A Tall Girl's Adventures in a Tiny World

Has this fall been darker than previous years? Maybe. But probably not. Fall is fall, after all. You know by now, just by reading my last few posts, it's not been an easy year.I've been sad.  I've been scared. I've been angry. The world doesn't make much sense to me when I consider what's outside the walls of my own home, and sometimes even things inside my home don't make much sense. And every time someone asks, "So, you ready for Christmas?" as if they're looking for me to fall apart into a pile of frazzled nerves and broken promises, I feel my shoulders creeping closer to my ears. What the heck does that mean, really, to be ready for Christmas? We put a lot of pressure on ourselves, our kids, our loved ones, don't we, around this time of year? I've felt an acute aversion in 2016 to the barrage of ads on television, to the glut of promotional emails in my inbox, to the manic holiday songs in every public space. I pushed back agai...

One of our two kids may be just pretending to believe in Santa Claus this year. It's okay. He's 10. One of these days we may have to tell him what's up. We have never made a big deal about Santa, beyond the standard traditions of sending a wish list letter and leaving out milk and cookies on Christmas Eve. But I've always worried about the day he asks questions for real and I have to give him for-real answers. So whenever my kids ask me if I believe in Santa Claus, I say I believe in everything Santa stands for, all that he means: generosity, care for everyone, magic, excitement, and love. I tell them that believing in Santa is not just for little kids but for anyone who feels these things during the Christmas season. I never really swear by all the fairy tale details, but I say instead that I've never actually seen Santa Claus in person.  These are the things my mom said to me, and eventually I got it. I don't remember feeling betrayed or fooled; I felt...

Tommy's Park in Old Port shines bright I sat frantically on the phone this afternoon, refreshing my browser page in an attempt to purchase tickets to the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens "Gardens Aglow" exhibit this weekend. The website kept telling me that there were no times available -- how can this be? There aren't possibly this many people in mid-coast Maine who need to see holiday lights as badly as we do. Come on! If this doesn't work out, what will we do this weekend that will make us feel cheerful and special and holiday-ish? Once I got a voice on the phone, I felt even more frustrated as she told me of the parking problems and crowds; not helping my cheer levels. Holiday traditions! We all have them. Or at least we think we do. Recently I've been feeling awful about the lack of Christmas traditions in our household. Yesterday afternoon, for instance, as we walked home from school, I asked the kids if they wanted to go to the mall to see Santa. I...

I'm lying on an Aerobed in my brother's finished basement, listening to the sounds of my blissed out, over-fed, super-loved children's sleepy time breathing. Tomorrow we'll go home after a beautiful couple of days with my family. Bittersweet sleep. This room itself contains bits and pieces of my childhood holiday memories scattered all around: a needlepoint acrostic of all our names that my mom stitched in the early 80s (before my little sister was born) displayed next to my mom's portrait; a photo collage of snapshots from the early 90s -- in one I'm shown holding a Sports Illustrated with Christian Laettner in the cover; a framed photograph of our entire Stock-Mello family snapped on a Thanksgiving perhaps 20-25 years ago -- that may have been the last time all the aunts and uncles and cousins were together before mom's illness changed us all; a crazy quilt on the Aerobed sewn by my great-grandmother -- she made one for every one of her grandkids, and ...

This week was hectic. To say the least. New job for mommy, new daycare schedule for Baby Zen. Furnace breakdown and restart (with smoky, scary moments!), Big Daddy working three "late night" shifts (which is really only until 8 pm, but that might as well be midnight to a 5-year-old), and the topper -- Sweet Boy puked all over himself, his lunch, and his buddy in school Friday. But somehow in between all the zoom-around, I managed to collect our little angels in front of the tree for the annual Christmas card photo. Here's how it went down: First, Sweet Boy posed so I could get the light and angle and position in front of the tree. Just right. Aw, darling little elf, you know the drill. Then we add Baby Zen to the mix. He is obviously a newbie... Here we see big brother holding on to little brother for dear life, knowing that there may be some demerits from the naughty/nice list if the baby plonks to the floor. Now big brother is starting to really stress out about this gi...

Here in Delaware (and all up the East Coast) we've been socked by what's now been dubbed The Blizzard of '09. (Why don't we give blizzards names like we do hurricanes? Isn't it essentially the same kind of weather event?) Between late Friday and early Sunday, almost 20" of snow fell on my house...and my driveway...and my deck...and my sidewalks...and my poor little Japanese maple tree. Because I'm entering my third trimester, I had a perfect excuse to not even open the front door, other than to look out and say "oh my!" While the rest of the world freaked out over missing the last shopping weekend before Christmas, I discovered the perfect recipe for a great snow-bound day: 1) Send your husband and child away the night before to visit relatives in a non-snowy location. (This is a crucial step, people.) 2) Wake up to a quiet, peaceful house. Put on your favorite set of pajamas and fuzzy slippers, and turn on the radio to the all-Christmas-song stat...

