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By Missy, on January 2, 2012
Happy New Year! My year is going about 50/50 so far. We had a WONDERFUL New Year’s Day open house yesterday, with tons of friends, tons of food, tons of drink, and tons of windows open because it was an ungodly 50 degrees outside. I decided yesterday that my favorite thing about our huge party every year (besides seeing everyone, eating all the food, et cetera) is starting the year with an overwhelming sense of abundance.
Let me set the scene for you. You pull into my street on New Year’s Day and you know there’s a party going on, in large part because you have to scramble a little bit to find a parking place! You walk into my house and probably haven’t gotten your coat off before someone offers you a shrimp or a brie-stuffed puff pastry. You walk into the dining room and are greeted by ham, salmon, crudites, cheeses, meatballs, cookies and cake pops. The end of the kitchen island is groaning with wine, soda, juice for the kids, and plenty of liquor. The house is just full of people, some you know and some you’ve never met. Everyone plays the “so how do you know Jane or Missy” game, since the invitees are family friends, business associates, and people from church, Girl Scouts or the adoptive parents group. You have a fabulous time and leave the party full of good cheer and a sense that this WILL be a happy new year.
Of course, if you’re me, you spend a couple days shopping, cooking, cleaning and prepping for the party. Then you stand for 5-6 hours talking to all the people you know and love. You eat entirely too much food, because they keep coming by with those little brie-stuffed puff pastries and you want to check that your meatballs taste as good as they smell. You chase your child around the house, reminding her to share and play nice (although she’s honestly a better hostess to the under-10 crowd than you would have been at her age). You catch people up on your life and hear about theirs and then spot about 10 more people you should really say “hi” to. You have a fabulous time and sit down after the party full of good cheer and a sense that this WILL be a happy new year.
Of course, thanks to tall the shopping, cooking, cleaning, and standing around talking to great people, as I crawled into bed late last night, every joint in my body started talking to me, and they weren’t whispering sweet nothings into my ear. I woke up every time I turned over, got up to pee, or breathed too hard. By this morning, things were taking a turn for the urgent care, with a sore throat and stuffy nose, which combined with my arthritis meds (which are working SO WELL, OBVIOUSLY!) mean I can get a sinus/strep/ebola infections pretty quickly. I have a standing order for antibiotics, I just need a doctor’s go-ahead to start taking them. And since every one of my doctors has today off, it’s off to the urgent care I go.
How’s your new year starting?
By Missy, on December 21, 2011
I’m excited to be participating in Jen’s Holiday Homes Tour this year. Last year, I missed the tour by a couple of days because my family always decorates way late (as in, the weekend before Christmas.)
Welcome! As you can see, our celebration of Christmas begins with the celebration of Advent. Lucky me, I took this picture on the 4th Sunday of Advent, so all of the candles were lit. Please ignore the yummy chicken & biscuits in the pot in the background. (Although it does provide a nice example of last year’s Christmas present!)
We also keep two Advent calendars in the kitchen, you can see one of them in the picture below, behind the mini-tree.
Of course, we have a big tree, too. I am in charge of the lighting scheme, if only because I’m the only one who’d call it a lighting scheme. This year, I had a very capable helper, until she had to go to bed.
 We only end up putting about a third of our ornaments on the tree each year. There are simply too many! We throw on whatever we can find carefully choose each ornament and loving place them on the tree until it is a thing of beauty and wonder. Of course, Abby is allergic to trees, so bringing in another real, live allergen (in addition to the dog and cat) is also fun and games. This year’s tree has been described as: “plump,” “rotund,” “GINORMOUS!” and “Do you know your tree is fat?”
The tree is just PART of the decorations in our house. We have carolers on the piano…
…Nutcrackers on the stairs….
…a whole set of Colonial Williamsburg houses and buildings…
…and a beautiful, fabric-mache’ creche set.
Not to mention a plethora of Christmas items to greet you in the front hall as you arrive.
