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Ebay is my bitch.  Late in November I took my mom to an appointment with Rowan and Finn in tow.  In the office waiting room was a Toys for Tots drop-off box where Rowan saw the toy that became this year’s must-have Christmas present.  It was called Diva Starz and it is the toy from hell.

In keeping with my general approach to life, I started looking for the hell toy on the 20th of December.  This is the only toy Rowan mentioned when she sat on Santa’s lap.  This is the only toy she wrote on her school holiday wish list.  This is the only toy she mentioned when each of the hundred little old ladies asked her what she wanted for Christmas throughout the month of December.  And this particular toy, I found out on the 23rd of December after frantically searching for it for days, WAS DISCONTINUED IN 2005!

My elves told me to let it go - that Rowan would be happy with whatever she opened and would forget all about the Diva bitch by Christmas morning; but I just couldn’t live with this.  I actually called the doctor’s office on the 23rd and begged them to let me have the toy if I replaced it with some poor kid’s first car or something, but the Toys for Tots people had just picked up their box.

On Christmas Eve I thought of checking Ebay - too little too late - but there it was.  With the auction ending in two hours.  For ten bucks.  With no bids.  New in the box with some shelf damage to the top of the box.

On Christmas morning Rowan grabbed her first gift and yelled, “It’s my Diva Star doll!” 

It wasn’t.

Then she grabbed her second gift and yelled, “It’s my Diva Star doll!”

It wasn’t.

This went on until every present was opened and her stocking was frantically dumped out on the couch.

Rowan was heart-broken.

Stupid elves!

And then she found the envelope hanging on the tree with her name on it.  Inside it said:

Dear Rowan,

One of your gifts fell out of the sleigh somewhere over Topeka, Kansas.  My elves will find it and mail it to you.  Merry Christmas!

Santa

Suddenly all was well with  Rowan.  Three days later she found a box on the front porch.  The return address was S.C. from the North Pole.  Inside was the ugliest, most obnoxious, fat headed Diva Starz doll named Alexa you’d ever want to see.  The box was all bent up and smashed on the top.

“Look!”  Rowan pointed out.  “The box broke when it hit the ground!”

Life is brilliant.

1. Blog regularly
2. Potty train Finn
3. Shower more
4. Write letters
5. Lose the back fat
6. Go sledding
7. Choose sides on the  soup MSG war - I’m leaning toward Progresso
8. Sex up my wardrobe - that means stop wearing Nathan’s underwear
9. Win the Publisher’s Clearinghouse Sweepstakes and be showered and clothed when they bring me my check
10. Train my kids to flush
11. Leave the house
12. Take down the tree before Valentine’s Day
13. Give up diet Coke
14. Read more blogs
15. Yell less, laugh more
16. Find my signature hair cut
17. Watch The Bachelor
18. Break my addiction to Advil PM
19. Scrub all the crayon off the walls
20. Use sunscreen
21. Work on the bingo arms
22. Stop spitting on the twenty-year old Macy’s model who resolves to look younger, think younger, be younger. Please.  Somebody put that bitch in time-out.
23. Forgive Elizabeth
24. Stop watching daytime television
25. Appreciate more…

Last summer Nathan put a beautiful porch on the front of our house.  It took him slightly longer than expected to finish this particular project, and I became quite frustrated with the condition of my front yard while the construction was underway.  At one point I actually worried that the Obama team would call and ask us to take down the sign we had stuck in the middle of the mess!  But finally the posts went up and the railings went up and the flagstone floor was glazed and the tarps and piles of tools and coffee cups and wood were cleaned off of the front yard leaving nothing but a six foot by four foot tamped down section of grass that was barely visible in the glow of Nathan’s masterpiece.  It still pissed me off just the same and in the fall I sprinkled some grass seed over it with no real luck.

On the twenty-sixth of December we returned home from a holiday party late at night and dragged four very sleepy children out of the van.  The sky was bright with a big fat moon and mingled with the streetlights cast beautiful shadows across our lawn.  Suddenly Madigan stopped in her tracks and stared at the ground.

“LOOK!  I can see the imprint of Santa’s sleigh in the grass!” 

