Because I’m still feeling run down by the way Christmas exploded on the scene and the whole ‘thirteen people at my house for Christmas Day dinner’ thing that came immediately thereafter, I’m going to journey back in time and tell the story of the day we took the kids for their first ever Christmas portrait together.

Being that it was our first Christmas with two kids, I wanted to send out photo cards with them on it. I booked an appointment at the photo studio with visions of how my holiday cards would turn out: my beautiful newborn son nestled in his two-year-old sister’s lap against a festive Christmas backdrop, Julia’s wavy brown hair done up with a bow, a smile on her face and a twinkle in her eye. I went out and bought the kids outfits just for the occasion – an adorable red corduroy jumper with a matching flowered blouse for Julia and a cute pair of beige cords and a striped shirt for Oliver.

On the day of our appointment I gave the kids baths and got them all dolled up, put a snack together for Julia and grabbed a few books in case we had to wait. I made sure we had extra soothers and diapers for Oliver and nursed him one last time before we got our coats on and headed out the door.

The scene at the portrait studio was the kind of typical madness that ensues at portrait studios around Christmastime: the waiting area was teeming with kids stuffed in their Sunday best who were totally jacked up and systematically destroying the place, their haggard-looking parents making futile attempts to entertain their little stinkers darling children and keep them relatively still (and clean) at the same time.

Dave and I glanced at each other, braced ourselves and made our way to the receptionist, where we announced our arrival and found chairs that weren’t smeared with snot to sit on. With Oliver asleep in his carrier and Julia reading the books I’d brought, the wait wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been.

A good half hour later our names were called and we immediately began hemming and hawing over which Christmas backdrop we wanted to use. We went with something simple yet festive, one that wouldn’t draw attention away from our perfect, beautiful children and the holiday message we were trying to send: Look at our perfect, beautiful children! Oh yeah, and Merry Christmas too.

The photographer, who looked like she’d just come back from smokin’ a big fat doober out back, set up a small table for the kids to sit on and draped a white fuzzy blanket over it to act as snow. She showed me where she wanted Julia to sit and explained that once Julia sat down, she’d put a wedge under the ‘snow’ for Oliver to sit up against. But when it came time for Julia to sit up on the table all hell broke loose. The table was wobbly – it was secure, but it wobbled a bit when Julia first sat on it and that was enough to send her into a meltdown of epic proportions. Despite several hushed pep talks, candy bribes and failed attempts at simply plopping her down on the table she flat-out refused to go near it. By this time we’d been there for like, forty-five minutes, Dave and I were sporting pit stains, Oliver and the photographer were getting fussy and we hadn’t taken a single picture.

At long last, the manager, looking much less pie-eyed than our photographer, stepped in and took action, setting up a box for Julia to stand on behind the table where Oliver would sit – a perfect solution that perhaps our photographer could have come up with had she not been quite so baked. But while Julia had no problem with standing on the box, she couldn’t pull herself together for love nor money. She was in the thick of her meltdown and nothing – not even the little plastic teapot the manager tried to distract her with – was going to calm her down. By then Oliver was also screaming, Julia was close to hyperventilation and my boobs were full-on leaking, but there was no way in hell that Dave and I were going to walk out of that studio without Christmas cards – no matter what they looked like. So we told the manager to take the picture.

Two weeks later I went back to the studio to pick up my holiday cards. I gave the lady at the counter my last name and she pulled a box of portrait envelopes out, sifting through them until she found ours. Before she handed me my envelope she pulled a card out to look at it and when she did a look of horror crossed her face.

“Oh, no,” she gasped, clasping her hand over her mouth. She looked up at me and then back down at the card. “Oh, no. We must’ve ordered the wrong print.”

 “I don’t think you did,” I said, grinning.

She looked like she was going to burst into tears. “Yes, we did. Oh, dear. I’m so sorry.”

I was still grinning. “Trust me, you didn’t. Can I see it?”

She gave me this half scared, half apologetic look before turning the card around slowly so I could see it. And when I did, I laughed so hard I nearly wet myself.

“It’s PERFECT,” I said. “If this doesn’t scream Merry Christmas, I don’t know what does.”

I ordered sixty of these cards with the slogan "Holiday wishes from our house to yours!" cheerily splashed beside the picture. Underneath that I wrote, "Happy Holidays from our little angels" and I sent them all out, save for one that I framed and put in the living room…because precious moments like this one need to be displayed for all to see. Right?

75 Comments | In: life with julia, life with oliver, parenting | | #

I can’t remember how we started doing it, but Julia and I have this thing where we fill each other up with love. When she tells me she’s running out of love I press my index finger up to my mouth, in a vague Dr. Evil “One billion dollars” sort of way, so my love seeps in to my finger and fills it up. A few seconds later, once it’s full, I draw hearts or circles or squiggles all over her forehead and cheeks and down her nose with my finger so the love runs out of my finger and into her body. Once she’s full she does the same for me and I must say, her love-filling skills have vastly improved – when we first started filling each other up she did more eye-poking than love filling.

