Night Owls

Jack’s usual schedule has gone on vacation. With Robby home for the week from work we’ve stayed up later and slept in longer and Jack’s on to us.

Last night Robby tucked Jacky into bed, started a bath for me, patted the little black dog’s head, and went over to our brother Andy’s house for a night of football bowl games. Michigan was playing in the Alamo Bowl. Robby’s disappointment in this minor bowl was evident. The Rose Bowl is the big one, of course… the Alamo bowl is like a custard cup. But the chance to watch it with someone who cares (as opposed to the wife who would be peeking at her TiVo offerings) was a steady lure.

As for me, I settled in for a nice bath and then a night of Christmas cookies and TiVo.

Until the siren cry of my small son came bellowing through the monitor and racheted up steadily to the point of no return/wracking sobs. I retrieved him and cuddled up in the chair with the baby, the pup, the blanket, the remote, and an icy bottled coke.

By the time Robby strolled in after midnight, reeking of cigars and spewing football recaps, Jack had found a second (or third?) wind and had proceeded to his toys.

Vive la vacation!

And it came to pass…

When I was a little girl one of my most favorite Christmasy Things To Do was to set up our nativity scene. We had two. One was more modern and smooth. The other was old looking and detailed. It was up to me to choose which of the principal figures to use from each set. The older I got the more I favored the set with the delicate, thoughtful Mary. Besides, the modern Joseph looked too much like Abraham Lincoln. It bothered me. (Then again, I always whispered an apology to the family that wasn’t chosen as I rewrapped them and put them back in the box.) The only disappointment was that both of the baby Jesuses were solidly attached to their mangers– I liked the idea of waiting till Christmas morning to place the baby in place. I consoled myself, however, with the truth that it always looks a bit odd to have the Mary and the Joseph without the baby– it’s not as though I could change their expressions from one of adoration of their infant son to one of anxious waiting. Combining the sets gave us extra sheep and animals and camels and my mother was good enough not to point out that the sets really didn’t look right together from an artistic point. And we had a really great little stable with a hole in the back for an electric bulb to cast a glow over the scene. A nail allowed for a suspended angel with her banner. I liked moving the little figures around in a their footing of shredded straw. Sometimes the shepherd with the sheep around his shoulders stood behind the family. Sometimes I was aware of the direction to place the three wise men so that they approached from the East (only the smoother set had the wisemen which was a pity– the older looking set would have had fabulous looking turbaned men).

Robby and I have two sets of the family, too. We recieved both at our wedding. One is a very beautiful family from Mexico. The baby has wee delicate hands and Mary is especially beautiful. Not long after our first Christmas the husband of the couple that gave them to us died. They were our age. We hadn’t known the wife all that well. Each Christmas I wonder if she made her way back to her native Mexico or if she is still in Michigan. The other set is a simple little ceramic set. There is only one sheep for the shepherd to watch… an only one camel for the wisemen to travel to Bethlehem upon. It’s bothersome in that regard. This year it’s on top of the computer armoire, out of reach of Jacky’s curious hand. He loves to bang things. And toss things. So this year he can only see baby Jesus with a boost from Mommy or Daddy…

I’m not a biblical scholar. I do know enough to know that the story of Jesus’ birth weren’t written right away. That the story wasn’t the focus of the early Christian writings and came after the ressurection and ascension had been firmly accounted. And, let’s face it, in the hand of men a lot of details are missing… We skip from scene to scene in both Matthew’s and Luke’s Gospels and a lot is lost in the translation. In college a fiery professor spent the greater part of a lecture going over each word of the original texts and translations to argue that it wasn’t a stable that sheltered Mary at all. I only know that the older I get the more questions I have…

Was Mary alone? was there a woman to help? Maybe the innkeeper’s wife? Didn’t someone take pity on such a young girl with her first baby? Were there clean cloths brought? Was there broth or tea? Was it a simple delivery or did she suffer through hours of wishing her mother was nearby? Did Joseph spend the time with her or did he pace outside? With all those people in town for the census was there a background of music from a marketplace? Was Jesus a fussy babe? How long was it until they found more appropriate shelter? Was it cold? Did they watch their small son in wonder that he was their’s to raise? The census would have the rest of Joseph’s family there– did they bring gifts to the new family? advice?

The magic in all the questions is that the more they multiply the less they really matter. I believe it all. I believe the shepherds were sore afraid, that Mary pondered these things in her heart, and that Joseph had some nights of tossing and turning with angelic visits thrown in.

