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.

My husband has a dependency problem. We work through it, mostly. It’s the same old story. Sometimes he manages it well, sometimes he slips into old patterns of using and avoidance and defensiveness and untruthiness. Sometimes I get mad. Sometimes I just let him withdraw from us. It threatens us. But, so far, we have survived.

His drug of choice? The Economist. Cross my heart and hope to die, he is strung out on global financial affairs. Could be worse, I suppose.

But if anything’s going to ruin our marriage, it will be that damned magazine. He has them stashed all over the house… tucked into bathroom drawers, behind sofa cushions, in the storeroom. He is probably never more than five steps away from a fix. Maybe an article about rule of law in Russia. 5:30 on any given weeknight, and I’m in the kitchen tripping over 73 Legos and Hot Wheels and am openly swearing and burning my hand on the oven and the older boys are engaged in a battle to see who can remove the other’s eyes first and the baby has taken off his diaper and peed on the floor and the decibel level in our house approaches the output of a jackhammer. (When did we become this stereotype? That is another post for another day.)

And with pupils that I’m sure are dilated, Jeff sits in the middle of it all, blissfully reading about the rise in India’s manufacturing output in the past decade.

He looks confused when I ask calmly (albeit with a perceptibly bad attitude) if he would kindly put down the magazine and remove the propane tank from Evan’s grubby hands.

Then he gets mad when I not-quite-yell, five minutes later, for him to put away the damned (I whisper that word, so the kids don’t know I’m mad) magazine and engage with us for a few minutes.

“Just let me finish this article,” he says. Every. Single. Night.

I do not exaggerate.

___________________

Jeff was home on Monday. Late in the afternoon I ran some errands. I came home to a crying toddler who was pouring dried pasta all over the floor; an eight-year-old who was screaming, “Fine!” and slamming his bedroom door;  and a preschooler who, wearing nothing but underwear, was repeatedly jumping off the back of the sofa and yelling maniacally about… something. Jeff was cooking dinner. Or trying to. (If you ever stop breathing my husband will save your life without batting an eyelash, but putting dinner on the table for a family of five without splattering tomato sauce on the ceiling and breaking something is beyond his skill set.) His jaw was set. He threw a pot in the sink. The house was a disaster.

I surveyed. I sat down at the table and opened my laptop. I read. I typed. He stared aghast at me from the stove as Caleb attempted to eat a Christmas ornament.

“I can’t get a single thing done,” Jeff said, and threw something else in the general direction of the sink.

“Hmmm. Wonder how that feels?” I replied. Calmly. Sweetly.

He not-quite-yelled, “How about if you put away the computer and help?!”

We looked at each other for a good long minute. I closed the laptop and rescued Caleb from himself, then checked the bread in the oven. Jeff turned to the sink. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I think some sort of intervention occurred in that moment.

We’ve been clean now for 37 hours. Here’s hoping for a sober holiday season.

Okay. Thanksgiving is over. I am so glad we got all that “thankfulness” stuff out of the way. Now we can move onto what really matters: spending money we don’t have on crap we don’t need and for which there is no need to be thankful.

Dutifully, my kids are making Christmas lists for themselves. And wondering what they should buy Dad. And me. And this morning the Sunday paper came and it was 81% ads and the kids pored over them with excitement I haven’t seen since, well, last Christmas. And then there are the 12 mail-order catalogs we get every day. The kids have a cumulative attention span of 43 seconds. Unless they’re looking for stuff to buy. Then they’re good for about 3 hours.

Anyway. After watching them look at the ads this morning, I’m gonna help them out a little. This is a list of things they should categorically NOT give me for Christmas. Period.

