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Not much to say other than, take a look at these guys! Two hours outside in the cold. Hearty midwesterners we are raisin’ here, I tell ya!
Every year my husband Ian and I have a brief battle with Christmas and what it means for our family. We are not Christian, we don’t belong to any type of church or religious organization, and we are too old to truly believe in Santa. To complicate the matter further we have a menorah and several dreidels in our home even though we are not Jewish because our children have gone and go to an amazing Jewish preschool. I was raised Catholic and Santa came to my home every Christmas Eve after midnight mass. My husband’s family led a similar religion-less life much like our own now. They spent time with family and friends on Christmas Eve which became a tradition that would go on today if they had not left Carbondale. But for us, for this family we still are trying to figure out what Christmas means?
We started to try to define it as Family Time by attempting to tone down our family’s conspicuous consumption on December 25th. To do that we decided to adopt our friends’ gift giving plan for Christmas. It works great for them as they are Catholic and do not have any of the above mentioned Holiday Angst. Their plan is simple: three presents for each child. If three presents were good enough for Jesus then three presents are just fine for their children. Of course they have not mentioned the value of the gifts given the Christ Child, but their kids are smart and they will figure it out in time. So two years ago we sat Oscar down to explain the above mentioned plan. He sat. He thought. Then he looked right at me and said, “Who the hell is Jesus?”
Right. And that begs the question, So what the hell is Christmas? I guess for us for now it is all about magic. Santa is magic, you know. How else would he get all those presents to all those kids? And even magic has its answers, right? Copperfield, Penn & Teller, David Blaine all have their secrets and they all have answers to the age old question, “How did you do that?” they just choose not to answer. However, this brings about yet another one of the worries that Ian and I have: once the Santa Magic has been uncovered will we get the question of, “Why did you do that?” “Well … on nights you didn’t want to go to bed for a brief moment in time we had the upper hand?” or “In desperate times you use desperate measures?” or how about this “Magic doesn’t happen all on its own, it always has a helping hand.”
So maybe that is what our Christmas is about, at least for now: Magic. The belief in something unbelievable. The joy of being with family. The wonder of knowing that every year someone will bring you a treasure no matter what. The delight in knowing that for a flicker in time my children believe in something much, much larger than life.
I like to think that I am a crafty person. The real truth is that I am not the least bit crafty or arty, but sometimes I can fudge it if I am lucky. Oscar may have more of a fighting chance in this regard.
We worked on an Advent Pocket Calendar together for a while and then it turned into a present for some special people. Both Oscar and Alban have decided that they love sewing. I think it appeals to their need for a sense of danger. There have been some poked finger tips and some frustrating thread tangles that have ended in some tugging and pulling. Oscar stuck with it without help for much longer than his brother.
To try to appeal to my need to become a better photographer/editor of photos I purchased a new photo program (mostly because I was completely frustrated with my “free” software on my laptop). So … Here is my first usage of Adobe Photoshop 5 without looking at the tutorial. Why bother with the tutorial when you can become incredibly frustrated?
P.S. Double click on the photo and you can view it at a reasonable size.
There are times when I feel very anxious about Alban. I think about our relationship and I wonder if I haven’t held him back developmentally by ‘babying’ him. He still wants me ’snuggle’ with him at night until he falls asleep, he wakes (sometimes) in the middle of the night or early morning and comes into our bed, he is constantly wanting me to ‘uppy’ him and I do because he is still so small (only 26 pounds). All of this combined with a resistance to school, which is manufactured, and I start to wonder. He is my baby, he is my last, he is terribly cute and small … am I holding him back?
Alban is also very sensitive, worried that I am mad at him or that I am happy when he does something naughty. He will frequently ask me if I am happy or if I am ‘mad to him’. He does not like to disappoint me, or anyone really. But he is three so there are times when he also does not care one bit if his behavior causes discord. He digs in his heals defying logic and throws amazingly long fits or continues the aberrant behavior.
But here is the deal, however attached to me he has become he is still independent. Very independent. He stayed with my sister Shari for almost 4 days on his own and didn’t think twice about it. He runs off and plays with new children, he embraces new experiences and he fits in with his brother’s older crowd. He is shy with new adults but shares his love of language with those with which he is comfortable.
AND … the best part about him lately is that at night when we are snuggling in bed he will hold my face with both hands and say “Mom, I love you.” He has started to tell me several times a day that he loves me and he throws his arms around my neck and warms my heart with the best tight little hug I have ever received. He loves me fiercely and I him.
