Auld Lang Syne

Since 2001, New Years Eve has been hard. I wonder each year if it wouldn't be better to embrace the sadness of this day rather than spend it struggling to not be sad. As in past years, I'll undoubtedly eat and drink too much and then resolve not to drink until next New Years, which usually makes it until the next dinner party.

Dad wrote that the lyrics that summed up this year were:

A long December
and there’s reason to believe
maybe this year
will be better than last.

lyrics by Adam Duritz

I'll add these:

The water is wide, I cannot cross over
And neither have I wings to fly.
Build me a boat that can carry two,
And both shall row, my love and I.

Christmas

If I had a spell of magic
I would make this enchantment for you
A burgundy heart-shaped medallion
With a window that you could look through
So that when all the mirrors are angry
With your faults, all you must do
Is peek through that heart-shaped medallion
And see you
From my point of view

lyrics by David Wilcox

It's Saturday night, and over a week since my last post. I haven't sat down and even tried to write about any of it.

Christmas is supposed to be about sugar plum fairies dancing in your dreams. We built "Happy Town" on December 23rd, and tucked the kids in bed after they'd left a glass of milk and a slice of cornbread for Santa, who would arrive a night early so that they might play with their toys before we drove up to spend Christmas Eve with my family.

We always spend the late afternoon into the evening at Dad's. This year it was Ben and Maria, Alec, the girls and I, Dad, my grandfather, and my father's half-brother Kyle. I have a few pictures of these festivities:

Dad and Lauren

Grampie, Kyle, and Dad

Ben, me, and Dad

Alec and Lindsay

Alec, Lindsay, Dad, and Lauren

Lauren and me

Later that night, we went to Auntie Di's. Most of the focus of the evening was on my sister, who looked worse than we'd feared. Christmas was pretty much bittersweet this year. Sweet to spend time with my family, but bitter that Jules is still so sick. That was until after Christmas dinner, when we received a text message. The next two hours were the longest I've ever experienced while we waited to hear if the police got to her apartment in time, and then while they convinced her to come with them to the hospital. Dad dropped me at the hotel that Alec had taken the kids to to spend the night, and though it was only 8 PM, it might as well have been the middle of the night. I spent the rest of the evening on the phone. A doctor phoned from the hospital asking if perhaps I had misinterpreted her text message, that she was just sorry she messed up everybody's Christmas. "No." I said firmly. "I didn't misunderstand. That's why we called 911."

The last few days have been a stark juxtaposition between trying to carry on with normal life back home, make the most of the little vacation we have as a family, interrupted by hushed phone conversations with my brothers and my parents.

Alec and Lindsay at the New York Aquarium

Lauren looking at fish

Lindsay looking at fish

The Holiday Lights at the Bronx Zoo

Lindsay gets a haircut

Whenever the phone rings with an unknown number, I worry about the news it will bring. Tonight a doctor called from the hospital, pleading for insight. "I will go out and get her any food you think she might eat," he said. I was both touched that someone cared so much about her, and disheartened to hear she'd pulled her NG tube out and was refusing to eat. Not surprised, but sad.

I really want to rewind to being excited about a little village made out of candy and matching velvet and plaid dresses for my girls. The excitement of getting a new pair of All Stars from Dad, spandex for the gym from Mom, and oh...oh, the toys. The loud toys, the fun toys. The toys! But I can't. It is what it is.

Almost like being there for 16 seconds

Lauren makes sure we see her.

Lindsay is excited. "Lar-ren sing!"

...because really, kids sing loud and gymnatoriums aren't acoustically tuned for this. Not that I'm a theatre consultant.

The grand finale of the Winter Sing-Along

Oh, and dude sitting behind me on the school board who felt it necessary to talk during the entire program, having a loud public conversation about how glad you are that the superintendent is resigning because he's sexist? I'm not voting for you.

Just how delicious is she?

Lindsay with her entry to OMSH's Coloring Contest, wearing her latest obsession, a knit romper. Oh, to be head to toe in blankie is just divine...

