Last night we drove.

As we do most years.

We drove around town, listening to Christmas carols and sometimes singing along (badly, I might add), looking at Christmas lights. Watching for the houses with the best displays. Admiring those that were especially colorful, or intricate, or retina-searing.

As we drove, “The First Noel” came on the radio. It took me a minute to realize that I was lost in the song, imagining playing it on the piano when I was a girl, singing with all my pre-teen heart. “The First Noel” was one of my favorites. “Silent Night.” “Greensleeves.”  I played, and sang, and probably tortured my parents.

It was beautiful.

Christmases were beautiful. I remembered when I was five years old and got my first bicycle, dark blue and white with a sparkly banana seat and streamers flowing from the handlebars. I remembered the year my mother, inexplicably, crafted Santa and Mrs. Claus out of Reader’s Digests and red spray-paint. I remembered the Christmas Eve my cousins and I all received sleeping bags from our grandparents, unwrapping them in the glow of the tree. I remembered a shopping trip with Dad, sitting in a Hardee’s restaurant on the first day of winter in 1977. Or maybe it was 1978. He explained the solstice to me over hamburgers.

I remembered the sleigh bells that hung on the back door, and the enormous artificial wreath that my mom always put in the family room. And spaghetti dinners on Christmas Eve. And the annual sugar cookie cut-outs, when I was allowed to sort through all of Mom’s cookie cutters: the ancient metal reindeer and gingerbread man, the red plastic Santa, the green Christmas tree. And so many more. More cookie cutters. More memories.

Last night my memories of “The First Noel” told me the beautiful lie that my childhood was perfect. There is no possible way, I thought, that my children will have such magical memories. I shrank inside as I thought about yelling at them the evening before. And about the messy living room, and how a Christmas tree doesn’t look very pretty in a cluttered room.  About how we didn’t take them to Breakfast with Santa because I was just too tired. And about how I’m never able to follow through with all my Christmas plans. I never get it all done. And I will never, I thought, ever make the kind of memories that my parents made for me.

As if on cue, Evan piped up from the back seat, “Looking at all these Christmas lights makes me feel happy.” His voice was quivering with excitement. Jensen added, “I love that we do this every year.”

Of course my childhood wasn’t perfect. Of course there were arguments and tears. There was even lumpy gravy at Christmas dinner. It happens.

Nor did my parents manufacture my memories for memories’ sake. The things I remember are artifacts of a content childhood that had moments of discontent, and of a loving family that didn’t always see eye-to-eye. The memories were never the goal. The happiness was.

As we drove last night, it was this tree that made Evan’s happiness spill over. This tree is the only source of light on its street. There are no other Christmas displays, and not so much as a streetlight. Just this tree, ablaze in the pitch-black night. This tree has a name. It is called The Magic Tree.

And I don’t know if the boys will always remember this particular tree, on this particular night, at this particular Christmas.

But that is not the goal.

I am not a morning person.

This is perhaps an understatement.

But I get up early to beat the child-rush and to quietly come to grips with consciousness, and after 15 minutes and a cup of coffee I’m good. Sometimes I even like being up.

I sit at the table (coffee in hand) and watch the deck get brighter as the sun comes up. And the daylight brings the birds to the feeders. And if I’m really lucky, Evan will creep down the stairs and crawl up on my lap and watch with me.

“Mom,” he’ll whisper, “there’s a mother red-bellied woodpecker.” Except he says, “muddah wed-bellied woodpeckew,” and part of me hopes he never corrects his pronunciation.

Evan is my bird boy.

With Jensen, it’s football. We sit and watch football for hours and may not even speak a word and we are content. Together. I used to do the same with my dad. I didn’t even understand the game. But I sat next to Dad and watched him watch and I was satisfied. The memory still makes me smile.

I don’t know what Caleb will be. But I know that we will share something that will make us both happy to the center of our beings.

And if whatever he is requires me to get up early, so be it. I will do it.

Because that is love.

While you’ll have to wait until next month to see our actual Christmas card, it is my great pleasure to share with you now our 2009 Christmas Card Reject Photos. Enjoy.

Caleb's immediate reaction upon seeing the camera was to throw himself on the floor and start screaming. This was shockingly similar to Jeff's reaction when I told him it was time to take the pictures.

Red-eye from the camera flash? Or photographic evidence of demonic possession? I think the answer is obvious.

In my fictional world, this is Jensen being really excited to have his picture taken. More likely, he was this happy because I promised him candy when we were done. Seriously, isn't Christmas all about bribery? If you don't pull out "If you're not good, Santa won't bring you a cool present" at least once in the next month, you're a better parent than I. You're probably a better parent than I am, anyway.

My fantasy continues: "Yes!" he shouts. "I love posing for pictures! And I have the awesomest parents in the world! And they definitely don't yell at me during Christmas picture-taking!"

Reality check. "You want me to smile?" he asks, truly perplexed. "As if."

My minimum expectation is that the kids actually look at the camera. Which is apparently asking too much.

