I know many of you will find this divulgence shocking: I am not the most patient mother that ever sat down to read a book with her Kindergarteners. When a note came home from school a while ago informing us that we would be starting homework assignments, I cringed in horror - homeschooler I am not - and then put it completely out of my mind and went back to sucking down my chai and telling my kids that they can come upstairs and do fun crafts with me just as soon as they finish picking up the basement toy room, which never happens. MWHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
As promised, the damn folders came home. Red for Saige and green for Garrett. How organized. Inside each cheerful, colorful folder nestled a small book - a level one reader - and a sheet on which to mark each day of the week that I sat down with my small children, cuddled close under a blanket on the couch by the fire, and snuggled them while they learned the joy of reading and discovered their inner literary genius.
This isn't so bad, I lied to myself, this will be fun. I should be reading with them. A good mother would enjoy reading with her children and watching them uncover the magic of the written word. Besides, I could hardly begin their twenty year (one can dream) foray into education by sniping about how boring homework is. FOR ME.
About Wednesday, I remembered the reading assignments in a panic and chirped happily in the van on the way home from school, "We get to read your books tonight. We get to do your homework. I want to sit and have you read the books to me."
"NOOOOOOOOOO," Garrett screeched from the rear seat, "BORING! I DON'T WANT TO! I'M DONE WITH SCHOOL TODAY."
Well, it was hard to argue with that logic. It is boring and he had been at school all day, but we needed a positive attitude to set forth on our path to higher education.
"Oh, I'll do it with you. It'll be fun." Come on, you brat, I never do that. Work with me here.
He whinged the whole way home and so I wisely started with Saige.
Her book was called, I LOVE MESS. Apt. I snuggled. There was even a blanket. We looked at the cover together.
"Can you read it?" I asked her.
"I."
"Yes!" She could read! Hallelujah. Maybe this wouldn't be so painful after all.
"Lllll."
"Good."
"I don't know."
Hmmmmmm. "Lllll-ooooo-vvvvvv."
Blank look.
"Don't you sound out at school?"
"Yes."
"Lllllllllll uuuuuuuuu vvvvvvvv." I demonstrated.
"Love."
"Right. Great job."
"I love paint." No. "I love crayons?!" "No, we're not guessing, Saige, we're reading, you have to sound it out. I love mmmmm...." "I love MOMMY!" Sweet, but no. "I LOVE MICE! I LOVE MONSTERS!"
"Mmmmmmm eeeeeee?"
"I LOVE Meeeee .... MARBLES?"
No.
"I LOVE COLORING!"
Okay, that doesn't even start with M, you're not even trying here.
"I love mmmmmmeeeeeeeessssss. mmmeeesss."
"I don't know."
I hate learning to read. How is this that difficult? What's wrong with this child's brain. It's broken. Mine's broken.
"I love m-e-ss."
"I love mess!!"
"Yes, good reading!" If your first language is Nepali. What have you even been doing at Kindergarten for seven months. Why are we paying hundreds of dollars a month? Do you know how many chais that is? I might be able to endure this torture if I had another chai.
"Alright, let's try the first page."
"I. love."
"Good reading!"
"MOMMY!!"
Sucking up is not doing it for me. "Mess."
"MESS!!"
"Good. Reading?" Bring me the Great Dane, I think I could teach him to read faster than this.
Page two.
"I. love. COLORS!" no. "CRAYONS!" no. "RED!" NO!
Deep breath. "Sweetheart. What does that word start with?" And god get this damn blanket off me, I'm sweating.
"P."
"What does p say? See we're not guessing, we're sounding out. I. love. Pa, pa-aaaa-nnnn???"
Blank, like an empty, illiterate child that lives with her parents until she's forty.
"teh?"
"RIGHT!!!!!" Praise the lord. "P-aaaa-nnnn-ttttt."
"PAINT!"
"Good. I love..."
"Color?!"
"Paint. I love paint. Okay good, get your brother."
"There's more pages?"
"Those are for tomorrow. GARRRETTTT!!!"
"I DON'T WANT TO IT'S BORING."
YOU BET YOUR UNHAIRY LITTLE ASS IT IS AND IF I SUFFER EVERYONE SUFFERS. GET! OVER! HERE!
"No, honey, it will be fun, just two pages." Hahahaha, because that's all mommy can take.
Not so much with the snuggling, he just wallowed uncomfortably in my lap with his book in his hands, entitled, I DID IT.
"What's the title?"
"I don't know."
???? I am raising children with the intelligence of golden retrievers. Dumb golden retrievers.
"I?"
"Right, good reading. D - i - d."
"Did!"
"Excellent."
"It!"
OMFG, BOY GENIUS.
"I did it. That's the title. Okay, here we go. What's this letter?"
"Bee."
"What does bee say?"
'Bah."
We've achieved hunting terrier IQ here. I believe at least one of my children could be successfully trained to fetch dead rodents.
"Ba-ba-ttttt-ooonnnnn. Bu-ttt-ooonnnn."
"Button!"
"Yes." I pointed to the next three words. In a unpredictable plot twist, they were, I did it.
"I." Yes! "Buttoned it!!"
Logical, but no. "I did it. Button. I did it."
Page two.
"Zzzzzz-iiii-pppppp."
"Zip!"
"Yes! Good reading!" Someone bring me a bacon treat, I need to reinforce repetition here.
"Zip. I?"
"Zipped it!!!!"
"No. I did it. Zip. I d - i - d it." Are you sensing a theme here? Because I'm sensing a theme.
"S-n-a-p. SNNNN AAAA PPPPP."
"Snap?"
"Right. I. Think? What's that word?"
?????? There's nothing in there. It's like reading with a eager-to-please chipmunk.
"Da-da? i-i-i? d?" My brain cells are crying out in agony and jumping off of neuron cliffs. This is how Alzheimer's begins.
"I snapped it?"
"Noooooo."
"I DID IT????!!!"
"Yes. Fabulous. Okay, that was fun."
"There's more pages."
"I'm done. We need to save some for tomorrow."
********************************
Da-ddd-errrr-iiinnnn-kkkk. I drinked it. I love drunk.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Saturday, January 29, 2011
It's not a party until someone wears the pinata
If you've been visiting me here for a while, you may recall our 2010 trip to Mexico and the ensuing pinata hilarity. (One-sided hilarity perhaps, but still. Who doesn't laugh at a terrified six month old baby trapped in a pinata head?)
