Romance in the Santa

I've delayed writing this post for several reasons, not the least of which is my heaviness of heart.  This month has been filled with stories of loss, of pain.  Many families in my community and in communities just like mine are scorched with mourning this December.  It seems careless to discuss the silly things with which my own children fill thier days. 
But ignoring the presence of my own blessings will not ease others' pain.  I am all too aware of the brevity of life and the frailty of children.  Therefore I must notice, I must mark the delights of these little ones that pack my house with yelling and toys.

Several months ago, I bought a large plastic Santa figure at a garage sale.  Normally, I do not like Santa Claus (I know, I know... Grinchy little me) not to mention light-up outdoor figurines, but the kitschy-ness of this jolly old fellow captured my imagination.  I am not sure how old he is, but the seller told me that he had decorated her mother's house for at least 40 years.  Does that make him vintage? I find him charming; my father said he belongs on a porch with a washer, drier and couch somewhere in the hills. Santa never made his way to the attic, but sat in the hallway upstairs waiting for Thanksgiving to end.  So far, Santa has not made his way outside either, but has sat in various corners of our living room, dining room and kitchen.  He's even been known to prank a few people here and there.  See? I knew he holds some vintage charm.

When I was emptying pictures off my camera card, I discovered that I am not the only one unable to resist the Old Guy's charms.  Very carefully, as shown below, my daughters staged a wedding between Willa (newly 4) and Kris Kringle (age undetermined).

Officiated by the bride's older sister, the ceremony was filled with the necessary formalities.

Such as, "you may kiss the groom - after you've wiped off his plastic face."

I love the way she's gazing with pure admiration into his blank, fixed eyes.

The formal pose.  Has she been over-influenced by recent family weddings? Do we watch too many romantic Disney movies?  Is that even possible?

Notice the boxes of Christmas ornaments in the background. It takes us forever to get stuff around.  I wonder how long we have to wait before consigning my new-but-ancient son-in-law to the attic with other seasonal decorations?  He should feel safe for a few weeks after New Year's Day.  We don't do anything in a hurry at this house.

Too Much Information

I like to consider myself a mild conservationist when it comes to hygiene.  Case in point: I have been shaving my legs with the same razor since June.  Only by late November, the process could not honestly be called shaving. 

Today I buckled and replaced June's razor.  Although I don't know why I couldn't wait until the New Year.

Next, I opened a box of band-aids.

Voting Pencil

I guess he wanted to impart some wisdom for my day.

"Vote..." he paused, searching for an adverb appropriate to the action of voting. 
"Vote hard." He grinned, then walked out the door to his frosty morning commute of two minutes.

Hard? Vote hard? I was planning on voting anyway, but how do I vote hard?

Maybe he realizes how difficult it is to manage the polls with children in tow.  I pretend that it is a learning opportunity.  For the people watching, anyway.

 
So [most of] the children and I went to cast my ballet at the local K. of C. hall, but I stopped just in time and cast my ballot instead.  That would have been awkward had I arrived in a tutu, not remembering the difference one vowel can make.

It turned out that it wasn't hard to vote, I missed the rush and only met relatives.  [Small town.]  My only concern was keeping my second child from reading my selections aloud in his extremely loud stage whisper.

You know what I love about voting? The feeling of control. Plus, I've always been a sucker for stickers. The stickers last longer, but both are quite intoxicating for a brief moment.  Who doesn't love to be in control? Even if it is just control over one tiny vote.

I am not in control of much these days, which is an unsettling truth.  I was hoping that homeschooling would be a minor lifestyle change for us, but it is major.  And really, although I get to pick out the curriculum, set the schedule, plan and teach the lessons, (as well as serve the lunch!) I'm finding that I really am not in control.  Not in control of my children, not in control of the weather, not in control of... well, anything beyond my own thoughts and emotions. 

Ok. I'm not in control of my thoughts and emotions much either. ;)

Folks, I'm learning to write in pencil when I've always preferred ink.  There is something so permanent, so authoritarian about ink.  But scratch-out marks are so much more distracting and ugly than eraser smudges. 

There's something profound about this, and I ruminate over my writing instrument, my planning tool.  In every situation, I continue to plan, choose, decide.  But, I'm trying to decide in pencil rather than pen.  Ultimately, I don't wield any control and I had better keep myself flexible in my plans, choices and decisions.  I'm casting a vote, but God picks the winner.

It's All Over Now

A few days ago my older brother celebrated his birthday.  We're grown-ups and apparently the rules say that grown-ups aren't allowed to make a big deal about any birthday not ending in zero, so we don't often celebrate our birthdays together.  Still, I have always marked his birthday as the end of my summer, just as my birthday (in mid-May) begins summer for me.  When we were children, my birthday meant that I could spend four months saying I was only a year younger than he. But his birthday shoved me further back into the "little sister" area.  That bothered me then.

