Run Run Ruldolph...Part 1

Finally!  It’s the holiday season YET again.  I am so excited this year for Christmas-which is amazing since I am excited for Christmas every year, so if I am saying I am excited already, you know I am at like 198.5% more excited than in years past.

This year is a year of all sorts of sorts…  I figure that this might be the last year of the FULL magic of the big man in the red suit for both of my children at the same time.  

Ellie is 4, she finally gets it.  She was riding the happy wave last year in Gabe’s wake, but this year, she is standing firm on her own about the awesomeness that is Christmas.  Her excitement could fuel a jet plane, nay, Santa’s sleigh itself.  She is ready, she is watchful and she’s determined to catch someone on Christmas Eve to incarcerate in her lair of babies and princess shoes.

Gabe is almost 8.  He’ll be a week shy of turning 8 on Christmas (Yup, New Year’s baby for those of you who don’t know know me), so I am sadly figuring this is his last year of shiny faced belief.  Who knows, he might be already questioning, but bless his heart, he hasn’t breathed a syllable of this to me. But, I am realizing that by next year, he’ll be watching me too closely.. he’ll start tracking my poor attempts at being sly and eventually catch me in a twisted explanation so convoluted that I have no hope of finding a way out without blowing my cover.  That and I am incapable of telling a good lie.  Santa’s suit has nothing on the amount of redness I turn while trying to weave a good yarn of halftruths.

So, I’ll revel in this maybe last year of unquestioned magic in my home.  And I will enjoy EVERY single moment of it. They will write books about me, perform seminars extolling the spirit to which I have festooned upon others.  It will be MAGICAL in my home, not only for my children, but for myself as well.   

I have my oatmeal bought, glitter ready and google eyes poised to make our Reindeer Food complete with Reindeer jars for easy storage.  I have been stockpiling on fun craft ideas to do on those boring December nights while we wait impatiently for The Grinch, Charlie Brown and Frosty to come on.  Our elves, Antoadio and Elfie (although, I am willing to lay money down that her name will become Elsa before this holiday is over), are preparing to return in a few weeks.  They have been preparing a special bag for each child to welcome themselves back to our home. I’m already scoping out fun places they can move to each night that will keep them safe from Abu or Oscar’s (helpful) paws.  I do have plenty of cinnamon ready, however, should they find themselves in someone’s hand, paw, or mouth- Our elves do not follow the path some of their peers do, though.  Our elves might be “boring” in comparison, but they choose not to be naughty (My children fulfill that requirement already!!) Instead they are mischievous in their hiding spots, sometimes bringing back a North Pole treat to let Gabe and Ellie know that Santa is watching through their eyes and is pleased.  

And I’m happy, so very happy this year.  I’m always happy, I know, but this year…again, the % is through the roof.  I have so many people in my life that I get to share my happiness with.  I have a baby niece on the way, although she’ll find us in time for St. Pat’s Day, not quite for Christmas, but the joy is still there.  I have new friends, family and LOVES to enjoy this season with.  It’s truly going to be a magical time.  I have so many wonderful plans, surprises and treats to share! 

Christmas has IT for me, the happiest and best time of year.  I promise to do it up proudly. Not over the top, just magical.  I know I’ve used that word a lot, but that is the only way I can sum up how I am feeling this year.  The pieces are in place at last and it’s time to make some memories…

To be continued!

Ellie Reincarnated-Grace Personified

As a little girl, I was lucky-  I had Gram and Gramp in the house and Gramma and Grampa in the trailer (they had a 5^th wheel camper that they camped everywhere in, no..they weren’t nomads, they did have a home!)  I grew up through most of my childhood with full family Christmases, lots of noise, presents and grandparents. I have incredible memories of my grandparents, my grandmothers in particular.  They were both so cool, but so totally different in almost every way.

My grandma Ellie had to be about 4’11’’ with size 4 feet.  She was tiny with a head of poodle tight curls.  Looking back, she might have been all of 50, but she looked like a grandma-  She drove a big huge car (with air conditioning, such a luxury back then..hmm...actually it is as well now too seeing that my poor car’s is broken).  I remember driving with her to do errands and how she’d always peel out at the end of the road.  She was wild and she had a hell of a lead foot.  Ellie had an 8 track player and an organ in her den.  I remember being the star of my own show, banging away on that organ.  I sounded so awesome.  My cousin Kenny and I would put on performances to Islands in the Stream, I can still see us now- Talking through the news was forbidden—“Shush, listen” she’d say.  Midday she watched her “programs”, again, it was very important for us to listen.  I never quite understood that as a child, but I now realize she was nicely telling us to shut up!  

