For as long as I can remember, my father has bought my mother the same pair of running shoes for every Christmas. Well, no, technically SHE is the one who buys the shoes and probably wraps them too, and maybe she even signs the card, I don’t know. In turn, my father buys himself something or another for his computer from her, wraps it himself and stashes it under the tree.

Opening gifts with them was always kind of horrifying, not because they weren’t totally happy with what they were getting but because they were. It was like looking into the Ghosts Of Christmases To Come.

Someday, some year, Christmas would become all about the Practical, Sensible and Boring. Someday I too would reach thrilling new heights of glee when I unwrapped a brand new toilet brush set with matching toilet seat cover. I might even get tearful if my name were monogrammed right there, because how thoughtful and yet practical at the same time!

Or maybe it was just my boring parents. Maybe other people’s parents weren’t so dull and drab. Maybe they’d open new baubles from Tiffany & Co while sipping mimosas on their yachts. Sure, my parents SWORE that they were young and hip at one point in time, but I distinctly remember stories of “calculus class” and “beanies” neither of which screams “I am cool.”

Now I’m scared.

This year, after I couldn’t come up with anything frivolous that I absolutely NEEDEDfor Christmas, I was left with a startlingly small list of things that I wanted for Christmas. And then, for the first time in, well, ever, I PUT THAT LIST ON PAPER. In order to get anything that I might actually use for Christmas, I made a Christmas list. I realize that most adult people people do this on a yearly basis, because they are smart, but I am not those people. Because writing a list means that I have to organize myself well enough to do this. Also, I am lazy.

I’ve learned, however, that if I do not direct people to items that I might want and use I will wind up with a whole host of things that I do not want and then I am stuck wondering what on earth to do with my brand-new case of expired powdered milk. While I always appreciate the gesture that accompanies the gifts I get, anything we don’t need is donated to charity right away.

I’m scared because this year, tired of finding homes for more things that we do not need, I have made a list of practical things that we’d like for Christmas. It’s disgusting how practical my list is. Pillow cases! I asked for PILLOWCASES! And a SPOTLIFTER! I mean, how much more boring–yet sensible–can one person get? If my former self could see me now, she’d be throwing up all over my mom jeans.

Gone are the days when I ask for a Coach purse! Farewell to diamond earrings and Movado watches! Adieu my collection of Jimmy Choos! Gone forever are the days of my impractical youth!

What’s even worse is that I’m sort of excited about getting them because it’s one less annoying thing to spend my money on and one less framed whimsical light-up Santa Claus paintingthat I have to lug over to the Salvation Army.

I’m becoming my parents.

HOLDME.

Normally, I’d apologize profusely for posting twice in a day, because, well, it’s annoying to me. But screw apologies this time. Hear that, Internet? I’M NOT SORRY.

I was alerted by a blog post by my friend Kelly at Don Mills Diva that tonight her friend Sheona McDonald has a documentary airing called “Capturing A Short Life.” It deals with the often-ignored subject of infant loss and follows several families through this journey from birth to death.

It’s airing tonight on CBC Newsworld at 10 PM but appears to be only available in Canada. I’ve been digging to see if those of us in the States can see it and I haven’t been able to determine this yet. I never claimed to be smart, did I?

I’m not certain that I’ll be able to watch it, not living in Canada and whatnot, but I wish like hell that I could. I have made so many friends here on my blog who have lost their own babies, and constantly struggle with being unable to tell their own stories outside of their blogs, and whether or not they know it, their children and their stories have shaped not only me, but many of my readers.

These little lives were not snuffed out too soon in vain. They simply can’t be. Because THESE are some of my friends’ children and they were here.

Hannah

Caleb

Baby JP

Kalila

William

Isabel Grace

Maddy

William Henry

Aodin

Callum

Sarah

Connor

Liam

Samuel

Caden

Masyn

Olive Lucy

Seth Milton

Abigail Hlee

JoeJoe Sherman

Baby Nick

Gabriel Anton

Ryan

Jonathan

Devin Alin

Jacob and Joshua

Baby K, Gabriel Connor, Christian Elliot

Emmerson

Baby Kuyper

Mara S.

