Annabel launched into a impromptu soliloquy about bees during the morning drive, so I made it into a poem for you.
I like bees.
I like the music they make when they hum.
I like that they land on flowers and make more flowers.
They don’t sting if you don’t bother them, Sam.
Yep.
I like bees.
But not wasps.
About a month ago we made our annual pilgrimage to Florida. This post isn’t about that trip, which was fine, but not our best vacation ever. We did our usual eating of fried foods, drinking of Cuban coffee, and letting our children play with alligators.
See? Not Maine.
This trip was not the best for a few reasons, not least because Michael developed an odd rash the day before we left. We pondered it for a bit, but as he didn’t seem in immanent danger of dying and we had packing to do, we ignored it and went on our merry way.
And merry it was, until the next day when we realized the rash was spreading and that it was becoming increasingly painful. All the image searching of rashes that we could do (and, please, don’t search rash images unless you really, really have to) seemed to suggest that it was shingles. But it couldn’t be shingles because Michael’s never had chicken pox. So we searched and searched and finally he showed the rash to his mother.
“Oh, sure,” she said. “That’s shingles.”
“But I’ve never had chicken pox,” he said.
“Sure you did,” she answered. “You had it the same time everyone else did but you only got two or three spots.”
And just like that, we learned that not only had Michael had the chicken pox after all, rendering moot years of discussions about how we’d handle chicken pox in our kids, but he also had shingles, a disease generally limited to the elderly and the infirm.
Now, shingles, for those who have not had a reason to extensively research it, are caused by the same virus that causes chicken pox. After you have the pox, the virus stays in your body, hanging out in the nervous system until a weakened immune system allows the virus to gain a foothold. At that point, the virus travels along your nerves until it reaches the skin, where it causes a rash. This sounds creepy and painful, and it is, and it pretty much ruined Michael’s vacation. It didn’t do a whole lot for the rest of us, either, as we tried to accommodate a downed member of the family.
Everything we read suggested that it was possible to catch the chicken pox from someone with shingles, but it was pretty rare. For transmission to take place, a non-immune person essentially has to come in direct contact with the rash.
“So just don’t rub the children’s faces on your oozing sores and it should be fine,” I said, looking up from my father-in-law’s computer.
“Got it,” Michael said. And he kept his shirt on and washed his clothes separately and that was that . Or so we assumed.
Because we are dumb.
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About a week after we returned home from Florida, I found myself in the bathroom getting the kids ready for bath. I pulled Annabel’s dress off and immediately noticed three small, red dots on her stomach.
“Huh,” I said.
“What’s that?” she asked, curious but not scared.
“I don’t know, but it looks like it may be the chicken pox.”
“COOL!” she yelled. “I have the chicken pox!”
I was less enthused.
The next day I took her increasingly spotty self to see the doctor, which I had to do in order to make sure that her immunization records showed that she’d had the disease.
“Yup,” he said out in the parking lot where he came to look at her, so we didn’t infect everyone else. “That sure is chicken pox. Do you know where she contracted it from?”
“Well,” I said. “Her dad had shingles.”
“Really?” he said. “When did he have them?”
“He still does, a bit.”
“And you don’t know anyone else who had chicken pox?”
“Nope.”
“Really?”
“No.”
“Wow,” he said. “That’s a pretty compelling case. But, honestly, the chance of getting chicken pox from shingles is so rare it is practically theoretical. This is amazing!”
I, again, was less enthused.
Because I believe in giving full credit where credit is due, I need to tell you that Annabel really was a superb chicken pox patient. She rarely complained, she tolerated quarantine even when it required her to sit endlessly in the car while I ran errands, and she was generally excellent company. But by the of the mandated six-day sequester, she was healed up and quite ready to go back to preschool.
I packed her up, sent her on her way, and assumed it was over.
Because I am dumb.
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You may wonder why I was so casual about the whole thing considering that I have another child in the house. The reason is this: Sam had received the chicken pox vaccine. We had intended for neither kid to get it until they started school, believing that natural immunity had a slight edge over vaccine immunity during the course of a lifetime (though we went back and forth on this a lot especially considering–remember?–we thought Michael had never had the chicken pox). But we learned when reviewing Sam’s vaccination records at his three-year check-up that somewhere along the way he’d gotten the shot.
We didn’t really mind either way, and, frankly, by the end of Annabel’s bout with the pox I was tired of calamine lotion, hideously behind at work, and pretty much done with the varicella zoster virus altogether. Plus, I was feeling pretty lucky that Annabel’s case was as moderate as it was and I wasn’t really looking to roll the dice a second time.