Thank you, Sybil

Lauren is thrilled with her present. "Oh, it's pink," she gushed. "It has a flower on it with a button for a center! I just love it."

You can see all that in her face, this shot taken moments after she opened it.

It's too bad these don't just post themselves on the Internet. That's really make this post more timely. Thanks again, she really loves it!

Convalesing

Thanks for your kind words. It's been a tough couple of weeks. But ain't nothin' like a couple of days of being violently ill to put things back into perspective.

Today I just have the lingering headache and muscle soreness, so I braved the grocery store since we've been out of bread, crackers, and apple juice for 3 days. You know, the things you might want to eat after not being able to keep anything down for a couple of days. I'm feeling pretty tired now, and yet I still have 6 bags of groceries to put away and probably as many loads of laundry to do. I managed to change the linens yesterday, but the task of bring them to the basement and washing them was too exhausting to contemplate. I drove past the gym on the way to the grocery store and realized I was sad I couldn't go.

Life's not about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning to dance in the rain.

I'm not ignoring you, I'm avoiding you. I'll get to ignoring you later.

I want to write about something else. I genuinely do. I am still lost in my struggle to wrap my brain around all of this stuff.

My exam went pretty well. I'm relieved to have that off my plate right now. I spent the weekend sorting through the girls' things, packing up the stuff that's not in use to either donate or save for later, and make room for the new things that will come next week.

I'm trying to focus on the joy of the season, but I'm struggling a lot with that. Mostly I'm sad and I feel like I need to fight that, and yet fighting it only makes it harder.

Anyway, I know it doesn't make for very interesting reading, but that's where I am right now.

Goals, setbacks, and when to fold your hand

Thanks for your words about my last post - both public and private. Later that day I got a call that my sister is headed back to rehab for her eating disorder. That phone call made me want to delete the post where I whine because I'm fat.

It doesn't help that daytime news television I watch at the gym is either extolling the so-called obesity epidemic or featuring some person who recently lost over 100 pounds. When neither of these things are happening, they're showing the latest fashions sported by teenagers. I watched an interview earlier in the week with Carnie Wilson and Al Roker. The interview was supposed to be about The Wilson Sisters' Christmas CD, but it turned to talking about weight loss surgery since they've both undergone the knife. It seems even if you're a public figure who makes a lot of money this surgery still isn't a silver bullet. Al and Carnie don't fit in among their New York City costars. They're not fat, but certainly it looks like both of them are still struggling with their weight.

Yesterday, through a blog I read often called Uppercase Woman, I discovered another called Shapely Prose. Kate Harding writes about fat acceptance, shedding the magical thinking that we'd be different people if only. She's solidly anti-diet, because they aren't a long-term solution:

"[T]he message we’re sending is that you’re actually allowed to love your fat body instead of hating it, and you can take steps to substantially improve your health without fighting a losing battle with your weight."

Perhaps I need to step back and focus on my big accomplishment - despite being obese, I am in the best shape I've ever been in my life. I can run from the upstairs to the basement with 2 stacked baskets of laundry without being winded. I ran around the yard playing "Gingerbread Man" with Lauren yesterday. I played soccer with Lindsay during Lauren's practice. It was for these reasons I wanted to improve my health. Not because I want to be a size 2.

The thin fantasy things I wanted to do:

• Ride a bike
• Swim laps in a pool
  
• Ice skate

They're all a matter of being in shape to do, but also you can't get into the right shape to do them unless you're doing them. The ice skating one has come up a few times and every time, I'm ashamed to think of what I'd look like. This is the thinking that needs to change. And it's not to say other things don't also have to change - definitely my relationship with food has to change. I still think if I could modify my addictive behavior where it comes to food, that the rest of it would fall into place. Maybe that's magical thinking.

Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to write about something else. Rereading all of this, besides wanting to delete it, I am somewhat struck by who exactly has the eating disorder.