My grandpa used to travel when I was a kid and since they lived right down the road from me growing up, I would go down and stay with her when he was away.  She didn’t like to be alone at night.  I had the fortune of really knowing my grandmother well, maybe better than my brother or sister did-  She wore little tiny Minnetonka moccasins, had a craftmatic adjustable bed with a “puff” (her word for comforter), couldn’t cook an unburned piece of toast to save her life and always had a milkglass full of m&m’s.  

She passed when I was 16 and the world became just a bit less cool-  I take those wild and fun parts of Ellie with me, though, I think through my life and now through my daughter.   The little spitfire that lives with me is her mimic, down to almost the same way she speaks.  My daughter,  Ellie has a little Massachusetts/Boston accent that I did not put there.  Just as she looks like I did, this kid is all Rathbun, she favors her “gramma gramma” in an amazing amount of ways.  I am excited to see what more comes as she grows.

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My Gram, Grace, passed away 13 years ago today.  It is in her memory that I am writing, she is my muse today.  I find myself thinking about the lessons she taught me, the wisdom she passed along and realize that I carry these teachings with me in my life now.  It is common in my family to stop and wonder: What could Grace do?  She had a serenity that I strive to achieve.

She was named aptly: Grace.  My grandmother always had a regal air about her, but she wore it humbly, you would never describe her as haughty or stuck up.  Her hair was pretty much always spot on perfect.  Even in her robe, she was put together.  Lips painted, maybe a necklace and earrings, perfect.  She always looked what I imagined a 1940’s film star would look like once she got a bit older and retired from making movies.  She was classy.  Pure and simple.

I am the oldest grandchild on both sides of my family.  I might be the wildest of the bunch, I am not sure, but when I hit puberty, Gram took control in reeling me in.  She decided it was time for me to understand how to be a “lady”.  There was a store in Windsor called Sage Allen’s (or Sage’s as Gram called it) and I was taken there to go shopping.  I had a little brother and sister by this point, probably 2 little crazy cousins too, so a trip with Gram all by myself was something to celebrate.  I am sure we made a day of it, maybe some lunch, I am not sure.. Definitely a stop at Geisler’s on the way home to get some nice bread and maybe things to make a green salad, but the day was all mine.  Yay.  We hit Sage Allen’s and walked right back to the intimates department.  Dear Grace had decided that it was time for me to properly “fit” for a bra.  I still had no clue what this meant.  How naïve I was..  fast forward about 15 minutes and you have me, beet red, standing in a dressing room being measured, pinched, pulled and inspected by not only my grandmother, but the sales associate as well.  I wanted to crawl under a mannequin and disappear.  But, my grandmother looked me in the eye that day and told me something that I carry with myself to this day.  She told me to be proud to be a woman.  Stand up tall, pull your shoulders back and lift your chin up.  Walk with purpose and grace…and “for godsakes, Hezer Ree, please make sure you learn how to walk in high heels, there is nothing worse than watching a woman clomp about in shoes she can’t walk in”

Holidays were always fun.  After 8's, gherkins & olives, pickies... Our family has a leprechaun, Michael Patrick.  He came every year, his arrival singled by a bell, leaving us goodies and presents.  When I was really little, my aunt and uncle were still in high school/college and Christmas Eve at their house couldn’t be beat.  As an adult, I always wanted to enjoy a Christmas Eve like the ones I remember.  Pictures of those nights make me smile as I can now understand how much fun the adults were having.  She was one of the best cooks I have ever known and handled her kitchen with an ease I am still trying to mimic.  She commanded a room with a glance, god help you if you were on the receiving end of one of her stares.  Well deserved of course, but you would be stopped in your tracks without her ever needing to say a word.  (I still need to learn how to do this better, I haven’t fully mastered the stare)

The attic on 40 Wilton Rd is still the coolest attic I have ever seen to this day.  Nooks and crannies of stuff!  Boxes of my mom’s old school papers that we’d look through over and over again.  That box was so much cooler in the attic than it was when it was finally brought down when they moved from that house.  She had these garment bags hanging up there and we’d hide in them, jumping out to try to scare an unsuspecting grown up.  Styrofoam mannequin heads that terrified you as you came up into the attic, made worse by my uncle (ask Jeremy about that one).   Christmas decorations, furniture and I am sure more than most of it was just “junk” but to us, it was a treasure trove.  There was a huge radiator in the kitchen with a metal lattice looking grate.  I think I must have put at least 2 full barrels of monkeys down through the spaces in between.   When I remember my grandmother, it is this house where I have her placed in my mind.  I can still remember everything, the calendar on the door to the cellar, how shiny the staircase was and the wallpaper in the dining room.

