all zen and sh*t

I have done some goofing off this week, let me tell you what.

Oh, I've gone into work everyday, and I've checked email and done a few tasks here and there.  But there was also a whole lotta goofing off.  And man, it was great.  I felt cheerful.  I actually wanted people to stop by my office and chat.  I didn't mind the girls lolly-gagging about in the morning as they got ready for school.  I went out for a few beers with friends and didn't look at my watch.  Not even once!  In fact, I didn't wear a watch!

The goofing off segued into some very enjoyable Christmas shopping today.  You may remember from my agonized posts last year that ew, ew, ew I stress over the holidays and the whole gift-giving thing.  But today I didn't sweat it.  I just bought stuff I thought was cool and that people would like.  And if they don't?  Eh.  Ain't the end of the world. 

Isn't that nice?  Isn't it nice to just buy things because you want to tell someone else, hey, I saw this, and I thought you would like it, and it's a symbol of the fact I was thinking about you?  And to not turn it into some big quantification of my commitment or my love or my generosity?

Also, I'm still going to make some gifts for people.  Cause I like doing that.  It's fun and creative, and sometimes people seem to enjoy getting handmade gifts.  But I didn't mind blowing some cash today either, because we've saved up for it and aren't traveling this year and so we can.

So there. 

Are you wondering if I got my mom a gift?  I did.  A nice one, I think, though one never knows.  She's picky about gifts, very thing-oriented and hyper-critical, reading into things a lot.  When I visited last (ugh) there was a STACK of handwritten notes at the side of my bed with weird directions about what I should and should not get her (she wants panty-hose, for chrissakes, but of a certain kind and size; I need to get her a picture of the kids, but in color only and with no frame, etc.).  I should probably have just got her something off the list.  But that was not what today was about.  I saw something I thought she might like, and I bought it, and maybe when she gets it she'll smash it or send it back or curse it and throw it in the closet or whatever.  But that's her choice.  My choice was to get her something beautiful, and to enjoy that act of buying and now giving.  And then to let go of the outcome.

Aren't I all zen and shit.  Don't let me fool you.  I'm really praying for a miracle, and that somehow we might get a chance to say a civil, normal word to each other on Christmas.  I will probably be a little disappointed if that doesn't happen, and if the day passes with no contact.  But I'm also very aware that this may happen, and I'm trying to be prepared.

Out of my hands, either way.  It will be a good Christmas, either way.  We're off to buy a tree tomorrow, and to get out all of our ornaments, mostly given to me by Mom over the years.  We'll light up the lights and then maybe start to put some presents under the tree. 

Those things are good things, and what I'll hold on to for now.

Frosty's Revenge

I have never been the last person to leave a party, that I can remember.  I like to leave just as things are winding down, usually, and having kids has meant I typically have to be home early to relieve the babysitter, anyway.  In general, I don't like the feeling of overstaying my welcome.

But sometimes, you don't have a choice.  For example, when your city of residence gets socked with several feet of snow within a ten-day period, and you end up not being able to get home, and a very, very lovely visit with your family in Idaho goes just a little too long.  Denver got so much snow that we were able to carve this out of a bank in our front yard:

And that was before we left.  Before the second and third snowstorms hit, locking us out of the airport here (or at least we thought.  Turns out, our flight back to Denver wasn't actually canceled, but we probably wouldn't have been able to make the drive home from the airport because the streets were so nasty.)

But none of that really matters.   We had a great time in Idaho.  I love seeing my family, and it's all that much sweeter now because we get to watch the kids interact with their grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins.  For example, it's like my mom was pretty much born to play pretend with grandkids someday.  She has saved all of these play cups and saucers and plates and a pint-sized stove from the fifties (which you can actually plug in and make work!!!  How has our species survived???).  She played "restaurant" for about a million hours with Addie, where Addie was the customer at "Molly's Restaurant" and my mom the waitress.  Addie rang up a serious tab that we have yet to reconcile, and probably wore my mom out with incessant pleas of "Play with me!  Let's go upstairs and read!  Let's play hide and seek!  Let's play restaurant!"  I was exhausted just watching it, but my mom was an amazing sport.