I got really mad at the kids yesterday afternoon – I let them play upstairs while I made dinner and they trashed the place. The vacuum cleaner was in the hall and Oliver pulled the reservoir out, dumping dust and cat hair and pine needles all over the carpet. They’d pulled sheets and towels off the shelves in the linen closet, the sheets off of Oliver’s bed and had found and dismantled the old baby monitor. I’d spent a good hour yesterday morning cleaning up there – vacuuming, dusting, changing sheets, making beds – and when I checked up on them to see what they were doing and saw the mess they’d made I just kind of…snapped.

“That’s IT!” I roared. “I’m calling Santa! Christmas is CANCELLED!” Fuming, I marched each of them to their rooms as their faces crumpled and they burst into tears.

I stormed back down to the kitchen, the sound of them bawling not far behind me. I felt like shit. I was mad at myself for reacting the way I did more than I was at them for making the mess – they’re just kids, I thought, and messes can be cleaned up. As I stood in front of the stove mixing the chicken and peppers I thought about why I reacted that way. It’s a busy time of year and I’m exhausted; I feel like I’m running on auto-pilot all of the time. We’re having dinner for fourteen here on Christmas Day and it dawned on me yesterday morning that I have no dessert – a small but nit-picky detail that is enough to send me into a tailspin. Tomorrow would have been my mom’s sixty-first birthday and I still find that day, so close to Christmas, a hard one…and, this is the first Christmas I’ll spend without my grandmother.  

As I thought about all of that I realized my reaction had very little to do with the kids and the mess and more to do with all the other shit that’s bouncing around in my mind. I just took it out on them.

I still felt shitty about it after we’d gotten them to bed so I went back up to apologize to them. I hit Julia’s room first and talked with her before hopping the baby gate in Oliver’s doorway to snuggle with him. As I passed Julia’s room on my way downstairs she sat up in bed and called out to me.

“Mummy? I’m running out of love.”

I went in to her room and lay down beside her, pressing my index finger up to my mouth. “I’ve got lots of love for you, babe,” I said.

She smiled up at me. “Even when you’re mad, you’ve got love for me,” she said.

I nodded. “That’s right. That’s the best part about family, Julia. Even when we’re mad at each other, we still love each other. Always.” I started tracing hearts and circles across her forehead and on her cheeks.

“You know what else is the best part about family?” she asked, stifling a yawn.

“What?”

“The forgiving.”

I had to pause there for a minute because my eyes were blurred with tears and my heart was sitting square in my throat. “You’re right,” I said. “Forgiving is a great part about family.” I leaned in and kissed her forehead.

“Yeah,” she sighed. “The forgiving and the love. They’re good things.”

She knows what she’s talking about, my girl.

43 Comments | In: life with julia, motherhood | | #

I always put off wrapping Christmas presents until the last minute (think like, midnight on Christmas Eve) because I hate wrapping. Hate. It. And yeah, I get a little embarrassed when someone hands me a beautifully wrapped present tied with festive, curled ribbon and topped with a shiny bow because then it’s my turn, and I give them my monstrosity present – a present that, many times, is wrapped in the previous week’s fliers and sealed with electrical tape (or staples, for that matter; I have been known to bust out the stapler upon running out of scotch/masking/electrical/hospital tape, because I’m classy like that)…but clearly I don't get embarrassed enough to like, give a damn.

This is why gift bags and gift cards are my best friends. But although I’m all for shoving a gift in a bag or a certificate in a card and calling it a day there are some presents that need to be wrapped, like the ones for the kids. Because kids don’t want their gifts in bags, they want their gifts wrapped in paper they can tear into, so they can simultaneously get presents and make a huge mess at the same time. Best of both worlds there, eh?

So while I may be finished all of my Christmas shopping, I have yet to wrap any of my purchases.

I have a fuckload of wrapping to do. See?

With the exception of the two blue Tupperware containers on the second shelf and the laundry basket on the floor, everything that can be seen in this picture (along with a bunch of stuff that can’t be seen) needs to be wrapped.

Oy.

This year I wanted to be able to actually do something on Christmas Eve instead of sitting on the floor amongst a pile of paper and tape and gift tags for so long my ass goes numb. So on Saturday night after the kiddies are nestled all snug in their beds my father’s coming over with a case of beer and we’re having ourselves a wrapping party, because the logical thing to do when someone abhors wrapping as much as I do is to hand her a beer and a pair of scissors. Giddyup!

I’d best make sure we’ve got Band-aids on hand.

31 Comments | In: life with oliver | | #