I'm a sucker for traditions, especially traditions involving bats and hard alcohol, and so, thankfully, are the rest of our Mexico trip compatriots. The children started clamoring for the pinata on day one. I started clamoring for the rum before we got out of Denver.
I jest. In large part.
BEHOLD! The second annual Mexican vacation pinata party. I think the pictures speak for themselves. About the adult pina colada consumption, mainly.
Meet Buzz. (SPOILER: He dies later.)
Meet all but one of the children. Getting a picture of six excited children borders on impossible.
Meet Jeremy. Who wore his kilt. It doesn't get any more awesome than that.
It's a go. Give the small children a huge stick.
Mortal head wound.
The kids are whining for candy, let kilt man take a whack at it.
That's what I'm talking about.
Candy! Candy! CANDYCANDYCANDYOMFGCANDY!!!!!
Down with Buzz, the brutal candy dictator.
Let the real fun begin. For me.
Pinata heads are all the rage this year, you know.
I can't. Can somebody? I need. I CANNOT TASTE MY LOLLIPOP.
It never gets old. Two years later.
Not only no, but f.u.c.k no. You people suck.
Oh, evil parents everywhere, there is more than one way to terrorize a baby.
No words needed, really. I think this one wraps that up nicely. You are insanely glad you don't have to hang out with us right now, aren't you?
Exhibit 1. I give you Harvard to Homemaker. A full participant in the debauchery, looking lovely and tropical. God, I love social media.
I jest. In large part.
BEHOLD! The second annual Mexican vacation pinata party. I think the pictures speak for themselves. About the adult pina colada consumption, mainly.
It's a go. Give the small children a huge stick.
Let the real fun begin. For me.
It never gets old. Two years later.
Update: Ah yes, let's take that shot of Saige out a bit, shall we?
Sunday, January 23, 2011
What matters
Don't you want to do this on our own again some day? Remember? he asks me, his lips against the side of my head, his familiar body in an unfamiliar bed in a borrowed house on a foreign beach a perfect fit for mine, resting against his side. Remember Bali? Remember reading in bed until ten? Remember walking all day just to see what we could find? It is barely six and we can here the boys talking upstairs in the room next to Elise and Jeremy. Soon they will be too loud to ignore. Soon I will have to scurry up the stairs and bring them down so that they don't wake the entire house. Our day begins, involuntarily, as light breaks over the ocean.
I do remember.
I remember stretching of my own volition at 6:30 a.m. and padding to a sunrise yoga class, getting to work early and sipping coffee while I laughed at the antics of Al, our office assistant, whose presence was useless because his work day never started until at least 10:30 or 11:00. I remember long, luxurious lunches in the heat of the tropical noon with no rush, no pressure, another round of sweet tea, please, the new lawyer from the AG's Office just got here. It didn't matter, I could work until 7 p.m. to make up the time and then wander across the street to the beachside bar to sip a beer and swat mosquitoes with my husband after he'd locked up the pharmacy. We watched the sun sizzle into the Pacific.
I remember loading the kayak on our rusted-out old police jeep. The roof leaked where the light bar used to be attached, the faded logo of its former life could still be seen on the side. We sniped angrily at each other when I couldn't lift the boat high enough above my head. I remember the rain-rutted coral road to Lau Lau Bay where the silent gray beauty of the sea and the reef and the sky and the earth and the universe put an end to our crankiness and we just lay, mouths open, hearts full and watched the world spin.
I remember. I remember riding bicycles in China. I remember closing down restaurants in Barcelona. I remember a time when a day of flying was a secret pleasure, the quiet, the time to read, the escape, not an exercise in child-parent torture.
I remember. I remember. I remember. And I miss it so much.
******************************
The alarm goes off a short five hours after we landed at our bitterly cold home airport and half-dragged, half-coaxed our exhausted children to our sluggish, frozen Suburban. I raise my head and groan, wishing in the dark to just not care, to stay here under the blankets and the goose-down duvet beside the man I have loved for more than half my life.
I rise and pull on my long-underwear. My jeans, my bra, my shirt, my sweater, my fleece. It's not enough; I am still cold. It's an unearthly cold, this early morning, a cold that can't be fought with layers or inefficient heating systems or hot drinks. A cold that forms a strange, chill sweat under the useless layers of my clothes.
The appointment is at 7:00 and I don't want to be late, though I don't want to go. They will look at my uterus with dye this time because I haven't had my periods since Nate was weaned. A year now. A year ago. Because it appears that the surgery to deal with the chunks after Nate's birth also caused scarring and adhesions that have permanently damaged that strong and delicate part of my body.
Does it matter? That's what we keep asking. Haven't we been discussing this very thing? Haven't we considered permanently damaging this part of one of us for months? Does it matter? Does it? I have loved this part of my life, but I have loved other things and I will love things yet to come that I haven't imagined yet.
I remember snorkeling Three Corners in Palau, the reef sharks circling below me.
Does it matter?
We fantasize about a loft in the center of some amazing, international city where direct flights leave daily for every part of the world. Where people linger in restaurants until midnight and read the Times over coffee until ten. Where our late-teen, early-twenty, know-it-all offspring will visit us.
Does it matter?
How is it that such different things can matter all at once?
I do remember.
I remember stretching of my own volition at 6:30 a.m. and padding to a sunrise yoga class, getting to work early and sipping coffee while I laughed at the antics of Al, our office assistant, whose presence was useless because his work day never started until at least 10:30 or 11:00. I remember long, luxurious lunches in the heat of the tropical noon with no rush, no pressure, another round of sweet tea, please, the new lawyer from the AG's Office just got here. It didn't matter, I could work until 7 p.m. to make up the time and then wander across the street to the beachside bar to sip a beer and swat mosquitoes with my husband after he'd locked up the pharmacy. We watched the sun sizzle into the Pacific.
I remember loading the kayak on our rusted-out old police jeep. The roof leaked where the light bar used to be attached, the faded logo of its former life could still be seen on the side. We sniped angrily at each other when I couldn't lift the boat high enough above my head. I remember the rain-rutted coral road to Lau Lau Bay where the silent gray beauty of the sea and the reef and the sky and the earth and the universe put an end to our crankiness and we just lay, mouths open, hearts full and watched the world spin.
I remember. I remember riding bicycles in China. I remember closing down restaurants in Barcelona. I remember a time when a day of flying was a secret pleasure, the quiet, the time to read, the escape, not an exercise in child-parent torture.
I remember. I remember. I remember. And I miss it so much.
