“It’s weird that everyone celebrates New Year’s Eve,” Shane said. “But nobody really celebrates New Year’s Day, and that’s the real holiday.”
“That’s true,” I laughed. “Maybe we should celebrate New Year’s Day. What would you like to do to celebrate?”
“I don’t know,” Shane said. “Maybe we could have all of our friends come over and have a huge party.”
I imagined the hung-over parents’ glee at dumping all of their kids at our house. Then I imagined trying to put together a party for a dozen kids in two days. We didn’t have nearly enough pizza.
“That might be nice another year,” I said. “But for now, let’s just figure out something special to do – maybe something new for the New Year.”
We came up with the idea that we could go to the movie and, since Shane wanted to see The Road Chip and I didn’t, I came up with the idea that Shane and Dylan could go to the movies on their own for the first time.
Dylan liked the idea, with one caveat. “What if I want to go to Ben & Jerry’s, too?”
“I will pick you up at Ben & Jerry’s,” I told him. The ice cream store is right next to the theater.
So the kids were in – a new thing to do, perfect for New Year’s Day.
On the way to the theater, I handed out discount cards and lots of cash. I put Dylan in charge of tickets, and Shane in charge of Ben & Jerry’s. I gave instructions for 15 straight minutes.
The kids were joking around during my instructions, and I got more and more panicked, thinking I wouldn’t have given all of my instructions before we got to the theater. My voice started rising with the panic.
Dylan said, “Mom, do you want to come with us? Because it seems like you’re the only one who’s worried.”
“No,” I said. “I just want to be sure you’re safe and happy.”
We arrived at the theater. The kids got out, laughing and excited.
I took a deep breath and drove away.
Everything went fine.
For New Year’s Eve, we decided to watch the appropriately named Tomorrowland on DVD – the boys’ favorite movie. It was a special “movie night” for the family, and a calm, quiet time for me.
Then, for the first time, both boys were allowed to stay up until after midnight. Dylan’s an old pro by now, since he’s stayed up till midnight nearly every night since winter break started, but it was Shane’s first time. Last year, Shane went to bed (as usual) and we woke him up to watch the ball drop on TV. He was awake for a few minutes, then went right back to bed.
But ushering in 2016 was different.
At 9:00 – the time Shane usually gets ready for bed – Tomorrowland was over and the ball-drop event was on TV. Dylan disappeared; Bill disappeared. I was ready for bed.
“So you’re just going to sit here for three hours and wait for the ball to drop?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “I’m going to do other things while it’s on.”
Then Shane went upstairs to gather supplies. He came downstairs with his new cell phone, some books, pencils and a writing tablet. I hopped on the computer for half an hour, then heard a song I like on TV – so I rushed back in to watch Elle King sing on the New Year’s Eve show.
“What are you doing now, Shane?” I asked.
“Abstract drawing,” he said. And he showed me some abstract art.
Half an hour later I wished him a happy new year and went to bed. Bill, Dylan and Shane all watched the ball drop together. I was zonked out shortly after 11:00 – but awakened when the power blipped (off and on) at – I assume – midnight.
I lay awake for an hour, trying to get back to sleep. By the time I did, everyone else was asleep, too. I could tell by the silence.
In the morning, I asked Shane about the ball drop. “So what happened at midnight? What did you do?”
“We all said, ‘yay!'” he told me. “Then we went outside and did some sparklers. And then we went to bed.”
“What time did you go to sleep?” I asked.
“About 12:15,” he said.
Apparently the celebration was rather short.
But I bet it’s one he remembers for his whole life.
In the night, I woke from a dead sleep, and found it impossible to sleep again.
Why?
I had a dream. It wasn’t necessarily a nightmare – but I was afraid to go back to sleep, for fear that I might fall back into that same dark place.
In my dream, I’d been caring for two chinchillas. Chinchillas are exotic pets and, at one point, Dylan wanted one more than anything in the world. In real life, we would never get a chinchilla.
