Inevitably sometime around this time of year SOMEONE asks me what I might want for “Christmas”*… and I always draw a blank.

 

I’m 35 years old now. No one gives me gifts (for the most part) anymore… I don’t have a husband to give me presents, and my family has pretty much decided that anything I want I can damned well buy myself. So I don’t usually get gifts anymore…

 

When I was younger I used to always have a list of things that I wanted, from the small things like boxes of paperclips (I was always an odd child) to grander things (like adventures) it was an ongoingly updated jumble in the back of whatever journal I was writing in at the time. Sometimes there were just clips of things I found in magazines or newspapers, other times just words… or a small sketchy thing… but it was a constant

 

Somewhere around the time I got married I stopped doing this list.

 

 

I struggle with feeling a lot of guilt over asking for anything (or recieving anything) that I am really REALLY working on being able to ask for what I need (and maybe wants will come along after that??), but there is still the feeling that WANTING is dirty somehow, that gift GETTING is wrong.

 

It comes from the internal voices telling me that no one really cares, so asking for things will just set you up for disappointment. Unfortunately, for a huge percentage of my life it was a belief born out of truths, and to avoid being hurt I didn’t ask for things and I didn’t expect to be remembered by anyone or celebrated (hence I threw my own bridal shower, baby shower and birthday parties because if I didn’t do it myself it wouldn’t happen)…

 

I’m trying to change patterns, but this one is a HARD one.

 

 

 

And, of course… more than ANYTHING I would like a little freaking FUN in my life in the upcoming year…

 

Take that as you will….

And in case anyone is curious… I am still waiting for the city to tell me whether I am approved for the house that I bid on. I have been approved for my mortgage, dependant on if I get the approval from the city.

 

Sigh.

I hoped this would be done before Christmas…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*firstly I don’t really DO Christmas as much as I do the “christmas season” thing… it just doens’t feel “RIGHT” to me, given I don’t believe in Christ and most of his followers (although not all of them) give me hives…

 

So while the older kids snored, the younger girls were VERY aggitated. There was much kicking and flailing about, whining, crying, tossing, turning and repositioning on the bed. First they were positioned in between RGG and I, but their restlessness made them fuss louder as they were kicking and flailing and flipping over on each other.

Then we tried a position with RGG, RGG’s daughter, Me, Girlchild… so that the girls were shielded from each other by me. The problem soon became clear that RGG’s daughter didn’t want to be next to me, and she didn’t want to be next to GirlChild and she didn’t want to be on the other bed. RGG and I didn’t want to disturb the older children, to move into more family configuration. And so we were left desperately attempting to find a way to get the little girls to sleep, and HOPEFULLY to get a little sleep ourselves as well. 

Oh… did I mention that I had also agreed to go to work the next day? Yes I did!! So… amidst concern about how tired the little girls were, I was concerned about getting at least 2 hours of sleep in order to be able to go to work the next day and not be utterly useless. 

By 3am I was starting to get really worried that I wouldn’t get any sleep. I had been kicked so much that I was getting bruised on both sides from the little girls’ thrashing about. I had tried to sleep on the end of the bed and on the floor and on the chair and on the bed with the older kids. But no matter where I tried to lay I was unable to stop worrying that I couldn’t get enough sleep. Unfortunately, the worry started me having a bit of a panic attack, which set off an asthma attack… which was COMPLETELY embarrassing for me..

Immediately upon finishing her pizza G announced she was going to go start her car. I cleaned up after the kids, made sure everything was put in garbage cans and such, wiped up sticky children-types, and tidied up as much as I could, then I went out to start MY car (which hadn’t been plugged in since noon, and at that time the temperature was dropping) and RGG’s car as well, to keep them from freezing up. RGG’s car (SUV, really) started quickly with no protest… so whatever he and his father had done to his battery had done the trick. 

 

My car, on the other hand, was patently NOT IMPRESSED with me and refused to start, despite my frantic attempts to get it to turn over. Not quite knowing what else to do, I retreated back into the warmth of the hotel room, and figured I could try to start it again later. 