Loving me like the fat girl loves ice cream

I've been making a concerted effort not to talk about the gym. I go to the gym 5 days a week. I work out for an hour (except for Mondays, when I do weights - it's more like an hour and twenty minutes): I do 60 minutes of cardio 3-4 days a week, and a class at least once a week. Besides that I'm obese, I'm probably in the best shape I've ever been. Not to say that I don't have fitness goals for myself still, or a long way to go, it is a marked change since September when it felt like 10 minutes on the treadmill might kill me.

The diet thing is harder. I'm frustrated with myself because I feel like I should be able to make this work, and yet, I keep ending up in the same place. I thought I was going to cry in a restaurant while sitting with my family while they were enjoying their ice cream. I tried to sit and sip my coffee but I was practically shaking because mint chocolate chip ice cream with hot fudge! That's not normal. Who cries about ice cream?

I was watching some Discovery Channel show about the super morbid obese - in excess of 200 lbs over the range of normal weight. One of them said, "Imagine if a drug addict had to have just a little bit of heroin every day. Do you think they'd stay clean?"

All of that seems to come from a place of self-loathing and I don't think that's the road to "healthy" for me. Because it does matter how I get from here to there. How do I make this about doing what's good for me rather than only seeing that this means I don't get ice cream?

I may eventually delete this post. It feels like it exposes too much.

Hey, what's that sound?

I forget sometimes that I'm raising two girls who will have the impression that there was always the Internet, and that people wear their phones, and a handful of other details that I remember a time when they didn't exist.

The girls had been watching Noggin, which switches over to The N after 6 PM. It runs similar programming to TVLand. I believe the show that was on was The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, which I admit I didn't watch. Within the context of the show playing in the next room, a phone rang. Except it was one of those phones that had a bell in it, so it actually rang.

Lauren stopped spooning soup to her mouth, and listened. "Is it a fire alarm?"

"No," I replied. "It's a phone ringing on the TV."

"That's not a phone."

"Actually, it is. Before phones played digital ring tones, they had bells in them and rang."

"You're kidding me."

Imagine if I told her they didn't have buttons.

Ten minutes of extreme

Other than the customary difficulty sleeping, Alec's week away has been relatively uneventful. My sleepiness led to a couple of misplaced items - my American Express card and Lindsay's mittens, but otherwise a pretty quiet week.

I have class on Saturday mornings, so our babysitter was due to arrive at 8:30 AM. Lindsay was still quiet in her room, and Lauren was playing her new Leapster game (Thanks, Tutu!) she opened last night for Hanukkah. I'd made what I thought was a quick trip to the bathroom, was about to retrieve Lindsay so that both girls were dressed and eating breakfast when Kristin arrived.

Alas, no.

I flushed the toilet and washed my hands, puzzled by the continual sound of running water after I'd turned off the tap. I turned to see water pouring out over the toilet seat, about 2 inches already on the floor. "Holy socks!" I exclaimed, grabbing the plunger I freed the clogged toilet paper and watched as the water went back down the drain. I grabbed rag towels out of the closet to wipe up the water. Three thirsty bath towels later, I was down to the rag hand towels and the toilet was still dripping. I turned the water off, drained the tank, and dried all of the top surfaces of the toilet, but it was still dripping. I put a dry towel under the drip, retrieved Lindsay, and met Kristin at the door with a diaper-clad toddler.

"Just don't use the upstairs toilet," I said as cheerfully as I could muster. I changed Lindsay into her clothes as Kristin began preparing the requested breakfast - oatmeal with raisins and walnuts. I sped out of the driveway with my laptop on the front seat thinking about that drip, puzzling over where the water was coming from. The water's off, I thought. And the tank is dry. Could something have broken? Silly, it was just an overflow.

When I arrived home, sure enough, the drip had stopped. I turned the water on, refilled the tank, and gave the toilet a few flushes. It was fine. I breathed a sigh of relief. Besides having to bring a heavy basket of saturated bath towels to the basement to wash, it was a pretty harmless event.