But in the dream, I’d been responsible for these chinchillas for awhile. I was just wandering around one day, when I suddenly remembered that I’d left the chinchillas in a closet for weeks.
I’d given them no food, and no water. I’d completely forgotten them.
So I ran for that closet, suddenly remembering my obligations. I wailed, “No! Nooooo! Noooo! Oh my God, no!” My dream-sobs were so deep and painful, I can hardly believe I didn’t wake myself up.
But I had to know what happened to the chinchillas.
It was dark as I opened the closet door, and the sudden light made the animals blink – but only slightly. They were barely breathing, and didn’t move a muscle. Looking like kittens left outside during a flash flood, I could sense their excruciating pain – and I knew that I was the one who caused it.
I looked wildly around for water, still crying, “No! No!” I started dialing 9-1-1 on my cell phone.
And then I woke up.
In a way, I wanted to go back to the dream, and nurse the chinchillas back to health.
But my stronger sense was that those chinchillas were beyond saving. And while it was my fault, I didn’t want to remember what I had done.
On Christmas morning, Dylan was dawdling in the shower and I was getting some great compliments on my blog post. Since I wrote it for the boys, really, I decided to share it with Shane.
“Go read my blog,” I said. “I wrote it for you.”
Shane ambled over to the computer and sat down. A few minutes later, he got up.
“Okay, I read it,” he grumbled.
“Okay…” I said, hesitating to ask what he thought. A silent moment passed.
I couldn’t stand it any longer.
“What did you think?” I blurted.
“Well,” he said, “now I know for sure that there’s no Santa Claus.”
Dear Boys,
Gifts are just “stuff.” They are material possessions, not really worth anything important in life. Still, on Christmas, I want you to know…
With every gift you open, know that I thought about you. I love you so much, that I thought and thought about what you wanted most in the world. And if I couldn’t give you what you wanted most in the world, I thought hard on how to give you the next best thing.
Every single gift, even the tiniest one, is meant to bring you joy and happiness, which is what I want most for you in the world. I know that money can’t buy the things that bring the most joy, but with every gift you open, I hope you are completely enveloped in the love that was used to wrap it.
And perhaps most importantly of all, I want your Christmas to be full of those happy, gorgeous childhood wonderment memories that I’ve been carrying with me for all these years. My parents gave me so much, and so many gifts that – so obviously – were wrapped in that same love. And on Christmas, I knew that someone thought about ME.
I knew I was loved. Most of all, that’s what I want for you this Christmas. Please know that you are loved today, and every day.
Merry Christmas. May all your dreams come true.
Love,
Mom
With the Christmas holiday FAST approaching, I am still struggling to keep Dylan on track.
His last eight grades in Biology are D’s and E’s, and he added a zero to the pile when a study packet was somehow passed out without him ever knowing about it. He got 3 E’s for missing work in Spanish and U.S. History. And while he wasn’t able to find any of his missing work, he managed to find a long-lost Geometry paper at 11 p.m. on Sunday night.
While he got ready for the biology test that he expects will rescue his grade from the ditch, I scoured the internet for new app’s for his new cell phone. Now that he has a phone with no data block (his birthday gift), he can download a much better scheduling app to help him keep track of his work. Dylan spent this entire time upstairs on his new phone – not a huge surprise, given that he “only” had one essay to write for homework.
As I narrowed the app list down to a handful of choices, Dylan walked in, waving his phone in my general direction.
“Look what I did,” he said. And he played a video for me, featuring a Christmas carol with four separate harmonizing parts.
ALL of the parts were Dylan singing.
They blended beautifully. There was a low part, a high part, and two melodic parts that simply worked together.
Instead of sounding like an angel, he sounded like four angels.
Since my brain doesn’t work that way, and I have no capacity for harmony, I was blown away. My son was singing in four-part harmony, all at once, and he sounded spectacular.
“It’s my new app,” he said. “I saw it a long time ago and now I finally got it.”
He tried to show me some other (not important) people who videoed themselves on the app – but I wasn’t interested.
