Christmas eve

 

It's midday, Christmas eve.  Soli's sleep is wracked with deep, hacking coughs.  Elie's fever burns as she rests in my bed.  This wasn't what we had planned for the day.  We were supposed to play on the rope tow and eat pizza at Snowbowl, maybe head for a family cross-country ski, our visions sunny and perfect, far, far from fevers and coughs and all things ruinous and unpredictable.

But things have been pretty all over the place lately.

I've been pretty scared to even sit down at this computer after the school shooting a week ago.  I know I can't bring an ounce of bow-tied closure or understanding to that one.  It hit me hard.  Like I could barely read a book to my students' without crying that afternoon kinda hard. I have a kindergartener kinda hard.  I've always suffered from extreme anxiety kinda hard, but schools are my sacred place kinda hard.

So I'll take the fever and cough, a simple change of plans, a day folding laundry and celebrating the simple and mundane.  We are all here.  We are all tremendous.  There is so much love.

My daughter fills me to the brim right now.  She's so eager and spritely and creative, even when resting at 102 degrees.  She takes weird, artsy pictures with my phone and then looks at them over and over again.  She loves to draw and is learning to read.  I hear her feet pitter pattering my way, curls wild and akimbo, skin a bit paler than usual, eyes bigger, dark circles, sunken.  Now she's squeezed up next to me on the sofa and I just told her about this blog, how I started it when she was in my belly, how I don't write as much as I used to but how it's still super important to me.

****days later****

Needless to say, I didn't finish that post with the little miss next to me.  What we did do was go back and look at pictures and read tidbits and watch videos of when she was "little."  Because she's so big now.  I was filled with gratitude for this space, this forum for reflection, for memory, for keeping time. 

Christmas was a sweet, simple affair. The kids were still sick and not their best selves.  Jeff woke up early and picked up his dad so Poppy could watch the kids open their stockings and gifts.

 

   The kids loved their books and puzzles, a yukelele and cool ABC train from Gran, candy canes and barrettes and all sorts of random stocking fillers.  

 

Eliana so purely believes in Santa Claus right now.  It's awesome.  When we were at Bobby and Jo's for Xmas eve dinner, he made a brief appearance.  Eliana held her hand over her mouth and stared in shock.  After a few of her older girlfriends went up and told Santa their wants, Eliana gathered courage and went up.  She was the picture of sweet innocence.  And her brother?  Well, he had no reservations whatsoever. 

Interestingly enough though, a few days later, totally out of the blue she said, "Mom, that wasn't the real Santa Claus at JiJi and Solan's house."  When I asked her why she replied, "The real Santa wears red pants.  That Santa's pants were white." True indeed.

I had splendid ideas about cross country skiing or sledding or general nature discovery on Christmas.  With our two little sickies and the amount of time and effort it takes for us all to get out the door, especially when snow sports are involved, well...we weren't out for long.  Soli ripped it on his little skis though and the sun was out, the sky was blue, and, well, it was worth the collective effort. 

 

 

Even if little man passed out hard in the car.  And didn't sleep again that day.  He's so big these days, so insistent on not being "a baby." 

 

Christmas dinner found us hosting some of our MIS colleagues and their little families, an international and motley crew enjoying steak and wine and chatting in Spanish.  I love having people in my little home. 

 Which brings us through the big Navidad.  I felt so glad for the quiet time at home, for Facetime with my mom, for real time with Jeff's dad.  I also felt mildly relieved to wake up on the 26th and know that it was all over.  The build up.  The chaos.  The stuff.  I'm ready for phase two which will find our family up in the mountains, our own little snowy vacay.  Until then, much love, much merry, much gratitude.