frenetic battles on falling scaffolding and evil albino orcs on conveniently also-albino wargs - PETER JACKSON) and then hit D&B's for an evening of screaming neon overstimulation and obsessive gambling for rolls of tickets. 

There were Lego dwarfs, Hot Topic apparel, and headphones - gifts that denoted the new and growing shift from child to pre-adolescent.

Happy birthday, my good-hearted kid.

December things

My doctor said that I did not need to fast for the glucose test, but I decided to err on the side of caution. Then ate all the leftover hobbit stew from my mom's Lord of the Rings party. And arrived at the lab without my cards, so couldn't take the test anyway. Fails upon fails. Trying again tomorrow. Sans stew.

today, 27 weeks

The boy and I rarely spend time one-on-one. His ideal two-person playtime is an hour hanging paintings and shearing sheep on Minecraft, which is an activity I defer to the peen-possessing parent. My attempts to cultivate time involve sheets of cookies and scorched Sculpey figurines. So when my aunt came over with two tickets to the cousins' skating school holiday program, we snatched them up and ditched everyone for an evening sipping hot cocoa and watching kids in sequins faceplant on the ice.

my cousin is the cookie flailing off on the right

Worth every mile of Katy Perry and Lady Gaga.

Meanwhile, in the evenings over eggnog and stories with my mother, I improvised another damned baby garment.

details/guidelines on my ravelry page

Will need to take a lot of trips into freezer aisles to justify this much knitwear.

Also, the asshole cat got into the tree, knocked it over, and broke the topper. And the other cat punched a bunch of holes in the leather chair - not because she was scratching it, but because she's too fat to sit on the back of it without hanging on with her claws.

ALSO, the Apple nerds have confiscated the computer, so I have a new sketchbook. Hopefully something illustrative will come of this.

why I am not a teacher

I got a kindergarden workbook and a pack of stickers. I made plans to visit museums and the zoo and the aquarium. With just one child and a city's worth of enrichment, it would be impossible to fail.

It has been two days. The child has a black eye from rolling into a table corner, and this morning said to his dad as he left for work, "Bye-bye, boobies!" then laughed like a lunatic at himself. "I am practicing unschooling," I said defensively. "Which here means 'the opposite of learning'."

cake, birds, and trees

Am so tired. Was dragged to weird corner medical center when my head was exploding from sinuses-outward, laughed too much at the "blood and urine samples" box on the outside of the door, and was excited when the doctor's scale said I had only gained 15 lbs. Except I can't read numbers, got on the scale at home, and saw that it was actually 30. I had a very sad shower and got into a towel the size of a couch blanket.

Then there was my birthday. There was chinese food, cake, presents, and yarn. This was pretty great. 

At some point I knitted a Christmas sock. Just one.

The moment the 1st of December appeared, cookies and advent calendars and trees were employed.

It was the usual scene of bio-terror and mutation.

The birds turned into birds.

The boys behaved irresponsibly with the LED lights.

The child looked too much like an adolescent and I had to go make a hot buttered rum for someone.

I got very shmoopy about glass Janis Joplin and Metallica balls from college, 10 year-old baby ornaments for a long-limbed child, an R2-D2 ornament bought in Santa Cruz on the day I found out I was pregnant with Leif. 

Mike gathered us all up into a crushing hug. It's been sometimes sad and long months broken, but it's a 15 year story, and it's the one we have. Come Christmas, I'm always happy to have it.

Thanksgiving 2012

Am dying. Sinuses. Tried flushing the evil out of them with creepy saline rinse - was promised relief, got three days of sneezing salt water.

Despite this, THANKSGIVING. Which I love. With people I love. More of them in one place this year than in years past.

I fed the people cinnamon buns and mimosas while they played with birds and electronics.

My turkey was laughable, and weighed less than the cat. We ate the entire thing, and felt very accomplished. Next year, will go shopping sooner than two days beforehand, and beat those other greedy consumers off the 24lb birds - using the 12lb bird I ended up with.

I prepped the cousins on etiquette beforehand, and everyone got through the feast with minimal sucking-cup-onto-face-edness.

Now it is officially Christmas season, and I can stop pretending like I haven't already been listening to Baby it's Cold Outside for the past 2 weeks.