******************************
The alarm goes off a short five hours after we landed at our bitterly cold home airport and half-dragged, half-coaxed our exhausted children to our sluggish, frozen Suburban. I raise my head and groan, wishing in the dark to just not care, to stay here under the blankets and the goose-down duvet beside the man I have loved for more than half my life.
I rise and pull on my long-underwear. My jeans, my bra, my shirt, my sweater, my fleece. It's not enough; I am still cold. It's an unearthly cold, this early morning, a cold that can't be fought with layers or inefficient heating systems or hot drinks. A cold that forms a strange, chill sweat under the useless layers of my clothes.
The appointment is at 7:00 and I don't want to be late, though I don't want to go. They will look at my uterus with dye this time because I haven't had my periods since Nate was weaned. A year now. A year ago. Because it appears that the surgery to deal with the chunks after Nate's birth also caused scarring and adhesions that have permanently damaged that strong and delicate part of my body.
Does it matter? That's what we keep asking. Haven't we been discussing this very thing? Haven't we considered permanently damaging this part of one of us for months? Does it matter? Does it? I have loved this part of my life, but I have loved other things and I will love things yet to come that I haven't imagined yet.
I remember snorkeling Three Corners in Palau, the reef sharks circling below me.
Does it matter?
We fantasize about a loft in the center of some amazing, international city where direct flights leave daily for every part of the world. Where people linger in restaurants until midnight and read the Times over coffee until ten. Where our late-teen, early-twenty, know-it-all offspring will visit us.
Does it matter?
How is it that such different things can matter all at once?
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Children are foul. The end.
So many ideas churn around in my head. Little stories of children in the sun. Moments of joy. Naked baby butts in the sand. Sunset strolls on the beach. Ice cream dripping from chins. Big realizations of the life-and-future varieties that dissolved back into confusion when my toes touched the cold, hard, frozen-freaking-solid pavement on the Border of Idaho.
Walking in the surf does something to me. Something that makes me feel profound and certain and imbued with direction that I immediately lose when faced with reality. Like my Garmin short-circuited on contact with my actual life.
My thoughts are like the laundry I should be washing. In that example, my thoughts are the laundry and they are spinning in my washing machine brain. I can't even do metaphors this morning. I give up. Since I can't think, I bring you:
Uno: For three hours, Nate mopped the Cancun airport floor with his entire body. Because it's not enough to touch every single surface between Cancun and the Idaho Border. Oh no. We must marinate in the filth. All of the children also kindly dusted between and under all of the rows of seats at our boarding gate where the mops and disinfectant are unable to reach. Gate C22. You could eat off of the floor. You are so very welcome, Mexico.
Dos: Saige peed in a public airport toilet, which involved clutching both sides of the seat with full finger wrappage around to sticky, gag-inducing rim for fear that the toilet will flushwithherbehindstillonit. OH! THE FEAR! THE HORROR! THE Scary. She then put her fingers in her mouth when she couldn't get the sink to turn on. Obviously, that is what one should do when faced with the inability to wash one's hands as asked. Throw a tantrum and stick one's fingers in one's mouth.
Tres: Quinn drew pictures in unidentified liquid on the floor in front of the ticket desk. (Where we once again spent massive amounts of time due to some further hiccup with Nate's imaginary ticket to the United States. In my lap. For the love of God.)
Cuatro: Quinn (again) dropped a bite of hamburger from his mouth to the airport floor, picked it up and ate it. This was a part of our continuing quest to put as many wet things that have touched filth in our mouths as is humanly possible.
Cinco: Garrett picked his nose, ate the booger and then grabbed both my cheeks with his hands in order to better tell me why that was "okay, it's okay, momma."
Seis: Nate threw a massive fit on the flight from Cancun to Denver that involved crying so hard that he gagged and almost threw up (I am so, so sorry, everyone on that airplane) and then finally fell into a semi-sleep state on my shoulder with massive green snot ropes hanging from both nostrils. I feared any wiping or bothering of any sort and had to endure almost uncontrollable waves of OCD panic as he wiped it on all available surfaces, including my shoulder and my hair.
Siete: Garrett went to the bathroom by himself on the flight to Denver and when he returned he announced, loudly, that he couldn't make the sink work so he didn't wash his hands. Matt nodded and grabbed his hands to help him back into his seat. (I dived for the hand santizer.) Matt drew back, surprised, and asked, why are your hands wet, Gee? He shook his head, I couldn't wash them. I know, Matt pressed, but then how are they soaking wet? Garrett just stood there blinking and this weird collective shudder past through the entire airplane and we all died a little inside - except for me, I died almost completely, I think I lost function in the right side of my brain - and then we made a silent vow to scour ourselves with Clorox if we lived and life went on.
Ocho: All four of my children at some point, licked, sucked, nuzzled, made-out-with or otherwise found a way to touch with their tongues large airport windows. Is there a substance in glass that I am unaware of that magnetically attracts the mouths of children? Can I buy a repellent? Honestly, this barely even grosses me out because of that one time, on the way to Mexico, when Garrett was three and he flat-tongue licked this decorative rock wall that had become a veritable sculpture due to all of the gum wedged into its crevices. That still makes me heave. I just gagged a little.
Don't mind me, I'm just sweeping Mexico with my stomach. Making it clean for the rest of you. Tips in my back pocket, please.
We were home. It was 1:30 a.m. and also 25 degrees.
Silver lining: That kind of cold ought to kill all fungus/airport smudge that we collected with our mouths on the trip home, no?
Silver lining numero dos: My children - my children - slept til 8:30 this morning. I drank coffee and wrote this all by myself in silence. No one else was making any kind of noise whatsoever. I'm considering dragging them around on errands until 1:30 a.m. every single night for the rest of their lives.
Walking in the surf does something to me. Something that makes me feel profound and certain and imbued with direction that I immediately lose when faced with reality. Like my Garmin short-circuited on contact with my actual life.
My thoughts are like the laundry I should be washing. In that example, my thoughts are the laundry and they are spinning in my washing machine brain. I can't even do metaphors this morning. I give up. Since I can't think, I bring you:
A list of disgusting things my kids did on our way home from Mexico
(This is only a sample because I don't want to make you ill.)
Uno: For three hours, Nate mopped the Cancun airport floor with his entire body. Because it's not enough to touch every single surface between Cancun and the Idaho Border. Oh no. We must marinate in the filth. All of the children also kindly dusted between and under all of the rows of seats at our boarding gate where the mops and disinfectant are unable to reach. Gate C22. You could eat off of the floor. You are so very welcome, Mexico.
