Holpineville

Merry Christmas from the Family*

I just thought I should check in.  We’re fine.  Christmas (and poor Rod’s birthday) was very good.  Santa came, we are rolling in an embarrassing number of presents, we reveled in moments of wonder, awe and holiday spirit. We ate a lot, drank a lot, shared the joy, loved each other and generally felt luckier than ought to be allowed. 

And yet, it’s Christmas as an adult: Even the sweetest parts have their bitter undercoating.  I was sick and sleepless the whole week before Christmas, and really, I am still not quite out of it. I gave the virus to Rod; he seems a little less sick than I was, but he still sounds awful.  During that week, I spent a lot of time and energy trying to make things festive, partly for the kids, partly for me.  Partly, I succeeded; partly, I didn’t.  And it feels like I lost nine days in the frenzy and now I'm trying to pack two weeks of vacation into one. 

I find, too, that I miss my old tribe.  It just seems wrong, it being only the four of us on Christmas Day.  My in-laws are averse to holiday travel, for which I don’t blame them at bit.  My dad would love to see us, but he’s far away and long remarried, with another set of schedules to juggle, so we don’t have every Christmas together.  And at holidays, I miss my dead mom, my dead grandparents, the dead uncle and the dead aunt and all those cousins, and even the relatives I can’t quite figure out how I’m related to.  It wasn’t that things were so perfect back in the day when it was a given I would see some large fraction of them all at holiday time, but it was a kind of built-in celebration system and bonding opportunity, and it evidently set my expectations for what Christmas is supposed to be.  It could be worse: my sisters got stuck doing the working spinsters thing alone together this year, for instance.  And yes, we could have hit the road and imposed on someone, but it just wasn’t feasible, schedule-wise or money-wise this year.  Sigh. You don't know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone….my life really is a series of pop music clichés, people.

Now in Holpineville we’re getting ready:  planning for the New Year’s Eve party we nearly always have, even though (or maybe because) I hate New Year’s Eve; getting some PTO stuff ready to go, because school starts right away after New Year’s and the spring agenda is packed; wrapping up some year-end bills and paperwork and cleaning out some long-term household messes.  Carl is nearly done assembling his Christmas Legos (all five big sets) and Rod is obsessively printing giant Lego minifigures (or would that be, Maxifigures?) on that damn 3-D printer with some silver plastic Ruby lovingly bought him for Christmas, just for fun and to make the kids happy. I’ve also given him a list of things to fix around here, and I think he wants to brew some beer, and did I mention, he’s not feeling so hot?

 

 

*Beloved local-color holiday song traditionally sung each year at our friends’ Christmas Eve caroling party; a wonderful mish-mash of hymns and popular songs and kids and dads volunteering to play piano, guitar, recorder, tambourine, maracas, and sing solos…it was glorious as usual this year.   If you celebrate Christmas or Hannukah, I hope you had a moment or two of transcendental joy and peace, too. 

 

9:20 p.m.

The time of the last knock on the door Halloween night, in case you were wondering.

What is with all the adults trick or treating?  Some of them told me it was “for the baby, he’s in the car,” but still.  I know times are hard, trick or treating is (sort of) fun, and candy is expensive, but still.  Weird. Also, your school-age children need to be in bed by 8:30, and the younger ones before that.  But I’ll still give you candy and wish you a Happy Halloween!

The fact that we had any trick or treaters at all is cause for great celebration.  It’s weird; we live on the edge of one of those neighborhoods where people buy 22 pounds of candy and it’s all gone in an hour and then they have to turn off all the lights and hide behind the sofa.  But cross one intersection, and you’re in my turf, where we’re participating in a neighborhood “safe trick-or-treating!” program to try to get even a few visitors.

It seems that Carl was originally going to be a “spy.”  For a day or two, he offered Ruby a choice:  keep the secret about his costume idea and get a Jolly Rancher.  Or, spill the beans and face certain death.  Well, which will it be? Jolly Rancher?  -- or Death!?  