The only version of this song that doesn't sound like a date-rape ballad.

conversation with my mom

Discussing the marginal writing in Game of Thrones, which I've been reading because we've started watching the series.

me: The style is very woo, I'm writing a fantasy novel. Like, there's a dire wolf that is killed, but as she's dying she whelps her pups, and they're all, it's a sign! because there's one pup for each of the lord's children. And they're all too small to open their eyes, being just born and all, except for the albino wolf pup, who's eyes are open. For some reason.

mom: And then come to find out the pup has defective eyelids. And - it's a sign! It's a watch dog.


 I died.

I admit it

Being back home again after 6 years, I've been moving like someone reading crowded bathroom graffiti. The things I wanted to forget are still here, scrawled into every surface. People who left their imprints on the couch, voices on the phone, the loop of sidewalk I ran with angsty music in my ears, lanes of traffic I still navigate on auto-pilot. After all this time, it's comforting again.

So a few months ago, I found out that I was pregnant. This was not happy news - it made my hands shake and ears go cold. Around that time, the I wish my mother had aborted me article was circulating the internet, and I read it thoughtfully before deciding the article was bullshit. This was not a story about why a woman should have had an abortion - it was a story about why a woman should have dumped her damn boyfriend. It would have been my mother's story, my sister-in-law's story, my aunt's story, but these women bit down, left the men, and went on with their lives, education, and careers with their children. I still might have gone in for the pills, but my cousin had just lost her baby at 22 weeks, and it felt cold of me to discard the pregnancy while still grieving with the family for hers. I couldn't do it. But I had the choice, and being able to make that decision and move ahead with purpose was important. Had I been forced, I would have been desperate to claw it from my body.

So I needed to leave Maui, like, now. I had been interviewing for transfers for months, and the government hiring scene was grim. Leap and the net will appear, they say. I sent the kids ahead to Oahu. I gave up the job. Mike came and gathered me bodily to take me home. I had mixed feelings about that. I can't get rid of him, but I need the help, and he's kind.

Now there is family, and illustration, and holidays, and time. Gavin rides to school on the back of my mom's motorcycle, wearing a new helmet because he outgrew his old one - which makes him a hell of a lot cooler than I was at 9 years old, and gives me a lurch of anxiety every time I wave goodbye manically to them in the mornings. Leif is finishing his month at preschool before staying home to challenge my skills as nurturing stay-at-home parent - a gig which drove me to get my Master's degree and publish a book the first time I attempted it. I've been making a routine of housework and cooking, which has resulted in my closing myself into doors, splattering dishwater and stove grease all over my belly, falling over headlong while trying to bend over with a dustpan, and scrabbling on furniture to stand up after sitting down and getting stuck. My natural pelican-like grace has been even further compromised. I'm still trying to figure out how I feel about this thing that is happening, but I've been making sure to separate my feelings about the pregnancy from my feelings about the baby. She didn't do anything wrong here, and she's mine. The little kicks and hiccups make it easier. She's a quieter fetus than the boys were, so far.

yesterday, 24 weeks

I've also become reluctantly attached to the ugly little baby birds, which I've been nannying during the days. They have horrifying little feathers now. Should knit them a snugli.

erlack. And awww.

So that's that. I am embarrassed and scared and determined and optimistic. Which is pretty standard stuff for this type of thing. So if I look suspiciously fat in some of my recent pictures, that is why. And it's just how it's going to be for the next 3 months. 

settling

So far, in my new role of household layabout, I have managed in less than a week to completely destroy my mother's house. Also, I don't know how to open the dishwasher.

The barge unit arrived, a van was rented, the inherited furniture was unloaded (these are my mother's, entrusted to me by a relative in California 4 years ago, which has taken this long to get home to her because of inter-island shenanigans), and in order to make room for the hutch, a desk had to be moved. This desk caused a shuffling of furniture which resulted in a wall-length mirror getting torn out. The adhesive on the mirror gouged giant holes in the wall. Which necessitated patching and painting, and meanwhile everything has been crammed with boxes of books which can't be unloaded without the shelves, which can't be mounted until the wall is repaired, and it is just a chain-reaction of logistical fuckery. The closets need to be arranged to accommodate trunks and a couple bins of quilts and holiday trappings, and I suck at Tetris. I have the spacial-arrangement skills of a thing that doesn't have any spacial-arrangement skills. Also no attention span for it. Guess what I am supposed to be doing right now?