 

Then there was the big event itself--Christmas Day.  Despite all of my curmudgeonly complaining about swapping of presents and spending of money, it was exciting to watch Addie tear into those presents.  Twice.  Once in the morning at my mom's, once in the afternoon at my dad's.  If there's a perk of coming from a divorced family, this is it.  In particular, there was some crazy madness at my dad's when Addie and her three cousins tucked into the million and one presents their Uncle Jade and Aunt Heather and Uncle Joe had bought them.  It was, seriously, overwhelming, and wonderful.

But, as my mom and I mutually agreed on the phone today, it's good to be home and back to a routine.  There's still a crapload of snow on the ground, so things aren't completely back to normal, but we're home and unpacked.  The laundry is done and the new loot put away.  We go back to work tomorrow, and the kids go back to daycare.  And those suitcases are put away for a while, awaiting our next adventure with kids on a plane.

Scrooge or Splurge?

 

 Today is Christmas preparation day.  I have a gajillion papers to grade by Monday, but today, December 8, belongs to old Saint Nick.  Addie's at school, so Nolie will be helping me to address a bunch of xmas cards (look for yours in the mail soon) and to finalize shopping plans.

The thing is, I'm in a simplifyin' kind of mood.  Maybe it's the fact that we're planning on trying to get out of this trash heap some time this spring, so I've been randomly packing up some clutter, and taking things to Goodwill.  Maybe it's that, like tons of other folks out there, I'm tired of going into thousands of dollars worth of debt every season (part of which is the small fortune we spend on plane tickets), which we barely get paid off before the next Christmas rolls around.  Maybe I'm just feeling oppressed by stuff and delighted by non-stuff-type things, like being around my kids, or writing on this blog, or doing yoga.  I don't know, really.

On a couple of my favorite blogs, like The Simple Dollar and Get Rich Slowly and Parenthacks, folks have been posting good articles on how to decrease mindless spending and increase meaningful creating and sharing.  Some of the tips are obvious, but maybe a little hard to implement, such as encouraging your family to draw names, deciding to make all of your gifts, having a giftless Christmas, or making donations in someone's name instead of giving them a "gift-gift." 

We did this with my mom's side of the family.  All of us drew names for stockings we would fill.  This makes me happy--it will be nice to focus on small gifts that will surprise and delight and that hopefully won't cost too much to be opened.  Still, I know my mom is going to get lots of unstocking gifts, especially for the kids, so it's hard not to feel that we need to have extra gifts, too.  I can hear her, now, though--she really doesn't want us to spend our money on her, so maybe we'll have to try to heed that voice.

My dad's side of the family is trickier.  Because we fly home for Christmas, it's difficult to take a bunch of huge presents with us.  We can ship things, of course.  But because we live far from our family and don't see them often, it's also hard to know what to get them.  What do they already have?  What do they need?  So we usually end up getting gift certificates, and they often get them for us.  Somehow, though, we're in a gift certificate competition now, where the amounts increase every year, certainly beyond what everyone can afford.  But who will be the first to back down, and give a more reasonable amount?  Hard to say.

And the gift certificates make my stepmom roll her eyes (you know you do, Gloria!).  I think they seem like the easy way out.  And they probably are.  So maybe I'll think on that today as I'm figuring out what to get that side of the family.  I will say this:  the nice thing about the gift certificate is that it fits everyone.  My sister has three kids, and I'm pretty bad about tracking their ages, so I'm sure I've purchased a lot of age-inappropriate stuff in the past.  Again, though, maybe a different sort of effort needs to be made here.

We agreed with Steve and Julie that we wouldn't exchange grown-up gifts this year--only stuff for the kids.  I think this is great.  We grown-ups don't need any more stuff, certainly, but we can get some goodies for the babes.  The key, of course, will be to refrain from sending grown-up gifts, right?  Because if one side sends a grown-up gift, then the whole cycle of guilt and buying begins again.  Restraint is key in these situations, and it's not easy to implement.

I was guilty of breaking the pact a few years ago.  We made an arrangement with Eric's dad and stepmom not to exchange gifts, and then we ended up giving them a big, framed photo of Addie.  Trust-breaker.  Not cool.  Especially because I was the one who initiated the no-gift-giving idea, which I think was hard for Phil and Ubi to swallow--I think they wanted to exchange gifts, and it makes them happy to do so.  So, I blew it.

