*kendraspondence*

I must admit that I spent a great fraction of yesterday wearing my pouty-pants and had Loverpants been inclined to sell me on QVC (which totally would have been within his rights to do, so miserable of a living companion yesterday was I) I cannot even imagine how many freebies he would have had to thrown in – cashmere slippers and Flobees and boxes of Swiss chocolates – to peddle me off to the highest bidder.

I love holidays in my mind. In my mind, there is garland hanging from every doorway, a potpourri of delicious smells wafting throughout our home, my family’s countenance: pure joy. In reality, I wake up each holiday that I am away from my extendeds in a state of panic. I didn’t plan any traditions! Why is my husband watching videos about Google Wave and why is no one else watching the parade with me?

So I end up taking a 3 hour depressive nap and waking up and eating a roll of OREOs and hating my holiday inadequacy and willing the day to pass so we can get back to regular life with my regular expectations thereof.

Much of this has to do with my parents and especially my father being a bona fide holiday freak, counting aloud the days until the next holiday, giving us permission always to sleep in, pig out, and make like the freaking Griswold’s whenever the calendar called for it. And then my parents split and the holidays never felt the same because they never were the same and so I am forever trying to get back to reclaim my rightful holidays since I didn’t ask for this and call me Veruca Salt but I want my childhood back NOW!

The other part of this has to do with marrying someone who is a pilgrim with no homeland. My husband is an immigrant, true, but he also grew up assimilated (see also: The Accidental Asian by Eric Liu). He does not have a memory of Korean traditions because he did not grow up in Korea. He does not have memories of American traditions because his parents did not grow up in America. Does anyone know what this is like? Does anyone know what it feels like to not want to have to fault your partner for his lack of traditional novelty, but also to not have to explain why you want certain things to just be automatic? Why you want to feel the special-ness of a day without having to put so much energy toward making it extraspecially special?

***

I went for a long walk yesterday afternoon and thought about my stocked cabinets and my beautiful daughter and my gorgeous husband and my bathroom that smells like baby pee and I truly was grateful for all of it. I decided that this would be my starting point in the future, that holidays would be a time for me to take stock of my blessings and to try to bless others in special ways.

That being said, I’ve got 10 of the 30 stockings claimed so far. I don’t suppose you’d like to sponsor one, too?

I was talking to our friend Hector, the person who was most instrumental, second to Loverpants, in guiding me through my conversion experience (from US measurements to metrics, of course).  I was sharing with him how I am struggling to orient Baby Girl to the church environment.  It’s difficult on many levels, especially because sabbath is a longish day experience and worship doesn’t really accommodate the toddler’s activity level.  I was telling Hector how frustrated I was because it seemed like No One was hearing the full message, e.g. the sermon in its entirety because Loverpants and I were working so hard to corral Baby Girl, taking turns stepping into the Cry Room and never really getting the full download.

Hector reminded me that our roles have shifted now.  We are parents trying to minister to our daughter’s heart, yes.  But we are also just laying the foundations for worship, for a religious experience.  He reminded me that Jesus said, “Let the children come to me.”  And yet for so many months, I have been the one shushing and holding back and clotheslining my kid from coming to know church as a place that loves children.

I am so glad that Jesus loves kids in all their unadulterated whimsy.

Like this one, for example.

She loves to play shaving cream table.

And then she loves to scratch her nose.

And use her pants in lieu of paper towel.

Wait, don’t touch that –

Oh how I love those shaving cream hugs.

I’d like to invite you to participate in a fun project to support the women residents of the Elizabeth Stone House this holiday season!

The House provides residential and off-site programs for survivors of domestic violence. I have supported this organization in the past and have a very dear friend who has worked for the agency for 10 years. I really believe in its mission and am motivated to do the following:

I am aiming to donate 30 stockings for the women residents of the House. The stockings will be filled with candy, a Mary Kay peppermint cream body set, and a “starry” lip gloss.

If you would like to sponsor a stocking, you could do so as a gift that is tax-deductible for both yourself or your business. The stockings can contain whatever message you like. The cost of the stockings are $20.* I can accept check, cash, or credit card. I will send you a receipt for your tax records and will deliver the stockings to the House on Dec. 17.

Here is what the stockings look like:

*Please note that I have deeply discounted the product and am not trying to turn some big Mary Kay profit off of this. I am donating a portion of the stockings but just wanted to allow others the opportunity to participate in something that was sort of “ready-made”.

Please e-mail me (kendratheadverb at gmail dot com) or leave a comment if you would like to participate or have any questions!!

Thanks so much and have a blessed holiday season!

To Do This Week:

- Take daughter to receive first round of flu shottage.

- Have lady garden inspected by mid-wife.

- Step on Scale of All Knowing in front of nurse practitioner.

- Stop denying fact that Hershey’s cookies n’ creme consumption of late could kill a small giraffe.

- Teach proper quotation and attribution for eleventieth time!!!!!!

- Fly to Cleveland with toddler in lap, leaving my poor Loverpants behind.

(If you’ve made it this far, flying to Cleveland is totally not even the worst of it)
- Attend funeral for Nana (she passed this past weekend; we are relieved, saddened, thinking about wonderful, whimsical pixie that she was).

- Try to remember what to say before and after Gospel reading in Catholic Mass even though have not attended since Bush Sr. administration, lest I remind parents that flushed tens of thousands of dollars of their tuition dollars down tubes for 12 years of Catholic education. Mea culpa.
- Return to Beantown.

- Take toddler daughter to growth clinic.

- Put her on Scale of All Knowing in front of nurse practitioner.

- Endure wrath of growth clinic wondering why our daughter is not gaining 10 lbs./hour.

- Remind growth clinic that daughter is product of lean Asian man/gymnast-sized Caucasian mother.

- Try not to eat more Hershey’s.

- Try not to find self at growth clinic for rapid expansion of girth not due to prenatal baby.

I went away for a weekend to visit my sister in O-HI-O. While I was busy eating dinner uninterrupted by a toddler littering sugar packets all over the floor MESSSSYYYYY, sleeping in until the obscene hour of 10 blessed 30, and generally basking in the flatland friendliness of the Mid-West, my Baby Girl was steamrolling every last sapling of energy from my Lovey Loverpants’ veins. He was plum-tuckered out when I arrived home.

Here’s what happened while I was away:

Someone finally took out the trash.

Vehicles were ridden without seatbelts.

Monkeys were pushed.

Hair-raising experiences were had.

***

Oh, and while in Ohio, I got to tell my sister that she was going to be an auntie…again.
Pee Wee Loverpants, volume II, due May 2010