But, hey! Guess what! A week after Annabel went back to preschool I was pulling Sam’s shirt off for bath (seeing a pattern?) when I noticed tell-tale red spots all over his stomach and back.
“Look!” Annabel yelled gleefully, “You have chicken pox, too!”
So I hauled him to the doctor the next day, which happened to be yesterday.
“Sure does look like the chicken pox,” the Friday doctor said. “I don’t see this much anymore, honestly, what with the vaccine.”
“But he got the vaccine.”
“Right. We tend to see that cases with the vaccine are much milder. Is his milder than his sister’s was?”
“No, it’s worse.”
“Really? But he has fewer spots?”
“No, he has more.”
“Interesting. It looks like the vaccine didn’t help much here.”
“You think?”
“This really is unusual. Believe me.” And I believe her.
Because I am dumb.
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To recap:
My 37-year-old, generally healthy husband developed a illness usually limited to the elderly and the infirm from a childhood disease he never knew he had.
He then gave this disease to our daughter in a manner of transmission considered so unusual that it is “practically theoretical.”
Our daughter then gave the disease to our son, despite his being vaccinated against it with a vaccine considered around 90% effective.
When I was at the doctor with Annabel, he seemed oddly pleased with her contraction of the pox. “The thing is,” he said, “she will now have a 99% chance of being immune from this for life. That’s actually really good.”
I had the chicken pox when I was a kid. I don’t remember having it, but I definitely did. I’ve never in my life worried about getting it a second time. But right now? I’m looking at how percentages are running for us and I’m thinking, boy, I am basically guaranteed to end up in that 1%, aren’t I?
A few friends who have followed this saga have mentioned that I should buy a lottery ticket. It seems to me that the luck we’re running is actually the exact opposite of what is needed to win the lottery. What would happen if I went to buy a lottery ticket is that I would somehow bump into the person behind me, causing them to slip and fall and sustain tremendous injury. They would then sue me for everything I have, including my family, who I would be forced to sell for cash, and I would end up destitute, penniless, alone, and covered in the first-ever-known simultaneous case of chicken pox and shingles.
So buying a lottery ticket doesn’t seem like the right move.
But I might do it anyway.
Because I really am that dumb.
Remember when I interviewed Annabel on her birthday? Well, Sam turned three this past Sunday and, as he is a second child, it took me a few days to get around to the interview. More truthfully, it took me three days to get around to it because 90% of my time with Sam is spent chasing him around at full-speed, trying to get him, and everyone around him, through his early childhood intact. Interviewing falls a bit by the wayside.
But no matter. We finally got to it and, as he is less of a lying liar who lies than his sister is, this requires significantly less editing time.
Without further ado, Sam at three.
What is your favorite color?
Pink
What is your favorite food?
Lollipops
What’s your favorite thing about school?
Telling my teacher about it. [No idea, folks. No idea.]
What makes you happiest?
Making bread.
What makes you sad?
When someone knocks over my tower.
What is your favorite thing to do with Dad?
Play with him.
What is your favorite thing to do with Mom?
Clean up the kitchen and do puzzles.
What is one new thing you’d like to try this year?
Play with a triceratops. [!!]
What would you like to be when you grow up?
A firefighter.
What’s that going to be like?
I’ll put out the fires.
Photo ruthlessly stolen from Dory, because she takes far better pictures of my children. And just about everything else.
I’m not particularly interested in flower gardening. I’ll freely cop to the fact that one of my most significant faults is my truly excessive practicality and flower gardening is just…eh. What’s the point, right? I can’t eat them. I have limited gardening time and limited gardening space and extremely limited gardening talent, so why would I waste any of that on something that is not fundamentally useful?
Then a few weeks ago I was reading a bit about gardening and the author mentioned, in an offhand manner, the way that inter-planting flowers in your vegetable garden can help bring in pollinators and increase yield. And I thought, “I’m sorry, what?” And this is such an obvious truth to gardening that I hesitate to write it here because it makes me look a bit, well, dim. But I guess I am dim because I never fully thought about before. You mean something doesn’t necessarily need to be 100% needed to be useful? Well. That’s interesting. It also explains a lot about my crappy gardens.