Are you getting the picture?  We have so many separate families to think about and buy for.  When younger, one of the few perks of being children of divorced parents was that you got twice the gifts.  Now that we're older, though, we have twice the gifts to buy.  Luckily, we also have twice as many people in our life to love and be loved by, so it worked out, thank goodness.  It's just a lot of pressure to judge yourself and your relationships by what you can afford to get someone.

Eric's susceptible to this holiday madness, too.  For a few years now, he's left the gift buying to me, and he's always unhappy at unwrapping time because he feels I haven't spent enough on folks compared to what they've spend on us.  This make him feel bad, and make me feel terrible, like a greedy little gnome taking bites off of everyone else's mushroom.  I feel like saying, "Well, you buy the gifts, then!"  But then the gifts wouldn't be bought, or we'd spend thousands of dollars.  And I don't feel like either is a great option.  Still, this year, he's responsible for buying for his family (within a set budget that both of us agreed on), and I'm buying for mine.  Keep your fingers crossed.

Do I sound ungrateful?  Stingy?  Resentful?  I suppose there's some truth in that.  Maybe it's unfair that now we're comfortable and have most of what we need that I all of a sudden decide this gift-giving thing is for the birds.  But it's not that I don't want to give.  I enjoy being crafty, so I like making gifts and giving them to others.  I like finding good deals on something I know someone else will love.  I just wish there wasn't pressure to do this at one particular time of year.  Wouldn't it be great if, some time in the heat of June, I found a beautiful vase that I knew my sister would love.  I wrap it in festive paper and attach a Merry Christmas card.  Because I am thinking of her then, and found the perfect gift then.  Wouldn't that be great?  Wouldn't it be great it I stopped putting all this pressure on everything?  Wouldn't it be great if I changed my expectations and let go of everyone else's reactions?  Stopped projecting my feelings of inadequacy on to them? 

But for now, Nolie and I will spend today figuring out how to keep these balls in the air, and we will address Christmas cards (which I love to do).  And we'll try to make decisions from a place of love and gratitude.  Hopefully our sentiments will hit their mark.

National Lampoon's Thanksgiving Vacation

 

I don't even know where to begin describing this weekend.  It was wonderful.  Chaotic.  Inspiring.  Exhausting.

And that was just the first twenty minutes.

They came in two cars from the airport; Eric drove Julie (my sister-in-law) and the kids Gwen and Raiff back, and Steve (my brother-in-law) and Laurie (my mother-in-law) rented a car and drove together from the airport.  In that twenty minutes, Steve and Laurie were in a fender-bender (a mirror-bender, actually), Addie fell onto her head again, Nolie, Gwen and Raiff were screaming their heads off, Julie was in tears, and I was headed out the door for a faculty seminar.  Wowza.  I was just glad we had boarded the dog, otherwise I'm sure he would have crapped all over the carpet.

Really, though, it was an incredible weekend.  I mean, I love these folks because they're my family now.  But I also really like all of them, which is an added bonus.  I loved talking with Julie about how fast our kids grow up and about what it's like raising them; I loved hearing from Steve about how things are back in San Diego, so that I can imagine their routine when they leave; I loved watching Grambie Laurie bliss out with all of her grandbabies.  I chased around with Gwen, who jumps like a frog, squeals like a banshee, and smiles like an angel; I bounced Raiff, who gives giant bearhugs, grabbing fistfuls of your hair and pulling you to him as if he just can't get enough of you.  These are good people, the best.  These are my people.

In all, it was a magnificent visit, with much love and reconnecting.  But of course everyone was utterly wiped out when the San Diego Schneiders boarded their plane Sunday.  Having house guests, even of the most wonderful kind, is tiring, especially when your house is on the teensy side, like ours.  But, really, I felt most tired for them.  Have you ever traveled with small children?  Holy cow, is it crazy.  There's the stress of the flight, which might be delayed, or canceled, or over-full.  There's worrying about your child freaking out on the plane while other passengers shoot you poison-dart-eyes.  Your kid might barf or poop everywhere, and there might not be a changing table in the lavatory.  You might lose your bag, drop your kid on her head, miss your flight.

