POST-HOLIDAY HULLABALOO

No, we haven’t experienced anything recently which could be defined as a hullabaloo – I just like the word and am very amused that my spell check recognizes it. And, it begins with an H.

Though, really, I suppose that everyday in our house could be described as a "great noise or excitement," since that is just part of the general ambiance in the environment of a toddler. Despite cultural pessimism about this age, epitomized by the ubiquitous phrase "terrible two’s," I find it absolutely fascinating to have a child at this stage of development.... even if it means talking her out of schemes involving all of us dressing up like green monkeys and running out of the store without paying for our groceries.

She had a blast through the Christmas season and enjoyed giving presents as much as she enjoyed receiving them. My mother took her Christmas shopping and let her pick out presents for the whole family. I got a scented green canister candle since she knows I like to burn them all the time, and she picked out a crinkly book specially made for teething for her little sister.

My partner got a hat, though my mother did steer her away from her first two choices, one which said something about being proud to be a redneck, the other of which made a derogatory statement about vegetarians. Oh well – advanced as she is for her age, she can’t exactly read yet. Actually, her very first choice was a red and black plaid wool hat with ear flaps and a black tassel on top which her dad might have actually liked but of which her grandmother was unsure.

She REALLY enjoys giving presents, so much so that she is almost dangerous. Her method of delivery is to take the gift in both hands and run as fast as she can straight toward the recipient. Then, as she reaches maximum toddler velocity and is in point blank range of her target, she launches the present as hard as she can directly at them.

For soft gifts like hats and pot holders, this is fine. However, the candle almost knocked me off of my chair and the sharp corners on boxes were downright dangerous. Not to mention that she is often still attached to the gift when it lands in one’s lap.

As per usual, Hacksaw spent the season at our house, and Paisley came in for a few days as well. I had my (gasp!) fifteenth annual Xmas Eve party and spent New Year’s Eve at my very favorite annual party.

Every year it is a costume / black tie dinner party event complete with cocktails, champagne at midnight, and drumming and dancing until the wee hours of the morning. It is hosted by some wonderful friends of ours whose house is waaaaay off the beaten path, beyond where the dead-end road turns to gravel, on top of a hill through one of those way-too-cool wrought iron gates that opens when you approach / have clearance, down a long driveway to a lovely house which can happily contain dozens of people for dinner and dancing.

This year the theme was fairy tale or mythological figures. Though that would seem like an easy task, for some reason we just couldn’t figure out good costumes. Feeling somewhat lame in light of the very nifty theme, we finally decided to just dress up and be done with it.

Then my partner decided to wear my antique Sami shaman’s hat to make himself more "festive" and the costume was born. (The hat is a wool version of a jester’s hat with reindeer fur trim and rainbow colored streamers off the back to symbolize the Bifrost Bridge.) This, along with his black Italian suit and red silk tie, made him Loki Larkstuung from Pantheon Consulting, specializing in the application of chaos math to investment planning and off-shore banking. I, dressed in a velvet skirt and red/black floral print blouse (it hides bloodstains very well, doncha’know) with crossed hairsticks sporting tiny human skulls, was his associate, Kali, head of corporate restructuring and asset liquidation.

So, really, we had a schpeil for a costume, but it was amusing nonetheless -- my partner took great pleasure in telling people "She’ll render your assets liquid." And, when asked for his investment advice, telling people to focus on short term pay-offs because "Ragnarok is closer than you think."

We got a very unexpected gift for the holidays which is perhaps the favorite among us all, including the toddler. A very good friend of ours works for iRobot, and much to our surprise, he got us one. I would not have thought of us as the kind of people who would utilize, much less LIKE, a robot, but it is definitely an accepted and useful member of the family now.

Even the toddler likes it. She is in charge of pushing the button to make it go and then alternately chasing and being chased by it as it picks up all the dirt on the floor. She is also in charge of directing the robot to pieces of dirt on the floor by pointing and saying "Right there!" as it tools around the livingroom. If she finds dirt on the floor at any time while the robot is not actively engaged, she’ll say "Robot – again!" Or, if she drops something or steps on a cracker on the floor, she announces "Robot, clean up!" When it docks at its station to recharge, she lets us know "Robot sleeping."

I have to say that getting the floors vacuumed had become very difficult with two young children with different and somewhat erratic sleep schedules – the only time I could vacuum is when they weren't awake, which is the one time I definitely don’t want to run the vacuum cleaner. Any time I was feeling exasperated about how a day had gone and was listing my complaints to my partner, the last item was almost always "And I STILL haven’t gotten the floor vacuumed!"

Now, however, that is no longer the case. The toddler is even happy, willing and excited to pick up and put away all of her toys because she knows that the floor has to be empty before the robot can come out and play.

I can’t believe how useful this thing is – I have cleaner floors than I ever have in my life. For me, a room looks clean when the floor is clean. I’m not saying that this is rational or True, but to me a clean floor is the difference between a Clean Room and a Dirty Room. So, really, it was a tremendously helpful, generous and totally unexpected gift and seems to be the toddler’s new pet.

All in all we had a lovely time through the holidays. It was lots of fun, and I’m also happy to have things go back to "normal," though for us that changes all the time.

Starting tomorrow, my partner is going to be teaching nearly full-time at a college where he had previously only been teaching one class. (This is in addition to, not in place of, his many other jobs.) The upside to this is obvious and plentiful, but the down side is that he has to be at work early in the morning SIX DAYS A WEEK. (He was already teaching and doing massage early on Saturday mornings.) We are not morning people, and I have come to rely on him to take care of the toddler on the mornings when she gets up waaay too early for me.

So, for the first time in many years, I’m going to have to more or less function during morning hours. Sigh. In the long run, I think we’ll all have more time and get more things done, but it may mean some adjustment for me in the short-term. Oh well – at least the toddler usually sleeps until around ten, so it isn’t like I should have to get up early often. But when I do…. Well, I suppose I’ll handle it.

See, at some point in my late twenties I decided that I was a grown-up, and as a grown-up I could make choices about my life. My first choice was to never have to be up early in the morning again (except for special occasions) since no matter how many years I had been trying to do it, I STILL hated mornings.

But, now I’m a parent and that means getting up / waking up / staying up at all odd and random hours. Which, really, isn’t all that different from my previous lifestyle, so maybe that’s why I adjusted to that part pretty easily.

Speaking of which – Hey! It’s almost four in the morning! What am I still doing? Must sleep while the toddler allows…. Happy 2006, etc..