Dos: Saige peed in a public airport toilet, which involved clutching both sides of the seat with full finger wrappage around to sticky, gag-inducing rim for fear that the toilet will flushwithherbehindstillonit. OH! THE FEAR! THE HORROR! THE Scary. She then put her fingers in her mouth when she couldn't get the sink to turn on. Obviously, that is what one should do when faced with the inability to wash one's hands as asked. Throw a tantrum and stick one's fingers in one's mouth.
Tres: Quinn drew pictures in unidentified liquid on the floor in front of the ticket desk. (Where we once again spent massive amounts of time due to some further hiccup with Nate's imaginary ticket to the United States. In my lap. For the love of God.)
Cuatro: Quinn (again) dropped a bite of hamburger from his mouth to the airport floor, picked it up and ate it. This was a part of our continuing quest to put as many wet things that have touched filth in our mouths as is humanly possible.
Cinco: Garrett picked his nose, ate the booger and then grabbed both my cheeks with his hands in order to better tell me why that was "okay, it's okay, momma."
Seis: Nate threw a massive fit on the flight from Cancun to Denver that involved crying so hard that he gagged and almost threw up (I am so, so sorry, everyone on that airplane) and then finally fell into a semi-sleep state on my shoulder with massive green snot ropes hanging from both nostrils. I feared any wiping or bothering of any sort and had to endure almost uncontrollable waves of OCD panic as he wiped it on all available surfaces, including my shoulder and my hair.
Siete: Garrett went to the bathroom by himself on the flight to Denver and when he returned he announced, loudly, that he couldn't make the sink work so he didn't wash his hands. Matt nodded and grabbed his hands to help him back into his seat. (I dived for the hand santizer.) Matt drew back, surprised, and asked, why are your hands wet, Gee? He shook his head, I couldn't wash them. I know, Matt pressed, but then how are they soaking wet? Garrett just stood there blinking and this weird collective shudder past through the entire airplane and we all died a little inside - except for me, I died almost completely, I think I lost function in the right side of my brain - and then we made a silent vow to scour ourselves with Clorox if we lived and life went on.
Ocho: All four of my children at some point, licked, sucked, nuzzled, made-out-with or otherwise found a way to touch with their tongues large airport windows. Is there a substance in glass that I am unaware of that magnetically attracts the mouths of children? Can I buy a repellent? Honestly, this barely even grosses me out because of that one time, on the way to Mexico, when Garrett was three and he flat-tongue licked this decorative rock wall that had become a veritable sculpture due to all of the gum wedged into its crevices. That still makes me heave. I just gagged a little.
We were home. It was 1:30 a.m. and also 25 degrees.
Silver lining: That kind of cold ought to kill all fungus/airport smudge that we collected with our mouths on the trip home, no?
Silver lining numero dos: My children - my children - slept til 8:30 this morning. I drank coffee and wrote this all by myself in silence. No one else was making any kind of noise whatsoever. I'm considering dragging them around on errands until 1:30 a.m. every single night for the rest of their lives.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Jumping in
He stood on the edge of the pool, knees bent, nose pinched, and collected his courage before the leap. The free fall was only an instant and then the plunge. I saw him sink down under the clear water and stretch until his toes touched the turquoise tiles on the bottom. He pushed off and rocketed back up to the surface, laughing.
Four days ago, he wouldn't even contemplate this jump. He refused to get his ears and face wet. Three days ago, arms outstretched, he begged his Daddy not to let him go under. Two days ago, he danced on the side, wishing for the courage to plunge like his fearless sister.
Today, he walked to the side, resolve etched into his pudgy baby face. "Watch me, momma! Watch me!" I could almost see his heart pounding under his thin shirt and life vest, but he held his nose, bent his knees and
JUMPED.
It hurt. Me. He could not have been more joyful. It hurt me a little. Like I'd watched him jump from baby to little boy right before my eyes.
I can hardly bear to watch. I can't tear myself away. I don't want to miss a second.
************************
Comments are closed on this one. Thank you for your empathy on my trip from hell. I've made a full recovery, strongly supported by fabulous friends and pina coladas. If you're following along with my new project, Chapter Three of UNION PACIFIC is up.
Four days ago, he wouldn't even contemplate this jump. He refused to get his ears and face wet. Three days ago, arms outstretched, he begged his Daddy not to let him go under. Two days ago, he danced on the side, wishing for the courage to plunge like his fearless sister.
Today, he walked to the side, resolve etched into his pudgy baby face. "Watch me, momma! Watch me!" I could almost see his heart pounding under his thin shirt and life vest, but he held his nose, bent his knees and
JUMPED.
It hurt. Me. He could not have been more joyful. It hurt me a little. Like I'd watched him jump from baby to little boy right before my eyes.
I can hardly bear to watch. I can't tear myself away. I don't want to miss a second.
************************
Comments are closed on this one. Thank you for your empathy on my trip from hell. I've made a full recovery, strongly supported by fabulous friends and pina coladas. If you're following along with my new project, Chapter Three of UNION PACIFIC is up.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
I cried twice, but we made it to Mexico
We're here.
Kids in diapers are adorable.
Life is good.
Let the bitching commence. Three days ago at 4:45 a.m., I stood before an airline counter with our four to-be-checked bags piled behind me and Nate already complaining loudly about his stroller straps beside me and stared blankly into the eyes of the less-than-sympathetic ticket agent.
"It's delayed two hours," she repeated as if that should make me understand. The alarm woke me at 3:00 a.m. and I'd been herding suitcases & children every since. The entire focus of my day was to reach this spot, give her my cumbersome baggage, rally for one last push through security and then sip a chai latte in stupefied silence. So, what now?
"It'll be tight in Denver then?"
"You can't make your flight in Denver, that's what I'm doing, I'm trying to reroute you."
I audibly gasped. "You can't hold it? You'd only have to hold it 30 minutes."
"No."
My heart sank. "We'll go home then? We can go on the same flight tomorrow?"
"No, I'm sorry," she told me. "Our flights are full tomorrow. We'll send you to Denver on this flight, put you up for the night and then I'm trying to get you on the United flight to Cancun tomorrow."
I try to keep a good attitude about traveling with children. You have to go with the flow. You have to consider everything part of the adventure. And, above all, you have to carry enough food to feed them whenever they feel slightly peckish for a month. My hormones must have been a bit off, or maybe it was just the 3:00 a.m. wake up and the hour we had already spent entertaining them in front of the ticket desk, but my eyes filled with tears. I knew she could see. I swallowed hard to find a sort of normal voice.