Memories of Gram sitting at the table, plastic cup of warm Coke, playing cards in hand-- Making lists of things to do, presents to buy.  Notes in the margins, reminders of what someone liked, or would possibly liked.  She dotted her i’s with a circle.  Watching her dance with my mother and aunt in our living room to Strokin’, I remember being so horrified that day-  my mom had just discovered line dancing and was teaching some moves.   Going out for dinner at Sapino’s (spelling??), down to the Elks Club-  everyone knew her and loved her.   She truly came from a different age, she personified grace.  She was a true lady and I only hope to be half the woman she was.  

I never realized it when I was a child, but I had the incredible fortune of knowing my grandmothers.  They were so totally different from one another as they could have possibly been, but I am the better for what they both gave to me.  I miss them terribly.  I wish they could know me now and guide me when I struggle.  My daughter embodies them, although right now I believe she only carries Grace in name more than manner, but I’m patient.  I hope that they grow up with the warm memories of their Gramma’s house that I do.  And with Michael Patrick set to arrive in less than 2 weeks, I think they might be off to a good start on that--

I am a Mother

I have been sick to my stomach for 5 days now.  On Friday I opened up my yahoo see what random news there was to read during lunch and was slammed in the face with the words that changed us all.  Images that we cannot erase from our minds no matter how hard we might scrub.  Cries and screams that we didn’t hear out loud, but sound repeatedly in our ears clearly. 

I close my eyes and pray to rewind time.  I wish I could have foresight to go back to 8am on Friday morning and stop it somehow.  Send a snowstorm to keep school closed, learn how to remove a battery to disable a car, will a police officer to have a random traffic stop so as to detain an evil doer from completing his journey. 

But I am not magic.  I don’t have those powers.  I am unable to rewrite history.  I am as human as we all are and I am grieving.  I am grieving for those that I have never met in life but look forward to having welcome me one day to a paradise they will be getting ready for me to join. 

To know me socially, you would probably not see me as a deeply spiritual person.  I am private about my faith; I don’t choose to define my heart publicly.  To know me personally, you’d understand that it is there, hidden and private, but strong and honest.   My convictions are sometimes muddled, confused and angry.  I do not profess to the notion of “God’s Will” when things that are so atrocious, so vile and so inhumane occur.  The God I pray to does not sacrifice to prove a point.  Some events defy reason, explanation. 

There is a blog going around from a woman who has a child that frightens her to her very core. She writes that she is the Mother of XXX.   She writes that she could be any of the sociopath’s mothers as her child could be capable of that same thing.  I can empathize with this woman’s struggle as she didn’t “ask” for this to be her life.  She fights to protect her other children from the emotional pendulum of her troubled child, while being torn as to how to care and nurture the all.  But as real as this problem is for her, it isn’t my focus right now.

My focus is that of a Mother of a 5 year boy.  A boy who still has his milk teeth, some loose, some firmly still rooted for months to come.  A boy who still sleeps with his stuffed animals and smells sweetly after getting out of his bubble bath.  A boy who is only about 3 years or so out of diapers.  A boy whose pants still carry the “T” label attached to the numerical size and still have adjustable waists. 

My boy, who grew up to be a big Kindergartener this year.  Who takes a big huge school bus each afternoon to his afterschool program and who comes home each day with his little tiny backpack stuffed with paper airplanes, homemade books and weird magic marker colored creations.

My child.  My little boy.  Who believes in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy.  My child who has learned all of the words to “Grand Old Flag” and somehow knows the “Jingle Bells, Batman Smells” song (how does this get passed down year to year I wonder?).  My son, who already knows how to read and could probably take apart a computer and troubleshoot why it wasn’t working.  My brilliant, sunny, happy and sweet 5 year old child. 

I watched him walk away from me this morning when I dropped him off at school.  My faith assures me that he will come home to me tonight, full of stories of what he did during his day and what new thing he wants for Christmas.  My world will be complete, it will continue, it will go on unscathed (at least on the surface)

I say this because underneath it all, I will find myself driven to my knees in gratitude that my child is coming home to me.  That I have more time to watch him grow. I have more time to put those teeth under his pillow as he loses them.  I get to watch him blow out that big number 6 on his cake in two weeks.  I get another Christmas, another birthday, Easter and beyond.  I am fortunate.

And as a Mother, my heart aches and yearns for those who were robbed of this future I can look forward to with my child.  I grieve for all that they have lost.  I cry, I scream, I want to understand why.  I don’t accept the answers given to me.  I become a 5 year old myself; “It’s NOT fair”.

It’s not fair.  It is NOT ok. It is not ok to feel that emptiness where once it was filled with laughter, trio blocks, leap frogs and kraft mac and cheese.  It is not fair to have to say goodbye yet.  It is not ok to go through this world missing a huge part of yourself for a reason such as this.

I am the Mother of a 5 year old boy, and it is in my child that 20 beautiful lights will continue to shine.