I just sat and watched it over and over and over again.
And cried and cried and cried.
With Christmas coming so rapidly, and Dylan’s birthday barely passed, I am discovering again the sheer thrill of giving gifts.
I choose everything for everyone. I love it, and I start buying in August, which means I am technically done – but still buying stuff – by mid-November.
It’s more fun than almost anything else I do, except possibly planning vacations – which is probably my favorite thing to do. Vacations can, occasionally, be given as gifts. One year, I planned a trip for my parents, at their request, as a gift. This was possibly the most fun I ever had, even though I didn’t go on the trip.
I am definitely a planner. It’s probably why non-planners make me a bit daft.
In fact, in the midst of all the holiday hoopla, I am planning a spring break trip that includes getting a feel for some of the northeastern colleges, as well as tons spring break fun. I’ve already reserved our (seven) hotels and picked out some choices for lunch.
But the past few months have been mostly about choosing the right gifts. I think about what the kids like, what they want more than anything, and then I work very hard to make that dream come true.
I don’t understand why Bill doesn’t do this. He not only doesn’t enjoy choosing gifts, but he often fails miserably when he tries. He seems to feel a burden that forces him to find something – anything – to wrap.
Bill’s motto is, “If it’s on sale, it must be the right thing!” His other motto is, “Everybody loves a Starbucks gift card!” I think this attitude is somehow related to ADHD.
But I love figuring out the absolute right-est things. It’s my favorite part of the Christmas season.
And then, just in case any kids are reading this, I write it all down in a letter, and mail it to Santa Claus, who takes care of the rest.
On his birthday, while Dylan was at school, I couldn’t stop thinking about this kid named Danny from my high school. It’s been many decades since high school, and certainly it wasn’t relevant in any way to Dylan’s birthday. But still, the memory was stuck in my head all day long.
My high school had a Sadie Hawkins dance. For those whose school did not have this absurd tradition, this was a dance where the girl was supposed to ask the guy to a dance.
And I was a girl.
I was not popular by anyone’s standards, and – while cute enough – not even remotely confident about the way I looked. I adored a lot of boys from afar, and went out with very few. So I spent days agonizing over who I could ask that I liked – but who would also be a little “below” the caliber of football player or cheerleader.
I wanted to ask someone I thought was cute, which narrowed the field to about half the guys in the sophomore class. But not someone so cute that he’d be asked by every girl in the school. In other words, I wanted to ask someone who was good, but not too good.
Probably I should have just asked someone I actually liked. Instead, I analyzed the situation to death – and finally decided upon Danny.
Danny hung out with some of the popular kids. He was skinny and had long, stringy, black hair. I thought he was adorable. But no one really considered him popular, since he didn’t play any sports. He wasn’t very smart, either. But he was okay – good enough, but not too good.
It took all the courage I had in the world to ask him to the dance. I was twiddlebug-quiet and very, very shy. I caught him during lunch period one day, when he was walking alone.
I squeaked, “Danny?”
He turned around and looked at me, confused.
“Will you go to the dance with me?”
He smiled and, for one micro-second, I thought he was going to say, “Sure.”
Then he laughed. He laughed and laughed and laughed. His laughing was genuine and loud, and hearty for his skimpy frame. It was as if I’d told him the funniest joke he’d ever heard. He just laughed and laughed.
It may have gone on for two seconds or two hours. I felt the tears welling up in my eyes and willed them back down.
Eventually, Danny just turned and walked away, still hysterical with laughter.
I can’t remember if I went to that dance, or even if I asked anyone else.
Ever.
I did look up Danny on Facebook. He is a nobody now, as he always was, with a life that – according to Facebook – revolves entirely around his motorcycle. He has tiny teeth and a long, stringy, black goatee. So in a way, I feel better.
But in another way, I don’t feel better at all.
I sent Dylan and Shane, on their own, to get ice cream after school. Because the ice cream place is within walking distance from their schools, students often gather there.