We read Jack the Christmas story again this year. Last year he was a teeny little pile of baby in our bed while we read from St. Luke’s account of Jesus’ birth. This year he sat on Daddy’s lap in the recliner chair while Mommy read. We read first his little board book about the nativity. It rhymes and he likes the cadence of the words. We like the cadence of the St. Luke account, too. We grew up with Linus’ earnest reading and the familiarity of the text coupled with our awe at parenthood give it a weight that even Jack appreciates. In a year or two he’ll start to get it. That once there was a baby who had a mommy and a daddy… our job is to start with that.

The elf stops by with an early present

Jacky was feverish this week. Today he’s been back to a normal temperature… but the last three days have been flushed and hot and worrisome.

The glass was half full though– an unexpected side effect turned out to be a very cuddley boy. He’d play away from me only for a few minutes before reaching his arms back up to be snuggled close. We spent whole days in our jammies and slippers under a fleece blanket. A little Sesame Street on the television and a stack of board books and we were golden.

Still. It’s good to have his little body back to normal… as nice as it was to have him in my arms it’s better that he is climbing and barreling his way around the room again. Today he swung his arms out as though he was marching.

It’s been a busy month. Jack’s fever slowed us down to a crawl this week. A much needed crawl. Kind of a Tiny Tim lightbulb without the limp or crutch.

Ho Ho Howl

It’s been a busy week.

Rob had a business trip in Chicago and Jack, my Mom, and I tagged along for a little Christmas shopping and sightseeing.

Marshall Fields warms the cockles of my heart. Not the little mall branches but the big, glorious downtown department store. It was always the first stop on Weekends In Chicago With Dad (the shoe FLOOR is fabulous) and, in recent years, I’ve become rather fond of the windows at Christmas. Next year MF will be a Macy’s and the idea of it not being green and stripey and familiar makes me sad. It’s another thing I won’t get to do with Jack that Dad did with me.

My pal Rhonda, upon hearing that I would be in the Windy City, urged me to take Jack to see the MF Santa Claus. The fact that Rhonda is Jewish gave more weight to this suggestion. I looked at her quizzically, forming the question still, when she laughed and said, “Okay, so my parents didn’t want us to miss out on what seemed to be a big deal…” Mom and I took her advice and found the entrance to the Cloud Cottage City (?) on the fifth floor in the girl’s section. (What the Big Man in Red was doing in the girl’s section we aren’t sure yet.) The line wasn’t horrible– no worse than the line at our local mall so we entertained Jack with bits of bread and his sippy cup full of milk while the line snaked through a maze of little cottage vignettes. The people around us were worth the wait. Behind us a mother constantly bargained with her bratty child. Mom said she’d slap me silly if I behaved in such a way with her grandson. The really unfortunate part was that the two kids were incredibly homely children. Their whining only exasperated the issue of their nonbeauty. In front of us a family assembled in generations, continually adding to the audience of the small children. The grandfather returned with a triumphant look at gaining access to one of the Walnut Room beepers. (The Walnut Room had a 3 hour wait just to get a beeper for another 1 wait… We skipped that little experience.) An elf approached us and we chatted for a minute. Really, what better job is there? You are an elf. A helper of Santa. And you get to wear a kicky hat and bells. Being a department store with Santa would suck. Being an elf– fun without the pressure. And then we were at the vestibule and on the verge of it being our turn to see Santa… Turns out there was more than one of The Big Man’s helpers.

Here’s the thing. I believe in the idea of Santa Claus… but even as a kid I never believed that the ones we saw were anything but helpers… people dressed in costumes helping. It doesn’t bother me that, in the case of MF, there are 3 Santas (Mom got this information out of a very reluctant but whistle blowing elf) just as at Disney World there are 3 Mickeys. It keeps the line moving. I’m not out to burst bubbles. And it will be interesting to see what Jack believes. Will it be the idea of Santa Claus and all his goodness? or will he take greater stock in the costumed, bearded fellow at the mall? I hope it’s the former, I really do.

In any event he was not taken with the Santa Claus we met at MF. Me neither– fake beards rarely inspire a kid. Jack howled and howled and howled. Big crocodile tears slid down his face and he looked to Mom and I as though to say, “Why? Why would you do this to me? He’s scary!” I tried to hold him and sit near Santa (next to Santa not being in Jack’s Safety Concept) but still no luck. In the end I thanked Santa and wished him a Merry Christmas and carried my weeping, shuddering boy out into the hall where he promptly stopped and smiled at both Momma and I.

I think we’ll skip leaving out any cookies this year.

