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Sleep Tight
Felix finally passed out after howling and raging at me, at the injustice, at the misery of a long-postponed bedtime and I'm a bit surprised my voice wasn't mixing with his because getting through the week has been like an obstacle course.
I started behind, because that is how the week that ends with Christmas always begins (work, shopping, thinking, breathing, nothing escapes). And then the transit strike hit which made everything difficult.
Then the dog got extraordinarily ill at 4:30 on Thursday morning, while I was still sleeping, but after my husband had hopped a plane for a day trip to the Midwest. We did eventually get to the vet. Diagnosis: "Street Virus"- so word to the wise: there is something nasty going around on these mean streets. If you notice something evil happening, don't wait it out. (I should also here caution everyone against using Resolve carpet cleaner because while it did work on the terrible smell, it may have also extracted some portion of the rug itself.)
Anyway, the whole week has been a wash and a scramble all at once and by Friday night I was somewhere between sour and catatonic. So I had a lot of red wine and pushed myself towards the latter.
And then things got turned around, and it is thanks to Felix. Somehow, the kid is just happy to party. He apparently doesn't care if the place is overheated or if there's shouting. He'll eat any quantity of turkey and sweet potato (with or without marshmallow), and will happily skip a nap if it means getting to throw bits of wrapping paper around.
Unimaginable as it is, to me, at least, I was not anxious or depressed at any of our family affairs and of all the possible things I would have predicted having a baby would affect, that it perhaps the last one.
Christmas traditions were always low-key in my family, largely built on circumstance and convenience. (Our tree ornaments, for instance, were always just old toys and things that couldn't quite get thrown away. I recall we used to hang a couple of forks that had been half-eaten by a disposal unit from higher limbs, and an old marionette head of a "gypsy" was the star- when we could find it.) My husband's family is much larger and better organized and quite daunting to me.
All through this week I occasionally worried about letting my little family down- about being a flake or an underachiever. Felix had no tradition this year, and who knows how old he'll be when he gets it. I was wondering this morning how I'll handle the whole Santa Claus business and hoping I don't blow it because I'm chronically preoccupied. I do want Felix to have some traditions, even if they are idiosyncratic and dopey. I want him to have them so he can remember clearly the pleasures of these days that will bring his whole family into focus.
At the end of this week, which was weird and disappointing in many ways, my kid and I basked in two families, and it is amazing to me that he has made himself so much at home. One of my brothers-in-law, who just spent his second Christmas with my husband's family, thanked Felix for coming around so that he's not "the new guy" anymore.
Felix just raised his finger (he likes to point) and gave one of his extended Shouts of Many Meanings, which I hope my brother-in-law took in the inclusive spirit in which it was meant.
posted by Elise at 7:54 PM
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