If anyone knows how we State-side people can watch this as well, please let me know in the comments.

I’m not from a very sentimental family. We don’t tend to cherish hand embroidered pillows with platitudes like “If You Weren’t My Mother, You’d Be My Friend,” nor do any of us refer to our weddings as “The Happiest Day Of My Life.” Hell, I had the most traditional wedding of any of us, AND I’m the only one who actually boasts an engagement ring.

The other two women in my family proposed to their (now) husbands (my brother and my father), if that gives you any indication of how traditional and/or schwoopsy-poo we all aren’t.

It should then go without saying that with my two previous pregnancies, I did nothing that would be even remotely considered sentimental to commemorate them, assuming that the stretch marks and loose vaj-jay-jay paid enough tribute to my children. Dave and I jokingly discussed commemoration in the form of those soft-focus maternity pictures, where he and I would look serenely down onto my (heavily airbrushed) belly, assumably imagining the future of our second child together.

And before either of us choked on our own vomit, we agreed that the only way that this would happen is if we were both wearing KISS masks. Because THAT would be something worth commemorating. And also? HILARIOUS.

I’ve seen ads for these things called Belly Casts, and although I haven’t seen one in person, I’m shocked by this. Maybe I’m the only one who grows to Oompa-Loompa proportions, in a way that I can only consider shameful, or maybe I’m the only one insecure enough about it to not want to immortalize the immense shape of things. I’m not sure.

I’m even less sure of what I would do with one in the event that I cast one in my sleep (or semi-conscious waking state, as the case may be). Hang it on my wall? Use it as a serving tray for festive holiday dips? Occasionally pull it out and remind my children, using my most guilt-ridden voice, that THIS is what they did TO ME?

Not gonna happen.

But, Amelia (if all goes well) will be our last child before Yee Old Uterus closes up shop permanently (or gets a fancy piece of expensive, hormone-covered metal stuffed up there), and I do want to try something I’ve only ever seen other bloggers do.

A 3D ultrasound.

Yes, my friends in the computer who keep me sane during long, long days, I am getting one of those new-fangled ultrasounds that will invariably make my daughter look as though she might be part alien. Which, if you’ve seen the shape of her father’s head, may not be entirely far off.

But, I digress. This is not an entry about how my husband may or may not be descended directly from aliens, it’s about my entirely selfish desire to see my daughter before I meet her come January. Because the ladies in my family (namely me) have a uniquely interesting affliction post-birth. We’re ugly. Really, really ugly.

Now, you might argue, most babies, especially those that come rocketing down the old Love Hole, aren’t exactly gorgeous at birth. Unless one happens to find garden gnomes or teeny-tiny old men to be perfectly lovely specimens, which I do not. Ben was a forceps child, and while I will spare you for this moment, the lovely side-effects that a forceps delivery entails, that method of being plucked out quickly meant that he was a beautiful newborn.

(before you think I’m bragging about the beauty of a child who was born wearing what appeared to be a toupee, let me assure you that he was beautiful for about a week. After which, he got acne and lost the bottom half of his hair. And got incredibly fat)

With Alex, the doctor was kind enough to let me labor down, so that when it came time for pushing, I pushed a total of maybe 2 or 3 times before he was born. Let us not speak of what that says about the general size of my delicate girly-bits, okay? But a side effect of that was that he was born looking….kind of funny. Sort of like a tiny, balding version of The Daver, with a head that we often joked could be used to chop ice or bang dents out of cars.

(Now he is a much larger, hairy version of The Daver)

However, when *I* was born, back in 1980, a much different story was told. Specifically, after I was expelled from my own mother, she said (and I am not kidding), “Well, now THAT is a face only a mother could love.” Apparently, then she told everyone in earshot that I was a hideous baby for the remainder of her hospital stay.

Gee. Thanks, Mom. It’s a friggin’ miracle that I have as large an ego as I do.