 

G made a few comments about how glad she was to be getting out of the room and away from the children. I was, frankly, glad to see her go. I mean, why does she attend these things, since she wants a child-free (as opposed to child-less, where child-free is taken to mean that she wants as little to do with children, in ALL areas of life, as is humanly possible; child-less I take to mean that she has taken it upon HERSELF not to reproduce but accepts that children are a natural part of the social order…) life. I mean, this is a woman who was PISSED when the malls around here started offering “Expecting/New Mother” parking, because how DARE they give preferential treatment to someone just because that person has been “irresponsible” (her word) enough to spawn? She’s the kind of person who will PURPOSELY park in one of those stalls, JUST to make a point that it is stupid and unfair, because she objects to the idea. 

 

Once everything was slightly cleaned up, we got the kids into (or back into, as in the case of BoyChild and GirlChild) their bathing suits, RGG and I suited up, and we wandered off to the deeper pool (right outside our window). There was running in the hallways (of course) and a bit of confusion when some kids went to one pool and one went to the OTHER pool, and the adults were left trying to figure out which pool to go to. BoyChild went to one pool, the others went to the other pool, I followed BoyChild, RGG went with the others… then BoyChild and I went to find the others, and they came to find us… 

Finally we settled on which of the 2 pools to go to, and got some towels, and settled everyone down to swim. The younger kids, GirlChild and RGG’s youngest, stayed in the shallow paddling pool, BoyChild and RGG’s Oldest played in the regular pool, and RGG and I sat in the lukewarm hottub (laugh). The kids jumped in and out, always watched by RGG and I. The little girls splashed us, and we splashed them… the older kids tended to stay in the pool and play by themselves, unhindered by their younger sisters.

We stayed in the pool until we were forcibly evicted (10pm) and then headed back to the room admid whining from the little girls that they were too cold and wanted to be carried, and the older kids running off in the wrong direction and yelling up and down the hallways. Between RGG and I we managed to collect all the kids into the room, dry them off, and get them out of their wet suits and into nice warm jammies. We all went down the hallway to get some ice from the machine (and learned that the machine needed the room key, who knew?) and RAN back to the room.

RGG went out to start the cars (because… hello… -40C!!) and managed to get the cars started, which was more than I was able to do with mine. We decided to get a movie, so the kids wanted popcorn and RGG agreed to run out and get popcorn. While he was out getting popcorn the kids found the Yule Log (which is one of my traditions) which was a sweet, caramel covered, chocolate roll cake. I gave each of the kids a small piece of Yule Log, and I *THINK* they were handing out Coke to each other, even though I was giving them ice water… but that is how RGG found us all (complete with 5 guilty looks) when he returned from getting popcorn.

That is about the time we decided that the kids likely had had ENOUGH of the coke (and cake) and cut them back to just water. Of course, seeing as they don’t generally get so much pop, they had already likely had too much, and they didn’t really WANT to stop drinking the forbidden drink. We turned off the lights and tried to settle down the kids by starting a movie (Journey to the Centre of the Earth). The 2 older kids wanted to sit on one bed together, and the little girls wanted to cuddle with their parent, so we divided the bed space up so the older kids were in one bed and the other 4 of us were crammed onto the other bed.

They lasted the ENTIRE movie without falling asleep, and so we got them all up to go to the bathroom, and then tossed them back in bed. We still couldn’t convince the older kids to cuddle up in family units, preferring to stay (giggling) in their bed pretending to be secret agents. That left one queen bed for RGG, I, and the 2 younger girls to sleep in.  We started off the night with  RGG on the outside of the bed,then his daughter, me, and GirlChild… but the girls didn’t seem to like things that way. 

The older kids were trying to stay up, and were giggling about something that no one could hear. We kept saying “be quiet now, its time to sleep” over and over… and eventually saying it over and over just struck me as really REALLY funny and I started laughing and laughing and laughing… which caused the little girls to start laughing, and made me laugh harder, which made the older kids start to laugh. Eventually RGG, totally confused by the laughing, asked, bewildered “what? did I miss something? What’s so funny?”… which just made me laugh all the harder.

