Be back soon...

We have been snowed under -- not by actual snow, but by the holidays, a nasty stomach virus, and logistical issues with our upcoming move (like, I have to figure out how to move all my crap from one house to another -- STAT!). I'll be back soon. Happy New Year!

A true Christmas Miracle.

This past weekend, I threw a party. I had been planning this party since August, and today, if I didn't have a raging headache and the beginnings of a rotten head cold, I would feel ten pounds lighter.

I threw my parents a surprise 40th anniversary party.

The party went well -- there was fantastic barbecue and amazing cupcakes and platters of Krispy Kreme doughnuts. There were bowls of silver ornaments and tea lights on the tables. There was a wedding cake -- my mother's favorite confection -- made with pillows of white buttercream and topped with a silver fondant bow (another favorite).

The party guests ranged from my father's two best friends from the second grade to one of his biggest clients, a now retired businessman who flew all the way from Switzerland for the occasion; my mother's best friend, my godmother, came from far away and the woman she shared a hospital room with when I was born came as well.

The room was full of stories -- not just the story of my parents and the story of my family, which bears its own highs and lows -- but the stories of all these couples and their families as well. Our lives intertwine, you see. My father's best friend from the second grade lost his high school sweetheart wife in a house fire three years ago. My mother's hospital roommate lost her twenty-five-year-old daughter suddenly to previously undiagnosed leukemia four years ago. My mother's young personal trainer came with his brand new wife, bright-eyed and young and full of hope and love.

Within the walls of the clubhouse where I threw the party, there were loves and losses, successes and failures, health and illness, but most of all, there were friends. These are the people who know my parents' stories; these are the people who have come in and out of their lives. Forty years is a long time. A lot happens in forty years. For my parents, not all of those things have been good things. But they are still writing their own story, and all that mattered on Saturday night was that we were all there, helping them write it, bearing witness for them and in their honor.

As I said Saturday night, marriage is hard. Forty years is more than an accomplishment; it is truly a miracle. We witnessed a miracle.

Give me some credit here.

"Would you like to use your Macy's card for this purchase?"

"No, thank you."

"Do you have a Macy's card?"

"No, I don't, and I won't be getting one today, thanks." Please hurry up because I already waited in line for fifteen minutes behind slow old people and I need to get the toddler home to nap so I can pick up the older boys on time without having to wake him up too early and I want to get home to try these on so I know if I have something to wear to the ornament exchange tonight or not!

"Why not? You can save 10% by opening a card today!"

"Because," gritting teeth and smiling as pleasantly as possible, "I have other credit cards and because opening new credit cards lowers my credit rating."

"Well, let me ask you something. Are you buying a house anytime soon?"

"Yes, actually." Pause. "We close January 15th."

"Oh, I see. I would advise you not to open a credit card at this time, then!"

"Thanks. Happy Holidays."

The body of a mother

I did get to escape the House of Strep this morning. I was grateful for a few hours out, exchanging cookies with some really cool women and mommies.

When I returned home to a toddler sucking on frozen tubes of Stonyfield yogurt in flannel Buzz Lightyear jammies and two bored children in mismatched clothes, I settled in for a long stretch at home, going over to-do lists and guest lists and emails and bills.

Then I read the latest in my Google Reader, and as she often does, Heather Spohr moved me with a post about missing her little daughter Madeline and anticipating the birth of her second child early next year.

There is something about her post that just touched me through that portal that is the common bond of motherhood. I don't pretend to know anything about what she has been through -- her premature delivery with Maddie or the weeks in the NICU with her, the health battles they fought in Maddie's life, or Maddie's sudden, unexpected passing last April. Reading her blog, for me, is searing in its raw pain and vulnerability. I want to read it because it makes me feel; what it makes me feel isn't necessarily happy, but it makes me happy that people and relationships and feelings can be so strong.

I look at those pictures of Heather's belly, burgeoning and taut and teeming with life. The freckles on her arms look so human, so vulnerable. Her hands are the ones that held her baby and that held her baby's hands and that laid her baby to rest. Her belly, her arms, her hands -- they just all somehow tie together and remind me how every single woman who bears or loves a child does so with her whole being, her whole body. It changes who we are, what we look like, how we speak, how we touch. So much life, love, happiness, sadness, tears, hurt, and finally hope have come out of Heather's body, and here she is, on the brink of doing it again.

Maddie's whole life came and left through the passages of her mother's body, and somehow, Heather's body is now a vessel by which Maddie will live on, through her thoughts and her memories and her fingers and her words.

I don't know you, Heather, but I know you. You have no idea how hard I am hoping and anticipating the birth of your second daughter, not as a way of filling the void that Maddie left, but as a way of continuing your story, Maddie's story, the story of your lives.

Hat trick

All three of my children have strep throat.

The last week before winter vacation.

When Husband is leaving tomorrow on a business trip.

And I am hostessing a party for seventy-five people in five days.

Worst of all? They don't feel sick enough to stop fighting, wrestling, whining, eating, or begging me to play the Wii/play on my computer/play with my iPhone.

Because I am a really good mom, my first thought when the nurses at the pediatrician's office came in and said, "Positive, positive, positive," was This better not keep me from going to my cookie exchange tomorrow morning!

My second thought was Yay! No school drop-off tomorrow!

Betty Crocker

When I worked in Hollywood, people expected me to make them coffee.

Those people were very disappointed.

I tried to like coffee in college. After all, I am a baby of the Pearl Jam generation and all things Seattle -- big plaid flannel shirts, coffee, grunge. Little hip coffee shops cropped up all over my college town. But the closest I ever got to being a part of the coffee movement was a revelation that I loved vanilla milk steamers.

So when my Hollywood boss types would ask me to make coffee, I had to tell them no. I wasn't trying to be cheeky, but I didn't know how to make coffee. I missed that class in my Ivy League university studies, I would explain. They agreed, thankfully, that making it themselves was better than sending a coffee illiterate to make it for them. Eventually, I became an expert at Starbucks pick-ups, though.

For a while into my marriage, I maintained amateur status in the world of the domestic arts. I think part of me was stubborn; I thought my education meant that cooking and cleaning were somewhat beneath me.

Then I grew up.

I still hate the chore of being the default responsible person for dinner every night. I really don't like that job. But I understand it is kind of a necessary part of being one of the adults in the family and the one who is home when the children need to be fed. I'm learning a lot about my crockpot and I have availed myself to the wonders of food blogs and cookbooks. I'm never going to be Martha Stewart or Betty Crocker. Ever. But I am getting better at helping make my house a home, and there is nothing demeaning in that.

Today, I have been baking. I have two cookie exchanges coming up in the next ten days and teacher gifts due this week. I'm baking more than I even need to for those responsibilities, as the cookies are eaten faster than I can make them by little hands mouths and at least one set of big hands and a mouth. The smells are sweet. Sprinkles coat the kitchen (and playroom) floor. The kids watch Christmas shows and dance to Feliz Navidad in the kitchen and it really feels like a holiday -- and a home.

I still don't know how to make coffee, though.

Housekeeping

From now on, to leave a comment here, you'll have to do that whole "word verification" nonsense. Sorry for the inconvenience, but I was receiving up to ten SPAM comments a day, and it irks me. Thanks for your understanding.