"Can we have two rooms?" I whispered. You may think this is a small point, but that is because you have never lain awake all night in a hotel room with a baby on your stomach, a three-year-old wedged perpendicularly between you and your husband, and a five-year-old girl whining in an irritating high-pitched whine that she can't sleep at intervals exactly timed to ensure that you are startled from a fitful doze each and every time. I have vowed on numerous nights of self-inflicted hotel torture never, ever to share a room or a bed with my children ever again. It is a matter of survival.
"Yes," she said, "you have five tickets, so two rooms shouldn't be a problem." My near psychotic break seemed to soften her a little.
She pecked at the computer for another fifteen minutes. The line behind us grew to give-up-go-home-and-call-the-airlines-yourself length. The children systematically destroyed those pull out line placement thingys and I could no longer summon the energy to stop them because we had been standing there for almost three hours. Security still stood between me and my chai.
Finally, she picked up the phone and conferred with someone in hushed tones. Another woman, perkier and cuter with a fresh looking ponytail and an authoritative stance, popped up behind the first. "You're going to have to step to the side," she told me. "I'm going to sort this out, but in the meantime she can help someone else." We stepped to the side and she disappeared, which is not, in general a good sign. My children wreaked havoc. I sat numbly.
When she came back, she had boarding passes! and hotel vouchers! and meal vouchers for an army! and tickets! To Dallas. Dallas? We'd have to fly to Dallas, she explained, and then Cancun, it was the only way.
We flew to Denver - where it was seven degrees - and got on a shuttle. Good thing we had left all of our coats and cold weather gear in the car. A move that absolutely made sense at 4:00 a.m. when we entered the airport expecting to re-emerge in Cancun, Mexico. It was butt ass cold is what I'm telling you and I know butt ass cold, I LIVE butt ass cold DAILY. I have no need to fly anywhere for butt ass cold. I'm truly over it, but be very, very grateful that you were not married to me on that shuttle in Denver. Kiss your wife and/or husband and tell them thank you for not being me. Seriously.
I could write seven paragraphs about how hideous it is to sleep in a hotel room with any combination of my children. It's like sleeping in a room with a thousand hamsters on those tiny wheels and they won't stop wheeling and wheeling, but you can't kill them because it's illegal. That sums it up.
Back at the Denver airport at 4:00 a.m., there was a second issue of two hour proportions at the ticket desk. This issue involved Nate as a lap baby and blah blah blah and we needed to pay taxes for him and they couldn't make it work and more time and more panic and more typing until finally they gave us our boarding passes to Dallas and told us that American Airlines could help us at the gate before our flight to Cancun left. While the traveler in me knew this was absolutely the worst plan ever in the history of plans, I had little choice and off we went to Dallas. Which was not where we wanted to go. And we had no boarding passes to anywhere else. BUT I WAS NOT THE LEAST BIT STRESSED OUT ABOUT THIS.
In Dallas, my-not-the-least-bit-stressed self stalked the Cancun boarding gate until a poor, unsuspecting American Airlines representative arrived and then I pounced. For the third time in less the twenty four hours - for the third time - an airline employee typed endlessly while staring at her screen. At long last, she handed me five boarding passes and my heart resumed a normal rhythm.
"Great!" I exclaimed. "Except - oh - none of these say infant, I need the baby added to mine."
"Baby?"
"Yes the baby. I have a lap baby."
"I've already issued five, you have five travelers total?"
"No six."
"Six?"
"Yes, six, five ticketed one lap baby."
"Oh. That's a problem."
????? OMIFREAKINGGOD. "Well, we have seats, right, so, the baby is just going to sit on one of us, so?"
"No. He needs a ticket, I can't let him on without a ticket for an international flight. Did you buy him a ticket?"
But, but, but. I bought me a ticket. And he's going to sit ON ME.
"I, well, the thing is, I wasn't on American originally, I was on Frontier and they booked these tickets when we missed our whole original itinerary."
"Ah. Well they didn't book a ticket for the baby on this flight."
"So may I book one now?" Because, you understand, it's a formality, he's going to sit on me.
"Not here, you have to go out."
"Out?" I knew, but I could not believe it. The flight departed in thirty minutes.
"Yes, out to ticketing. We can't issue a ticket here."
An imaginary ticket? You can't issue my imaginary ticket for my baby who is going to sit in the same space I will be occupying? Here?
"Out through security?"
She kept her face deadpan. "Yes."
And then I did something that I haven't done since I was nineteen and I could not get another speeding ticket and lose my license. I admit here, for my small world to read, that I did it 120% on purpose because it had worked the morning before and I was desperate. It was this or leave the baby in the Dallas airport because I WAS going to Mexico.
I burst into tears. "I have four kids with me. They're all under five. We will never make it. I know this is not your fault, but the Frontier people told me I could do this here. Please?"
She called her manager. I was completely aware of her misconception that I was traveling with the four small children alone and I did not correct her despite the fact that my lie of omission was going to be all to apparent when we boarded the plane. They were lovely and helpful and they did manage to procure Nate an imaginary ticket for my seat without sending me on a hopeless wild ticket chase that would guarantee that I would miss the plane on which I already had a seat that both Nate and I could sit in. Breathe in, breathe out.
We boarded. Matt and I weren't sitting together. Matt got Nate and I got all the other children, which ended up being a total win because Nate was an unmitigated pain in the ass and even from two rows away I kind of started to wish we'd left him in the Dallas airport. In my row, Quinn fell asleep between Saige and Garrett and they played quietly for the entire flight.
On arrival in Mexico, I somehow restrained myself from kissing the airport floor.
I'm glad we didn't leave him in Dallas. He's a keeper. Life is good. Have I mentioned that?
Let the bitching commence. Three days ago at 4:45 a.m., I stood before an airline counter with our four to-be-checked bags piled behind me and Nate already complaining loudly about his stroller straps beside me and stared blankly into the eyes of the less-than-sympathetic ticket agent.
"It's delayed two hours," she repeated as if that should make me understand. The alarm woke me at 3:00 a.m. and I'd been herding suitcases & children every since. The entire focus of my day was to reach this spot, give her my cumbersome baggage, rally for one last push through security and then sip a chai latte in stupefied silence. So, what now?
"It'll be tight in Denver then?"
"You can't make your flight in Denver, that's what I'm doing, I'm trying to reroute you."