The scary thing is, this is just a slice of our decorations. As you can see, we have a lot of Christmas Spirit! Hoping you have a Peaceful Solstice, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Merry Kwanzaa, Happy New Year, or just a nice day, however you celebrate this time of year. Thanks for stopping by!
By Missy, on December 2, 2011
“Mommy, I have to tell you something, but you have to promise you won’t tell Daddy.”
For the record? Nothing good ever starts this way. Ever.
“Sweetie, Daddy and I are your parents together, so if I think there’s something I need to tell him, I’m going to tell him. Now what do you want to tell me?”
“I call the fire department.”
I immediately picture red trucks with flashing lights barreling towards our house, sirens wailing. Then I remember that we live 1.5 blocks from the fire house and they’d be here already. “What number did you call?”
“The regular one.” She mimes dialing 9-1-1 on the wall of her bedroom.
“When did you call the fire department, Abby?”
“At Grandma Judy’s house. When she was in the shower and Daddy was asleep and the sheriff called.”
I think back to the four days we have just spent with my mother-in-law. As far as I know, there were no call from the authorities, no screeching sirens or anything out of the ordinary. And then I remember. Not this trip. Over the summer.
“You mean over the summer? When we came to pick you up?”
“Yes. And the sheriff called.”
I remember the early morning phone call, Brian answering in a voice that was still half-asleep. No officer, I don’t believe anyone here called 911. My wife and I were asleep, and the only one up was my four-year-old. She says she didn’t call, sir. It must have been the burglar alarm tripping. I’m sorry, sir. Thanks for calling to check it out.
“Abby, why did you call the fire department?”
“Well. Grandma was in the shower and I had to go to the bathroom really bad. It was an emergency.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me or Daddy?”
“I didn’t want to wake you up.”
Do you know how hard it is to deliver a stern but compassionate lecture about how important it is to not call 911 unless there’s a real emergency, but how proud you are of your little girl for telling the truth, even if it is a bit out of context, all while keeping a straight face because, COME ON!!1!! “It was an emergency.”
By Missy, on December 1, 2011
“Abby, what do you say we go to Target and do your Christmas shopping tomorrow? You know, so you can buy presents for Grandma and Uncle Jon and Daddy and everybody?”
“NO MOMMY!! I DON’T WANT TO BUY PRESENTS!! WAAAAAAAHHH!!”
Apparently, Abby thought that if she bought presents for everyone, she would not get any presents herself. Weird, twisted logic, but then again she’s 4 and half. When it was explained that she would, in fact, still receive presents, but that she needed to shop for anything she herself wanted to give away, she was happier about the prospect.
We wheeled our massive red cart into the store, with Abby riding on the front like a reverse caboose. I explained the purpose of giving gifts, “You think about each person, and what you think they would like. Then you buy something you think they would like and when they open the present, they know you were thinking about them and you love them.” I gave her an example of someone on her list – Daddy – and asked what kinds of things he likes.
“Football. But he has all the football games.”
We wandered through the store, finding treasures for each person on Abby’s list. Sometimes, I’d offer a bit of guidance, like mentioning that one person really likes a certain home decor item or that so-and-so mentioned to me that they needed a particular type of such-and-such. Every time, I was met with “Let’s find one for them, Mommy!” and then she would race through the aisles, picking the very best fill-in-the-blank for her people.
When we got home, she wanted to start wrapping right away. She wrote out the tags as I spelled each person’s name one by one.
By the next morning, Abby was so excited she could hardly stand it. When Jan walked in, Abby blurted out “I got your Christmas present yesterday Jan! I’ll give you a hint: it’s something you can put over yourself.”
Jan, trying not to guess and ruin the surprise, just kind of left that one alone, and helped Abby find some breakfast. After about 3 minutes, I guess Abby couldn’t take it anymore because she whispered in Jan’s ear “Pretend it’s a blanket!” I’m sure Jan will be so surprised when she opens Abby’s gift.