Okay, seriously. Look at the camera. No! Look! Dammit. (And so the swearing begins.)

Right. While nose-picking is very festive and all, could you maybe not? I'll give you candy if you don't pick your nose. And puppies! I promise.

There are no words that adequately describe this child. None.

Temporarily ignoring this look of anguish, I must explain that I have no idea why two-thirds of our children are not wearing shirts for their Christmas pictures. But, let's be honest: Christmas would be a whole lot more fun if we were ALL half-naked. Am I right?

All I can say is that this one came dangerously close to making the final cut. Best. Christmas card. Ever.*

Shortly after this last shot, Jeff and I indulged in our now-traditional Christmas Card Picture Stiff Drink while the kids withdrew to their bedrooms to flip through the yellow pages for therapists and to plot their revenge for this annual torture session.  This is the stuff memories are made of. God, I love the holidays.

———————–

File this under “Be Careful What You Wish For.” With a cross-reference to “Is Summer Over Yet?”

My kids hated each other on Tuesday. Jensen and Evan fought all day, epic battles over who got the shopping cart at the store and whose feet stink worse (and that’s pretty much a tie because they have the stinkiest feet in the Western Hemisphere). Because I am a mother and follow the script, I said something entirely Rodney King-ish, like, “Why can’t you guys just get along?”

And yesterday, they did get along. By some minor miracle, nobody lost any eyes or limbs or spleens during their Tuesday brawls, and they were Best Friends yesterday. During Caleb’s naptime they played downstairs together for three straight hours, allowing me to work upstairs without a single interruption. They were happy, I was happy. This was obviously a direct result of my awesome parenting, right?

I? Am an idiot.

I finally went downstairs to see what they were up to. And I had one of those moments where everything just kind of went in slow motion, you know?

The first thing I saw was that the entire family room floor was covered in tiny bits of styrofoam. I could not see the carpet. It looked like it had snowed two inches.

The second thing I saw was the oscillating fan, obviously set on “high,” with the fan cage full of foam packing peanuts.

And then I saw the kids. Who looked at me, delighted. And who were also covered in styrofoam bits. (The stuff has an amazing static charge.) “Watch this, Mom!” Jensen said, stuffing a handful of peanuts through the back of the fan and giggling uncontrollably as they were sprayed all over the room. Curious, I checked the storeroom. And, yes, they had done the same thing in there.

It took two hours to clean it up. Which pretty much negated the quiet time they had granted me earlier.

The takeaway: we will no longer save styrofoam peanuts.

And I think I liked it better when they hated each other.

I’ve been out of the workforce for a few years. I have a college degree or  two and have some strong experience in my field. But if I were to try to piece together a marketable resume today, I’d be in trouble. Because “2004-Present: Butt-wiper” isn’t going to get me too many interviews.

I’m going to start calling myself a Human Waste Manager. Or maybe a Waste Behavior Specialist. Because dealing with toilet-training issues takes up a good portion of my day, and I may as well adopt a title that reflects that.

Take yesterday evening, for instance.  Poor little Evan was having a great time playing outside. Such a great time, as a matter of fact, that he forgot to come inside to go to the bathroom. He made a valiant last-minute dash, but alas… was too late. I heard a heart-rending cry of disappointment from the garage, and raced to find a puddle on the floor and a devastated little boy with soggy shorts. I went into crisis-management mode, trying to simultaneously comfort Evan, make sure he didn’t track pee into the house, and barricade the puddle so that nobody else ran into the garage and slipped in the mess. (Such a talent may or may not translate well into the workplace.)

He showered (an adventure in itself), and we decided to bathe Caleb while we were at it. I stripped him down and the little punk, who is a few days shy of 20 months old, waddled over to the toilet, lifted the seat, and did his best to imitate his big brothers. He made it abundantly clear that he wanted to use the toilet. My heart sank.

I hate potty-training. Hate it. It is the hardest parental task I have ever undertaken. I would have a million Sex Talks with my kids, would breastfeed indefinitely, would change diapers for the next 25 years… all before I would willingly undertake this last potty-training.

But I can’t really justify not potty-training the poor kid so we got out Caleb’s brand-new potty chair. (In our home, each child gets his own new potty chair. Because after teaching a little boy directional pee control, those chairs qualify as weapons of mass destruction and really should be incinerated so as not to pose a genuine threat to public health and national security.) He sat on it for a while and looked cute and then Jeff plopped him in the tub. Where Caleb immediately peed. Of course. (He probably drank a fair amount of contaminated bath water, too, but I left Jeff in charge and didn’t witness it.)

To summarize: Evan, who is potty-trained, peed all over the garage. Caleb, who is not potty-trained, seems like maybe he wants to be. It took a good 45 minutes to deal with the implications of their bathroom adventures last night. I perform some variation on this waste control at least a couple of times a day (don’t forget last week’s Case of the Mysterious Footprints), and probably will for several more years. Several more years of making sure all the pee and poop winds up in the correct place. Several more years of cleaning up all the stuff that doesn’t make it into the right place. Several more years of decontaminating the biohazardous bathroom where all their pee-related crimes against humanity occur. (I just threw up a little in my mouth.)

