This is not Going to Help

Merry Christmas from the Vandervoortex

 

 

 

Photographed pre-dishevelment.  Thank you to Grandma and Doo Dad for the painfully adorable Christmas attire.

My niece

In case any of you out there were in doubt about who was the cutest, sweetest, most delicious niece in the world, I give you baby Annie.  Enough said.

Dear Uncle Jack

You've now been dead for a greater portion of my life than you were alive.  I find that so hard to believe, because you are just right here, you know.  It is still pure reflex to me to wonder what you would think of something.  I frequently find myself looking at things through your eyes. 

When I was a kid, you were Christmas.  And I guess, no matter how old you get, to some extent Christmas is always what it was when you were little.  I remember one Arkansas Christmas in particular. It was snowing like hell and it was beautiful.  I can still see you coming through my front door, the snow coming down behind you.  You're walking toward me with your smile and big snowflakes on the shoulders of your navy cashmere coat.  You were so handsome, so young, and so happy to see us. 

I'll never forget the boxes of presents shipped from New York and the excitement of collecting you at the airport.  Or the time you bought me a red leather mini-skirt in 1986, when I was 13 and built like an 8 year-old boy.  I looked up at you to say thanks and you weren't watching me, you were watching my dad, your brother.  You just loved pissing him off, especially if it also meant making me happy.

I wish you could have met Adam.  You guys would have had a substantially serious connection, I think.  And probably a few rows, too, because he's just as clever as you were, and that would have really annoyed you and thrilled you.  You'd be happy to know it is now his job to scoff at my provincial ways. 

I remember how, on your death bed, you called the hymn-singing Mennonites "Mormonites" and asked if they could do "Stand by Your Man."  You were a riot.  And you were so brave in those final days.  I hope that I can do that for my nieces and nephews some day -- make them laugh while I'm dying.

After you died, I wished we had an audio recording of your laugh.  Then I had Franny and Henry, and, when they really get going, I can hear your laugh in theirs.  I wish you were here to dote on Franny and Henry the way you doted on me, and to keep them in (and out of) line. 

I live here, now.  I have for five years.  Adam works in the city.  Hardly a day goes by that I don't feel in the pit of my stomach how you would have been here, and we there, all the time.  We would have been laughing and laughing and talking and arguing, and my whole family would have been better off for it.

Did you know that HIV is no longer a death sentence here in the first world?  Do you know how very narrowly you missed the antiretroviral treatment that makes this possible?  I do.  And it breaks my heart.

Rats

I typed a long post, and it evaporated.  That's never happened to me before.  Would you believe me if I said it was a really good one?  Well, you shouldn't.

We are in Christmas mode here.  I let the kids decorate the tree this year, so all the ornaments are about three feet up and set in little tableaux.  I started to supplement with my own version of tree-decorating, remembered that we're going to Arkansas the day after Christmas and decided to leave it as is.  I love when being a generous, good mother conveniently intersects with doing as little as possible to get by.  Sigh.

The kids are happy and healthy and driving me nuts.  Also, they are cute.  See infra.

 

And now they are gone

This has been a great week.  Mom and Sammie have been visiting and just left this morning.  Sammie (my grandmother) has not been well since my grandfather Debs died last year, and one of the things she kept regretting aloud over the course of the past few months was that she hadn't gotten to visit us since we bought our house.  So, my mother, angel that she is, whisked her up here for a five-day visit.  (She was able to tear herself away from her house while they were sheet rocking it.)

Thanks, Mom.  The past five days were a gift.

Caroline

My old friend Caroline has been taking care of these kids every Friday, and last night she stayed while Adam and I went to see the new James Bond.  (It was just OK, but what's not to like about 90+ minutes of Daniel Craig getting all dirty and changing clothes.)  Anyway, Franny painted everybody's face while we were away.  I'm told that Franny and Caroline were eagles and Henry was a mean pirate.

 

 

We got word yesterday that we get to go to Obama's inauguration, which is very exciting and means that we will spend two nights away from home.  Caroline has agreed to stay at our house and take care of these children and dogs and frogs.  Sucker!

Language and some other crap

So, Henry is still learning to talk.  He has cute pronunciations of things.  All "F" sounds come out as a hard "T" so he calls his sister, plainly, "Tranny."  Sometimes the letter "S" is also a "T" so tonight when he got out of the bath himself and ran across my bedroom floor, he looked behind him and said, "Mommy!  Tee my toot trints!?" 

When he counts, he regularly leaves out "ten" and skips right to "elenen."  I recall that Franny used to skip a number as well, but I think she skipped "thirteen" so perhaps she was just precociously superstitious.

Franny can pretty much pronounce everything now and is learning to describe things.  She was telling us a story the other day and said that she had "whistling ears" and "fainting eyes."

I was feeling fairly terrible recently when I couldn't remember Henry's first word, yet I had a crystal clear memory of Franny excitedly telling everyone:  "Henwee's fuhwst wuhd was ___!" I asked her if she could remember, and, at first she couldn't.  Then about a week later, she came running up to me and said "Down down.  Henry's first word was down down."  And she's right.  I remember it now.

Franny woke us both up for the day at 4.30 this morning, which might explain the fascination quotient of this post.  She was clutching her left ear and crying.  She is an excellent self-diagnostician, but we've got to go in to the doc in order to get meds -- they are never willing to take her word for it.  The doctor looked into her ear and then told me that Franny's ear was terribly infected and she was probably in agony.  Poor thing.  She's much better now, the dear little girl.

Our dishwasher ist kaput.  Glenda, our sweet cleaning person, has called to say she won't be here tomorrow.  I have a cold and a headache.  I'm really tired. My hair seems inconsolably fuzzy.  I even paid $$ for a "treatment" at the salon. The End.

(For those of you who know me well, please don't panic.  Glenda will be here later in the week.  OK, she'll be here Thursday.)

Rahm

I feel compelled to make this completely uninteresting confession.  In spite (or perhaps because of) being described by Paul Begala as having an aggressive style that is a "cross between a hemorrhoid and a toothache" I'm a tiny bit hot for Rahm Emanuel.  (He reminds me a little bit of Adam.) Do with this information what you will.

Franecdote

On Friday, Franny asked our friend and babysitter, Caroline:  Are you Jewish or Episcopalian?

  

Nablopomofo

So, maybe I'm posting every other day?  I must be busier than I was last year?

We were supposed to go to Deerfield Day at Adam's high school today, but it is looking rainyish outdoors, and we're a bunch of lazy bastards around here.  So, instead we are still in our pajamas, taking recreational baths and trashing the house.  And Adam almost passed out when he stood up from bed this morning, so he might be busy croaking today or something.  (He seems fine, but I'm sure I've got his mom fired up now!) 

Robin and baby Annie are gone, which has left a giant, sad, gaping hole in our lives.  Both kids are complaining about it.  She's already called me this morning to tell me about a particularly fine fit Annie threw on some errands.  It was pretty funny, began with my sister and Annie being trapped in a checkout line for 45 minutes trapped between chocolate and breakable glass lights, and culminated with my sister standing outside her car at a Christmas open house and stage whispering "mother fucking god damn cocksucker" something or other, which is a bit out of character for her.  Not that she doesn't curse in general, but that particular string of words is not something we've come to expect from St. Robin.