Too attached? At this point I don’t really care. He tells me he loves me often with hugs and sometimes a kiss. Parenting doesn’t get much better than that. Now we just need to work on those fits.
One could say FAILURE, but I beg to differ. I did set out to write a post every day for the month of November, and at that I certainly did fail. However, since I have absolutely no idea of who reads my blog or of how many of you are out there, I felt no real need to perform for anyone other than me. This led me to stay in a warm bed, get my kids off to school on time, sit and daydream about writing instead of writing, etc. I can let myself down, that has never been a problem, but I really do not like to let others down. So there it is. Now maybe if some of you left a comment or two, that would change things, but probably not.
On our way to MN for Thanksgiving we had a very Pitzian moment at a cheese shop. Before I go any further with this story it is important to know that we have been struggling with Oscar and Alban in the burping department. Oscar finds it incredibly humorous to burp. So funny, in fact, that he ‘fake burps’ a lot and that brings the hammer down here at the house. It is out of control and very age appropriate, unfortunately for us. So here is the Pitzian moment in the cheese shop in Tomah, WI:
Ian: Oscar! Stop scratching your bum with your lollipop!
Marsha (to Ian): You know, it was heartwarming moments like this that I dreamed about when we decided to have children. And now all my dreams have come true.
Ian (to Marsha): fake burp
Marsha and Ian: fits of laughter.
Oscar and Alban: What??? What??? Why are you laughing??
If someone asked me to sum up our family, I think I would send them that exchange. That is us to the core. And for that, I will always be thankful.
We are headed into the frenzy of getting ready for our trip to MN for Thanksgiving. I am looking forward to leaving for a few days and getting a new look on life and a new look at the world, or at viewing a different landscape.
I don’t know why leaving our house for a few days causes me so much anxiety, but, well there it is. I leave things for the last minute (a born procrastinator) and then run around the house in a manic state and then just sink into the passenger seat and relax until I realize we have forgotten something important and wait for the car to turn around and start the manic process all over until I can sink back into the passenger seat and relax. That is pretty much it. Happens every time even if I pack a few days in advance. There could be some psycho-social revelation waiting for me to discover, but I would just rather say, “Yeah. Accepting the fact that I get ready to leave my house in a state of sheer anxiety when traveling. It is where I am and probably where I am going to stay.” Getting ready for mania tomorrow morning. No need for coffee in the early a.m..
I am looking forward to being in one of my favorite cities. I look forward to being in a city that fits like a glove. One in which I can find my way like going home to my childhood house. In a sense that is what I am doing. I grew up in Minneapolis and St. Paul. I found my true love there. I met lifetime friends. I realized passions and values and created a community of like minded people. I learned how manage relationships. I grew up. I am going home.
I will spend time in Uptown; I will go out and have coffee with an old friend and lover. I will take time to be with my husband in the late afternoon on Friday and we will go to galleries and eat yummy food and be together in places that take us back to a time when we met and discovered each other. It already feels right. It already feels like part of me is healing. Minneapolis is my touchstone. I am going home to become grounded and ready for challenges here in Madison.
I am also going to face Thanksgiving without my brother Linn for the first time in about 15 years. I will look for him in the corner, drinking scotch with my bother-in-law and husband. I will listen for his stories. I will miss holding his hand and talking about my plans, about his plans, about what the future might hold. I will simply miss him. I am going to face life without him for the first time, really. I have not had to face walking into his house and finding him gone. I will face his absence at Thanksgiving and for me it will be my first true test in letting him go.
I don’t want to let him go. I want him back for me and for his family and for our mother and my siblings. But I will keep that to myself. Those spending Thanksgiving with us in MN have faced his physical absence on many occasions. They have gone through the pain of expecting him and receiving his absence many times. It will still be painful. It will still be uncomfortable. It will still fill the room at times. And in that, we will all be together. We will also quietly know that he was a person to be thankful for knowing. Flawed? Oh, hell yes. But he was also an amazing person who gave and gave without complaint. A person who loved to be with others and enjoy some of the best things in life. Someone who could amplify his enjoyment of life exponentially by sharing it with others. That is what we will miss. That is what I will long for when I am home. That is something I will have to find in myself.
So we are off. We are going to envelop ourselves in our family. Revel in the sheer number of us. Enjoy being with one another. Laugh, eat, tell stories, listen, and play. My family fills me up and makes me whole. I am going to get filled up and made whole again. I will bring that back to my true home and give it all back to my boys … all of them.
