Watching the cookies

Today I woke up feeling annoyed. I told this to J upon delivering coffee. I had put eggnog in his, a couple-of-times-per holiday season thing he enjoys, which was nice, but my immediate complaining was not. The reason, I said, was that I’d begun thinking about our day, including s a musical competition Gabe is participating in that takes place this afternoon. He’s supposed to look “nice,” which is problematic, as there is nothing that Gabe hates more than having to look “nice.” We’ve been fighting him on it since he was a child: weddings, funerals, school concerts. I’ve given in for the most part on the clothes battle (not worth it) but the anger flares on occasion and this was one of them. I envisioned asking him to dress at least slightly better than his normal sweatpants regime, and the arguing that would follow. Now that he’s older, his arguing is more sophisticated. He would tell me that “it doesn’t matter how you dress,” and I would be forced to respond with themes surrounding respect and expectations. I know I could give him choices of a few nice things to empower him, or tell him he simply has to do it and then walk away - I know the parenting tricks and tools - but what I wanted in that moment was to avoid the conflict altogether. To have him say, “ok!”

I resigned myself to my fate. But when I walked downstairs this morning, Gabe was sitting on the couch in the sunroom with a winter hat on. “Here I am!” he said in greeting. Smiling. He wanted to make cookies and I said that was fine. When I came down again later, after enjoying my coffee in the quiet of the bedroom with J (quiet except for my ongoing concerns regarding of the power battle I was going to have to suffer through later that day) I found he and Aidy sitting on the kitchen floor by the oven staring with rapt attention through the window. “We’re watching the cookies,” they said, hair all ruffled from sleep, side by side. And it was so cute. So very much a moment, bigger and more important than the petty battles, that I decided to sit down and write about it right away so I wouldn’t forget; so it would, without doubt, imprint itself into my memory as the stuff that matters.

Today I am grateful for: Aidy's outrageous and sometimes aggressive zeal for life

One of the actions I undertook to assuage my overwhelm this holiday season was some bold decluttering. While I know decluttering is such a catch-phrase…such a mainstay-to-the-point-of-enough-already of this modern age…it really does help me. Especially when I do it alone, without the rest of the family around to comment. Nora is the best at decluttering in our family. She will pick up, like, a textbook she is currently using, and be like, “I don’t think I need this anymore.” Aidy and J (sorry, J) are the worst. The other day as I was getting very down to business, tearing my way through bins of toys in the basement and clothes drawers, I discovered a random plastic container of about 15 CDs (no cases) under our bed. Scratched and of unknown origin. I should have dumped them in the garbage but instead I sighed and showed them to J, for fear if he found them there - in the garbage - we would have to have AN INTENSE DISCUSSION. “CDs!” he said. He proceeded to wipe them down with a microfiber cloth. I watched him do this while I continued my frenzied bout of purging and decided that I would not make any commentary on the irony.

The fact is that our house is fairly decluttered at this point, thanks to my practicing the skill over the years. But our attic, which includes both a finished and unfinished part becomes, of course, a hotbed of many undesired - but not enough that we are ready to get rid of them - things. So this morning I took a 15 minute break from work to start going through some of the problem areas. Sort of a paradise of organizing up there, really, if you like that sort of thing.

One of the first piles I came across were some loose drawings and notebooks of Aidy’s. I long ago swore off keeping every piece of kids’ artwork; every carefully penned note. But Aidy’s…hers are so good. It’s not just because she’s my youngest, although I think that’s part of it, as I cling to her childhood as long as possible. It’s also because she’s so incredibly passionate, both in the written and verbal forms of language. It’s like we had two rather Irish, self-contained children, and one final very Italian one. She has been trying to swear since she was a baby, devoid of the real words, so finding her own means of inflicting pain through poetry (two of my favorites: when she told Nora, who was carefully brushing her hair and must have caught a tangle, that, she “wished she had a real sister,” and the time when she informed Gabe that she was going to “turn him into a diaper and wear him.”)

On the flip side, her passion comes through as love, too, and it wraps me up and keeps me warm. Every night I tell the kids goodnight, and that I love them. And I know that Gabe and Nora love me, I do, so it doesn’t bother me in the slightest that their response is nearly always, “ok.” I get the impossibility of expressing oneself as a kid, as a teen. But Aidy’s! Aidy’s response is a torrent. “I love you SO MUCH that it’s as big as the WORLD you are the BEST MOM that ever lived, and I can’t believe YOU ARE MY MOM I hope you have the most amazing night of sleep, sweet dreams and everything you have ever wanted, I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU MOMMY, goodnight.”

Her notes are similarly ardent, full of absolute joy and also bordering on melodrama, and she provides them regularly, often giving J and I a note at bedtime to inform us that we are the most wonderful parents and she loves “each and every day with us.” (Please note that she may or may not have also informed us on the very same day that she lives in the most boring house, so boring she might have to go to the hospital).

Today, while decluttering in the attic, trying to beat the clock and donate all the old things before new ones arrive, I stumbled upon some of her notes and stopped right there, reveling in their hilarity and heart. There are lots of things to get rid of, yes, and there are so very many I want to keep.