After that the older kids settled down and were quiet, and soft snoring came from their side of the room… but the other bed was a hotbed of activity… 

Can you tell that I am crazy about this guy? I mean, right from the first time I met him in person (since we had talked online, due to family circumstances and schedules, for a month before we met, and I had already really clicked with him that way so I knew that at the VERY least we’d be friends… and I am glad that we are friends and MORE now), and we clicked right from the start. I have been so much happier with everything since I met him, and now that I think that we are committed to only seeing each other I feel so much more relaxed in my life too — I like who I am now, and I like it that RGG (seems to) like me for me as well. I don’t feel the all consuming anxiety that comes from going out on dates and always wondering what it is that the other person wants from this process… are they there for sexual gratification, are they looking just to get out for a bit, do they want a relationship, are they looking for a life-mate? First dates (and even consequential dates) start to feel a LOT like being on an ever revolving job interview, if you ask me…

 

Not that it wasn’t FUN. There was a certain level of excitement at being paid attention to, at being “popular” — whether it was merely because of a picture, a profile, the fact that I was of an age which was under represented for women (but over represented for males?), or because there was actual attraction there — on these sites. But there was an awful lot of spiritual and emotional loneliness there too.

 

What is the spice of life? I mean, they always say “variety”, but I think that there is as much value in finding someone that you are comfortable with, that you can have variety WITH, where you have so much together that you can seek adventure together. Sure, having exciting dates, being told you are sexy, and feeling like your social calendar is always full is great… but it is also very EMPTY. And how many times CAN you go out with a guy who forgot your name about 2 minutes after you told it to him, instead resorting to calling you “sexy”, not only because they want to have you in bed, but because they don’t want to admit that they don’t KNOW YOUR NAME.

 

Yes, they do!

 

And so I have been pretty HAPPY meeting and dating RGG. It’s been exciting and comfortable… and just amazing. My only concerns have been not really knowing how he views things, especially given his desire for a son of his own (that I can’t produce)… not that that is necessarily a deal breaker for him, and its pretty early in the relationship to even THINK of adding children, but still there is that worry that I can’t live up to what he might ultimately be looking for. I’m sure he has some concerns about me as well… and I think that that is natural, at least this early in the game…

 

But, yeah, HAPPY. Waiting (happily) to see where this might go… And just in case this is going somewhere with RGG I decided that I wanted him to meet my kids.

 

As a “friend”. And I figured, what better way to let them meet RGG, than to meet him and his kids.

 

Maybe that was optimistic, but I figured they would all like to go swimming, they all like pizza, they all like to watch movies… so what could be better than for all the kids to meet each other AND have my kids meet RGG at the same time?

 

So… I had ordered pizza at 6:30pm and was told it would be there by 7:30pm. And the kids and I and G settled in to wait for RGG and his girls.

 

RGG and his daughters arrived at the hotel room at around 7:30, and everyone got introduced to everyone else. BoyChild jumped right into it with RGG and the girls, his usual chattery self, but GirlChild was a lot more reluctant, choosing to hide behind me and observe and not talk to anyone for at least 20 mins (until RGG and his younger daughter decided to have a tickle fight with me and GirlChild decided that that looked like fun and joined in. I mean, the kid didn’t even DEFEND her poor innocent mother while she was being picked on by 2 new people! She decided to tickle me TOO!! MEAN MEAN).

 

By 8pm I started to get annoyed that the pizza hadn’t arrived. We had 4 kids (and G) complaining of being hungry and drinking Coke (because RGG and G only drink Coke products, so that is what we had with us… and this will become significant because my kids are only allowed a LITTLE bit of Coke and RGG’s girls rarely drink pop of any kind). So I screwed up all my nerve and I called the pizza place back to find out what happened to the pizzas we ordered 1.5 hours ago.

 

And it rang…

and somone picked up…

and then the phone went dead.

So I called back.

And it rang.

And it went <click>

 

And I tried again.

Ditto.

 

And I started to get a bit peeved that someone was hanging up on me. So RGG let me use HIS phone (in case it was my phone dropping calls, something which it never does, even in my tin-can of an office my phone is the only one that doesn’t constantly drop). And I called again.