• A 6.2-carat genuine cultured faux Christmas-tree shaped topaz adjustable-size ring with matching earrings and a coordinating belt buckle. Any “fashion jewelry” is not. Fashionable. Or, arguably, jewelry.
• A Roomba. Unless my husband is secretly itching for a life of celibacy. In which case any small household appliance would make a perfectly fine gift.
• “Fine fragrance.” Again: anything that feels the need to specify is, most assuredly, not fine.
• A Snuggie. Well, actually, maybe. But no. No.
• A Snuggie for my dog. (If I had a dog.) I actually read a “news report” about Black Friday in which a woman cited not purchasing a Snuggie for her dog last Friday as an example of her new-found fiscal restraint, given These Current Economic Times. To her I say: way to stand firm. It’s personal responsibility like this that makes Our Nation Great.
• A Baby Alive doll that eats. And poops. Granted, I’m probably not the target demographic for this one, but Evan thought it would be perfect for me. I guess a pooping doll is the gift that keeps on giving. This? Is one ugly doll. And it poops. The stuff of nightmares.
• A spare-toilet-paper-roll-holder. Shaped like a giraffe. Its neck is really long and you store TP rolls over said long neck. Yes: this really exists. Ain’t capitalism grand?
• A massager, back or foot variety. Even if it does shiatsu.
• An electric shaver. Apparently Christmas is to the electric shaver industry what Easter is to the egg industry. Here’s hoping I don’t need one.
• A 4-shooter rotating liquor dispenser. Actually, this one may be very practical. I can install it in the laundry room and toss back a couple every time I take stuff out of the dryer. Efficient.
• A DIY doggie DNA test. For anybody who’s just been dying to find out if their ugly, mean chihuahua has a long-lost Rottweilian ancestor. I might get this and secretly test Jeff to see if he has any poodle blood. Seriously, if you’ve seen the dude’s hair recently, you understand.
• A money-sorting jar. The kids found this one in the “For Dad!” section of the ads. Fortunately the ads designate gifts for each parent so we don’t accidentally get a a Dad Gift for Mom or vice versa. But the kids, in their progressive stereotype-crashing ways,  still thought I might like the money-sorter. And I’m totally going to tell them they should get their dad a purple leather purse. A Fashion Handbag, no less. And maybe a zebra-striped bra.
• A Zhu-zhu pet. Mostly because I don’t want my family members to risk closed cranial trauma in the pursuit of one of these stupid things.

What I really want: a Nook. But Barnes & Noble didn’t foresee that this would be a popular gift (how could they have possibly known?!) (oh, and who’s a sucker for marketing?) and they’re sold out until, like, 2013. And I also want a Christmas sweater. Monogrammed. With the letters “WTF” instead of my initials. (Thanks, Becky. I cannot get this out of my head now.) Oh, and if there just happened to be a white Lexus with an enormous red bow on its roof in the driveway on Christmas morning, I probably wouldn’t complain.

But. Marketing being what it is, and my kids being who they are, there’s a good chance I’ll end up with one or more of the items on the Do Not Gift List. Or a home karaoke machine. Or a hand-crafted clay ashtray. And me being who I am, whatever they get me I will declare it The Best Christmas Gift Ever. And I will mean it. Even if it’s a Chia Pet.

I know. I said no posting. But here I am, well-rested. (Thank you Ambien.) And feeling better than I’ve felt in over a week: so far I haven’t been tasered one single time this morning and only my left hand is numb and I was able to make it out of bed this morning without falling against a wall or a doorjamb. (Thank you steroids.) And my children are still sleeping. (I don’t know whom to thank for this minor miracle.) So. A good morning.

And now I’m getting ready to peel and braise a big pot of sweet potatoes. Last night before bed (but after the Ambien) I took the second batch of dinner rolls out of the oven. (Well, technically the third batch. But one of the many joys of MS is that sometimes it makes me unable to concentrate enough to, say, follow a recipe. Even one that I know by heart.  I had to throw away a sodden mess of bread dough on the first attempt which seemed pretty pathetically symbolic at the time.) Tomorrow will be pumpkin cheesecake and pecan pie.

Thanksgiving Friday is almost here!

No: we are not Communists or heathens or just a little slow on the uptake. Thanksgiving Friday. My husband has a job that doesn’t necessarily stop on holidays or weekends or during the night, so he will leave us Thanksgiving morning before 6:00. He’ll be back sometime Friday morning and we’ll trek the eight miles over the river (creek) and through the woods to Grandmother’s house. Together. If we can’t be together, I’d rather not do it.

