Easing in to the Season

It's November 30th and I have on my hands a boy all atwitter about the impending visit of Santa Claus. We've been talking about it for the last week. I have mixed feelings about facing this first Christmas as a single mama but I appreciate JT's enthusiasm, his joy, and his excitement. It helps me to see the big picture.

Tonight we started to decorate our house. We searched the basement for his advent calendar. Each drawer in the box will have a treat as he counts down the days until December 24th. And we placed a light in the front window, a symbol that a weary traveler can find rest and comfort inside our home. Finally, we put up the holly and the wreath on our front door. It makes our home just a little more welcoming and for me it represents my effort to welcome and embrace the coming month.

Real Life Conversations in Class

This might also qualify as what I call a prep school moment......the jury is out on that. But it is a real life conversation, and it was funny.

Student X: Does Mr. W (an administrator) look at the assignments you give to your students?

Me: No. Mr. W teaches math. This is history class.

X: No, I mean does he look to make sure that you are actually teaching history?

Me: I am actually teaching history. Shall we talk about the Revolution of 1800?

X: Well, if you gave us a piece of paper and asked us to draw a bunny for points, that wouldn't be teaching history.

Me: Correct. And I have never given you a piece of paper and asked you to draw a bunny for points. The Revolution of 1800 is called a revolution because.....

X: But if you did give that assignment......

The class interrupts.

Student Y: X, that assignment was a joke and it was for extra credit.

X: Yeah.

Me: Let me get this straight: you are complaining because some teacher promised extra credit points if you drew a picture of a bunny? I've now heard everything and you're going to hear about the Revolution of 1800.

Real Life Conversations with JT

First, a little context. With his reading tutor, JT is working on word-sound combinations. These days, he's working on sounds that are h-brother sounds: ch; sh. So he likes to review h brother sounds and identify them in the books he is reading. And this morning, he demonstrated the ultimate mastery of an h brother sound:

JT: Mama, I know another h brother word.

Mama: Oh yeah? What word is that?

JT: Shit.

Mama: Indeed.

Idle Traffic Thoughts

I'm making my way to work this morning and at a traffic light I see that the car in front of me has a Metal Head sticker. Okay, fine. But the car is a green Ford Taurus. I'm thinking that this is incongruous. Far be it from me to pass judgment, but I feel that some decisions need to be made: either you're a Metal Head guy and need the corresponding Metal Head car (a muscle car; something that growls) OR you're a Taurus guy and need the corresponding sticker (Barry Manilow? Mannheim Steam Engine?).

But the Metal Head/Taurus combo? It just doesn't work.

Arch-Nemesis

The post over at Sunday Scribblings is arch-nemesis. I've never been the sort of person to hold on to a grievance. I don't like being angry. But in the last few months, I've been angrier than I've ever experienced before. Sometimes I think about my ex and her actions and her words and I just want her to hurt as much as I have hurt; as much as JT has hurt. Is Lisa my arch-nemesis?

The thing is, I'm not proud of feeling this way. I don't want to feel like this. I don't want to be a person who is out there increasing the sum total of unhappiness in the world, even if it is for someone who has richly earned a little unhappiness. Don't get me wrong: I'm human and I'd like Lisa to reap the unhappiness she has sown. I just want it to happen without any assistance from me.

So I don't think that Lisa really is my arch-nemesis. I think that my baser instincts are my arch-nemesis. When your life is shattered in the way that mine has been, you have a tendency to blame yourself. Almost daily I ask what I did wrong, why she couldn't love me, and why the life we built together was valuable to me while it was a cage for her. This internal dialogue gets me nowhere. I need to be aware of how I feel, and I need to be kind to myself but dwelling on the pain won't make it go away. And I also need to realize that how Lisa feels, or if she feels, are not really my problem. Whether or not Lisa ever hurts for what she's done isn't going to change me. And it isn't going to change this situation in which I have found myself. It won't change things for my son.

Some days that's awfully hard to remember.

