How We Spent Our Winter Break

Sunday, January 04, 2009
Well, back to school tomorrow. I can't tell you how bummed I am. And how tired it makes me feel just thinking about it all. In addition to all we had going on previously, tomorrow Sailor starts a new class on Monday and Friday afternoons after gymnastics. It’s a preschool class at the park district. But because it is in the same room where he used to take a Mom & Tots class that we called Circle Time, he thinks he is going to Circle Time for Big Kids! He will also be starting violin lessons while Mac is in piano lessons. There goes his Wednesday afternoon nap! I’ll have to be more vigilant about bed time!

So with 14 days of holiday behind us, I struggle to figure out where the time went. It seems all we did over break was go to the hospital and the art studio and celebrate stuff (which is, I suppse, what this break was meant for). I guess that is all we did…

We started our break immediately after school on Friday afternoon with a party at the Judo dojo. At the end of which Mac cut his eyebrow open on a camera lens requiring a trip to the ER and 3 stitches.

Saturday we lay around not doing much while Mac’s eye started to heal. In the afternoon we took a “quick trip” to the suburban outdoor mall so I could exchange a pair of winter boots and return another. Our quick trip involved Mac suddenly claiming to be starving and the need for a bit of dinner. We had a nice time and nearly $30 at Corner Bakery and spent some time in the book store to arrive home at 9pm. There was nothing quick about this trip.

The weather and a total lack of plans kept us in on Sunday and Monday. While I don’t normally stay in specifically because of extreme cold, I saw no reason to create plans just to go freeze our patooties off! We had a marathon of DVDs while I read a fascinating book on the 1958 Our Lady of the Angels School fire. On Monday night I realized we would have to venture out on Tuesday no matter what because we had just about nothing left to eat here. Really. Nothing. As evidenced by the use of the last morsels of three differnt types of cheese melted on totillas with beans, and a bowl of cereal served for dinner. I am actually feeling very poor tonight, with no food to serve.

Tuesday morning we are committed to the art studio. Afterwards we get groceries and probably run some last-minute Christmas errands but I can no longer recall.

Wednesday is Christmas Eve and my sister and I have spent a great deal of time attempting to recreate our family tradition of Christmas Eve Dinner at My Pi … our favorite pizza restaurant, which closed unexpectedly in early summer. My parents are not cooperating with our plans, claiming too much to do to get ready for Christmas. Meanwhile Mac has to get his stitches out but is terrified and so spends the day sleeping in my bed. By the time I drag him out and make him get dressed the day is nearly over and we have done nothing. Sailor is also afraid and opts to stay with my parents. I take Mac to Starbucks on the way to the ER, where we wait long enough to draw all over the paper on the table in the exam room and ransack the drawers in the room for “art” supplies to make a little tongue depressor puppet in a band-aid bikini and gauze pad skirt. Mac’s stitches come out and we have a very elegant family dinner at Four Farthings. Which costs roughly 4x more than our usual dinner at My Pi. Lucky for my parents my sister and I have offered to foot this bill – the fist in a string of expensive dinners we enjoy over break.

At home my parents have some weird freak out about turning off the Christmas lights so that we can light the Hanukkah candles. I gently try to remind all assembled that for nearly 45 years we have had a mixed-religion family that almost yearly requires some crossover of holidays. My dad throws a mild snit, which I catch on video, along with his beautiful lighting of the candles. We lay out cookies for Santa and Mac writes a note asking for things Santa has not planned to deliver.

We retreat upstairs and my sister watches my boys briefly while I stuff stockings downstairs.

Christmas morning … Santa has left two small toys upstairs for Mac and Sailor. Mac brings me a small pack of Pokemon cards, proving once and for all the existence of Santa, because no way would Mommy ever buy Pokes! Mac also has a bell that Santa brought, per his request in the note last night. Sailor shows me very exciting Playmobiles guys. We open gifts from friends and distant family while we wait to go downstairs. We read a new book, Walter the Farting Dog. My dad calls at 8:30 and we are downstairs in moments.

We starts with stockings and my dad retreats to the bathroom. You couldn’t have done that before we started?, I think. But I don’t say. Everyone gets nice things. Mac gets an Indiana Jones Lego thing called the Jungle Cutter from Santa and Sailor gets Playmobiles. My dad goes to the bathroom a few more times and I assume he is having tummy trouble. I ask my mom… her eyes tear up and she won’t tell us what is wrong. I don’t remember anything else about opening gifts at my parents’ house on Christmas morning.

Back upstairs by 9:30 I start putting together breakfast. My sister and I scour the Internet for reasons why my dad is suddenly unable to pee.

I send my sister to the shower and make breakfast for my boys. Call the doctor, who tells me to take my dad to the ER. Iron my trousers. “Why don’t you just wear jeans?” my sister asks. Two reasons: my jeans are not clean and it’s Christmas and I don’t wear jeans in Christmas. I pack food for the kids, dry shoes, and new toys and books.

I make phone calls from the ER vestibule to cancel the Christmas party at my parents’ house. My children impress me with 4 ½ hours of nonstop good behavior while we wait in the ER for my father to get some relief and some answers.

We leave when we know there is nothing more to be done for the day and my boys want to open the rest of their gifts. At home my sister unloads as much food as she can find from my mom’s fridge and brings it all up for a feast. The table is still set for 4, as only my boys ate breakfast this morning. It is a Christmas I do not want to remember but it is a Christmas I will never forget. Mac says it is the worst Christmas ever. I deny this, stating that the worst Christmas would be the one we did not get to spend together, and indeed this one was spent lovingly together.