I audibly gasped. "You can't hold it? You'd only have to hold it 30 minutes."
"No."
My heart sank. "We'll go home then? We can go on the same flight tomorrow?"
"No, I'm sorry," she told me. "Our flights are full tomorrow. We'll send you to Denver on this flight, put you up for the night and then I'm trying to get you on the United flight to Cancun tomorrow."
I try to keep a good attitude about traveling with children. You have to go with the flow. You have to consider everything part of the adventure. And, above all, you have to carry enough food to feed them whenever they feel slightly peckish for a month. My hormones must have been a bit off, or maybe it was just the 3:00 a.m. wake up and the hour we had already spent entertaining them in front of the ticket desk, but my eyes filled with tears. I knew she could see. I swallowed hard to find a sort of normal voice.
"Can we have two rooms?" I whispered. You may think this is a small point, but that is because you have never lain awake all night in a hotel room with a baby on your stomach, a three-year-old wedged perpendicularly between you and your husband, and a five-year-old girl whining in an irritating high-pitched whine that she can't sleep at intervals exactly timed to ensure that you are startled from a fitful doze each and every time. I have vowed on numerous nights of self-inflicted hotel torture never, ever to share a room or a bed with my children ever again. It is a matter of survival.
"Yes," she said, "you have five tickets, so two rooms shouldn't be a problem." My near psychotic break seemed to soften her a little.
She pecked at the computer for another fifteen minutes. The line behind us grew to give-up-go-home-and-call-the-airlines-yourself length. The children systematically destroyed those pull out line placement thingys and I could no longer summon the energy to stop them because we had been standing there for almost three hours. Security still stood between me and my chai.
Finally, she picked up the phone and conferred with someone in hushed tones. Another woman, perkier and cuter with a fresh looking ponytail and an authoritative stance, popped up behind the first. "You're going to have to step to the side," she told me. "I'm going to sort this out, but in the meantime she can help someone else." We stepped to the side and she disappeared, which is not, in general a good sign. My children wreaked havoc. I sat numbly.
When she came back, she had boarding passes! and hotel vouchers! and meal vouchers for an army! and tickets! To Dallas. Dallas? We'd have to fly to Dallas, she explained, and then Cancun, it was the only way.
We flew to Denver - where it was seven degrees - and got on a shuttle. Good thing we had left all of our coats and cold weather gear in the car. A move that absolutely made sense at 4:00 a.m. when we entered the airport expecting to re-emerge in Cancun, Mexico. It was butt ass cold is what I'm telling you and I know butt ass cold, I LIVE butt ass cold DAILY. I have no need to fly anywhere for butt ass cold. I'm truly over it, but be very, very grateful that you were not married to me on that shuttle in Denver. Kiss your wife and/or husband and tell them thank you for not being me. Seriously.
I could write seven paragraphs about how hideous it is to sleep in a hotel room with any combination of my children. It's like sleeping in a room with a thousand hamsters on those tiny wheels and they won't stop wheeling and wheeling, but you can't kill them because it's illegal. That sums it up.
Back at the Denver airport at 4:00 a.m., there was a second issue of two hour proportions at the ticket desk. This issue involved Nate as a lap baby and blah blah blah and we needed to pay taxes for him and they couldn't make it work and more time and more panic and more typing until finally they gave us our boarding passes to Dallas and told us that American Airlines could help us at the gate before our flight to Cancun left. While the traveler in me knew this was absolutely the worst plan ever in the history of plans, I had little choice and off we went to Dallas. Which was not where we wanted to go. And we had no boarding passes to anywhere else. BUT I WAS NOT THE LEAST BIT STRESSED OUT ABOUT THIS.
In Dallas, my-not-the-least-bit-stressed self stalked the Cancun boarding gate until a poor, unsuspecting American Airlines representative arrived and then I pounced. For the third time in less the twenty four hours - for the third time - an airline employee typed endlessly while staring at her screen. At long last, she handed me five boarding passes and my heart resumed a normal rhythm.
"Great!" I exclaimed. "Except - oh - none of these say infant, I need the baby added to mine."
"Baby?"
"Yes the baby. I have a lap baby."
"I've already issued five, you have five travelers total?"
"No six."
"Six?"
"Yes, six, five ticketed one lap baby."
"Oh. That's a problem."
????? OMIFREAKINGGOD. "Well, we have seats, right, so, the baby is just going to sit on one of us, so?"
"No. He needs a ticket, I can't let him on without a ticket for an international flight. Did you buy him a ticket?"
But, but, but. I bought me a ticket. And he's going to sit ON ME.
"I, well, the thing is, I wasn't on American originally, I was on Frontier and they booked these tickets when we missed our whole original itinerary."
"Ah. Well they didn't book a ticket for the baby on this flight."
"So may I book one now?" Because, you understand, it's a formality, he's going to sit on me.
"Not here, you have to go out."
"Out?" I knew, but I could not believe it. The flight departed in thirty minutes.
"Yes, out to ticketing. We can't issue a ticket here."
An imaginary ticket? You can't issue my imaginary ticket for my baby who is going to sit in the same space I will be occupying? Here?
"Out through security?"
She kept her face deadpan. "Yes."
And then I did something that I haven't done since I was nineteen and I could not get another speeding ticket and lose my license. I admit here, for my small world to read, that I did it 120% on purpose because it had worked the morning before and I was desperate. It was this or leave the baby in the Dallas airport because I WAS going to Mexico.
I burst into tears. "I have four kids with me. They're all under five. We will never make it. I know this is not your fault, but the Frontier people told me I could do this here. Please?"
She called her manager. I was completely aware of her misconception that I was traveling with the four small children alone and I did not correct her despite the fact that my lie of omission was going to be all to apparent when we boarded the plane. They were lovely and helpful and they did manage to procure Nate an imaginary ticket for my seat without sending me on a hopeless wild ticket chase that would guarantee that I would miss the plane on which I already had a seat that both Nate and I could sit in. Breathe in, breathe out.
We boarded. Matt and I weren't sitting together. Matt got Nate and I got all the other children, which ended up being a total win because Nate was an unmitigated pain in the ass and even from two rows away I kind of started to wish we'd left him in the Dallas airport. In my row, Quinn fell asleep between Saige and Garrett and they played quietly for the entire flight.
On arrival in Mexico, I somehow restrained myself from kissing the airport floor.
I'm glad we didn't leave him in Dallas. He's a keeper. Life is good. Have I mentioned that?