I love a spontaneous parade in my dining room

Good call

Despite my concern about Lauren's friends not having signed up for Rovers, I am relieved after the first session. She had a great time. As soon as we arrived, Lauren began running laps of the gym with her ball. She was much more serious about soccer than I'd seen her, and I realized without the distraction of her friends with their flagging interest, she's just focused on learning the sport. She was excited to demonstrate her prowess at the first drill - dribbling and running the length of the basketball court keeping her ball a short distance from her feet. I was further impressed that during the passing drills, she consistently was able to direct the ball to her friend's feet. Each time the coaches called for volunteers to demonstrate this drill or that one, her hand flew up.

Lindsay grew bored about halfway through the hour-long session, and began chasing and trying to kick a stray soccer ball. We ran around the perimeter of the gym so that she didn't get knocked over by the bigger kids - 4 to 6 year olds. She seemed determined to get into their games and it was an exercise to keep the ball moving away from the action. She kept squealing, "Kick it!"

We arrived home and had our scrambled eggs with cheese and peas, and I made some fresh latkes. I lit the menorah, forgetting that the candles stay lit for a good hour and change, so we played a while before the kids went to bed sans bath. They both were too tired to protest.

Assorted randomness

My mother bought the girls matching brown "suede" boots (I have no idea what they actually are, some sort of synthetic material). Lauren tried hers on, but really doesn't wear any other shoes but sneakers on a daily basis. Lindsay has insisted on wearing the boots every day. Her eyes get big, "Oh. Boots! Boots so goot. Yes! Boots!" Occasionally she will let you know that she's wearing them. "Got boots! Boots pity." (Boots are pretty...I think.) She was also excited that I put the "hoot" on her winter jacket. "Hoot on head. Warm," she explained, patting her head thoughtfully. The plastic doll is a wildly popular item that has already been through the wash because she got some greasy food item all over her. She particularly likes it when I swaddle the doll. "Banket so warm. So goot."

I had a couple of repeat gifts planned this year. I'd thought about putting together another Snapfish photobook for the grandparents. I didn't take as many pictures this year, and though I have several nice pictures of Dad and my kids, I have only one each of Alec's dad and Nanny which aren't particularly flattering and no pictures of either of our moms with the kids. Rather than compiling what surely would only be complained about, I think I've got to give it a pass. Maybe I'll try to take a lot of pictures in the next few months and put them together as Mother and Father's Day gifts.

It's amazing how quickly I get into the Christmas money panic. It's what, December 5th? I've done maybe a third of my shopping? I feel like I have to put my head between my knees already. Ugh.

I decided, along with the photobooks, which aren't really pricey but add up when you buy 5 of them, that I wasn't going to order photo Christmas cards this year. After designing and writing copy (newsletter a la Lauren style) and importing my addresses, it added up to almost $150. For cards. It has crept up steadily each year, but I have to admit that the amount gave me pause. While I was at Target today buying diapers and toilet paper (there's snow coming and being without either item would be VERY bad), I picked up some postcard-style cards with envelopes for $10. They had a photo insert card, but it was $10 for 12 cards, I send out almost 50 cards. I printed the photo I'd planned to use, the "Lauren" letter, and bought some rubber cement. The activity forces me to evaluate each member of the list. If we've never received a card back and not spoken for over a year? No card.

What else have I got for you tonight? Tomorrow starts indoor soccer, and I'm a little sad that Lauren's friends from the borough league didn't sign up. It sounds as though they didn't sign up for basketball either. I'm not worried about it - Lauren gets along pretty well with everybody, and at least half the kids will be from kindergarten and first grade at her school so she should know people.

It's also the third night of Hanukkah tomorrow, and I warmed the last of the latkes from last night. A request was put in at bedtime for a new batch tomorrow. Latkes go with scrambled eggs, right? It's just breakfast for dinner.

Happy Hanukkah

It's the first night of Hanukkah

Mama's cheat sheet

Latkes. What? Come on. Irish girls know how to fry potatoes.

And they sure were tasty smothered in applesauce and sour cream.

Lauren thought so too. Sour cream is so good.

In the glow of their Christmas tree and menorah, the girls color in their coloring books.

Three days in a row!