Cornbread and Honey

Lesbian though I am, I'm a pretty traditional girl. I've always joked that I'd make an exceptional housewife: I'm a good cook, I like to clean, I'm fond of kids, and I'm an enthusiastic participant in other things people want their wives to do......but that I won't be mentioning on my PG-rated blog. You get the idea.

When I was pregnant, I pictured myself as the Mama of a chubby and round little baby. Instead, I got slim, who's only chubbiness was in his meaty cheeks. As a baby and as a boy, JT has mostly been content to live on kitchen fumes. But every once in a while, something I cook fills his senses and then he is unstoppable. That's how JT feels about cornbread. I made some on Thanksgiving, but most of it went into the cornbread dressing. Today he asked for cornbread for lunch. I immediately baked up a batch. He eats it warm with butter and lots of honey. Three hunks later, my boy's belly is full.

And his Mama is happy too.

Tree Lighting

We went to Princeton this evening to see the newly lit Christmas tree in Palmer Square. JT has been watching that tree get lit since he was 2 and tonight we continued the tradition. It was a little different this year but he had as good a time as ever, which should tell me something about his resilience. And should help me to remember that with help from my friends I can be a single mama who gets the job done.

For reasons I don't quite understand, the photo has loaded improperly. I'm asking the nice people at Blogger for some help. Hopefully, I'll get it fixed soon.

Cornbread Dressing

I am not a fan of stuffing ----- eating something stuffed into the carcas of a raw bird just strikes me as a deeply unwise decision. So I make dressing instead ---- cooked separately from the bird.

I'm not making a feast this year because we've been invited to someone else's house. And in this year of big changes, it seemed like a good idea to try something new. But I am bringing my favorite Thanksgiving dish – cornbread dressing. It's old-fashioned southern food for a yankee Thanksgiving.

Cornbread Dressing

First, you have to make cornbread. This is my all-purpose cornbread recipe and it makes great corn muffins.

1 1/4 cup flour
3/4 cup corn meal
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup lowfat milk
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 egg, beaten

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Grease an 8 inch pan. Combine dry ingredients and then stir in milk, oil, and egg, mixing just until the dry ingredients are moistened. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until light golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Place on rack to cool.

And now the dressing part:
1 8 inch pan of cornbread
1 cup celery, diced
1-2 medium yellow onions, finely chopped
2-3 tablespoons finely chopped jalapeno pepper, plus a bit of juice
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
2-3 cups chicken broth

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a casserole dish. Once cornbread has cooled, crumble it into a large bowl (6 year old boys with clean hands are perfect for this task). Mix in celery, onion, jalapeno (and juice), and black pepper. Add enough chicken broth to make the mixture moist. Pat into the casserole dish and bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Serve hot.

Apple Coffee Cake and Bacon

My childhood Thanksgivings often featured a day of starvation before the big meal was delivered. At best, this led to overeating when supper was finally ready. At worst, it contributes to a lifetime of food issues. So I make breakfast on Thanksgiving day and today's breakfast was apple coffee cake and bacon (because JT is the king of bacon). I drank lots of hot coffee and it was a warm and cozy start to a cold day.

Karmic Irony or Ironic Karma

Thanksgiving is this week and I have been struggling with facing the holiday. This morning I had yet another chat with my ex, known around here as the FI, as in f&@#$*g idiot, for reasons which should by now be patently clear. Today's discussion featured version 5.0 of her explanation for her sudden decampment in June.

So I'm standing in my kitchen waiting for an explanation that I know will never come, waiting for an apology for the way in which she callously tore apart our family. Waiting for her to acknowledge that she broke our little boy's heart and left me to make the repairs. Trying to get her to understand how much she hurt me and how much she hurt him. And frankly, I'm listening to her and fearing that there must be things about me that make me impossible to love.

Then the doorbell rings and a box of beautiful roses is placed in my hand, sent by a friend with better timing than she knows. And I realize that I grasped endlessly for the love and affection of someone who is fundamentally unable to care about another human being. Someone who never appreciated the life we had built together. Someone who is broken.

I know that I will still hurt and that things will still be hard. But more and more I see that a happy life is within reach.