Friday, January 7, 2011
Mexico minus two days
We leave for Mexico Monday morning at 6:00 a.m. (Disclaimer: I am allowed to tell you this fact because a large man will be staying in our house with our gargantuan dog. The dog would only pull you down and wag you to death, but still, he's here and he's huge.) The plane leaves at 6:00 a.m. and we will leave with it if I can get my four rugrats up, dressed and in the car by 4:30 a.m. I'll feed them on the way. At some point. If they're good. I'm kidding, I'll feed them and now I know that yogurt can not be taken through security, thank you TSA, my cheap heart is still reeling from the trauma of throwing away a $100.00 Starbucks yogurt parfait, so I will not bring any.
I'm a basket case from hell. I don't even know what 'basket case' means and I'm so busy and flustered and my list is so long that I'm not going to google it. We'll just agree that it's bad and it's me. I'm here typing this inane post because I want to tell you a few things before I go.
1) I published Chapter Two of UNION PACIFIC today. If you want to read it, visit Summer Connolly Romance. Thank you so much to every one who has visited me over there. The discussion and comments on the first chapter are fabulous. I'm absolutely planning to post Chapter Three from Mexico next Friday, so stay tuned!
2) Elise and I announced auditions for the Spokane production of LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER. This astonishing and powerful movement is directed nationally by Ann Imig. Visit the national site and our local site and see what it's all about. If you are in this area, please visit our site and consider auditioning!
3) I may or may not have just pinpointed our border of Idaho location two days before we leave for Mexico. BIG DOG. BIG MAN. I may be lying. You never know with me.
4) The projected high on the border of Idaho on Tuesday is eight degrees. The projected high on the east coast of Mexico is eighty degrees. EIGHT-ZERO. That's a magnitude of ten increase in happiness. Yay!
5) I have already packed for myself and all four children in --- wait for it --- ONE (count with me: one, oops! we're done counting because I am awesome) suitcase. For ten days. It's a new personal best. Thank you. Thank you.
xo, next post in Mexico, Stacey
I'm a basket case from hell. I don't even know what 'basket case' means and I'm so busy and flustered and my list is so long that I'm not going to google it. We'll just agree that it's bad and it's me. I'm here typing this inane post because I want to tell you a few things before I go.
1) I published Chapter Two of UNION PACIFIC today. If you want to read it, visit Summer Connolly Romance. Thank you so much to every one who has visited me over there. The discussion and comments on the first chapter are fabulous. I'm absolutely planning to post Chapter Three from Mexico next Friday, so stay tuned!
2) Elise and I announced auditions for the Spokane production of LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER. This astonishing and powerful movement is directed nationally by Ann Imig. Visit the national site and our local site and see what it's all about. If you are in this area, please visit our site and consider auditioning!
3) I may or may not have just pinpointed our border of Idaho location two days before we leave for Mexico. BIG DOG. BIG MAN. I may be lying. You never know with me.
4) The projected high on the border of Idaho on Tuesday is eight degrees. The projected high on the east coast of Mexico is eighty degrees. EIGHT-ZERO. That's a magnitude of ten increase in happiness. Yay!
5) I have already packed for myself and all four children in --- wait for it --- ONE (count with me: one, oops! we're done counting because I am awesome) suitcase. For ten days. It's a new personal best. Thank you. Thank you.
xo, next post in Mexico, Stacey
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Parenting tip: No duck whistles
Garrett. My sweet Garrett. My oldest boy. My first tiny bundle of love. Garrett.
Garrett has a favorite noise. It's a duck noise. A quack, if you will. If a one hundred and twenty pound mutant mallard from hell were to climb into your bed at night and QUACK into your ear, waking you out of a sound slumber and then QUACKING again directly into your face. It's like that.
It's impressive, really. Very realistic and at volumes hitherto unmeasured in the duck world.
If there were a duck quacking contest the way there are sheep calling contests, he would win. I think you get the picture? He's also a prolific quacker. He can quack, ten, twenty, thirty times in a row. He can chase his sister while quacking. He can drive me to send him to time-out and then pour a huge glass of Sauvignon Blanc (I prefer Giesen, but cooking wine will do on a heavy quacking night.), climb the stairs and sit on his bed without ever missing a quack.
I am sure the uses for quacking in the greater world are many and, while I am not one to squelch a child's artistic expression (What? Did you just spit out a mouthful of coffee/wine all over your keyboard? CRAFTS DO NOT COUNT AS ARTISTIC EXPRESSION BECAUSE THEY ARE DUMB AND SO IS QUACKING.), I have a dislike now bordering on manic hatred for the quacking and all I ever want is for it to stop. Immediately.
Matt. My darling husband. My true love for twenty years, over half of my life. My soulmate. My partner in parenting.
Matt bought Garrett a duck whistle for Christmas and put it in his stocking. It's beaked. It's a beak that quacks like a duck, loudly, when you blow into it. Most of you have children, right? So you know how the hateful little darlings like an object that makes noise? And their love for objects that make noise is second only to their love for objects that make noise when copious amounts of spittle are blown into them.
So, now I have four children obsessed with quacking and a duck beak that drips saliva that they share among themselves.
It was touch and go for a while, but our marriage survived. The jury is still out on the children.
Garrett has a favorite noise. It's a duck noise. A quack, if you will. If a one hundred and twenty pound mutant mallard from hell were to climb into your bed at night and QUACK into your ear, waking you out of a sound slumber and then QUACKING again directly into your face. It's like that.
It's impressive, really. Very realistic and at volumes hitherto unmeasured in the duck world.
If there were a duck quacking contest the way there are sheep calling contests, he would win. I think you get the picture? He's also a prolific quacker. He can quack, ten, twenty, thirty times in a row. He can chase his sister while quacking. He can drive me to send him to time-out and then pour a huge glass of Sauvignon Blanc (I prefer Giesen, but cooking wine will do on a heavy quacking night.), climb the stairs and sit on his bed without ever missing a quack.
I am sure the uses for quacking in the greater world are many and, while I am not one to squelch a child's artistic expression (What? Did you just spit out a mouthful of coffee/wine all over your keyboard? CRAFTS DO NOT COUNT AS ARTISTIC EXPRESSION BECAUSE THEY ARE DUMB AND SO IS QUACKING.), I have a dislike now bordering on manic hatred for the quacking and all I ever want is for it to stop. Immediately.
Matt. My darling husband. My true love for twenty years, over half of my life. My soulmate. My partner in parenting.