There I was a thing I was going to do last year that you may remember. I was going to give $50 away every month to a charitable cause just because. You may have thought I forgot about it. I didn’t, really. I spent the money for a bit, and then we had tight month for one reason or another. So I skipped that month. And then I skipped the next month, probably for the same one or another reason. And then I kept skipping months, even after cash flow improved, because I couldn’t stop overthinking where it could go, or what I should give to, and which was the best way to spend the cash. What if I gave the money to Organization A, when Person B was clearly in more distress? Or what if Person B was really not the neediest and I should really be worried about it Fundraiser C? And so on and so forth while my $50 did nothing for anyone.
But I didn’t forget about what I’d said I would do. The obligation was still there, in the back of my brain, squatting angrily next to all the other obligations I was ignoring. It takes a lot of energy to ignore all of those things, all those bills to pay, things to clean, food to cook, exercise to do, and, yes, blog posts to write. No wonder I’m so tired all the time. But when you ignore as many obligations as I do, you learn to silence the muttering from back there so that you can get on with the more important stuff, like building block towers with the children or watching Downton Abbey.
Then the other day a friend of mine posted a link to a friend of hers who was raising money to help offset costs of a stem cell transplant. And I didn’t wonder if the cause was legit, I didn’t do a background search on the recipients, I didn’t check with Michael, I didn’t wait to see if something better came along in the next week. I didn’t even stop to wonder if these folks were secretly planning a trip to Bora Bora. I just hit the “Contribute” button, typed in my payment information, and whispered, “Fly free, little fifty bucks.” Okay, I didn’t actually do that last part, but I kind of wish I did.
The obligation beast (well, that one anyway) immediately left the back of my brain to go get some lunch and that’s when I remembered: “Right. This is what I meant to do all along.” Over the last year I’ve been feeling so badly about my inability to plant a vegetable garden, the most absolutely perfect, truly productive, absolutely-above-reproach vegetable garden, and I never realized that what I actually needed to do was to plant some flowers just for the fun of it. And, shockingly, those flowers might turn out to be useful, too.
I’m going to try to do better this year, both in gardening and in being charitable. And I wish those fine folk s a lovely trip to Bora Bora.
If you are interested, that family has reached their goal but they are still accepting donations because they will have costs above and beyond their goal. Link here: http://www.indiegogo.com/flinn/
I am not lying when I tell you that our tree is…what’s the word, what’s the word…homely. It’s homely. It’s homey, too, but definitely homely.
It started out okay at the tree farm.
While I was taking this picture, everyone was yelling at me to help. I did. Eventually.
But then we decorated. And our decorations are, really, quite bad.
We’ve got more kid-made ornaments than you can shake a stick at:
I was actually trying to just take a picture of one, but they were packed in so close it was just easier, and more point-proving, to grab all three at once.
We’ve got relics of Michael’s childhood, which always seem to involve basketball and Charlie Brown characters.
This wins my vote as the most bizarre Santa I’ve ever seen.
We’ve got ornaments that make no sense to anyone not us:
No, we didn’t go to London one year. THAT would make SENSE.
And we have, as promised, the world’s most bizarre star.
Yes, that’s a picture of Annabel on her trip home from the hospital glued onto a paper star that has since been decorated with glitter paint and I could explain it but, frankly, the story is less interesting that the star.
And that’s not even going into the knitted garland, the half-broken lights, or the angel who looks like a hooker from 1864.
But Christmas trees have one redeeming quality and it’s this: if you plug in the lights, step back a bit, drink a cup of really strong eggnog, and don’t pay too much attention to any one thing, they still manage to look kind of pretty.
And, yes, blurry. That’s probably the fault of the eggnog.
P.S. You think this is bad? Check out the year we actually screwed extra branches into the tree. A live tree. I am not making that up. We did that.
Who wants a Friday phone-it-in post? I do! I do!
Thanks to Ginger I get to have credit for posting while still doing very little work. This is an excellent system and I approve. Also, holiday spirit, yada yada.
Presenting the holiday meme:
1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? Egg nog at Christmas, hot chocolate the rest of the year.
2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? Santa wraps, in his own paper. Until a couple years ago I didn’t know Santa didn’t wrap sometimes. I think that variety of Santa is a bit lazy, frankly.
3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? White. Colored lights make the ornaments look weird.
4. Do you hang mistletoe? No.
5. Tacky holiday sweaters: yea or nay? Nay. I do wear red sweaters but for some reason I do that a lot anyway.
6. What is your favorite holiday dish? Food other people make that I eat. Food that I make that I eat. Food that I eat. Food.