 

And I politely asked the man on the other end of the phone the status of our order, which we had been told would take an hour… but that was over 90 minutes ago. I never screamed or yelled or demanded anything, I just wanted to know if our order was on its way. And the phone person was a bit rude, and he told me “its on its way, should be there any minute now” and HUNG UP ON ME.

 

so I figured, any time the pizza man would show up. All we had to do was entertain the kids (who, by this time were LOADED up with Coke and were pissing G off just by their very prescence)… one kid (GirlChild) escaped the room with the idea that she could find the pizza delivery man, and that started a great game of “escape the parents” in which one or more of them would run out into the hallway and run up and down in the hallway, usually being chased by one or more of the OTHER kids and at least one parent (usually me) trying in vain to round them up and get them (quietly) into the room… which would last for a maximum of 5 minutes before the game would start again. G peppered this game with her ascerbic comments on how people in other rooms were probably trying to sleep or how rude children were, and listing off some of her theories on kids and why she was ‘right to never want to deal with this kind of thing’ and other derisive facial expressions and comments on how RGG and I were parenting our particular children. Thankfully RGG was very good at filtering out her comments and ignoring the things that she was saying about the kids…

 

By 8:30pm I was VERY annoyed that the pizza still hadn’t come. Seeing my frustration RGG took it upon himself to call the pizza place and talk to them regarding the fact that the pizza was now over an hour late, that we had called 30 minutes ago and had been told that the pizza would be there “any minute”, that this likely meant that our order had been sitting in someone’s car for over an hour getting cold (which was HIGHLY likely, given that it was -30C without the wind), and that we had been waiting for 2 hours and had 4 very hungry children waiting (no one mentioned a hungry, crabby, friend sitting in the corner pouting because the pizza was late, much later than she had bargained for and she figured, somehow, that I should have known it was going to be 2 hours wait and ordered earlier (and, knowing my luck, THEN it would have come too early))… and without even being irate at all, the manager at the pizza place  discounted our order by 50%. I don’t know how he did it… I think he just KNOWS these things… or I’m just a push over.

 

So we continued to wait… the pizza finally arrived at 8:45pm and  everyone gathered around to dig in. I set up plates and utensils and we thought that everyone should line up (youngest children first and no shoving)… but G just snorted and commented on how she didn’t think it was fair for the little kids to go first and she just took what she wanted before anyone else. I let it go, knowing that there was no use arguing with her, and being well aware that she was likely to leave immediately after supper was done ANYWAY. Of course everything was cold, and they had made one pizza a large instead of an extra large, but everyone seemed happy enough to actually have FOOD finally (except G, who complained) that there was very little talking or arguing… and of course we all seemed to have lost track of how much of the coke the kids (particularly the LITTLE girls — 4 and 5 years old) had been drinking….

 

 

So… we settled in the room for a bit. Since i had spent 2 days wandering the city and not managing to hit either a Tim Hortons OR a Starbucks (even though I waited for my parents outside Tim’s for 15 mins!) G and I decided to make coffee while we got everything in order. I realized, pretty quickly, that I had forgotten GirlChild’s bathing suit at home… along with the toothbrushes and toothpaste and hairbrushes… and my contact things… so I turned on the tv for the kids, found a kid show, and trundled off into the absolutely terrifyingly COLD weather to pick up the remaining stuff from my house.

 

I grabbed everything I thought I could possibly need and might have forgotten… and ran back to the hotel. Meanwhile, apparently, my 5 year old thought that she NEEDED almost minutely status reports from G (call my mother, my brother did X, where is my mother, is she at the house, did she get to the house, is she on her way back, is she here yet…) which was driving G nuts (because, yes, GirlChild DOES apparently need to know what is going on every minute of the day).

 

So when I got back to the hotel I realized that if I had remembered to bring an extension cord I could have plugged my car in (which, yes, when it is -30 to -45C during the night, you NEED to do if you want your car to start in the morning… for example of what will happen if you don’t, note the FROZEN battery that RGG suffered from for the weekend)… but I didn’t want to go all the way home again, waste more gas, and drag my 50′ extension cord to the hotel for the night… and I didn’t have a short convienient cord in my trunk (where, you think, I should have these types of things)… so I parked as close to one of the entrances as possible with the intention of coming out a few times during the evening and night to start the car and let it run so that it wouldn’t freeze up.