Which amused me at idle moments for the better part of a week: “Jolly Rancher? Or Death?”

But then he heard someone else had that idea, to be a spy.  So Carl had another plan, but it, too, was rejected for some reason.  And then he was going to be “a midget,” including crouched-over duck-walking and wearing oversized clothing, but then he and I had a chat about how he was wearing mostly normal attire, and he’s not really midget-y, and isn’t that a term that’s sort of out of favor, anyway?  Carl said he’d just be a dwarf instead, and I explained that dwarfism isn’t really something to be made fun of, or into a Halloween costume, and so he settled on being “Sleepy Guy” or “Lazy Guy”, because he was carrying a pillowcase to collect candy.  The big conclusion:  he doesn’t really like costumes, and now I sort of understand all the underdressed preteens who come up to my door asking for candy.  Maybe they’re all just part of Carl’s tribe. 

Ruby was a good Athena.  But: at 2 p.m. I got a call from school that she was in the nurse’s office (just a term of speech, because we don’t actually have a school nurse, after all those state budget cuts, thanks , Rick Perry!)  and feeling bad.  Was she really ill?  There are plenty of viruses going around, to be sure.  And surely she’s not dumb enough to fake it on Halloween?  And yet, she had a math tutorial today, which she would prefer to avoid…. In the end, I’m not sure.  No real fever, but she looked pretty pale and acted a little wonky.  She had a snack at home and I made her do her homework and then I proclaimed her fit to trick or treat, which she did.  We shall see how she is tomorrow.

There is not a lot to recap.  I have been doing some embroidery (no, I can’t really explain it, either.)  Carl continues courting his new, older, more sophisticated pals at school and managed to finagle a sleepover with one of them on Saturday.  Rod has been working hard at his actual job, and at child tending, and at assembling this super-ultra-cool 3-D printer/prototype thing he bought. 

Ruby did a whole lot of long division over the weekend, against her will, and really, mine.  Saturday night she went with an acquaintance to a party at one of those churches that doesn’t really acknowledge the existence of Halloween, yet still feels compelled to host a party around that date every year.  She emerged unscathed (and unconverted) and then decided to spend the night with the acquaintance, which was a big step.  Maybe she’ll make a new friend; she could use more.

This week is full of PTO drivel.  There is good news:  the school was moved from the “Unacceptable” (no kidding, that’s what it’s called) List to “Academically Acceptable” and finally the principal and teachers can sleep at night.  The whole system is a bunch of caca, I have to tell you, much as I like ratings and data and would like to have a useful state rating system .  I have been completely disillusioned by this process. 

And there is PTO drama:  Big Fall Festival is on Friday!  Bake Sale (no, not kidding about that, either) next week.  I will be exhausted and cranky--- well, I am already, truth be told.  This weekend, Ruby has the debut of her latest musical stage production: African Find.  It cracks me up that my kid is a composer and stage producer, but she is; thank you, Music Teacher Extraodinaire. 

On the weekend, Rod has his 20^th college reunion.  Mine was last year (he is actually older than me, but I am smarter, and therefore I finished college sooner, you see).  However, I know a lot of people from his year and therefore I have to worry about what if that cute guy I always sort of liked shows up, and what about that girl Rod went out with just enough times to make me jealous while I was studying abroad, and what on Earth am I going to wear, and how twenty years have not been precisely kind to my looks, and maybe I should  have pursued an actual-capital C-Career so I’d have something to talk about…. Which will likely end up being stress all for naught, and I will just be happy to see people I haven’t seen in a long time.  But I can’t help myself.   Is it too late for Botox and a partnership-track job?

 

 

Summer already

My long, heartfelt post about the end of school and events of this week was tragically eaten some Typepad stall-out.  How it hurt to click the button that closed the web browser!  So I offer instead a brief recap:

Hurricane season opened. 