Not this.

On top of moving hassles, a very distressed construction worker showed up at the house with a box full of baby birds he found while tearing out an attic, because my mom has a reputation for being some sort of wild bird rescue wizard. 

They are the most adorably horrifying things ever, and now my mom is in love with them. She carries them in a little box stuffed down her motorcycle jacket, keeps them under a warming light, and plugs them full of baby bird formula with a syringe every 30 minutes. They are supposed to turn into Java Sparrows.

I am not sure about this. They look more like Skeksis to me.

 Laundry to fold. Boxes to unpack. Furniture to shuffle. Dishwasher to take a crowbar to. I am doing it.

Halloween 2012

Rescue

While our friend Jeanie's house in Breezy Point burned to the ground, I was being retrieved from Maui in a permanent manner. Finding ourselves with three cats and two carriers, Mike and I cut peep holes in a cardboard box, stuffed the largest hamcat into it, and duct-taped it shut. 20 minutes into the 2-hour drive to town, Sookie pooped in the box. We pulled over the car and the moving van, ripped open the duct tape, laid down fresh piddle pads, stuck her back in, and weighed the top shut with my backpack.

40 minutes later, she pooped again.

And escaped out the top of the box.

And got poop all over my backpack.

There was wrestling and tape stuck to the cat and expletives and flailing with pee pads, then she was back in the box, box turned on its side to trap her in, seat belt around the box. The other cats gave her side-eye from their carriers.

Mike unloaded furniture from the van and packed a barge unit single-handedly (amazing) while I checked the car in for shipment. We rode the empty van to Walmart, got a large carrier for the enormous cat, and she trotted inside it with obvious relief. We have forever ruined her potential to be the next internet box cat.

All went well until the plane landed in Honolulu, and I paced the baggage claim, waiting for someone to come out with my hamcat. Finally, a guilty-looking employee emerged with the carrier, admitted that the clips had all burst open, the carrier had fallen apart, and that Sookie the hambeast had been loose in the cargo hold when they finally found and caught her behind some baggage. She looked as if she did not appreciate the adventure, huddled in the back of the carrier with saucer-eyes.

My mom fetched us from the airport; Gavin hugged me tightly while I kissed his hair, then crooned into the carriers at the angry cats.

When we stopped at the preschool to pick up Leif, he ran and tackled me, and we kissed each other until we cried. I missed my boys so much, it's still hard to believe that the difficulty of this past year is over, that we can relax as a family, and nobody has to leave again.

Halloween

The next morning, Sal was on Day 3 with no power in New York, Jeanie started her trip home to rescue her family, and Leif helped me hang up paper decorations to lure trick-or-treaters.

The pumpkin was adorable, the biggest one Leif could carry home from his preschool field trip to the pumpkin patch. Gavin designed, I carved. My kids are weenies about getting pumpkin goo on their hands, which I always thought was the best part.

The young cousins stormed the house, and Gavin had a great time terrorizing the picky eaters with my meal preparations - "Mom is making OCTOPUS for dinner!" These were wieners that were snipped at the ends so they curled into tentacles when you boiled them.

When I put their plates out they ate the poor creatures in a gruesome, ketchup-bloody manner. So that worked according to plan.

The valley swarms with tiny ghouls every year, and we had a mountain of candy to appease them. Fewer and fewer lights have been on in recent years, and small feet have to venture farther into the neighborhood to fill their buckets, but we found haunted houses, graveyards of zombies, and tents full of drunk Bob Marleys despite the flagging economy. 

I SAID HOLD STILL AND LOOK CUTE

man and spawn

 horribly unflattering picture of the women-folk and sprogs

My mom, Valhallarama, stayed behind with her sister, Betsy Ross, and handed out candy with Sweet Transvestite blaring on the stereo. The littles gave out before the big kids, so I brought them home to dump out their loot and took up my traditional duty as Beer Wench, keeping the adults watered.

The big kids staggered in not long after, and we raged with sugar until the last sorry teenagers straggled through at 9pm.

Success.