In any case, this was the first year Abby really did any shopping for Christmas presents. It was so sweet to watch her really think about each recipient, what they would like and her rationale for why they’d like it. She even asked me which gift tags her giftees would like. “Does Emily like a Santa or a Snowman?”
This kid is awesome. She’s going to get her own U-Haul’s worth of presents on Christmas morning, but right this second, she’s just as excited to see everyone else open what she got them.
By Missy, on November 29, 2011
Advent (n):
- A coming into place, viewing or being; arrival
- (usually initial capital letter) the coming of Christ into the world
- (usually initial capital letter) the period beginning four Sundays before Christmas, observed in commemoration of the coming of Christ into the world
It is officially the season of Advent in the Catholic Church and I love it. We light candles, wear purple, and hold our collective breath, waiting for that wonderful moment when Christmas is actually here. In my family, we really do celebrate this sometimes-overlooked liturgical season. I’d be willing to bet that the string of curses my brother let out last Sunday had more to do with the fact that there are really only spaces for 16 Advent songs during the 4 Sundays of Advent, and there are way more than 16 songs he’d like our Folk Group to sing. We light our Advent wreath as we sit down for dinner each night. (We will, just as soon as I dig it out of the closet.) And Abby has an Advent calendar which depicts the scene of the Nativity.
I don’t think I am particularly well-suited to Advent. But this year it seems that waiting for Christmas is almost as much fun as waking up Christmas morning to see what Santa has brought. It’s funny because I’m not generally a patient person AT ALL. And I do usually get antsy as we barrel ever-closer to the big day. But this year, I find myself just not ready to give up the last vestiges of November in exchange for yet more red and green.
I’ve already gotten the bulk of my Christmas shopping done. I have a short list left and know exactly where I’m going (rather, clicking) to finish off my list. The stuff I do have is wrapped and ready to get under the tree. But I just don’t feel in a rush this year.
I’m noticing a great sweetness in the anticipation of Christmas that is new for me. I’m not overwhelmed by the long list of to-do’s still facing me – big client project including travel, baking, lights, decorating, etc., etc., and so forth. It’s all going to get done, even with our weekends more packed than usual for this time of year, with an active Parent-School organization planning a gajillion holiday events at Abby’s new school. I’m just not sweating it.
It’ll get done. It’ll be great. And in the meantime, I’m slowly introducing the Christmas music I love, the movies I wait all year to watch. I am trying to consciously enjoy the shopping, wrapping and baking. I am trying not to arrive at Christmas morning, gasping and out of breath, but rather slip into it quietly, as one greets an old friend – oh, you’re here! Come on in. I’ve been waiting for you.
By Missy, on November 18, 2011
Let’s play spot the difference, shall we? Can you spot the differences between these two pictures? Both were taken yesterday, about 5 hours apart. All were taken with the same camera, and I used a flash in both pictures , which is unusual in and of itself.
There’s the headband, of course. And the lovely “Indian” necklace. There’s the proliferation of stickers on her dress in the right-hand picture. But wait, there’s one more thing. Did you notice? Here’s a closeup.
 An earring! A brand-spanking-new gold and diamond earring piercing the lobe of my big, huge, grown-up girl’s ear! And whaddya know, there’s another one in the other ear!! Of course in the closeup picture, you cans till see the tracks of her tears which had been streaming down her face mere minutes beforehand. And you can’t see that her tongue is completely blue from the 2 lollipops Dr. S gave her for being such a brave girl.
So why did we get Abby’s ears pierced yesterday? It’s a long story, actually. But it started when I realized a while back that we had missed a cultural milestone with our daughter. We hadn’t pierced her ears when she was an infant because it hadn’t registered on our radar. But as I became (and continue to become) more aware of black cultural norms, I realized that most black girls I know had their ears pierced as infants. Whoops! I didn’t want Abby to be the only black girl in her class/Girl Scout troop/whatever to have un-punctured earlobes.
