So we’ve all made it through Thanksgiving and into the beginning of the Yuletide season, and for that I think we should all give ourselves a huge round of applause. Or raise our face off of the carpet and moan softly, depending on how much last week took out of us.

I’ve decided that I can sum up my Thanksgiving in the following way:

75% fun
15% such awful migraines and fibro pain that it felt as though the right side of my face was
attempting to secede from the rest of my body
10% wanting to stab people in the face

So, I’m declaring the weekend a success.

As I mentioned before, there are a lot of parts of my personality that get triggered by traveling and holidays. For example, I’m really a homebody, plus I have my environment all set up to support me in taking care of myself, so I get anxious and fussy when I’m not at home, surrounded by all my
stuff.

Or there’s the fact that I spend so much time in my head. So I’ve usually built up a lot of mental
and creative energy around a couple of projects, and it’s hard for me to transition from an internal focus to an external one.

And then there’s my Hermit. Until my husband gets home from work I spend all my days alone, in
blessed silence. My Hermit needs the time alone, and my nervous system needs the quiet. Since part
of fibromyalgia is extreme sensitivity to sensory input, it’s extremely difficult for me to be
around other people for an extended period of time without ending up in pain.

Fortunately I am old enough and skilled enough now to recognize when I’m getting cranky and out of whack, so I was able to take responsibility for myself and my behavior and take a
timeout whenever I needed one.

We did have a lot of fun last weekend, so to give you a glimpse of our particular brand of holiday spirit, I’ve selected some of the best snippets of conversation to share here with you.

-When discussing a friend who has a tendency to make things up embellish her stories stray from the facts:

“It’s not that she makes things up; I just can’t always verify the data.”

-To justify the fact that my husband and I had just trashed my brother and sister-in-law’s bedroom while playing hide and go seek with their 3-year old daughter:

“When you see how it looks, just remember that every moment we spent destroying things was a moment that you got to sit, talk with grownups, and rest.”

-After my husband turned on his iPod to provide us with music for the trip home:

Me: “What IS that?”

My husband: “Korn.”

Me: “It sounds like hate set to music.”

Two years ago, my brother and sister-in-law were expecting their second child. Apparently he couldn’t wait to get here though, because he was born at 27 weeks,  weighing only 1 lb. 14 oz.

It was touch and go for a long time, but he is feisty and tenacious, and after 2 months in the NICU he was able to come home 2 days after Christmas.

Last month our micro-preemie turned 2 years old, and if you look at him today you would never guess that he’s ever been anything but a completely healthy little boy.

To thank and honor all the health care professionals who helped keep my little nephew alive, and to pay forward all the love and support they received during those 2 months, this holiday season my sister-in-law is raising money to buy 100 teddy bears to donate to local pediatric units.

The campaign only needs $180 more to be fully funded, so I decided to post about it here, in case anyone else has been touched by experiences with preemies and/or the NICU.

If you’d to learn more about the campaign, you can go here for more information or to donate.

Many blessings as we begin this holiday season together.

My sister-in-law’s birthday always falls during the week of Thanksgiving, so once we’ve finished with Turkey Day we shift gears into birthday celebration mode.

We’re honoring her with a special dinner tonight, and various family have been assigned different tasks to assist with its preparation.

My husband and father-in-law were dispatched to purchase salad ingredients, but the latter was concerned that the birthday girl would not be involved in any of the decisions.

“Shouldn’t she be choosing what she wants?”, he asked?

“No”, replied my husband. “She’s outsourced the decisions to me, and the funding to you.”

The other day my family was gathered in the kitchen watching their regular morning show, which that day featured the results of a new scientific study. Apparently they’ve been performing experiments which involve removing cells from young mice and replanting them into elderly ones, with the result that the older generation becomes significant reinvigorated and renewed.

“Man,” sighed my 92-year old grandfather wistfully, “it’s great to be a mouse here in the United States Of America.”

Ah yes, the Holy Trifecta Of The American Dream: mice, mitts full of baseballs, and mom’s apple pie.

While I am off dealing with Fucking Fussy August Syndrome and refreshing my blogging mojo, I’ll be re-publishing some posts from my early blogging years. This is the first time I ever talked publicly about not wanting children.

(“The Telltale Tock,” originally published here on June 26, 2005)

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

I’m at an age now where I’m apparently supposed to be feeling the “pull” of my biological clock. But I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, and I’m pretty sure I was absent the day those were passed out.

Since this same time last summer 10 of our friends, family members, and co-workers have either gotten pregnant, had a baby, or begun the adoption process. And every time a new baby shows up, I truly believe that this time, I’m going to”get” it. I’ll be around this precious new life, and my own maternal whatever-it-is will finally just kick right in.

Instead, it usually goes something like this:

Someone sends out pictures of their new baby.
Other people’s response: “Oh, what a sweet baby.”
My response: “Wow! That looks just like a tiny, enraged monkey.”

Or, someone has brought their new baby over to show it off.
Everyone else thinks, “Oh, I want to hold the baby!”
I think…Nothing. Because I am frozen in panic. Because I know the second I touch that child everyone in the room will see that being around a baby isn’t making me want one of my own. And then my secret will be out. I am a girl, and I don’t want a baby.

Although truthfully, it really isn’t that much of a secret. Even babies know I’m not a baby person.