I’ve been cooking a lot lately, with a compulsion that was almost confusing. Until I stumbled across this lovely blog: The Kitchen Witch. The food, the family, the love… she brings all the perfect imperfections together in a beautiful way in her posts. And, probably, in her life. I’ve always loved to cook. But this is why I’ve been going about it with such reckless abandon in the past weeks. It’s been a sad, scary year. Now I’ve finally recovered enough that I (well, except for this week) recognize myself, and I recognize how much I love these people who live in my house and I recognize how badly I want to stay well enough to keep giving them all of me. I want to spend hours preparing their meals, treating them and nourishing them and every once in a while making them turn up their noses at me or at what I put on their plates. Letting them snitch tastes out of the mixing bowls. And hugging them. And, just maybe, yelling at them a little. Oh, and hugging them. I have the energy to do it right now, and I have to do it while I can.

So Thanksgiving Friday. And the sentiment is this: I will be with people that I love (though not all of them, sadly). I am thankful for them. I want to pour every surge of love, quiet or heart-rending, that I can find in my body into the food I prepare for them. The cooking will take several hours over a few days. One ruined batch of bread dough, two extra trips to the grocery store, one great big burn on my right hand, about 600,041 calories. And hours and hours of love.

It doesn’t seem like nearly enough.

Happy Thanksgiving.  I hope you are as blessed as I am.

It’s not an excuse.

Actually, it is.

But I’m not posting today. I’ve got a couple of posts that I think I kind of like, and they’re waiting to be finished. But not today.

I’m having an MS relapse. Or attack. Whatever you want to call it. I had to start another round of IV steroids last night. And the relapse is making me tired. So tired that it is difficult to imagine moving. And the steroids make me not sleep. And every time I move I get an electric jolt that feels like somebody attached cables to my head and is trying to jump-start me. It hurts. A lot. It makes me black out a little, sometimes. And my balance is more than a bit questionable. I tip, I fall, I trip over the boys. My legs are bruised. And Jeff has a crazy schedule this week and won’t be home to speak of until Sunday.

No, no posting. Except I don’t want to not post because I don’t want you to think I’m dropping out again. No. But reality dictates. I have to focus on the kids and on sleeping and the rest will wait. I have to wait.

And I hope you’ll wait too.

In the light of the moon, an eight-year-old boy lay snuggled up in his bed.

One Sunday morning the warm sun came up and-pop!-out of his bedroom came a medium-sized and very hungry third-grader.

He began to look for some food.

On Monday he ate through a plate of barbequed chicken and mashed potatoes and turnip greens*. But he was still hungry.

On Tuesday he ate through a big bowl of pasta with roasted cauliflower. But he was still hungry.

On Wednesday he ate through a dish of stir-fried tofu and spinach and lima beans. But he was still hungry.

On Thursday he ate through a bowl of pasta salad with chicken and vegetables. But he was still hungry.

On Friday he ate through two cheeseburgers and some French fries. But he was still hungry. And he went to his Grandma and Grandpa’s house.

On Saturday at Grandma and Grandpa’s he ate through two waffles soaked in syrup, one Little Debbie Zebra Cake, one hot dog, one enormous soft pretzel, one package of Rolos candy, some Hershey’s kisses, a lot of Reese’s peanut butter cups, one juice box, one container of movie theater nachos with processed cheese food topping, some leftover popcorn, and three slices of pepperoni pizza.

That night he had a stomachache! Also, he puked.

The next day was Sunday again. He returned home and had a nice dinner of chicken and black beans and sweet potatoes and after that he felt much better.

Shockingly, he was still hungry. And, equally shocking, he was still just a normal-sized eight-year-old, even after the repulsive food orgy in which his grandparents allowed him to indulge.

That evening he rolled up into a cocoon in his bed, and he stayed there all night long. The next morning his mother dragged his whiney butt out of bed and he stumbled down the stairs rubbing his eyes and…

he was a grouchy little boy who looked at his bowl of oatmeal and growled, “Why can’t I eat Froot Loops for breakfast like all the other kids? You don’t love me!”

__________________________

*I assure you that this is our actual menu from last week. A little heavy on the chicken, but it happens. And, yes, my children DO eat tofu. Willingly. Spinach, too.

(Hey… click on the button to the right that says “Five for Ten.” I’ll explain more later. For now, just go.)