But then we had the issues of MY cultural norms. I waited to get my ears pierced the first time until I was 11 years old, and had shown my parents that I was mature and responsible enough to take care of them. So we ended up doing a modified version of that with Abby. She had to earn marbles in her marble jar to show how responsible she was – things like feeding the dog, clearing her dishes, putting her shoes away, etc. It worked and in a few weeks, she had earned enough marbles to get her ears pierced.
When the fateful day came, and we talked about how exciting it was that she would be able to go and get her ears!! pierced!!!, she had a Grade A, royal freak out. She didn’t want to get them pierced! She was afraid it would hurt! NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!
So we took a step back and canceled the appointment. We mostly dropped the subject except to ask when she thought she might be ready – “When I’m six.” I purchased a pair of Girl Scout Daisy earrings while I was at the Girl Scouts National Convention last week. And yesterday morning, Abby asked me about the earrings I was wearing. I asked her if she felt ready to get her ears pierced yet and she said “Yes, I think so.” When I asked her what had changed she told me that “I was nervous before. But now I’m not because Mary and Grandma will come with me.” Of course, she hadn’t cleared that with either Mary or Grandma.
I called to make an appointment for next week and was only able to get her in yesterday. So I ran to school, grabbed her out of after-school care, rushed home, Mary jumped in the car and we raced to the pediatrician’s office, whereupon Abby did not have as big a freak-out as I thought. She held Mary’s hand, sat on my lap and said emphatically when it was done “I. Want. To. Go. Home. Now.”
So we did.
By Missy, on November 16, 2011
If that post title instantly has you singing a Girl Scout camp song that makes you want to stick a letter opener in your ears to just MAKE IT STOP ALREADY – well, I’m sorry. I kind of like that song. But this post isn’t about a tiny worm stuck in a soda straw. It about my child and her… unusual sleep habits.
See, Abby only has 2 speeds: off and on. She just goes and goes andgoeasandgoesandgoes until she drops from exhaustion. Many nights, to help her wind down and sleep, we let her “read” books to herself after we’ve done the whole bedtime routine. Brian and I both were (and still are) huge bedtime readers, and we’d like to encourage Abby in that same habit.
However, I did mention that Abby doesn’t so much wind down as shut off. So many nights when we go in to check on her and give her a final good night kiss, we find something like this:
 I personally love that Puppy was obviously listening attentively to her reading him the book until she did a full-on faceplant and passed out. And when I looked more carefully at what she had chosen to read to herself, I was the proudest mommy I could be.
In case you’re wondering, this is the book. Go girl power!
By Missy, on November 7, 2011
It’s been 3 years since my dad died. Some days, I still expect to find him sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a cup of coffee, but those days are getting to be really few and far between. I do catch myself looking for him in crowds, and sometimes even seeing him, although when I do it always turns out the poor guy I mistook for my dead father doesn’t actually look anything like him.
But more than wanting to see my dad for my own sake, I wish he was around so he could see what Abby is up to. She shares his wit and wicked sense of humor. She tells the same awful knock-knock jokes. And I know he would have just adored the spunky, brilliant child she is becoming. Abby and Dad would have made one hell of a team.
I know it doesn’t do any good to wish that things were different and it doesn’t take the pain away dreaming about a different outcome. But I try and make sure to tell Abby about her Bapa Hank and how much he loves her. And I let her know when one of the things she does would have made him happy. And in the meantime, I remember how much light she did bring to his life, while he was here.
By Missy, on November 3, 2011
Did you know that my favorite holiday is coming up? It’s true. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year, closely followed by Christmas and my birthday. I love Thanksgiving – its reflective, thoughtful nature, its quiet, time-honored traditions, its obnoxiously upbeat and unapologetically sentimental parade, its piles and piles of damn fine food.
This year, I have the tiniest little nagging bit of worry about Turkey Day. See, I’ve been trying to lose weight (and succeeding) for about 12 weeks now. The weight loss has been modest, but relatively steady. I go down a few pounds and then have a conference and put one or two back on. I then lose another couple of digits on the scale but have a family wedding and it’s totally rude to not eat the cake, right? (Plus gin and tonics shouldn’t have any calories. I’m just saying.)