Along with being a master of preschool arts and crafts and my so-so (but improving) Guitar Hero skills, this is what I have to recommend me for a  job. It seems a little underwhelming. Something tells me I’m better off just staying unemployed.

“Mo-ommm! Caleb pooped!” Jensen hollered from the other room.

Of course. It all came clear. The trail of little brown footprints I had just discovered across the living room carpet made total sense. Total disgusting sense. I thought they were a little far apart. Caleb must have been taking really big steps. Triple-jumping or something. Whatever. There was a diaper to change and I needed to get him before he walked on every square inch of floor in the house.

I prepared myself for a leaky diaper, and was confused when I found no leak. No dirty feet. Nothing. The diaper was completely intact. Something was wrong.

Enter Evan. Shocking, isn’t it?

Evan (crying dramatically): “There’s poop on my feet!!!”
Me (surprisingly unimpressed): “Of course there is. Why do you have poop on your feet?”
Evan (wailing): “It’s Caleb’s!!! Caleb’s poop is on my feet!”
Me: “How did you get Caleb’s poop on your feet?”
Evan: “I don’t know!”
Me: “Did you touch him?”
Evan: “Noooo!”
Me: “Did he touch you?
Evan: “Noooo!”
Me: “Quit jumping around. So you got Caleb’s poop on your feet and you have no idea how?”
Evan: “I think it was magic.”

And that was it. That is all I know about how how this happened. So we washed his feet. I scrubbed approximately 6327 poop-prints from the carpet. And the mystery remains. The only bright spot is my hope that Caleb’s Magical Poop will make potty training easier.

Some little lies are excusable, right? Because God knows, as a parent, I tell a few of them.

Like this week. Jensen and Evan (the older two boys) went to stay at my mom and dad’s house. It was their version of “vacation,” and seemed especially important since I had to cancel our other vacation earlier this month. So away they went, for a week, where my parents did more fun things with them than those kids have ever done in their entire lives cumulatively. I was completely expecting them to never want to come home.

But on Thursday night, Jensen finally wanted to talk to me on the phone (he’d been having too much fun to talk to me before this). And he talked. And he talked. Then he said, a bit too casually, “So… how are things going there?” Which was secret code for, “I miss you.” But because he’s eight and impending coolness rules his demeanor, he can’t be openly affectionate with me anymore. Anyway, I got the idea. It was sweet.

Then he said, “I’ll bet Caleb misses me a lot. Is he looking around for me? Does he ask for me?”

Jensen’s veiled homesickness broke my heart, just a little. And I lied, because I didn’t want to break his heart. “Yeah,” I said, “he’s kind of looking around for you. I think he misses you.”

Ha. Caleb didn’t miss his brothers one single bit. He was living in the best parent-child ratio he’s ever known, and he loved every minute of it. He was just fine with not having older boys around to compete for our attention or to push him around. He did not miss them.

But on the ride home today, they all just kept looking at each other. They all laughed at each other. And now we’re home and they all just disappeared together. I haven’t heard a word out of them. They’re all happy… together. Weird.

So maybe, completely unintentionally, I really didn’t tell a lie.

I want to post. Really.

There are a few things I want to write about. Like how the Big Kids are spending the week with my parents and I only have one kid at home this week, about how my husband has been on vacation forever and if he doesn’t get his ass back to work I’m going to scream, about how we saw a makeshift sign yesterday in the middle of nowhere that said, “You might be a right-wing terrorist if you cling to your Bible and Guns. But I’d call you a Patriot,” and about how I’m considering officially nominating Tiffany’s “I Think We’re Alone Now” as the Worst Song Of All Time.

Oh, and I went to the dentist and I don’t have any cavities.

And then there’s the part about how I got the last bit of evidence today that I really do have MS and I’m starting to feel better but I’m still really tired and am trying to learn how to live with it all. With the disease, and with the knowledge, and with the uncertainty. Yeah, there’s that.

I’m trying to be myself again, but it’s taking a little time. I’ll get there.   And when I do, my blog will no longer be The Most Depressing Place on Earth. Promise. In the meantime, here’s Evan. He makes me laugh.

Because this morning Jeff and Evan took me to their super-top-secret-wild-blackberry-picking place.

And because one of my very favorite childhood memories is picking berries with my grandma.

And also because I understand so very well that I can’t take moments like these for granted.

And, finally, because there is nothing in this whole world quite like a fresh berry. Also, there is nothing– nothing– as precious as my little boys, who smell of sleep and sunshine and fresh morning air.

 

Yes, that is a tattoo on his chin

If he keeps going he'll have sleeves

I’m especially fond of this last one.  The kid put a tattoo that says “Tiger” underneath his bellybutton. It takes a special kind of mind to come up with something like that. Tiger? Below the belt? He’s not supposed to have that kind of bad sense for, like, 14 or 15 years, is he?