So, yes, I’ve been gone for a while. I did my best to crawl into a hole and indulge in near-terminal levels of self-pity. It didn’t work. Shockingly, and against my wishes, life continued and saved me from myself. Funny how three kids and a husband and everything else can pull you forward, even when you don’t want to be pulled.

You missed some things in the interim. Or I did. Or something. I’ll make a list because, you know. Lazy.

1)      Football season. You may or may not know that I live for football season. And now my kid plays tackle football and is a stud receiver and all the other moms cringe when their kids get hit and I? I yell for blood. And I’m in first place in my NFL pool. So the fall hasn’t been a total waste.*

2)      Jeff’s birthday. Jeff turned 35 earlier this month. Which means, for the next two months, he is only four years younger than I am. The first person to make a cougar joke will be permanently banned from this site. (Actually, probably not. I should be grateful for the few readers I haven’t alienated with my long and unannounced absence. Inappropriate and sexist jokes or no.)

3)      Mother’s little helper. I started taking anti-depressants. Which, if you read this post, is most likely not a surprise.

4)      Feline friends. We got a cat.**

5)      Mother’s little helper, part deux. I got a housekeeper, which is without question the best thing that has ever happened to me. Ever.

6)      Speech. Caleb is talking. Sort of. But since neither of my other kids spoke intelligibly until they were three, I’ll take what I can get from this one. Even if every other word is “buh.” And “ma” refers either to me, or means “no.” Oh, and he also says “SpongeBob” very clearly.

7)      Evan’s birthday. I think I deserve congratulations for surviving five years with this kid. Five years that I wouldn’t trade for anything in the world, mind you. But one Evan year is the equivalent of 6.42 parent years. Do the math.

8)      BBQ. His parents and I got Jeff a smoker this fall. Just ’cause. So now Jeff is endlessly smoking meat. Good eating, but now he almost always bears the aroma of a rack of ribs, which is not all that appealing. To me, anyway. (I have a feeling that if I wore eau de pulled pork, he wouldn’t be able to keep his hands off me. Gah. Boys.)

9)      Halloween. I made Caleb an adorable lion costume. The elaborate hood had 30 yards of ribbon on it. It took three months to make. And the punk wouldn’t wear it. Not even for a few seconds to take a picture. He did, however, learn how to run up to people’s doors and yell “Candy!”***

10)   Literature. I read. A lot. And I became addicted to this series. But the 3^rd installment won’t be released in the US until June. Entirely unacceptable. It has, however, already been released in England. So, if you are (hypothetically speaking) my cousin and living in London and are wondering what in the world you could possibly get me for Christmas, this might work. Hypothetically.

There were some other little things. Like H1N1. (We all lived.) And ridiculous amounts of landscaping. And my ridiculous new phone with which I text my sister about 523 times a day. But in the end, I don’t think you missed much.

It’s good to be back.

_____________________________

*My dad, who is a football savant, is slowly catching up with me in the pool. My life will be complete if I beat him this year.

**The hell. I was just checking to see if you were paying attention. We will never have a cat. I hate them.

***So, if you’re keeping track, Caleb’s best words now are “SpongeBob” and “candy.” It could not be more obvious that he is the third child if I tattooed a big “#3″ on his forehead.

It’s like gravity failing, just for a split second.

Maybe that’s not a good analogy. I struggle to explain it, try to force those around me to understand. The laws of my nature have changed. And the concept of gravity, and its failure, is the best I can do. For just a blink of an eye, the rule doesn’t apply, and the rule is so fundamental to existence that I don’t necessarily even comprehend what is happening. It is surreal, and it causes just a flash of panic before the world rights itself again. And then I have to deal with whatever might have gone wrong in that gravity-free moment when I floated without rules.

Last night my gravity failed. As we were leaving a basketball game, Jeff handed me a half-empty cup of soda. I grabbed it from him. Except that I didn’t grab it. I planned to grab it. I thought I was grabbing it. I didn’t grab it.

And I dropped it on the head of the woman sitting in front of us.

Jeff, with his arms full of our whiney and wiggling children, flashed me a quick look of fury. The people around us stared. And the woman was angry. Very understandably angry. I apologized. I apologized again. She tried her best to wipe herself off, and I told her that there were no words to express how sorry I was. And I apologized. Again. And then there was nothing else I could do. We left.

