Navigation / Christmas Day 10

I trooped down the stairs at what Teo calls "the brown house," our Birch Hill log home, into the darkness. I’d promised him I’d be back in a minute, after getting out of pajamas and getting into clothes for our MWF swimming gig. I promised him skiing as well, and was putting on the three layers which zero-to-plus-ten-degrees requires when I decided to check the temps.

It was minus 10. Even here on the hill. That meant more like minus 25 down in the hollow. And it also meant, I didn’t want to go skiing. Skate skiing can work down to zero. But it’s really marginal after that. Herringboning uphill isn’t all that much fun, especially with a 50 pound kid carrier dragging behind.

So, a lot less "cross" dressing, that is, dressing for two very different activities on one body in one morning. We were out the door without even any food, since we’d be back in an hour and a half.

But when we got to the pool, the normal ended. Matteo didn’t wait for me to get in the water to clutch my neck, to make us a two-headed buoy bobbing around, cheek to cheek, singing, watching others play, clinging.

Instead, he chose the green noodle marched down the steps into the drink, threw his arms over the noodle (with butt-buoyancy already attached), and launched.

Of course his next move was to grab hold of the side of the pool. But that only lasted about five minutes. I challenged him to "swim" across the pool, "you can tell Mama you swam across ALL BY YOURSELF," and, with no further urging, he did just that.

I was beside myself with joy, relief and pride. Finally! (If you’ve been reading along in the past month, you understand...) My previous frustration instantly vanished. But that was minor in the face of Teo’s disarming grin. I think he didn’t know that he could do it.

He moves by hanging vertically in the water, arms on his noodle, with a ball in one hand and a bucket in the other, not kicking but "walking" with his feet. And between breathing a little harder, he keeps up a patter, "I tell Mama Teo is a BIG BOY. Mama be VERY PROUD. Teo BIG BOY, very BRAVE." It was fetching. Suddenly, we were having a lot of fun, too. Splashing, laughing, going in circles, chasing balls.

When we got back home, there was a message from Marin on the machine. She had an appointment with the gynecologist. She found out that "Pepita" has turned, she/he’s in birth position. Yaay!

The tenth day of Christmas. Ten lords a leaping, five for Matteo’s grin, and five for Pepita’s navigational kicking.

Mystical Babies Only / Christmas Day 1

It’s Christmas Eve, somewhere in the wee hours of the morning. Marin turns to me in bed and says, everyone else wants Christmas, and we’re hoping for the opposite.

She was referring to the fact that she’s been feeling generally under the weather all day, which turned specifically into having contractions all evening. Her gynecologist didn’t return a message she left. And a friend, a midwife we were thinking of calling, had a Christmas Eve car accident and broke her collar bone.

Our Christmas Eve was outside, the UU "Advent Garden," held in moonlight and candlelight. Some of us at the Fellowship stamped out a 30-foot spiral in the snow after the service Sunday. Tonight, while we sang traditional carols together, 40 of us meditatively, one by one, walked the spiral to the center, lit candles stuck into apples, and set the flaming apple-candles into the fir boughs which defined the spiral against the white snow.

A simpler, sweeter Christmas eve celebration I have not seen. As usual the UU sense of levity mixed in with the ceremonial seriousness, people laughed with me when it turned out that one of my favorite carols, "Lo how a Rose ‘ere Blooming," was known only to me. Someone noted, after the first verse came out without participation, "nice solo."

"Must be a Lutheran song," I quipped back. Merriment ensued.

As in the Solstice service last Sunday, there was a lot of time to think. It wasn’t all programmed. The time it took for people to arrive and get into place with candles and songbooks around the spiral circle, gave everyone a chance to settle in, heartwise. A friend Carrie with her daughter Naomi came, their first UU experience. I’d sent her "Irving the Snowchicken is Coming to Town" (see yesterday) and we laughed about it. It was so fun to see her. Also Trista, one of my Yoga teachers, came with her son, her sweetie, and another family. I never thought of the UU Advent Garden as an outreach service.

I still am being surprised by the healing, joyful potential of belonging to a non-religious Religion.

At a reception we went to afterwards at Larry and Terry’s, Matteo managed to sneak, it was rumored, two pieces of cheesecake. Art on all the walls, some of it Terry’s, what a nice thing. Maybe for us someday... Marin confirmed the cheesecake rumor, which he must have snagged when we were both in separate rooms from the dessert table. "Ringed with chocolate," is how she described his guilty mouth.

Makes sense, then, that he was bouncing off the walls when we got home at 10. And I couldn’t get him to settle. Marin went straight to bed. He and I watched an episode "Peep and the Big Wide World," a National Science Foundation funded cartoon. Then, after tooth brushing, we had a standoff about stories. He wanted two, I wanted to tell one. After five minutes of silence, he gave in. And I told the Mary-Joseph-Baby-Jesus-Shepherds-Angels story. And reminded him that Santa was bringing gifts because it was Christmas eve. "What Christmas eve is?"

Later, when he cried out in the middle of the night, Marin, who couldn’t sleep more than an hour at a stretch, came to sleep with him. He told her, "Papa told me a story about Jesus," and he started the process of waking get up. Marin: "Oh, you’re too early, you have to sleep a little bit more." Teo’s response: "It’s already that day, but I don’t remember what it is, Mama."

And now, much later than normal (7:30 am), he’s awake. We’ve decided not to make much of the "Santa" connection (since presents will be showing up for the next two weeks...), but managed to get the first installment wrapped and placed under the tree. He hasn’t noticed yet.

He’s being the "birdie" in his "nest," which is Marin’s lap, drinking "juice and nurse." And the little one kicking inside her to get out, is still holding back. Time to run!