Once when I was in my early 20′s my then-boyfriend (now husband) and I were visiting friends who were in the process of moving. Because I was a girl (and, admittedly, not much help in the heavy lifting area), I got elected to stay with the couple’s 2-year-old daughter. Everything was fine at first but then she needed her diaper changed, and despite being a competent, college-educated young adult, I had never before changed anyone’s diaper. As a matter of fact, I am 32 years old and I have STILL never changed anyone’s diaper. (I know; some people are just lucky).

[Edited To Add: I am now 41 1/2 years old and am still going strong on the no-diaper-changing front!)

Anyway, this poor child was so desperate to have her diaper changed that she spent the last 30 minutes or so before her parents got home walking into her room, pulling diapers out of the bag herself, and bringing them to me in an effort to get the process started. Those were some of the longest 30 minutes of my life. It’s a pretty low day when your personal competency is exceeded by that of a 2-year-old.

So the fact that I’m well into my 30′s and this baby thing just isn’t kicking in for me has got me to thinking: what if I just don’t have it? What if, just like there are some people who can’t see certain colors, or some people who can’t hear certain tones, or some people who are missing the gene that allows you to curl your tongue, there are just some people who are born not wanting to have babies? What if, instead of spending all of my time worrying that I am some kind of aberrant freak of nature because I’m female yet have no desire to reproduce, I could let myself off the hook about this, and start noticing what I AM good at?

Because the truly ironic part of this story is that, while I get brain-freeze around anyone under 12 years old, I am TERRIFIC with teenagers. Just at the point when most people throw up their hands and no longer have any idea what to do, that is exactly the point where I have become somewhat of a pro-a natural, if you will.

[Edited To Add: When I originally wrote this I had my own business tutoring high school kids in Spanish. I had to quit when I got sick seven years ago. I’m hoping that one day I have the option of picking this up again.]

I suspect that the reason I was missing from the biological clock line was that I was first in line at the “Talking To Teens” station. After seeing everyone who was waiting over in that other line, I knew that one day they were all really going to need my help.

Last weekend my husband and I went up to North Carolina to help celebrate my grandparents’ 70th wedding anniversary. While we were there, we also got to spend time with our two nephews who are 1 and 4-years old.

The morning after the party we were sitting in my parents’ kitchen watching my two nephews play. The baby is starting to pull himself up on furniture but he’s still fairly unsteady, so one of his parents is usually close by. His mom was helping  him hold onto a chair when she looked down at him and then leaned over to talk to my mom.

“Grandma,'” she said, “I bet you haven’t had your new chairs licked yet.”

This struck me as so funny because all I could think about was my industrious little nephew crawling determinedly around the kitchen, checking out the state of all the furniture. “What’s this,” I imagined him thinking, while wearing a tiny superhero cape, “unlicked furniture?! Don’t worry, Grandma, I AM ALL OVER THIS.”

Meanwhile, after blowing through all the adults and their energy, the 4-year old was busy entertaining himself in the corner. He is all boy; just give him a train, a plane, or an automobile, and he is in heaven.

“Look,” he said, indicating his latest creation, “a tower. And there’s a princess!”

“Oh wow,” I said, “there’s a princess in a tower? Are you going to rescue her? Are you going to climb up the tower to get her down?”

There was no answer as we watched his bulldozer draw closer and closer to the princess, eventually crashing right through the tower and sending the princess rolling across the kitchen floor.

“Well, hey,” said, my dad, “it got the job done.”

My mom and I looked at each other as she lifted her palms to form an imaginary scale.

“Fairy tales as told by girls,” she  said, motioning with her right hand, “and fairy tales as told by boys.”

Building a Lego tower with engineers:

My father-in-law: “You’re gonna need some rebar on that tower.”

My husband: ” I know. I’m working on the structural members now.”

 

Building a Lego tower with a 2-year old:

Lately my parents have been stretched thin with family crises, and there hasn’t been any way for me to help. Then one day while browsing Amazon I  discovered a book of funny math cartoons which made  a perfect, surprise, “pick-me-up” gift for my former math teacher mom.

I forgot to include a note with the package, but I assumed my parents would figure out it was from me.

I figured wrong.

Now, just for comparison’s sake, here’s the conversation my husband and I would’ve  had upon the arrival of an unexpected package from Amazon:

My Husband: “I see your secret Amazon boyfriend was here again.”

Me: “I know! Someone sent us a surprise gift !”

My Husband: “Cool! Open it up and see what it is.”

But apparently, this is what went down at my parents’ house:

Dad: (calling my mom at work): “Were you expecting something from Amazon?”

Mom: “No.”

Dad: “We just got a package from Amazon.”

Mom: “Well I didn’t order anything.”

Dad: “Then why did we get a package if we didn’t order anything?”

Mom: “Oh no-what if someone hacked our account so they could steal our credit card information?”

Dad: “Well no, that doesn’t make sense. Why would they have sent something to us if they were trying to steal from us?

Mom: “I’m on my lunch hour. I can come home right now and take it back to the post office. Do you think we should cancel our credit card?”

Dad: “Not yet. I guess we can wait ’til you get home to deal with it.”

I can’t swear that I captured their conversation verbatim, because by the time my mom finished recounting this story I was laughing so hard that my eardrums were bleeding, but I think I pretty much got the gist of things.

So apparently I did not only send them a fun surprise. I sent them a surprise, wrapped in the tissue paper of suspicion, tied up with a pretty, panic-inducing bow.

Do I know how to give a gift or what?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(noun) the one who, when informed that you’re feeling old because you just got bifocals and you haven’t even turned 41 yet, immediately offers to get a pair herself so you can be stylish together.