We walked the Line

We don’t see too many movies at the theater these days. Between getting a sitter for Jack, the cost of tickets and treats, and the uncomfortable theater seats in our town– well, we’re choosey now.

Last night we left Jacky to play at his Momma’s house so we could see Walk the Line– the Johnny & June Carter Cash story. It was really good. Both Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon nailed their parts. And the period details were, for the most part, well tended… And I for one like the idea that they both did the singing in the movie instead of piping in the real Cashs’ voices. The on-screen chemistry was palpable. Holy cow. Ryan Phillipe must be a very secure little husband.

On the way out to the car, both of us humming Cash/Carter Cash tunes in our heads, Robby asked, “So, what’d you think?”

Me: “What a great movie! The kind that makes me totally dissatisfied with my life now!”

Rob: “What?”

Me: “I think I might be in love with Joaquin Phoenix for a while now.”

Rob: “Great. Okay. Why?”

Me: “Did you see the way he looked at Reese Witherspoon/June Carter? She was his everything!”

Rob: “Let me get this straight– you want me to be a coke headed drunk who can’t hold down a job and acts violently?”

Me: “Okay. Maybe not.”

Oh well. Joaquin Phoenix doesn’t even usually have a baritone voice either. And he’s too young.

Stupid movie love.

Avalanche

Outside this morning we found a blanket of 7.8″ (according to the weather guy) fresh snow… We are lovers of snow in this house– at least Robby and I are. The dog usually finds it troublesome. You would, too, if it was up past your chin.

Jack, however, is still a drawn jury. In a few years he’ll be able to express his pleasure or horror at the white stuff that makes his parents giddy… for now he’s still at the whim of us.

So, before Robby had to trek off to work (Where is a snow day for grown ups when you need one???) we bundled up ourselves and the pup (with Jack’s new scarf) and wrestled Jack into his new puffy snowsuit and went out to the front yard.

It’s probably somewhat humiliating for a baby like Jack to be trussed up in a puffy snowsuit that restricts his little arms to flailing movements and his legs to walking as though he had a basketball between his knees… Especially when we prop him up on my Dad’s old red sled with the dog. And take pictures.

He might have liked the snow– he managed to reach down and get a handful of it (no small feat without thumbs in your “mittens”) and plunk that on the dog’s head… but then he reached for another scoop and toppled off into the deep (for him) snow face first.

He’s fine.

No, I didn’t take pictures of that precise moment.

And the dog rode the sled back to the shoveled deck so that his legs and tummy did not get caked in snow.

Keep it coming.

Wah Humbug

I’m feeling a little rushed this Christmas.

And I don’t like it.

We’ve put up and decorated the tree and I’ve put out some of my Santa Clauses and snowmen… and set up the little nativity scene… but there are no candles in our windows or magnificently lit trees in the sideyard and my Christmas village and feather tree will stay in the attic until next year.

It’s like being Ebeneezer Scrooge’s second cousin.

I don’t like it.

The other blog

I ran into an old friend last night at a party. I think the last time we saw each other might have been at my wedding. She and her husband had a wee little son at that time. We have exchanged Christmas cards over the years and the like– so I knew that her family had grown with two more children but it was still a shock to see that her little son is now an 11 year old boy and that her girls aren’t far behind.

Christy, it turns out, hasn’t aged a day. Nor her husband.

And she’s a loyal reader of this blog. (Not that the two are related– I don’t suppose I can take credit for her youthfulness?)

She and I were sometimes adversaries, sometimes champions of the other, and more often friends back in college. She was from the South. I was from the North (Midwest, I liked to correct her.) Our birthdays were so close they practically overlapped. We both endured living in an all-girl dorm that had the wretched reputation of housing overweight, dull girls. We were neither. It was our humor that sought each other out. We both were still, in those years, honing our sarcasm. We made cracks that most people around us didn’t get. (And they were funny cracks, too. Was it our fault that our knowledge of popculture was superior to theirs’?) In our last years at college Christy was editor of the yearbook while I had the newspaper to tend. We had a tight knit little knot of friends up in student publications but at the end of the day it was often just the two of us still trying to finish up one project or another. And we both loved and hated our advisor, Wally. (The Blog Father.)

So it was to Christy last night that I admitted that, in my head, there is another blog. The one that has 4 entries to every one here. The one that is better written, if only in the dark part of my brain that is kept at bay the terror that I might hurt someone’s feelings. On the freeway there are messages scrawled, “I love you Carla!” and the like. It’s nicer that way. I’ll keep my little adopted section of the Information Super Highway as nice as I can because it’s all out there for anyone to read…

Maybe once in a while though I could stick up a biting bumper sticker?