Every year around this time, Big Daddy and I start our annual "is this our last year with a live Christmas tree?" discussion. So far, we've stuck with the live tree tradition, mostly because of my stubborn adherence to my own family's tradition. But. I'm starting to wear down. And I think this might, in fact, be our last year with a live tree. When I was a kid, picking out a tree was a big deal. Really big deal. Remember that scene in Christmas Vacation , when the Griswolds drive to the middle of nowhere to find the perfect Griswold Family Christmas Tree ? "It's not big; it's just...full." That scene makes me cry with laughter because I lived it year after year. We'd pile into the Mellovan on the second Saturday of advent, no matter what the weather, and we'd drive to a tree farm about 20 miles from home. For over 20 years, we went to that same tree farm (and I swear the proprietors were elderly from year one), where we'd wander the r...

Sweet Boy declared about a month ago that he was not going to do Halloween this year. Hmph, thought we, his perplexed parents. No dress-up? No trick-or-treat? No parade and party at school? Nope, nope, and nope. For about two weeks we tried to talk him into it -- brainstorming costume ideas (SpongeBob, Peter Pan, Superman, robot, ghost, puppy, anything!), discussing favorite candies, talking about the difference between make-believe and real. Nope. He didn't want to do it. And there's something I'm learning about my son: When he sets his mind to something, that's it. So we finally let it go. We told him he didn't have to do Halloween, but ew made it clear he couldn't decide at the last minute that he wanted a costume and send us scrambling. We made sure he understood he would miss out on the preschool parade and party, and he wouldn't get any candy from trick-or-treating. That's ok, Mom and Dad, I don't like Halloween. Hmph, again said we. I was nerv...

I had great intentions for this blog this month. Really upbeat and positive intentions: I'd planned on writing about all my favorite holiday things -- baking cookies with my little one, picking out and trimming the perfect Christmas tree, wrapping gifts with a bottle of wine in front of the fire -- but so far the month has gotten away from me. (As I'm sure it has for you, so you probably haven't even had time to stop here and notice the lack of posting going on.) I love Christmas, especially now that I have a small child to share the wonder with. But it's a difficult time for me, as it is for most of us I'm sure, because every now and then I'm just knocked down by a wave of melancholy -- I think of my mom or my grandparents or the Christmases of my childhood, and even though they're all good memories, there are holes there now. I've been trying hard, really hard, to keep the melancholy at bay this year. After all, I want Christmas to be as fun and excit...

Sweet Boy sat on Santa's lap in the mall on Friday. For the first time. Willingly. And with a smile on his face. This is pretty big, when we consider that when he was 1 he screamed bloody murder at the sight of Santa, and when he was 2, he stepped just close enough to snatch the candy cane from Santa's hand then run back between my legs. (Even bigger is the sad fact that I missed his first chat with Santa because I was standing in line at Starbucks, waiting for my SIL's fancy coffee concoction while she wandered over and introduced my child to Santa without either of his parents nearby. But I probably shouldn't go there...at least I have the souvenir photo, right?) This may be the first year that Sweet Boy is truly aware of Santa. He still hasn't quite grasped the whole Santa-brings-me-toys concept yet -- which is great, don't get me wrong -- and every time we ask him what he wants from Santa, he tells us something different. (And he told Santa on Friday that h...

I'm too nervous about tomorrow's election to write much of anything useful or intelligent. So, here I'll post some cute little photos of my Sweet Boy in his Halloween costume. And then I'll stress-eat some more of his candy. And I'll continue to imagine how the world might be for him if we can innaugurate you-know-who on January 20. Have you ever seen so many Spideys or Power Rangers gathered in one place? My boy loves to sing the Black Cat Skat song... ...but he really hates masks (just like his mama!) Here he's practicing his very cutest smile and "trick-or-treeeeeat!" All aboard the Sweet Boy Express...choo-choo!

Drinking cocoa and watching the Macy's Thanksgiving parade, picking out and decorating a Christmas tree, baking Christmas cookies, making Valentine cards, dying Easter eggs, watching 4th of July fireworks, and carving Halloween jack-o-lanterns... These are a few of the holiday traditions I have been excited to do with Sweet Boy, now especially because he is finally old enough that he can do this stuff with us and be excited about it. (My favorite line from this summer was sitting at his first fireworks display, not sure how he would react to the noise, when he turned to me and said "Mommy, this is fantastic!" That's my boy.) I was sure that carving a jack-o-lantern out of the pumpkin he picked would also be fantastic. Wrong! Sweet Boy wanted NO PART of this. He was horrified by the idea of putting his hands in the "gloop" as he called it. And note the expression on his face while Big Daddy pretended to eat the pumpkin guts. This kid is not happy! About two s...