I cried all the way home. I cried out of embarrassment for what I had done to a stranger, out of hurt for Jeff being angry with me, out of loneliness that nobody else recognized what had happened, out of sadness that such humiliations are my reality now. I cried myself to sleep.

My intent to take that cup from Jeff was so automatic that it wasn’t a conscious thought. I don’t know if it was even an unconscious thought. It was a fact that I was going to take the cup. But that fact wasn’t a fact. With the drop of that cup, I understood that how I function now is different than anything I have ever known. The laws of my body that I learned as a baby, as a toddler, as a child learning to exert my will on the world around me: those laws that have dictated my physical experience don’t necessarily apply anymore. I don’t know how to understand this.

But I woke up this morning. My eyes were more than a little puffy and I had a hangover from the crying. But I was awake and happy and the kids were awake and happy and Jeff had made me coffee, which I didn’t drop, and I cautiously tested and everything seemed to be securely anchored down to the earth. I understood that we had fun last night and then something bad happened, but it didn’t change the fun we had before it happened. Today has gone on and I have recognized most of it. And I can live with that.

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.

———————–

Um, yeah. Not quite sure how to take care of the awkward reintroduction. So: hi. It’s me.

All right, then. Got that out of the way. Perhaps a trite explanation/apology will come to me later. But for now, let’s move on, shall we?

I’ve been feeling more put-together recently. Increasingly I feel like I can play the hand I’ve been dealt, thinking that I can do this. I am strong. I am capable.

I am an idiot.

No, don’t argue. I am. Consider yesterday; yesterday proves beyond doubt that this proverbial hand I’ve been dealt is perhaps short a few cards.

First, I locked my keys in my van. And, also, my spare keys. And, also, my child. You know, the one who was strapped in his carseat and is too young to be able to follow any directions besides “please go run around in circles and shriek like a madman.” That one. After an extended phone call with my sister during which we discussed breaking a van window and attempted to execute a completely inept plan involving the internet, a wire coat hanger, and Dawn dishsoap, I finally decided to call a locksmith. One hour and $35 later, we rescued a very confused Caleb from his carseat.

Then I stranded myself at a PTA meeting. (Long, long ago I may have gotten myself stranded at a bar now and again. Now it’s a PTA meeting. That speaks volumes.) Jeff got home from work early and came to the meeting to pick up the kids. He took them home in the van and left me his car. Smooth exchange. Except. I had taken my key to his car off my keyring on Saturday and, inexplicably, didn’t replace it. For the second time in six hours, I had a car but no keys. Brilliant. My husband is of the impression that I should have my key privileges revoked.

(Oh, and Heather? Thanks for the lift and for not laughing at me.)

Then I abandoned my child. Jensen had gone to a basketball-league-thingie with a friend while I went to the PTA meeting. So Jeff and I put the little kids to bed and waited for Jensen to come home. And waited. And waited. Until 9:30. (Don’t judge. We really trust his friend’s parents.) Then, I helpfully remembered that my totally groovy new smartphone that is supposed to prevent me from ever forgetting anything ever again was in my coat pocket in the closet. Jensen’s friend’s mom had been calling for an hour but I couldn’t hear my phone. More than a little embarrassing. This brings up the possibility that I should lose cell phone privileges along with the keys.

And, finally, our garage door broke. I mean, really broke. Really broke at 9:45 pm with the door jammed about halfway down. Or halfway up, I guess, if you’re an optimist but by that point in the day if anyone had said anything cheerful to me I would have probably blown them straight to hell by shooting laser beams from my eyes. Both cars were stuck in the garage and Jeff had to leave for work at 5:45 this morning and he doesn’t exactly have a job where he can sign off, so we did what any sane people would do: we took the garage door apart. At, like, 10 pm. It took a surprisingly long time. And before you say that this wasn’t really my fault, let me just point out that yesterday afternoon I noticed that it wasn’t working well. Not at all well. So, um, I probably could have prevented the nocturnal garage door disassembly. But please don’t tell Jeff.

After that I went to bed. Because I was tired. Also, because I didn’t want to give myself any more chances to screw up. Perhaps I am not quite as put together as I like to think. Or maybe some cosmic forces got together and made the day blow up in my face, in order to give me something to blog about. Who knows.