Grand Babies

My Friend Wallis is a grandfather. His wife, Katie, is a grandmother. They are new titles for a pair that already have several good ones– friend, father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister, Christian, teacher, nurturer, writer, poet, pilgrim, entrepeneur, rebel, counselor… The list goes on. Those up top, off the top of my head, don’t include Katie’s gentle way of listening as though you were the very most important voice in the whole world. Or Wally’s irritating habit of knowing more than most about words and how they should fit together.

Their granddaughter, Tabitha Elaine, arrived safely this week. I have yet to meet the littlest member of their family– and yet I already envy her for the place that has been carved for her in this world. There will be reams written about this wee child– I can only imagine the words that are bumping into each other in her grandfather’s head (and heart). And her life will be captured in pictures from not only her father’s measured eye but also her uncle’s. She’s lucky enough to come into a family where she has two young, unmarried uncles, the youngest of which will teach her, I should hope, his exuberance.

On my answering machine is a message from Wally. The joy in his voice still makes me laugh to play it over. On it he advised me to go to a website so that I might take in the first images of Miss Tabitha. I like fresh babies. There’s something about those hours and days when they are still puffy and red and unfinished looking that takes my breath away. But the kicker wasn’t the many photos of her alone but the one with her Mama holding her with such joy and pride and trademarked laughter.

Welcome to the world, baby girl. You’ve landed in good hands.

Delivery Room

My mother flew home today for Christmas. Robby, Jack, and I made the drive over to the airport to pick her up then zip down to a family Christmas with my Granny where Mom’s arrival would be a surprise.

Airport security being what it is, it’s really killed the airport experience. Leaving France this week our party went through the security area leaving Mom on the other side… and I realized that Jack won’t know what we once did– the joys and sorrows of saying hello and goodbye at an airport gate. He’ll see scenes from older movies and wonder that his mother is old enough to have such memories.

So there I was in the crowd milling around the fogged glass doors of the customs area waiting. There are two sets of automatic doors. You can’t see into the area itself and it leaves you to guessing which flights have passed through by looking at the passengers as they emerge. Today Mom’s flight from France came through at the same time as one from Japan and one from Germany. Robby and Jack drove the ring outside, circling as the Homeland Security People waved all cars from pausing or stopping without a passenger approaching with luggage.

I watched an old woman come through the doors. Her face lit up immediately at the old man waving at her and, when she reached him, they kissed and embraced and I wondered where she’d been that he had not gone, too. A younger girl was greeted by a middle aged couple (her parents? an aunt and uncle?) and they hurriedly gathered her things and left.

There were others and it was fun to try to match up people waiting with those that emerged from the fogged doors.

But the group that really caught my attention was about 20 deep. There were balloons and flowers and signs that said, “Welcome Home MOM!” Who was this woman that so many people had gathered for? She had, waiting for her, old people and young– small children that tugged impatiently at the adults who ignored them as they peered at the doors and mumbled to each other, “Surely she would have called if there was a problem?” Behind me a brother-in-law of the group pushed a small child in a stroller and checked in on his sweeps around the room. Their anxious tension was infectious. My curiousity peeked. I called Robby on the cell phone and wondered to him who this large group had gathered for– who garnered this kind of anticipation? Had these people never let one of their own leave the country before? Why was it necessary for ALL of them to be here to greet this one woman?

I scanned the emerging passengers for Mom hoping that she would not arrive before I could see who this woman was.

And then she was there. And it all became clear. She wasn’t much older than me and in her arms was a tiny, perfect Chinese daughter. The mother’s hand constantly stroked the smokey black head of her wee girl and there was such a rush of tears from the entire room– myself included– at meeting this new member of their family.

Sometimes, when I’m holding JackRabbit and I am aware of every hair on his head, the musty smell of his neck I wonder about the exact moment that he no longer needed me to breath for him. I was knocked out– there was no “It’s a boy!” moment or bloody, fresh baby laid on my chest. We had our wits about us when we laid eyes on each other… I remember waking up, seeing Robby, and knowing that I was a mother. How long had this woman been a mother? A matter of days? weeks? How do you measure that anyway?

By the time my mother emerged I had learned the little girl’s name and congratulated one of the grandmothers. And thought how lucky I was to see the safe delivery of someone’s first child.

The nicest gifts come from the strangest places. If it weren’t for all the regulations that prevent my own mother from walking us to the gate I’d never have seen such a thing as I did today.

Remind me of that when I have to take off my shoes to walk through the metal detector, will you?