Matt bought Garrett a duck whistle for Christmas and put it in his stocking. It's beaked. It's a beak that quacks like a duck, loudly, when you blow into it. Most of you have children, right? So you know how the hateful little darlings like an object that makes noise? And their love for objects that make noise is second only to their love for objects that make noise when copious amounts of spittle are blown into them.
So, now I have four children obsessed with quacking and a duck beak that drips saliva that they share among themselves.
It was touch and go for a while, but our marriage survived. The jury is still out on the children.
Monday, January 3, 2011
Putting away
Grimy plastic storage bins box me into the corner by the Christmas tree. The pine smell is missing - as is the annoyance of thousands of dropped needles from a spent real tree not watered enough over the last two weeks. Wood smoke wafts up instead from the just-stoked fire. Putting away the holidays is unavoidably sad. Like putting away outgrown baby clothes or putting away freshly-washed wine glasses after a much- anticipated party.
The children wanted to help, but my orderly nature would not allow it and I tucked them into bed in favor of tackling the task alone. I want to walk the years between this plastic tree and those plastic tubs by myself, amazed anew to be a person who could have collected a large shoebox full of the type of ornaments that make a Christmas tree "real," even if its needles were molded at a mass production facility in China. Poorly painted wreaths framing chubby faces. Dough ornaments with far too much glitter. Popsicle stick sleds. Clothespin reindeer. These are the adornments that make a tree paradoxically regal and stunning, tucked in around the Waterford ball my mother bought me in Ireland and the elegant blue stars and the matching silver icicle pendants.
My hand lingers around a miniature sleigh made with my Grandfather's hands. "Stacey" is etched on the front and underneath, "1982." He faded and then died of Alzheimer's before Matt had a chance to know him, but they would have loved each other. My grandfather could fix anything. Honey-do lists were his specialty. Woodworking was his hobby. They would have spent hours in his workshop. Some girls marry their father. I am my father - smart, urban, impatient, too easily frustrated by difficult tasks to be truly good at anything mechanical or crafty. I married my grandfather - patient and hard-working and capable in the pioneer sense of the word.
I come to it now, as I do twice every year. The folded pile of stockings beside me, generously large and ridiculously cute with their matching red gingham check tops and patchwork holiday scenes. I could just lay them in a neat stack in the storage tub on top of their forlorn partner already resting on the bottom, but I don't. I lift it out instead and unfold it gently, smooth down the gingham to look at the bright train on the front and the name embroidered in rich holiday red across the top. I seem to owe it that, if one can owe a stocking anything.
And I think again, what to do. It is too pretty to throw away. My heart shies from that final act. Too fraught with the difficult paths of the past to keep. Too personal to give away. His was not a common name. I think of other things that I have managed to put away from me permanently, one by one. The cup with this same name written in indelible marker on the bottom sacrificed to digging and building castles and then lost at Fish Lake. The football that kicked around the basement for a year before the dog finally tore it and I threw it away. The book of trucks with carefully practiced letters that Quinn loved so, gone to Goodwill in a stack of over-loved books.
I refold it carefully and place the neat tower of five pretty, matching stockings back in the tub. Of course I do. It is just a memory now, one of many that nests in these boxes waiting for their annual unveiling and cherishing. There is no pain outside of wistfulness and the reminder of the blurry rush of time. Isn't that why we like memories so? The exhilaration of glimpsing streaked lights from an underground train. The momentary understanding of the dizzying speed, the hurtling into tomorrow.
There are grades of putting away. Some things need to be put away from you completely. Others need only be put away until next year. Gone but not forgotten.
The room looks bare when I finish, but clean and neat. Fresh. Like the snow-covered trees outside our dark windows. Like my new calendar, covered in a bright pink leather. Like the beginning of a year.
The children wanted to help, but my orderly nature would not allow it and I tucked them into bed in favor of tackling the task alone. I want to walk the years between this plastic tree and those plastic tubs by myself, amazed anew to be a person who could have collected a large shoebox full of the type of ornaments that make a Christmas tree "real," even if its needles were molded at a mass production facility in China. Poorly painted wreaths framing chubby faces. Dough ornaments with far too much glitter. Popsicle stick sleds. Clothespin reindeer. These are the adornments that make a tree paradoxically regal and stunning, tucked in around the Waterford ball my mother bought me in Ireland and the elegant blue stars and the matching silver icicle pendants.
My hand lingers around a miniature sleigh made with my Grandfather's hands. "Stacey" is etched on the front and underneath, "1982." He faded and then died of Alzheimer's before Matt had a chance to know him, but they would have loved each other. My grandfather could fix anything. Honey-do lists were his specialty. Woodworking was his hobby. They would have spent hours in his workshop. Some girls marry their father. I am my father - smart, urban, impatient, too easily frustrated by difficult tasks to be truly good at anything mechanical or crafty. I married my grandfather - patient and hard-working and capable in the pioneer sense of the word.
I come to it now, as I do twice every year. The folded pile of stockings beside me, generously large and ridiculously cute with their matching red gingham check tops and patchwork holiday scenes. I could just lay them in a neat stack in the storage tub on top of their forlorn partner already resting on the bottom, but I don't. I lift it out instead and unfold it gently, smooth down the gingham to look at the bright train on the front and the name embroidered in rich holiday red across the top. I seem to owe it that, if one can owe a stocking anything.
And I think again, what to do. It is too pretty to throw away. My heart shies from that final act. Too fraught with the difficult paths of the past to keep. Too personal to give away. His was not a common name. I think of other things that I have managed to put away from me permanently, one by one. The cup with this same name written in indelible marker on the bottom sacrificed to digging and building castles and then lost at Fish Lake. The football that kicked around the basement for a year before the dog finally tore it and I threw it away. The book of trucks with carefully practiced letters that Quinn loved so, gone to Goodwill in a stack of over-loved books.
I refold it carefully and place the neat tower of five pretty, matching stockings back in the tub. Of course I do. It is just a memory now, one of many that nests in these boxes waiting for their annual unveiling and cherishing. There is no pain outside of wistfulness and the reminder of the blurry rush of time. Isn't that why we like memories so? The exhilaration of glimpsing streaked lights from an underground train. The momentary understanding of the dizzying speed, the hurtling into tomorrow.
There are grades of putting away. Some things need to be put away from you completely. Others need only be put away until next year. Gone but not forgotten.
The room looks bare when I finish, but clean and neat. Fresh. Like the snow-covered trees outside our dark windows. Like my new calendar, covered in a bright pink leather. Like the beginning of a year.
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