Midway through their unsupervised time, I got a text from Dylan:
“nadia invited me to go to panera btw”
“when?” I texted back.
“after this I guess”
“we’re having movie night tonight”
We have a weekly pizza and movie night, which was already in jeopardy because the kids had eaten so much ice cream.
“yeah but I’ll be back by 6”
It was already 4:00. I wasn’t even picking up the kids until 4:30 and Panera was not next door.
“what are you going to do at Panera if you don’t eat?”
“I’ll probably just get a cookie and talk”
That’s what Dylan needs – a cookie after his $9 bowl of ice cream. And I barely know Nadia. Is she old enough to drive?
“who’s driving?”
“you”
Me?!? I thought she invited him…?
So Dylan wants me to pick him up from the ice cream place, drive him to Panera, drive Shane home, then turn around and drive back to Panera and pick him up? So that he can have a $3 cookie after his $9 ice cream?
I picked up my phone to rant into the voice activation system. I punched the microphone button and opened my mouth.
But nothing came out.
“I’m dumbstruck,” I finally texted. “The answer is NO.”
“why?” Dylan texted back. “are you busy or…?”
I didn’t bother to reply.
I was too busy driving to the ice cream place to pick up my kids – and take them home.
Last week, I drove some chorus students to and from a “field trip” so that they could sing together.
That morning, I got a text from Dylan:
“Could you bring me a black dress shirt before 11:30?”
He’d forgotten to wear the appropriate attire. Not only that, but Dylan doesn’t own the appropriate attire.
We had a text conversation, which I won’t bother to repeat. But it ended with me saying, “Do you think I am your personal assistant?”
Then I called Bill, because Dylan said that Bill had a black dress shirt that Dylan could wear. We all believed that said shirt was clean and hanging in the closet.
But in the course of our conversation, Bill mentioned – oh, by the way, the tuxedo pants have a broken zipper.
The tuxedo pants that Dylan needs to wear for tomorrow’s concert. The pants that have been hanging in Dylan’s closet for three months, in anticipation of tomorrow’s concert. The pants that Bill knew last week needed to be fixed, but he forgot to mention it to me.
So first, I went to the gym. This was very good for my stress level, which was severely – and not imperceptibly – rising. I decided that I would find the black dress shirt, and take it to the school, even though this allows Dylan exactly ZERO consequences for his actions. If I hadn’t been driving, I could have let him stay at school and miss the concert – like he missed the school picture, when he forgot to wear appropriate attire. But I was driving the kids, so I was driving him.
As for the zipper, I was venting while walking around the track with my mom at the gym. I had no time to get the zipper fixed, of course, because I would be gone all day with the field trip. I was only venting, having completely forgotten that my mom knows how to sew.
So, because I have a great mom, she drove to my house to look at the tuxedo pants. They were shoved in his closet on top of his sweatshirts. (We found his tuxedo shirt balled up at the bottom of a nice carry bag.)
The zipper problem wasn’t something she could fix. So, because I have the greatest mom in the whole world, she took them to a tailor who could fix them – allowing me to rush off to the field trip with Dylan’s shirt.
When I got to the field trip, I asked his teacher if Dylan had a jacket to go with his tuxedo. I vaguely remembered seeing jackets. She looked on a nearby rack and didn’t find his name.
“Where’s your jacket, Dylan?” I asked.
“It’s at home,” he said.
“I looked at home, and it’s not there.”
“Yes it is!” he exclaimed. “I know exactly where it is!”
A few short hours later, Dylan was home, scrounging through his closets. The jacket was nowhere to be found. We shrieked at each other – him claiming never to have said he knew it was home, just that he thought it was at home.
I was just randomly shrieking.
Meanwhile, my mother picked up and even paid for the now-fixed zipper. She brought it back to us, like new. Dylan would have been wearing safety pins if it hadn’t been for her.
I got a text in the morning, less than 12 hours before the concert: “My jacket was on the rack with my name on it, at school.”
“Great,” I said. “Glad you found it.”