 

Seriously. We do these things. Ask anyone else crazy enough to exist in this province… and I have to ask myself (at least once a year, if not more often)… WHY do I still live here???

 

Anyway… I wandered back to the hotel room, suited up the kids and myself, checked my phone to see if RGG had texted any update on his frozen battery situation, and then the 4 of us wandered off to one of the pools to swim. BoyChild had a great time swimming around in the shallow pool, jumping around and splashing and diving and ducking under the water. GirlChild clung and hovered close to me as I sat in the hot tub (which was HOT) and as I sat beside the cool shallow pool. She’s not as adventerous as her big bro is… she’s always been cautious and fearful of new things (except sushi) and since she doesn’t know, yet, how to swim she is fearful of being in the pools without at least one adult beside her. And… I have found that I have outgrown my love of swimming that I used to have (I was practically a mermaid from age 10-18 during the summer seasons (which is as painfully SHORT as our “winters” are PAINFULLY cold and long)) and have no desire to paddle around in the cold water…

 

We swam around and sat in the hot tub while G knit on th scarf pattern I gave her for Yule (something that looked complicated in a stitch called “heringbone” which involved slipping stitches and double knitting or purling…. the pattern is call “my so called scarf”) with the fancy hand spun wool (made out of real SHEEP). We splished and splashed, but at 5pm I decided that we had had enough, and that we needed to get back to the hotel room and settle down a bit before we thought about eating.

 

Now… here is what the plan was: check with RGG to see if he and his daughters would make it into the city, if they were planning on joining us for supper and a movie (and potentially staying in the hotel with us for the evening) and then determining where we would order pizza from and order things for delivery. And the plan seemed to be going well… 

 

RGG texted me as we came back to the room, letting us know that his father had come out to his town and they had managed to get his absolutely frozen car started, and that he thought that he and his girls would, in fact, be able to make it to the Yule celebration with us in about an hour or so. I texted back to see if pizza was acceptable (which is a silly silly thing, since RGG seems to like pizza, worked in pizza places, and is actually considering openning up his own pizzaria in his small town (due, I think, in part with the frustration of not having anything out there)) and if so what kinds his girls liked.  And that was that… 

 

I decided that I would wait for him to message me that he was in the city, so as not to have to have everyone (GirlChild, BoyChild, and G) eat before our guests arrived… or to not have the pizza arrive before RGG and his girls… and to minimize waiting for everyone. So I told him to text me when he was at the edge of the city, so that I coudl phone and order while he was at his parents’ unloading things and getting ready, which should give the pizza enough time to be delivered… 

 

Meanwhile we openned presents from G and her parents… as G had already gotten her gift from me (wool and the pattern, keep up, eh?). The kids were occupied with their new things, and G and I spent some quality time knitting (G on the scarf, which I think is turning out beautifully, and I am working on socks for GirlChild) and we spent the time waiting for RGG to text saying they had made it in. There were christmas specials on tv, and the kids were relatively quiet and occupied.

 

RGG texted me at 6:30 and let me know they were in and would be over in a bit. I phoned the pizza place (at 6:34) and ordered 2 EXTRA Large pizzas and wings to be delivered. I had an ETA from the shop of 1 hour, which was pushing it a bit (since we almost always eat at 6pm at our place) but I figured that we had some snacks hanging about and it wouldn’t be too bad just this once…

 

And this was about the time that G started her fussing.

 

Again, G is particular. She doesn’t like things not to go exactly as planned. And she did NOT plan on having until almost 8pm to eat supper (heck, my kids usually got to BED at and she hadn’t had lunch (again, I hadn’t even had breakfast, I had a handful of poppycock popcorn and a mediocre cup of hotel room coffee), and had figured that I should have ordered food for US at 5pm and not waited until RGG and his daughters came, so she was starting to get surly. Added to that was the fact that my kids, already hungry, were getting keyed up, and I was nervous abou the prospect of RGG meeting my kids (and G, which in itself is completely nerve wracking because what if she doesn’t BEHAVE?) and what to say to them and how to introduce them to him and what if the kids didn’t get along and what if G said something nasty and… and… and…