So THIS is the Most Wonderful Time of the Year?!

Tuesday, December 17, 2019

Oh, December. Sweet, deceptive December. 

For more than 11 months of the year, I think of December with a nostalgia filter. I can't help but smile when I envision all the happy memories I've made with my family over the years, and all the happy memories I'm sure are to follow. In my mind the entire month is some type of Hallmark movie with twinkle lights, lightly falling snow, and apple spice candles burning.

Then, about a week after Thanksgiving, reality bitch slaps me across my face and it all sinks in. Like a horrible form of muscle memory, I remember everything that has to get done before Christmas. So with the determination of a worn and weary Russian peasant, I lower my head and get to work.

Lists are made and presents are bought. So many presents. It seems like we always have to buy for more people than we originally planned. And no ~ I don't want to be in your Secret Sister Santa Gift Exchange or whatever it's called, so please don't even ask. I can barely remember to put gas in my car at this point, much less buy and ship a gift for some woman I don't know in Indiana.

And then there's the baking. Facebook and Instagram are flooded with photos of these massive cookie baking sessions. As far as the eye can see, it's row after row of dozens of cookies. And everyone looks super happy and pleased with themselves. Like, no one's yelling and there's this aura of happiness and butter and togetherness.

I don't get it. 

Baking cookies is such a fun Christmas tradition, and of course I want to continue it. But seriously, I don't know what's more exasperating...baking with little kids or teenagers. Little kids have less of an attention span and make a bigger mess, but teenagers have their own challenges. I was so excited when all four of my kids were home on Sunday afternoon and agreed to bake cookies with me. I was downright giddy. This is going to be so great, I told myself. I am the Memory Maker extraordinaire! My children will talk about me fondly and share stories of my incredible nurturing tendencies for generations.

And it was a lot of fun for the first hour. We ditched traditional Christmas music for some old school hip hop, and everyone was laughing and getting along. I was deliriously happy. Sweet, sweet December. But eventually everyone drifted out of the kitchen into their own rooms, and I was left wrist deep in a bowl of sticky, marshmallow nuclear-waste-green Corn Flake hell.

"I'm never making wreath cookies again!" I yelled to an empty kitchen. "I mean it. I don't care how much you want them. No one helps!"

After finishing up and cleaning, I was still pretty impressed with everything they made. I warned them all that I expected them to not demolish all the cookies within a week. "Use some restraint, and try not to eat every single cookie when you get home from school. I would like the $80 I spent in baking ingredients to last more than a day."

And yesterday, not even 24 hours later, I got home to a supply of cookies that could fit into a business sized envelope.

Jesus, take the wheel.

I guess my currency for that amazingly fun time with all four of my children was paid for with sugar, Rolos, and a whole lot of almond bark. Eh, I'll take it. I know I'm on borrowed time when it comes to corralling all of the kids at home with me for certain activities. One's on her way to grad school, one's working full time, one's a senior in high school and even my youngest is 15 and has a job. Time with them is a precious commodity and parents know that all too well.

But that doesn't make what happened to me Friday night acceptable. Before I explain to you why I am so absolutely butt hurt and indignant, let me go on record and state I am a great mom when my kids are sick, especially when they were younger (as long as I don't think they're faking an illness to stay home from school). I coddle them, bring them medicine, put a cool wash cloth on their foreheads and make sure I check on them pretty regularly. And when they were really young I would catch their vomit in my hands without even flinching. Even now that they're older and they get sick, they'll still want to know when I'm coming home. Everyone wants their mama when they're sick. I get it, I do. I'm not speaking for all mothers and certainly not all women, but it makes me feel good to take care of people. 

Now let's talk about Friday and how I was betrayed by the fruit of my loins.

About two hours before I left work Friday afternoon, I started feeling like something wasn't quite right. My stomach felt weird, and I didn't have an appetite for a single thing. Nothing. That's how I first knew something was off. My fat ass is always hungry and I'm never not up for a snack, especially during a workday afternoon. I kept walking outside in the 20 degree temperature thinking I needed fresh air.

After work I ran some errands, and by 6:30 I decided to just go home. I was feeling worse and worse. By the time I got home, I walked straight past my 17 year old daughter Chloe and headed toward my bedroom. "I don't feel so good," I told her. At this point my mouth started watering like a Saint Bernard puppy and I crawled into bed. "Remember what you always tell us," Chloe called after me. "If you're not sure which end it's going to come out of, always always SIT."

Around an hour later I bolted up in bed, with my hand firmly clamped over my mouth. I ran as fast as I could to the bathroom and barely made it before I threw up. Over and over again. It was like a bad movie. Just as I'd wearily lift my hand up to flush the toilet, I'd puke again. Now I'm clutching the bathroom rug and barely able to get up from a fetal position. I hadn't even had time to shut the bathroom door all the way, and our house isn't all that big, so it's not like you can't hear what's going on. The bathroom is literally less than 20 feet from the living room couch. In my delirium I turned into Caroline Ingalls and told myself surely the children will come looking for me. 

After what seemed like an eternity but was probably more like 25 minutes, I dragged my sweaty self back to my room and prayed to the baby Jesus to spare me from such a horrific, literally gut-wrenching experience. I eventually fell asleep, with dried vomit at the ends of my hair and wearing one sock. 

The next morning I felt almost 100% better so I knew it wasn't the flu, and was most likely a nice little bout of food poisoning.

I cornered Chloe in the kitchen not long after she woke up. "Didn't you HEAR me last night when you were watching tv? I had food poisoning and was in the THROES OF DEATH puking my guts out and you didn't even check on me! I could have hit my head and been laying there for hours unconscious and no one would have even known." 

"Oh for real?" she asked. "I heard you but I actually thought you had the soupy poopies so I just turned the volume up on the tv remote. Because you know, gross." She shrugged.

Any other time of year I would be horrified at my apparent lack of instilling basic empathy into my children, but in December I'm just trying to survive. Physically, financially, emotionally... this month takes a toll on us parents but let's be honest - it can be brutal for moms. We want our kids to have the best Christmases - not just with gifts but with holiday experiences and memories - and we work ourselves to the point of exhaustion trying to make it happen.

I don't know about you other moms out there, but starting at 11 am on Christmas I am reclaiming my sanity. And all of January is going to be about ME. I will not bake anything, I will not decorate anything, I will not wrap anything and I for sure will not be holding anyone's hair back when they barf. I mean it.

Not unless they ask really nice. And then when I'm rubbing their back and putting a cool washcloth on their sweaty little brows, I'll lean forward and whisper "See how nice it is when someone doesn't leave you writhing in pain and despair on the bathroom floor all alone?"

I'm sure they'll appreciate my nurturing even more.