Right around my birthday, I re-joined a local gym (What? It totally still counts a re-joining. So what that I was last there 6 years ago?) and I’ve been going pretty faithfully. I’ve been watching what I eat to the point where I woke up Tuesday morning feeling like I had a hangover from the Halloween sugar. (Mini Twix, why do you tempt me so???) And yet the numbers on the digital scale in my bathroom creep downwards ever so slowly.
On the bright side, I do think I am much more toned and fit than I was 12 weeks ago. So while my absolute weight has only gone down 17 pounds (and yes, 17 pounds IS an accomplishment, I just thought I’d be further along 12 weeks in), I think I’m down almost a whole clothing size. Some of my pants refuse to sit on my hips anymore and I’m fitting nicely into some of my smaller tops. I know my arms are more toned and I’ve noticed that my face looks thinner. Most of these changes are most noticeable (to me anyway) when I’m standing naked in front of my mirror, so I’ll spare you any photographic evidence. You’re welcome.
Still, I have a magic number in my head that I’d like to hit by Thanksgiving. I feel like if I hit that weight, I’ll have a few pounds to play with heading into butter season, AKA December. I fully intend to keep up my workouts – I even inquired about visiting the branch of my gym near my mother-in-law’s house at Thanksgiving: totally doable – all the way through Thanksgiving, Christmas, the New Year and beyond. I’m looking forward to the point at which I am compelled to purchase new pants because the ones I have are ridiculously small. And I’m hoping to exchange the bridesmaid dress that’s in my closet for a smaller size long before my brother’s wedding in June.
I know I can do this. I may not change my absolute weight as quickly as I want to, but I can shift my shape into a tighter, more toned, healthier package. Just as soon as I get rid of the leftover Halloween candy. Anyone want some mini Twix bars?
By Missy, on October 31, 2011
(Yes, we let Abby watch The Nightmare Before Christmas this weekend.)
(No, it was not entirely for my edification. She actually enjoyed the movie.)
I love Halloween! It’s one of my favorite holidays, with the costumes and the candy and the silly, scary stuff. Abby seems to be really having fun with it this year, too. They had a big lead-up to it in school, with songs and stories about pumpkins and ghosts and spiders – oooooooooohhhh!!
We weren’t able to hold our annual Adopive Parents Committee Halloween party due to the SNOW! in OCTOBER!!! OMG!!1!!!!!1 so we ended ups spending Saturday lying low at home, watching movies and making Magic Chicken and caramel apples and carving our Jack O’Lantern.
We assembled our pumpkin and our instruments of pumpkin torture carving.
Then Abby found a candle to put inside the pumpkin when it was done.
Upon careful consideration, Abby decided she wanted a “scary” Jack O’Lantern and I helped her draw on the features.
The I let the 4-and-half-year-old wield a sharp knife into an unwitting gourd.
Abby had a chance to learn all about pumpkin guts. And how well they cling to the insides of pumpkins. (And I had a little cry-laugh at the memory of my father, who would invariably have to leave the room, gagging and spewing, at this stage in the pumpkin carving every year. He couldn’t STAND the sight/smell/thought of pumpkin innards.)
Carving the scary eyes, nose and “crooked-y mouth, please, Mommy” came next.
Then Abby posed with her pumpkin!
It is a pretty spooky little bugger!
This morning we got up super-early to get Abby’s costume all ready for school. She had decided to be Nala from the Lion King, and I had sewn her costume last week. (I even set a zipper for the first time in forever - possibly since college. And I kicked that zipper’s ass!)
We had done a makeup dry run a week or two ag0 – Abby even got to wear lion face paint to Starbucks! Mom took Brian to the train giving us precious extra minutes, which we needed. After judicious application of the finest face paint available at CVS, we had a lion princess! Who then got an itchy nose, and scratched her makeup. I redid the damaged areas, found my setting powder from my Clown College stash, took a few pics and sent her off to school, the proudest little lion cub in the pride!
  
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