Draft a response to the following e-mail:

You are reading into this all wrong. I wasn't saying anything about Chanukah we celebrated Chanukah with Lauren on Saturday with games,stories, and presents. The End! When I offered you coming up during the week it was only to try and help you, it had nothing to do with Chanukah. When Lauren came to visit we did exactly what she wanted to do :the show, Chili's and Chukie [SIC] and then lots of board games. Heather I think I understand the importance of school. Give me credit for something. We are busy all weekend and will see you on the 22 unless the 16th is better for you.

No, Dad. No points for "Fuck youBite me".

Venom and vitriol

I'm in a pretty black and foul mood. It makes me crazy that I always seem to get sucked into family drama. It's not my family or my drama.

So why am I letting fill me with venom and vitriol? I have no idea. I need a new hobby, or habit, or something...

Ungrateful

Does anyone else out there feel like the holiday season amounts to getting a bunch of crap that you don't want or need?

Item number 1: A lavender and sage quilt, king sized.

Problems: our bedroom is being painted butte rock, you may remember, which is burnt sienna. Our newly purchased curtains are burgundy. And, we have a queen bed. It might have been a thoughtful gift if it was the right size and color, but that wouldn't take into account that I have a perfectly lovely quilt that I bought last summer.

Solution: I think this probably lacked some grace, but I wrote a thank you e-mail saying, "This quilt would be lovely in Lindsay's room [which is painted purple] on her twin bed. Would you let me know where it was purchased so I might exchange it?"

Item number 2: a bag full of clothing sized 12-18 months and 4 T.

Problems: Both girls have been in the same size a while, so I've bought and received a lot of clothing in these sizes. Having said that, there are a couple of particular items either could use. Lauren's about to go up a shoe size. Lindsay is notorious for losing socks. Lindsay doesn't have winter boots. For whatever reason, the shirts for Lauren are always the same 2 or 3 shirts, in the same size. I don't know if she purchased a half dozen of them and doles them out at various parts of the year, or simply forgets she already purchased it. There was at least one item for Lindsay like that - previously received turtleneck onesie. She also buys them a lot of pastel colored velour hoodie and pant sets. The one for Lauren had big velour roses sewn on.

Solution: Seriously, both of them have bureaus packed full of clothes already. Even if I sat down and weeded out stuff that shows minor wear, they probably wouldn't miss these dozen or so items a piece. Rather than sorting, I took out the 2 PJ sets for Lindsay she could use, and the colorful socks, and left the whole lot in the bag to go to a charity. And yes, I would consider return it if it had tags, but she always removes all of the tags off of gift clothes.

Again, inelegantly, I mentioned in the e-mail that Lauren has become "difficult to shop for and likes to select her own clothing". I also wrote she'd probably think it a real treat to be taken out clothes shopping.

Item number 3: Two bags full of assorted toys

Problem: You can't imagine that my kids actually NEED two BAGS worth of toys. I will return from Christmas with that many toys, yes. But Hanukkah, as I understand it, kids receive either something small each night or one major present. A lot of the toys weren't age appropriate. One of the was a game she already has for her Leapster, and you can no longer exchange toys without a receipt.

Solution: Fortunately, she wasn't allowed to play with the gifts at their house so although they can't be exchanged, they are still new in packaging. The nonage appropriate stuff that had been opened, I set in the sun porch. Lauren was most interested in playing with the Leapster game she didn't have, and Lindsay received a doll she absolutely loved. I left the rest of the toys in their bags and set them aside, thinking about the big donation box at the Y. I suppose I will wait a week to see if Lauren asks about any of the toys, if not, off in the big box they go.

As the title of my post suggests, I feel guilty for being ungrateful. I know a lot of it is the cumulative effect of not having enough places to put all the stuff, and needing to cull through the toys that aren't being played with to make room for the new, fun things they'll receive.

How do you cope with just too much stuff? And am I guilty of the same thing, buying stuff for people that at best ends up taking up space for the next garage sale? Is this what the holidays are really about?

Check it out

Garrett, James, David, and Michael

My brother James plays guitar for a band called So Long Davey. Check out their MySpace page featuring their new song "Another Planet".