Regardless of religious persuasion, having a birthday in spitting distance of Christmas probably means your big day is going to be overlooked. You can ask my dear husband (December 27th) about this. He will back me up.
So, as ever in the holiday season—remember one that found me not wanting to overdo, not wanting to overspend or add to any chaos in our cluttered, busy, not-neat house—I have to admit his birthday wasn’t exactly an afterthought as much as a tipping point. In this case, I felt like there is nothing but nothing I can give him that he wants or needs. I mean he gets himself clothing for the most part. He subscribes to the New Yorker. He has time to read the New Yorker, the Sunday Times, the local paper and do the requisite crossword puzzles. He isn’t hankering for books, nor CD’s really (thank you new technology) or even an iphone (at least not until this whole Verizon announcement, which is coming too late for the birthday). Besides, I don’t want to give him an iphone for his birthday.
Then it dawned on me. Time with me: that’s actually what he most wants. Amazingly, twenty years in—we lived together three before marrying—we still really like each other. A lot. Stealthily, I hit the Internet and found a great deal on a really nice place close by (the Berkshires, treasure trove of nice places) and hit the button to book the overnight before I’d entirely secured all the childcare. That’s how committed I was to this gift.
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Good thing, too, not that I had any trouble in the childcare department (thank you, Ella, so beloved by my kids and not too scheduled for January term, so sure now that caring for four kids even one school morning is the best birth control ever) but because once I really started to list what 24 hours away means in the many-moving-parts-phenomenon that is a household with four children, I realized why I stay home a lot. There are so many details.
I could bore you with them, but I’ll spare you. Suffice to say this: I wrote a longish email about who gets what for lunch—and hit send—before realizing it was easier to assemble most of the lunch materials into containers myself. And then there is the whole get to school question and the get to Chinese question and so on and so forth.
Other than the teary call from eight year-old Remy (no follow up call left us imagining the best, although I will admit I had a nightmare about letting the kid down) really, smooth enough sailing for all. His misery was a day that didn’t go how he wanted. I think that meant he didn’t hook up with his pal, Kate, and he didn’t end up getting pancakes for supper. Lucien made some pasta sauce and Remy (I’m guessing agreed but couldn’t just figure out he really wanted pancakes according to plan and plus he didn’t like Lucien’s sauce) was really disappointed about not liking dinner. That’s enough to push ol’ Rem over the edge I’m afraid.
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The book I brought with me to read is one I’m going to write about more: Pretty Neat: The Buttoned Up Way to Get Organized and Let Go Of Perfection and it’s a feminist slant on the quest to be organizationally perfect. It was such fitting reading, because it’s about letting imperfect be the new perfect, about how living life well really has everything to do with embracing the concept that good enough on certain details is in fact perfect, in service of fulfilling larger aspirations. And in this case, my larger aspiration is to prioritize some quiet time with my dear husband every now and again (or even more than that!). In order to finesse that, I can’t be on the premises for everyone all the time. I am not putty. I am not a worm, easily divvied up into equal entities.
My hunch about the dinner changeup is that Lucien wanted to make pasta sauce. We have a rule instituted that he cannot make anything in the kitchen without a parent’s consent re: ingredients (that sounds harsh, trust me; it’s pretty much imperative right now). He did an end-run around that by invoking the my-parents-are-away exception. This put everyone into a less-than-desirable situation, namely that Remy became so unhappy.
At first, I just wanted to fix it, somehow, or at least never leave Remy again (except when he leaves me for overnight camp) but upon some middle of the night reflection (yes, I woke up, that upset, I’ll admit it), I resolved: hold faster and harder to this ingredient rule. Don’t announce the rule in a punitive fashion, just stick to it, remaining very matter-of-fact in demeanor. While holding firm, keep looking at the ways Lucien is becoming more amenable to his parents’ requests (after much haranguing over a day plus, he washed a pan last week, for example). Make pancakes* for dinner.
*Turned out, Remy chose waffles. So, waffles it was.