So, Saturday I will gather up the elder sausages and trek forth into the land of 3D ultrasounds prepare myself for the (possible) Grendel-like baby I will be birthing soon enough. Have no fear: I will love her just as much if she’s weird looking and squiggly than if she’s not.

She is MY daughter after all, so she’ll be fabulous.

———–

All righty, my friends who live in the Internet whom I love more than I ever should, it’s GIVE AUNT BECKY ADVICE TIME. I’m makin’ my list, checkin’ it twice (who am I kidding, I’m totally NOT making a SINGLE LIST because I hate them) and I need your input:

What baby goods do I absolutely require this time around? What did I miss out on? What should I make damn sure I’m stocked up on? Because this Soft Focus Brain isn’t lending itself to logical thoughts, so I’m using your brain instead. Thanks for that.

Help a sister out?

I’m no huge fan of Soap Operas, never have been. I’ll occasionally leave the television on for awhile after I watch one of the morning shows, and I’ll come back to see the newest bizarre love triangle between a mother, her long-dead son, and a broom, and for a split second between laughing mockingly and turning off the television, I admire the soft focus camera work.

I used to associate that look with porn, but after seeing the likes of “Debbie Does Dallas” and “Anal Clinic,” I’m pretty certain that I was highly wrong with that assessment. Porn is intended, I think, to make feel like you’re there (which, in the case of those particular movies, couldn’t be farther from the truth) whereas Soaps make me wish that *I* was always seen in such favorable lighting. I’d need less makeup and have shockingly fabulous hair that way.

An interestingly unrelated phenomenon that, for lack of a better term, I will call Soft Focus Brain has taken up residence in my body and I’m not quite sure why.

I go through the motions of a regular day, but rather than feeling such things as “boredom” or “anxiety,” I merely float through the day as though on a cloud of fluffy pink marshmallows. Some days, I find this to be a quite pleasant change from feeling both bored and restless, whereas others, for example, when I realize that Christmas is a mere four seconds away, I wonder what the bejesus is going on with me.

I know that things haven’t exactly been great for me these past couple months. I mean, on the one hand, things are FINE: I (mostly) have my health, I have a husband who (smells) adores me, my children are all well, and I have access to as much Cap’n Crunch as I want. And on the other hand, I’ve spent the last several months minimizing all of the shit that really IS going on with me. As much as I may appear to enjoy complaining, I don’t. Not really. And I enjoy listening to OTHER people complain about as much as a digital rectal exam, so I just eke by, aloft on a sea of cotton balls.

Wait, what was I saying? I totally forgot.

I mean, I’ve barely gotten enough stuff for this new baby I’m going to be expelling, oh I don’t know, NEXT MONTH. By “enough stuff” I mean, bottles and a crib mattress, not $4,000 onsies made from albino elephant tusks. It’s not that I don’t know what I need by now, because I do, it’s just that I haven’t done anything about it.

Hell, “I haven’t done anything about it” should be my new-yet-not-improved motto these days.

I’ve done most of my Christmas shopping by shear stroke of luck–and the availability of online shopping, which is perhaps the best invention for someone such as myself, whose ass has worn a permanent groove into the cushions of my couch–but haven’t even thought about hauling up the Christmas decorations stored neatly in my basement. Or, rather, I’ve thought about it for the briefest moment only to sit on my ass while not doing anything about it.

The likelihood of me sending out a gigantic batch of Christmas cards, by this point, is slim to none, with an emphasis on the NONE, and if I could pay someone to come over and wrap the presents, I would. Shit, I’d pay someone to decorate my house at this point. And that’s only because my kids are dying to have it done and I’m determined not to be a Grinchly beast this year.

Without that pull, however, it’s doubtful I’d do anything besides show up and eat for the holidays this year. This is horribly out of character for me.

Short of speed or cocaine, I’m thinking that I’m pretty stuck in Soft Focus La-la-la Land, and that I probably should just go ahead and right the festivities off for this year to the best of my ability (what with having a bazillion Christmases and all the Joyful! Holiday! Fun! that involves). Unless, of course, I can find a stand in for me, which would allow me to sleep peacefully while Fake Aunt Becky does all that needs to be done.