Then, if and when you get where you're going, things might not be babyproofed the way they are at your house so that you never get to sit down for one minute for chasing your baby around making sure he doesn't light himself on fire or swallow a Christmas ornament, and you might have to sleep in different configurations such that nobody sleeps much at all, or the kids might get sick.  The food is different and you're constipated from traveling.  Your kid might have tantrums that reach heights they never reach at home, and you worry someone thinks he's out of control, you're a bad parent, whatever.  On and on.  A perfectly joyous visit can also be perfectly stressful.

I remember when I first flew back to Idaho so that Addie could meet my folks.  She was weeks old, and the minute I strapped her in the carseat on the way to their house, she started to scream.  She screamed for the whole twenty-minute drive.  I got sweaty and panicky and eventually broke into tears, too.  Her screaming sounded so loud to me, and I worried my Dad would get into a wreck from the hassle of it, or that my parents would think Addie was a bad kid, or that I was in the backseat pinching her, and that my secret--that I am truly a horrible parent!  That I should never have been allowed to procreate!--would be revealed. 

Of course, Addie eventually calmed down, and so did I, and the rest of the visit was pretty uneventful.  But I still remember that feeling exactly, and it's recreated almost every time I go somewhere with the kids.  Just leaving your front door is inviting a whole bunch of uncertainty that we as parents are always trying to ward off by carrying extra diapers, sippy cups, fruit snacks, barf bags, changes of clothes, toys, books, pacifiers, wipies, birth certificates, strollers, carseats, etc.  If that trip out the front door is leading you to the airport, the anxiety--and the gear--is tripled.

But we do it anyway, this traveling half way across the country, because we want our kids to know one another.  We remember how much we loved our cousins as kids, and how important it is for them to know that family is a big idea, meaning lots of different things.  We do it because, although we love where we live and what we do and who we are, we are always missing where we came from, and missing the people who aren't here with us.  We do it because these babies grow so fast, and we need to grab whatever minutes we get with them and hold on tight.

Impending Arrivals

Today, I am so excited.  First, we woke up this morning to heavy snow that fell on and off all day.  I took the girls to daycare so that I could get some work done, and it was all cold and frosty outside, and the roads were a mess.  But it is so beautiful when it snows, and it makes settling in to get some things done so cozy.  Hot cup of cocoa, please.  Brrr.

But I'm also so excited because Eric's family is coming in from San Diego--his mom, and his brother Steve, sister-in-law Julie, and our niece Gwen, who is almost two, and Raiff, who is about eight months old.  It is going to be a crazy, packed house this weekend!  But I love it.  I love having people hanging around in their pj's, and I love making big dinners with Eric, and watching the kids be adorable.  It's particularly relaxing to be around families with kids the same age as yours--you can all totally bliss out in the amazing-ness of your children without having to apologize or trying to hold an extended adult conversation.

And I haven't seen these guys since last Christmas.  Eric and Addie went back to meet new baby Raiff:

in April, but I didn't go (mostly because I was pregnant and bitchy and didn't want to sleep on an air mattress and also because I wanted a weekend to myself before Nolie came.  And, I must admit, that weekend to myself was wonderful.  I ate out and saw friends and slept in and cleaned up and read books.  But, as a result, I've really been missing these guys.  And I'm not just saying that because they read this blog.  I really miss them.  I'm tearing up just thinking about it).

Isn't Raiff beautiful?  And Gwen is stunning, too.  I can't wait to see them, and to watch Addie interact with them.  Addie's been running around saying, in one long breath, "Tomorrow Grambie and Unca Steve and An Julie and Cousin Gwen and Cousin Raiff and Cousin...ARE COMING!"  She's been adding on the extra cousin just because she gets so excited.  Nolie will just be smiling and sticking her tongue out a lot, when she's not screaming her head off.  But I'm looking forward to that, too.

And I love that Eric's mom is coming, partly because she is just a cool woman who knows a lot about politics and art and culture but also because I love showing off these grandbabies to their grandparents.  And I know how important grandparents can be--mine were to me. 

Of course, I'm a little worried about them all.  It is freezing-ass cold here, today, and tomorrow is only going to be a little warmer.  I think we'll have to bundle them all up in quilts and fleece and hand out steaming cups of hot tea.  But won't it be exciting to see snow?  Or just alienating and cold?  I'll let you know.