School ended, and I did not really cry like I thought I would.  I was too busy taking pictures and arranging a playdate at the appropriate moment.  The other room parent and I got beautiful mosaic stepping stones made and autographed on the back by the whole class, and that did make me slightly weepy.  Ruby brought home her report card, her journal, a stack of homework, a photo album from her teacher, and a sweet little poem and gift bag from her teacher.   In an effort to improve (and by that I mean "create") a process for storing all the school papers and artwork, I bought a really cool but ridiculously expensive storage system for each kid.  Yes, it's just a big box with other boxes that fit inside it, but it's archival!  It'll hold everything through high school!  It's cute!  Ruby has pretty well taken over the thing, even though I keep explaining it's for Mommy to store things. 

Ruby is at zoo camp this week, and seems to be having a great time. She's studying water animals and from what I gather she gets to see things like piranha feedings and elephant washing, she does art work, and she does experiments that explain why the ocean is salty, for instance.  We could all learn a lot from the folks who organize zoo camp, with the cute t-shirts and everything all neatly arranged and the color coded, electronic sign-in, and costumed characters greeting everyone in the mornings.  The only thing I've ever encountered close to it was Disn@y world.

Carl is still at preschool, because he's still too young for most camps, and yet I can't have him underfoot all the time, right? Don't feel too bad for the little tyke; the summer class is a lot smaller and they are doing a lot of art, water play, and goofing off.  He is grumbling about going, but he seems happy enough once he gets there.

I am trying to figure out how to work a little quasi-academic activity into Ruby's summer routine.  Generally Ruby practices her reading at bedtime, which is too late; she is crabby and tired and fuzzy by then, so we need to find a better time.  I would really like to see her make some real reading progress this summer.  Right now, she reads pretty well on a first to second grade level, but you can tell it's a challenge for her, and I don't think she'd choose reading as her fun activity of choice.  On the other hand, she loves to be read to, so I do have hope that she'll get there soon enough.  At the very least, I don't want her to lose any ground over the summer, as she is going into the class with the formidable Gifted and Talented crowd and I know many of those kids are ace readers already.  I'd also like to have her do some journaling/letters/other writing, and to work on day-to-day math a bit.  But I don't want summer to be a drag, and I don't want to turn into one of those pushy crazy moms with the phonics tapes and workbooks and charts. 

As for me, well, I haven't had any time to go car shopping, but I do have new witnesses to my car air conditioning problem.  I want Rod to go with me to test drive, and I think he'd like to, but guess what?  He's way too busy!  So, I will have to just go do it; let the sales managers do their worst. I am trying to get some cleaning out and organizing done, and to get to the gym.  Otherwise, I mostly drive kids around, pack and unpack the pool/camp/preschool bags, put sunscreen on people against their will, and do dishes and laundry.  It's a glamorous life, you know. 

Carl has been a challenge this week, the management of him bringing me to the point of tears more than once and pushing Rod's buttons excessively, too.  I know deep down this is not really Carl's fault, but more a matter of how his parents have been choosing to respond to him, right?   Or maybe he's just a twerp.  Ruby 's party is Saturday, so I need to quickly pull together the food and whatever.  I have only the vaguest idea how many people are coming, which worries me only in that I might run out of favors or cupcakes, or the birthday girl might be sad that no one's there.  I guess I need to come through with a present for her, too, and Carl is already gearing up for a major jealous fit over the whole thing.  

One of our cats has been trying to get out of the house for over a year, and he's been increasingly successful at slipping past no matter how quickly we slam the door.  So last weekend, we surrendered and let him out.  And out Sir Plus has been, many hours a day since then.  He comes back dirty, with a coat full of burrs, and happy.  I am still not thrilled about it, because my previous cats that went outside all ended up being run over sooner or later, andresearch suggests that letting cats be outdoors cuts their life expectancies by 1/2 to 2/3.  But the doorway is a much more peaceful place now.

Rod is going to Norway next week, because it's lovely there this time of year (and yes, I am deeply jealous.).  Ruby will have a week off from camps, or a week to pester me all she wants, depending on how you look at it.