1m2aSandbox

One of my most distinct Christmas memories is of being up in the choir loft at my church’s midnight mass, listening to my parents sing through the Christmas Eve service.  I can never hear “Silent Night” without remembering that feeling of being drowsily half-awake, sitting on the floor of the loft with my head on one of the steps as our church lifted their candles and sung with one voice against the dark.

Isaiah, my girlfriend Abby’s oldest child, turned three recently.  I was privileged enough to be at his birth and I can’t believe it’s been three years.  He’s definitively left babyhood behind, and is now far less toddler than little boy.  Abby was the first of my girlfriends to have a baby, and I remember being selfishly depressed when she became pregnant; I knew instinctively that the face of our friendship would alter, that motherhood would change her; that there would be a chasm between us of life experiences she had had and I had not.

Fortunately, of course, that selfishness was short-lived and I threw myself into her pregnancy with gusto, reading up on everything and ultimately being a sort of doula for her during the birth.  And our relationship clearly survived, even deepened because of her motherhood.  But I was right in that there were things she could discuss with me that, while I sympathized, I could not empathize.  Becoming a mother opens you up to a whole new world of love and devotion, and with that comes an exponential amount of vulnerability and dependence on others.

As Madeleine hurtles headlong towards adulthood – she’ll be six ½ months on Christmas day! – I have to admire her don’t-look-back attitude about maturing and growing up, even as I deplore the fact of it.  Probably because I spend so many minutes of the day with her, she seems to be the of same size, possessing the same bag of trips developmentally, for several days, maybe even a week, until one morning I walk into her room and she’s noticeably heavier as I pick her up out of her crib.  Or she plows along through life and laundry until suddenly the overalls she was wearing last week don’t quite snap around her crotch.  I watch her cooing and rolling around on her playmat for weeks – hello, Giraffe!  Hiya, Lion! – until one day I look and she’s pulled herself up to sitting in order to get more of Giraffe in her mouth.  When do these things happen?  Anybody have any suggestions to keep them from happening?

Only a few more days before Christmas and the big event that accompanies it – the Family Dinner.  I feel duty-bound to remind you all to be on your guard; every family’s got a crazy Uncle Al in their closet who hops the kids up on sugar, teaches them the theory behind building a parachute for jumping off the roof from mommy’s nightgown, then breezes out as you spot your angelic-looking son sidling up to your lingerie drawer.

How do I know this?  I’ve got my own Uncle Al.

Only his name’s Uncle Doug.

Fear not, gentlemen, the deadline for coming up with a brilliant Christmas present has not yet passed you by.  There’s still time to run out and grab a gift that will dazzle your wife and bring her to incoherent cries of joy.

The miracle product?  A home laminating machine.

This is the point in the blog where you forlornly hope I reveal I’m kidding.  Alas, it is not so.

I’m momentarily putting my holiday ruminations on hold because that’s where Madeleine’s digestive tract is. 

On hold.

And as you can imagine, it’s occupying much of my thoughts.

Christmas has quit quietly creeping up on us and has begun its all-out full-scale charge towards us.  Seven days and counting.  I’m reasonably confident I finished my shopping yesterday; now all that’s left is the wrapping and the mailing.  Our family room is a sea of shopping bags and gift wrap and ribbons, and we’ve got boxes stacked ready in the hall to pack for out-of-town mailings.  Having shopped so much online this year, my outgoing boxes are rather more dependent on other deliveries than I’d like, but what can you do?  My other big regret this year is the holiday baking; I’ve always made labor-intensively –decorated sugar cookies and stacks of gingerbread and fudge and other goodies to mail to family and friends.  This year the baking’s getting done one pan at a time, in between naps and bowls of strained sweet potatoes.  So I’m guessing the food will be heading out a bit later than usual.  I suppose I could stay up one night doing it all, but it’s the process as much as the product that I enjoy, so I refuse to force myself to some time schedule.