Santa comes soon.  I haven’t had a moment to help him.  I usually do.  I love to make things and though my hands twitch with readiness, they are busied with other activities; dry and chapped from dishes, nose wipes, floor spills and diaper changes.  On my thumbs a deep crevasse has developed andf throbs. I bandage them most nights with Neosporin to moisten them.  A small thing I take time to do for myself. Other things like brushing hair, teeth, showering, well, maybe every few days.

Liza is an explorer and an adventurer.  She pushes the limits and the chairs to counters to gain access, climbing up on surfaces, opening every drawer, pouring out the dog water, flooding the laundry porch and placing slippery and sliding clothes from the drawer into her own pathway so she trips, falls and bonks her head.  I don’t remember bending so many times a day.  I don’t recall the stiffness, or the ache from picking up and putting back all day long. Maybe just maybe I am too old for this. Likely excuse!

Maybe I’ll take all the toys and play objects away. Give her nothing to spill or slide on, doing splits until she rips in half in frustrated squeals. Making the rash of her cocksackie virus redden angrily right along with her, the teeny bumps in her mouth making eating unpleasant so hunger is constant.I think she wants to eat me.  All up.  Bite by bite.  I am sure of it.

And you, her brother, well, the puffs for asthma, the antibiotics, the cough medicines, wet pneumonia make you nutty, high and erratic, impossible. I am not at my best.  But your room is done.  The bunk bed, the crib, radiant floor heat and sweet lavender paint job is lovely.  Special. A place for you and sissy to find rest and a special place of your own. Grammy sized the curtains you closed tonight, brought you yummy cookies, soft enough to share with your toothless Mom before she headed off to bed.  No surgery today.  She thought there was, but says she has to have a warm, safe place to heal.  A real house, I guess. Montana? So it was cancelled to be rescheduled.  I hope she’s not confused by my stalwart resistance to helping her.  That this is right, the struggle real and they can figure it out.

I have become like the crazed student that has to pick up and round up the toys instead of observing and learning.  Instead of interacting.  The student that trolls the room picking and pecking at items left astray, items on the floor, out of their baskets, missing from the set.  That’s me.  That less capable place I go save me.  Makes me crazy, too. Pick up the kitties, the set of dogs, count them, is the shepherd missing again? The guy with a hat that sits in the car with the rubber wheels, here he is, put him back.  Put it back, put it up here, over there, make the set complete, can’t sleep if the lady with the green vest has no hair on. Quit playing with the toys.  Quit making a mess of things.  OMG  You are acting like children!  Stop beagle, don’t chew that dolly.  No, go outside.  Don’t eat the dog food, Liza. Doggie might bite.  Ouchie.  Ouchie.  No. Today mommy came for 20 minutes.  I ran over to the site, breathless leaned against a wall, hiding, a fugitive, crazy, hiding from you and your sister.  Caught by a carpenter, sure let’s look at a sample for the trim.  Oh please let’s.

By 7 pm I am so tired, done in, lifeless and mean.  Stay away.  Grandpa, help me just come in and help, please.  I am ready for bed.  Ready for sleep.  Try out the new bedroom.  See if one of us sleeps.  Maybe everyone but me.  That’s how it will be.  Why’s is that?  Why?

I have to go to bed, grandma.  I want to sleep in the tall bed tonight. In my new room.  Goodnight.  I love you, you said.  I love you buddy, I said.  I think I still do.  But I am not the one to ask. Check with me another day.  maybe after Gina comes on Thursday.  Maybe that day mom will have firewood or a place to live for awhile or Dad will find some money.  Maybe that day I will do a little Christmas.  Or maybe I’ll hide and sleep.  We’ll see. gma