7. Favorite holiday memory as a child? The family fight around whether the tree was straight which always ended up with it falling on my swearing father’s head. What? We are that kind of family. I treasure that memory so much that Michael and I recreate it each year.
8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? I read too many Nancy Drew novels and tried to make my mother submit a handwriting sample so I could do a full graphological analysis. So she just told me. Right after she stopped laughing. I think I was 9ish.
9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? I think we did sometimes? We were pretty inconsistent on Christmas traditions. But it’s something I’d like my kids to do. I think it’s fun.
10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree? With a lot of really tacky ornaments we’ve collected/made over the years plus some ancient lights plus the world’s most bizarre paper star on top (I’ll post a picture this year). Last year I knit a red wool garland that was pretty awesome. Basically it’s like a summer camp’s arts and crafts session threw up on a tree. It’s great! [Aside: I'm thinking of entering the lifestyle blog market. What do you think?]
11. Snow! Love it or Dread it? I don’t mind it really, especially if I don’t have to drive in it. At least until March or so which is when I’m over it, done, go away snow. (Please note that some years the snow doesn’t go away until May.)
12. Can you ice skate? Yes, though not with any fancy moves.
13. Do you remember your favorite gift? Uhhh…not really. I remember getting a ten-speed bike one year. That was exciting. (This is also why I try not to sweat over getting the perfect gift for my kids. Few people seem to remember this.)
14. What’s the most important thing about the holidays for you? You know, I think this gets lost in a lot of places, but we are so far north that I really feel in tune with the celebration of warmth and light that surrounds this time of year. When it is dark and cold by 3:30, I will take a crackling fire and some twinkly lights, yes, please.
15. What is your favorite holiday dessert? Pumpkin pie. Hands down.
16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? Swearing aside, I really like decorating the tree.
17. What tops your tree? As mentioned above, a truly ridiculous paper star with glitter paint and a picture of baby Annabel on it. I’m not kidding. We may change that this year. But probably not.
18. Which do you prefer: giving or receiving? This is one of those trick questions designed to reveal my true self, isn’t it? Forget it. I am committed to remaining an enigma.
19. Candy Canes: Yuck or Yum? *gag*
20. Favorite Christmas show? The Grinch. Naturally.
21. Saddest Christmas Song? Saddest? As in the lyrics are the saddest or it makes me the saddest to hear it? I’m going with the latter: The Little Drummer Boy. That song is looooaaathesome, pa rum pum pum pum.
22. What is your favorite Christmas song? Silent Night. Or Carol of the Bells, which I always find enchanting.
Sam was having trouble settling down last night, as he sometimes does as his off switch is a bit faulty, so I went in to rock him for a moment. As I tucked him back into bed he held up the small white bear he had chosen as Most Valuable Snuggly for the evening.
“Where’s his momma?” he asked.
I glanced around his room and located a polar bear at the foot of his bed. “Here’s the momma,” I said and tucked it in next to him.
“No,” he said. “That’s the brother.”
“Oh.” I looked around the room for the other white teddy bear I know exists in our house. I didn’t see it. “The momma must be in Annabel’s room. Do you really need it?”
He nodded solemnly. “Yes.”
I slipped out of his room and into Annabel’s. Luckily, she has always had a highly reliable nighttime off switch and she was already asleep. I located the desired bear and carried it next door.
“Here she is.” I snugged this bear in next to the other two.
“No,” he said. “That’s the dad.”
Now, you are reading this and thinking, “Wow. What a complex family dynamic this little boy has created using just his powers of imagination! Childhood is so magical!” But that’s just because you don’t know Sam as I do. I knew that what he was really doing was messing with me.
[Sam is my apple-tree child, in case you were wondering, and could have sprung Athena-like from my own, messing-with-people head so I know these things.]
I folded my lips and looked around the room.
“I’ve got to have the momma,” he said, with a tinge of petulance in his voice. “I can’t go to bed without the momma.” I looked into his eyes and saw that, messing with me or not, he was ready to escalate this to meltdown should I fail. I kept looking.
Finally, half-hidden under a pile of books because Sam always sleeps with a pile of books [see above apple-tree commentary], I found a medium-sized brown bear.
“Is this the momma?” I asked, holding her up.
“Yep,” he said, satisfied and triumphant. I handed him the animal, hauled the blankets up over the giant pile of bears, kissed him on the head, told him to go to sleep, and made a mental note to record this here as a sign that all our lessons about families coming in all sorts of combinations are working.
Or that my boy has a really sick sense of humor.
Either would be fine with me, really.
