Wasn't Void of Sweetness

Christmas Break this year included a two week void from school for everyone including me. It was also a void from our normal trips to the grocery store, bed times, spending habits, or the sites of our only teenager.

Yesterday at the grocery store the clerk asked me personal questions about my kids, their ages, their schools and it was all curious at first until I realized I knew him from somewhere and he was trying to remember too. I either had a lot of groceries or he was slow, but through our conversation I discovered our daughters played soccer together and that he was seriously struggling with his. He seemed to be searching for familiarity, but I'm not exaggerating when I say second grade and age 3 were harder than this teenage stuff so far.

I'm also not exaggerating when I say I knew I'd miss Makayla terribly while she was gone the entire Christmas Break. So, before she left, I made her a kit of daily survival things, which included at least a family picture, our favorite sweets, and a new soccer house-key for her return after the void.
My daily survival things included sweet things too like a trip to a chocolatier place in Los Angeles with some friends. We all agreed the amount of hot chocolate we were served was perfect with its sweet chocolate taste, cayenne pepper, fresh cream, and real powdered cocoa.

But I'll have to say the sweetest part of the Christmas Break came the afternoon after we left the chocolatier shoppe when my sister kept calling me to ask if she could come visit and bring her husband, 4 daughters, and 2 dogs. They arrived Thursday night, December 30th, and stayed long enough to go with us to a New Year's Eve party at our friend's house.

I don't think they were eager to go, and my sister's only teenager was disappointed to be there without her cousin. But she never complained. Neither did my sister. Here they were on New Year's Eve bravely going along with our silly ways, playing games and not knowing anyone.

They kept me distracted and content and happy in our backyard on the new trampoline, shopping, playing board games, and keeping me up way past my bedtime. My niece followed me around the kitchen while she was here. Maybe her mom prompted her to, but maybe she feared that without Makayla I would be hurled into the void of all sweetness so she stayed with me, talking to me, asking me questions, helping me.

She stayed just in time for Makayla's return on Sunday. And although I cried a little when they all left, the sweetness stayed. In fact, she stayed in bed all day sleeping because she brought home a cold and a void of her own.

I Can Read Louder Than A Megaphone

The night Santa came megaphoning down our street, the boys were in bed, and I was reading Harry Potter to them by 7:30pm. Thankfully, this was no indication of what the holiday season was like. It was just a day. A day when Tom was working late and my patience wasn't.

As the flashing amber lit police car shouted through the neighborhood getting closer and closer, I successfully read louder and louder. I wondered if I would regret not letting them sit on Santa's lap like all the kids on our street. They wouldn't have missed it because they were almost asleep. But it didn't matter.

Tom made it home in record time and before 8pm and came hurdling in the house jumping piles of laundry and my frustration to stir them just in time, so they never missed a thing.


Makayla missed it, but not because she was asleep or in Utah. She was still at church group and didn't leave for Utah until the 20th. We celebrated traditionally by picking our Christmas tree, decorating it, going to dinner before Makayla left, enjoying home made hot chocolate and pressurized whipped cream on our noses, and opening gifts early.

Makayla got a snuggie, shoes, new bed sheets, and a crystal lamp. Matt got a ground force drifter and a star wars apron. Travis got an ez roller and bey blades. I got my orbital sander, and I didn't get jewelry. Tom got the Unit on DVD.

Oh, and I got chocolate in my stocking, which I should have opened early with the family gifts before Makayla left. Then, I could have eaten it on the day Santa came megaphoning down our street.

Ho! Ho! Ho!

Maybe He'll Wear Suits When He's 11

Travis woke up excited about a loose tooth.

Well.

Just like that, he grew up. So, now after I finish ironing our Sunday clothes, I just leave the hot iron right on the board unsupervised. I let him make his own waffles and drive himself to school and back.

No.

He hasn't actually lost the tooth yet. I'll post a picture after he does. Here's his before picture...

My initial thought was to grab Tom and tell him to book a trip where we are gone a long time and come back pregnant or else.

I hadn't imagined an extended feeling of regret for not having more children or any regret for that matter. I've been disciplined for 'content' my entire life. And yet, after days and days, I am still wondering if I was supposed to stop at 3.

Last Thursday, I asked my friend if she felt the same when her youngest lost his first tooth and she shook her head back and forth and replied, "Nope." (Could she be more convincing in her resolve?)

So, it's all my fault. See? Tom and I had a debate about this, but I was too stubborn and too worried and too stubborn to consider it until now, when Travis is almost 6 and toothless and can read and pour his own milk...in a cup.

But whether I choose to have number four or not, doesn't really matter. He keeps growing and so does Matthew and Makayla. (Look at her up in that photo above? She was 8 then. See what I mean?)

Before I know it, Travis will be ironing his own Sunday shirts. That's the plan at least...except he's stubborn and worried and stubborn about church.

He told his cousins last weekend he will never wear a suit...

Nope.
Nope.
I won't do it.
Nope.

But maybe in 6 years, when he is almost old enough to pass the sacrament and makes his own living, he will consider what he missed by not wearing a suit, why he wears his play clothes under his church clothes, and if he should change his mind about the whole stubborn decision he made when he was only 5.