I was feeling down and needed to interact with good people so I reached out with an invitation and a friend brought over her brood. There was a chaotic lunch during which my child managed to eat all the raisins, an attempt at playing outdoors in the sunny 25 degree weather, and then some howling over a particular toy and, finally, peace.
The two youngest were asleep and the other three we thought would be captivated by a beautiful craft project, decorating crocheted tree ornaments with any number of shiny treasures, but instead they were engrossed in a game involving the couch and I think feeding monkeys, I was blissfully not really paying attention. So we moms worked with our hands and the baby – a real baby, not like our two year old baby – grunted in her sleep on the floor and as the trees filled up with flowers and sequins and plastic beads we discussed books and faith and parenting in these confusing times.
When I am feeling alone I must always reach out to a kindred spirit, as L M Montgomery described it, before my world turns dark. Today’s slang – besties – doesn’t do it justice. A bestie is someone with whom you take selfies; a kindred spirit has lived a life parallel enough to yours that their pain hits you, ugh, in the gut because you get it, and their joys bring a spark to your own eyeballs because, yes!!
Later the same weekend I am rolling out sugar cookies with two small boys – I am trying to roll out sugar cookies – but the dough is too cold and the small fingers are omnipresent underneath the rolling pin, pick pick picking away at the gritty, buttery dough and the counter is too full and we’ve somehow spilled an egg yolk across the back of it, a cheerful yellow swath of stickiness I will have the pleasure of scraping off later. And suddenly, as I pull mangled tree shaped cookies out of the oven a small child is running down the back sidewalk toward the house and it’s friends! Just as I was thinking, now we have these cookies and we shouldn’t eat them all or we’ll feel terrible but we probably will eat them all – here comes a friend who lost my phone number but at the insistence of her five year old stopped by just to see if we were home.
We decorate cookies all together. The boys eat a whole lot of sprinkles, a disgusting amount, I just look the other way and get out the olives and slice a pear. What are sprinkles made of anyway? Actually I know this, and my son reminds me: “Carnauba wax, mama.” Because he spends his precious thirty minutes of screen time each day watching things like “How Sprinkles Are Made.” Curious minds have to know.
Anyway, all this is to say that going through the motions of traditional American Christmas for my children, and watching and waiting for hope for myself and my mood, just might be yielding the meeting of my own needs. Never mind the fact that little brother woke up at 4 am and barfed all over every piece of his bedding and both of our pajamas. I was able to handle it because I had reached out for connection and received it. When he did it again all over the grownups’ bedding, and I got to the bathroom before I realized it was also pooled at my part and dripping down the sides of my bangs, I was still able to handle it. As I scrubbed and wiped and gagged on the odor, I was also pleased to note that the cookies and sprinkles had been fully digested, leaving no trace, so I did not have to feel like a terrible parent.
Sometimes I want to stand over our olive wood nativity scene and yell at the baby Jesus: “Take care of me!!” But really, I don’t have to. Baby Jesus and I are kindred spirits.
Post 9 of Waiting: An Advent Series.