Friday morning we haul over to the art studio for Camp. Calls to Dad reveal no new news but that he will spend the day having tests.

Saturday we spend the morning gathering our wits and the afternoon picking up lunch and visiting my parents in the hospital. My dad will come home tomorrow, hopefully. His bladder clear, his tests negative, and his diverticulitis under control with antibiotics. There is nothing wrong except that he has outlived his prognosis for an 8-year survival post-radiation for prostate cancer back in 1995 and is now suffering from some special unexpected side effects of the treatment. Hurray! We drive home in the dark, tho it is barely past 4:30. A quick stop at home reveals that the sudden drop in temperature, which has allowed us to leave the house without coats and has melted almost all the dirty snow around the city and suburbs, has not caused the basement to flood. Neither has the rain. So we hop back into the car and spend the evening with our Indian friends, eating pizza and drinking wine and relaxing in general. It’s been a challenging week.

Sunday my dad is discharged and while he waits to come home with my mom I dash around the house making everything clean and shiny for his arrival, which will coincide with the arrival of 6 of my cousins and my ex-husband. My parents’ Hanukkah dinner has been rerouted to my house. I enlist everyone via email to bring something. I order pizzas and demand the online price, not the over-the-phone jacked-up price. I tell everyone also via email that they will have to leave by 8pm so as to not over exhaust my father and so as to allow my kids to get to bed reasonably on time.

Monday is another Camp day, and the boys and I have kindly offered to fill in for my mom. After Camp we run to Target and return more than $60 worth of Christmas gifts. We return with Kung Fu Panda on DVD. At Trader Joe’s I carry Sailor, sleeping, thru the store as Mac assists me with the shopping. He picks out my dad’s red roses for my mom’s birthday tomorrow.

Tuesday is my mom’s birthday so we fill in for her at Camp again and run back to Target for eggs and Q-tips. Back at home I set about baking a cake for Mom, cleaning up the kitchen afterwards, running a bath for my boys, cleaning them up and dressing them for dinner. By the time my sister brings my mom back from her birthday lunch I am ready to take her for a manicure and coffee and my boys look very spiffy. Mom and I relax at the manicurists with our lattes and all the other women prepping for the next holiday. When we get back everyone is starving. I quick-change into an outfit I would never have thought to put together before. And we are off to a wonderful Italian dinner at Via Carducci. After our waiter sings “Happy Birthday Dear Customer” to my mom, we head home for cake and gifts.

Wednesday is New Year’s Eve and I sleep in a little. Sailor wants to stay home for the day but we have been planning this day all year. My mom drives us to Navy Pier just after noon and after watching a great juggler performance, we spend the afternoon at the Chicago Children’s Museum. We even make a skyscraper, which we put on video, which can be viewed on the Internet. Dinner is our annual eat-whatever-you-want dinner. Sailor is mostly interested in French fries, so despite our venue – Bubba Gump Shrimp -- he chooses the kids’ meal of a small hamburger and fries, an orange slice and blue jello. I order him a root beer to wash it down. Mac and I share a big display of 4 kinds of shrimp and fries. We eat everything and return to the museum for another hour of playtime. Where I get very tired. I think it must have been the tropical drink I treated myself to. We leave the museum and spend a fortune on ice cream at Ben&Jerry’s. MMMM!!!!! The fireworks are about to start. Except we are not dressed well for the extreme cold, having opted instead for our more fashionable outdoor wear. We watch most of the fireworks from outside then finish up through a window. We are freezing when my mom picks us up. Sailor is asleep when we get home. Mac is asleep before I can get my pajamas on. I am asleep by 10:30. My parents call just after midnight. I have missed another holiday.

Thursday morning we attend the pajama brunch at Café BabaReeba, our favorite tapas restaurant. We have gone three years in a row now. When breakfast is over we walk home and get ready for our annual (10th? 11th?) New Year’s Day Hangover/Leftovers (as in, bring whichever you have) Party. 24 people fill my home and polish off the bottles of cheap Riesling I have stashed in my fridge. They bring cheese and crackers and children to play with and good cheer. It’s a holiday celebration at last. By the time our guests – mine, my sister’s, my boys’, and my parents’ – leave, I have nothing left to clean up but vacuuming.

Friday morning we are awakened by the garbage men. And I have not yet brought out the cans. Reprising my Thursday morning exit in pajamas, I run out and the garbage guys help me with the cans and I dash back in for cookies to give them. We pack up for the day, I give my dad a shot, drag my boys to the bank and make it to the burbs by 11a.m. where we have lunch and spend a few hours in a ball pit with some of our best friends. We are home by dinner, tho both boys are asleep when we arrive. We eat dinner while watching movies and then go to bed.

On Saturday we decide to run downtown to the Lego store to exchange some more of our Christmas gifts. We stop at the bank first. And good thing, as I learn on boarding the bus that the price has gone up to $2.25. We are home by 12:30 and in the car 20 minutes later to make a 1pm date with Mac and Sailor’s friends Isabella & Ryan. The kids spend most of the afternoon bickering, crying and calling for help. By the time they are really into togetherness, it is time to go. Mac has a meltdown at Target because he is thirsty and I ask him to wait a few minutes. Both boys get to sit in a ten-minute time out to think about how not to behave in public when we get home. We eat, they build Legos, I work, we are in bed before 8 but the book I am reading them, Matilda, has longish chapters and it is 9 before they close their eyes.

And now here we are. I have helped Mac screw parts to make a robot. They have helped me put away laundry. Mac wants to go on a play date this afternoon but Sailor doesn’t want to let him and I am torn over fairness issues. We play Mancala… and so the day goes!