Then everyone was wide awake, and three little girls and one little boy quietly circled that flattened down space from the wood, eyes wide, mouths like Os.  Just in front of this patch they found little chewed up bits of carrots mixed into the grass.

Once again Nathan had sprinkled upon us a dose of magic and it shined brightest out of the eyes of one not-so-little girl who had been suspiciously silent about Santa throughout this entire Christmas season.

And so for one more year she gets to hear the bell ring.

Last week Nathan and I read the last page of the last chapter of the last book in the Harry Potter series.  We’ve been reading these books together since I was pregnant with Keira more than ten years ago.  Nathan bought me that first book for Christmas after the world went crazy for it.  Instead of taking turns reading it, we decided to read it together, alternating reading aloud to each other. Soon after we started the book, I became pregnant with Keira and I was always too tired to read on the nights it was my turn.  Nathan finally took over the reading, and he has since read the entire series to me that way.

And so it ends.

The time we spend together reading these books, snuggled in our bed, my head on Nathan’s shoulder, has become incredibly special to me.  Nothing relaxes me, nothing relieves my stress and anxiety over life more than disappearing into the world of Hogwarts enveloped in the lull of Nathan’s voice.  More nights than either of us could count Nathan has had to stop reading because I have drifted off to sleep mid-chapter.  Nothing in the world compares to falling asleep this way, and few things make me feel more cared for than Nathan’s willingness to indulge me so.  

For each of my pregnancies we were reading a different book in the series of seven, so Harry Potter has grown up, for us, hand in hand with our own little family.  Now that it’s over I feel a deep sadness, as if I have just sent my eldest child off to college on the other side of the world or have lost a most beloved pet. 

What I most want for Christmas this year is the first book in our next series - one magical enough to take Harry’s place and to mark the next chapter of our lives together.

Any suggestions?

We made Toll House chocolate chip cookies yesterday and it was just like the commercial. You know, the one where the twenty-two year old model mother is baking in her state-of-the-art all white kitchen with her two clean, adorably dressed little ones and the Christmas music is playing and everyone is smiling and giggling and all the ingredients land in and stay in the bowl? Yup, yesterday was just like that.

Except I just thought of the Christmas music now. And I wasn’t wearing heels and designer clothes. I had on my nappy bathrobe and my hair was a little greasy. Finn was in his pjs too with the leg snaps undone so it looked like a dress, but Rowan had clothes on and her hair was really cute. Except for the front sides where she’d chewed on it all morning. These little things aside, it was just like that commercial, and we were all smiling and giggling.

Except when I cursed that once, when Finn drank the vanilla. And that little curse when he spat it all over my nappy bathrobe and greasy hair. Oh, and I may have cursed when Rowan lifted the arm of the blender up so high it splattered batter all over the ceiling fan. I did not however curse when Finn dumped the entire five-pound bulk bag of chips from BJs on the floor and I don’t know why he cried because I didn’t actually pinch him that hard.  Other than that we had a picture perfect experience just like in that commercial.

Except for the part where Finn screamed “ME WANT TITTIES” for the entire 11 minutes it took to bake the first batch and the entire 10 minutes it took for them to cool. The producers would have cut that part, I’m sure. And the part where I cursed because I burned the second batch. And the third. Of course, I didn’t have three goddamn kitchen assistants on the sidelines, did I?  And they’d have maybe cut the part where I got out the whiskey.

Just those few minor tweaks and we had our own little family commercial for Toll House.

CRAP!  I can not believe I didn’t think to video tape it!

ROWAN: Mommy, I told Thomas our secret.

MOMMY: What’s our secret?

ROWAN: That daddy has a big gun.

MOMMY: WHAT? Daddy doesn’t have a gun! Why would you say that?

ROWAN: But he does. The one he hunts with.

MOMMY: Hunts? He’s a vegetarian, Rowan! He doesn’t hunt and he doesn’t have a gun!

ROWAN: Oh. Well, maybe I dreamed it.

MOMMY: Oh. Well, maybe you’d better straighten that out with Thomas.

ROWAN: Don’t worry, Mommy. We’re really good friends and he pinky-sweared he wouldn’t tell anybody.

NOTE TO SELF: Arrange to have Thomas over for a play date. Yeah, right!