 

Happy Birthday, Mokey Doo-Dah. 

Sorry about you being so old.

If you want, I can start keeping track of our age differences correctly from now on.

Love,
Honour

P.S. Could you somehow communicate to Corey's garden that summer is over? It seems to think that it's allowed to go on and on indefinitely.

Late Summer Joys

{With Willa}

 

An impromptu sprinkler run

A bowl of sweet cherries

Fresh corn stuck between your teeth

Family outings in perfect evening light

August has ended now, and September has brought cooler mornings and shortening daylight.  Do we welcome Autumn? Yes.  But it's hard to say good bye to our good friend, Summertime.

Complaints Rehashed

On this ridiculously early morning, perspective matters.  I may have to shake my sleepy head a few times to get the thoughts to be more pattern and less confetti, but I'm trying to spin positively, if I must spin at all.

 

Dear GBaby,

Thanks for the quality time spent clinging to me and communicating through grunts, cries and pointing. Maybe next time we could start this at, I don't know, 6:00 a.m. instead of 4:00 a.m.? Perhaps I'm being too picky, since you are finally asleep and I did get to play a little Tetris when I'd usually just be wasting time with my eyes shut.

Breakfast in a few hours!

Love,

Mommy (or Am, as you pronounce it)

 

Shoot.

I think I almost lost the outlook I wanted to keep in this situation.

Oh yes, here it is.

 

Dear God,

Thank you for inventing coffee and for not making rules about how many cups a day I can consume.

Love,

Me

 

If I re-examine the recently irritating parts of my life, I'm sure I would find a better way of looking at these situations.

 

Dear Garden,

Could you just take a break for just a bit on the vegetable production?  I'm a little tired of washing, cutting, freezing, canning. I have other things to do.

Love,

The Gardener's Wife

 

This one is pretty easy.

 

Dear God,

Thanks for the food. I really like to eat and it is so nice to have nutritious food to give my family.  And thanks for the abundance so that we can expect to eat from our garden this winter.

Love,

Me

 

It's actually embarrassing to admit to irritation over surplus. Pretend with me that I wasn't irritated.

 

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Did you really have to move so far away? We are, you know, part of a family.  I love you and miss you and... I mean, I may have to plead a kidney from one of you someday.  Except that no one else in the world understands coffee love/addiction like we do, so I guess I'll just hope that all of our kidneys make it.  Anyway, I know that our close-knit family of ten has morphed into a squalling mass of people that don't fit into one living room and we're all used to different households and standards of "clean and orderly," but don't we love each other still? Don't we have enough love to overcome the differences and the distances between us?

Love,

Sobbing Sister

 

This one is a little harder to turn around. I miss my family. A buncha lot.

 

Dear God,

Thank you for providing for all my brothers and sisters, even if that provision isn't close to me. Thank you that they are healthy and happy.  Thank you for letting me love them enough to miss them.  And thanks for creating telephones and the internets and Kleenex.

Love,
Me.

 

Ok. Now I'm crying a little bit. But it is ok because the makeup that's washing off is from yesterday.  Can we count tears as part of a facial cleansing routine?

 

Dear {Guilty} Housework Conscience,

That dream about mice crawling all over the kitchen and my mother calling to remind me to do a load of laundry once in a while was a little bit over the top, even for you.  Could we please just readjust to the season of life we're in now? You know, that season with lots of children too small to be big help around the house and too big to make small messes?  Because I've also got that lack of sleep thing going on.

Love, Sincerely,

The Homemaker

 

I find this irritation a little bit humorous, although maybe I should find it a bit disturbing.

 

Dear God,

Thank you for making cats that live on the back porch and guard my house.  And also, thank you that my mother doesn't keep track of when I do laundry.  And incidentally, thanks for the modern conveniences (like dishwashers, indoor plumbing and washing machines) that leave me enough time in the day to teach my kids their math facts.

Love,
Me

 

I have to go attend to those modern conveniences now, but I think I can see a trend in this silly little exercise.  The irritations (and even the sibling melancholy) are not going away, and they may be joined by new annoyances.  Addressing my thoughts to the unhappy situation will not get me anywhere but in the mulligrubs.  However, if I rearrange my thinking toward my Creator, I find reasons to be thankful amidst the exasperating state of affairs.  I think God can handle my complaining. He's big enough.

Love in the Garden

Dear Husband Of Mine:

When I saw these weird carrots you grew in your garden, I thought of us.

We are growing together.

If separated one from the other, we would no longer look the way we're meant to.

 We nourish others.

 

I realize that it might be an indication of my slipping mental state that I am once again seeing people in vegetables, and I will now trot back to the kitchen and finish peeling and wedging carrots into sticks for our children's lunch.  Good news: unlike our carrot counterparts, no one has plans to skin and eat us.  Although GBaby has been given me some strange looks this morning.