Anyone care to volunteer? At this point, I’m not even going to object to someone who looks nothing like me, so long as they can show the hell up.

Or perhaps, there are better suggestions to my flighty plight (hehehe). Anyone? Bueller? Anyone?

Several years ago, when Dave and I still lived in a Oak (No) Park (ing), I was making a trek back from St. Charles, when Dave called my cell phone. When I answered, he asked if I needed anything from the local CVS–mecca well before there was my delightful Target within spitting distance–as he was there picking up Twizzlers.

“Yeah,” I told him. “I need some Slim-Fast. The strawberry shit, not the chocolate stuff. It’s delicious AND refreshing.”

“If you say so,” my husband said. “I think it tastes like donkey ass. But whatever, where is it?”

“It’s over by the dietary stuff, against the south wall,” I informed him. “I thought YOU were all directionally superior to me!”

“Dude, not here. The layout to this place makes zero sense,” he snipped, annoyed that I was mocking his directional sense for the eighty five hundredth time that month, after he’d gotten lost in Wisconsin, WHERE HE CAME FROM.

“Okay, so do you want the 200 calorie or the 300 calorie stuff?” He asked me, standing in front of the dietary aids.

“Wha…?” I asked him while lighting a cigarette. “SlimFast comes in one variety and it’s all about 200 calories.”

“Well, all they have here is generic in your high falutin’ STRAWBERRY flavor,” he replied. “Do you still want it?”

Knowing that drinking the generic stuff was far better than being tempted by the bacon and eggs he and Ben would be having for breakfast the following morning, I reluctantly agreed to have him grab the 200 calorie stuff.

About a half an hour later, I pulled into our shared garage, about 4,000 years away from our actual building and about 20 minutes after that, I was finally up the twenty billion stairs, and standing in our teeny-tiny kitchen.

Where I noticed, sitting jauntily on the counter, was a case of Ensure. Generic, Strawberry flavored, ENSURE. Which, were I a geriatric with digestive issues trying to pack on the pounds, would probably be a delicious and high calorie snacky-poo. But, since I was a 23 year old with digestive issues trying to REMOVE the pounds, I wasn’t so thrilled.

“Dave…” I trilled into the house, “Honey?”

He walked into the kitchen to give me a hug hello.

“Baby…” I asked him hesitantly, wondering if he were punishing me for singing Rod Stewart at the top of my lungs when he was in a bad mood the previous night. “Baby, are you mad at me?”

“No,” he replied, genuinely confused, “why?”

“Because you bought ENSURE. Not SlimFast. Are you trying to fatten me up? Or are you just trying to give my guts a low-residue treat?”

“WHAT?” He asked, now looking more closely at the box of cans. “I totally thought this was SlimFast!”

“No baby, that isn’t even close to SlimFast. This shit is for people who have no colon left. And maybe in 30 years, I’ll need it myself, but for now? Not so much.”

———–

That same box of ENSURE sat on my kitchen counter, then moved into my fridge, until months later, we sold our condo. We’d forgotten to return it, because it was far more a pain in the ass than it was worth, and neither of us knew a soul that might have a use for it.

Today, however, the box long gone, and my Maybe Crohn’s flaring up mightily, I’m thinking that perhaps suddenly I really COULD use it. Which is perhaps the LAST situation I ever thought that I might be in. Especially a mere 5 years later.

Goes to show you never can fucking tell.

I totally remembered Faith No More’s “King For A Day, Fool For A Lifetime” album last night, and when I found a copy of it and turned it on, it was a thousand times better than even running into a good friend and catching up with them. Suddenly, I’m 15 years old again, all skin and bones and odd angles, completely sure of myself that whatever I do is the Right Thing to do.

It’s like reliving those days without having to be there again. Because no matter how self assured I was, the teen years just aren’t something I care to relive. Even if it mean I could have my 26 inch waist back.

What albums do that for you?