Thanks for the suggestions on the Amazon boxes! I have written Amazon customer service to suggest that they could have used one less box, and broken down the boxes (all too big to mail my PIF books, alas; I need to be giving away more and bigger books, apparently). We didn’t build a fort with these, but will save them in case one of the birthday boys this spring wants a rocket or train-building party.

And thanks even more for the words of sympathy and concern about Eli’s encounter with the new book case (this is what we get for unpacking all our books from the nice, soft, cardboard boxes). Ten of Eli’s stitches came out last week. He was stoic, saying only afterwards that “the teeny-tiny scissors hurt a teeny-tiny bit.” One of the dissolving stitches has dissolved, and one’s still hanging on, like an umbilical cord stump that won’t drop.

And, finally, as for my movie-watching binge, I wound up writing a column on Juno. Look for it at Literary Mama next week.

What’s a trying-to-be-green Mama to do when a new kitchen purchase comes packaged in all this:

My new printer came in less. I could pack and ship my children in less!

I know, I know: should have tried to get it from the local hardware store.

I’m forever tearing new recipes out of magazines and needing excuses to try them out, so baking birthday cakes for people I love — even if they aren’t here to share the cake — is one of the ways I work through the inventory.

This is a buttermilk caramel cake from the recent Gourmet. The cake is light and not too sweet; the caramel topping (and you know I’m all about candy–making right now) is easy and delicious. I think Dad would like it a lot. Ben and Eli certainly liked helping to make it, almost as much as they liked helping to eat it.

So happy birthday, Dad, and maybe next year we’ll be together on your birthday; for now, a picture will have to do.

There are a couple ways to go when you find yourself at 7pm on a Sunday evening not reading bedtime stories to your freshly bathed children but, instead, sitting in the ER with the whole family, your husband repeating insurance information to the triage nurse, the 5 year-old sitting next to you, taking it all in stride, his nose buried in a cookbook, and the 2 year-old on your lap, wrapped in a blanket, his nose and mouth obscured by the wad of paper towels and tissue that you’re pressing against his face to stop the bleeding.

So, I decided to count my blessings.

1. The hospital is a 5-minute drive from our house.
2. We didn’t get into an accident on our 3-minute drive to the hospital.
3. We were in the ER on New Year’s Eve eve, not New Year’s Eve.
4. No lost or broken teeth, no broken nose, no injury to his eyes or head, and the bookshelf he collided with didn’t fall on top of him.
5. An ER doctor who’s the mother of 4 herself, and could explain, from personal experience, the varying, sometimes a little upsetting, reactions children have to the sedative they wanted to administer to Eli, and how it feels for a mother to witness them.
6. A sedative and pain killer in one dose, rather than two different drugs.
7. So few children in the hospital over Christmas that the ER had a stash of picture books, one of which a nurse gave to Eli.
8. A waiting room television playing The Sound of Music.
9. A friend who could come on no notice to hang at our house with Ben, so that Tony could take him home and then return to hold Eli’s (and my) hand through his stitches.
10. The distracting power of a silly book, useful for mama (concentrating hard on keeping her voice steady) and son.
11. A hospital big enough to have pediatric plastic surgeons available on Sunday night.
12. No scary reactions to the sedative. Instead, as he came out of it, Eli happily hallucinated that he was on the train going to the zoo: hissing oxygen mask = steam; pulse-ox light = headlight; heart and blood pressure monitor cords = bell and whistle cords.

And now, 12 stitches from lip to nose, healing nicely, and a pretty good story to tell.

First, go read my latest column at Literary Mama, on Miracle on 34th Street. Come on back when you’re done.

Done?

OK, so here’s the postscript:

I was in the kitchen baking some cookies yesterday (as I’ve been the last several days…) when the doorbell rang, and Tony answered it for a postal service volunteer. She’d read Ben’s letter to Santa and brought him a pogo stick! She left too quickly for us to really thank her properly, or send her off with a plate of cookies. The pure generosity of this just knocks me out, and the thought of kids who really might not get a Christmas present without such volunteers makes me tear up (Tony looked up the Toys for Tots website and made a quick donation).

Ben and I hadn’t talked about his pogo stick request since the day he mailed his letter to Santa, and I didn’t act on it; I didn’t really take it seriously. If you have read this blog, or know my boy, you know that Ben is not really a pogo stick kind of guy. But last night Ben made a careful plate of cookies, carrots (for the reindeer) and wrote a note for Santa: “Dear Santa, I hope your trip goes great tonight! PS, Did you bring my pogo stick? Signed, Benjamin James Grant.”

Of course, he was delighted with the gifts we gave him (his own set of measuring spoons; a compass; about a thousand Lego pieces) but his face when he recognized the big package under the tree this morning was pure joy, and he has not stopped marveling that Santa responded to his letter.

(Image from the book that started this all, Marla Frazee’s Santa Claus the World’s Number One Toy Expert)

We’re cooking, and decorating, and generally filling the house with good smells and pretty things… More to come!

This tree, a scrawny little primrose, is making me very happy. We’re fostering it for Friends of the Urban Forest, which will reclaim it after the holidays and plant it on a street somewhere in San Francisco (I’m hoping we can get the address, so that we’ll be able to visit it). Tony and the boys deemed it too small and skinny to bring inside and decorate, so we have a more traditional Christmas tree in the living room, and this one is hanging out by the front door, adorned with a flock of origami cranes.

Meanwhile, in other Christmas preparations, I’ve made (with Ben’s participation) candied orange peel, Elevator Lady Spice Cookies, pumpkin rocks, cranberry bars, and cranberry-pistachio ice box cookies. We still need to make hickory puffs and bourbon balls, some biscotti, and probably some wasps’ nests (a recipe I’ll post so that I can help Fertile Ground use up her egg whites!). Plus, there’s nothing chocolate yet, and that’s just wrong. Finally, I’m considering — for the first time — buche de noel for Christmas dessert, which is perhaps a little nutty. Tune in Wednesday to find out!

This was a fine way to end a busy week, or start a busy weekend. Ben and Eli both helped, Ben marveling at how much sugar the recipe called for, and both boys loving the sight of me wearing heavy-duty work gloves when it was time to stir the vanilla into the boiling sugar (somehow we don’t have oven mitts). When I asked Tony if he wanted a taste (we’ll give most of it away) he said, “Are you kidding? I saw everyone in my family throw a stick of butter into the pot. Yeah, I want a taste.” I’ve never made candy before, but it turns out to be a lot less work than an equal amount of cookies, and needless to say, it’s plenty delicious. We might be trying out some more recipes during this holiday baking season. Stay tuned.

7 AM: I hear a boy go thundering down the stairs. Usually Eli’s up first, and he needs breakfast help and supervision, so I poke Tony (it’s his turn to get up, plus he still owes me for going out of town while I had the stomach flu), roll over and go back to sleep.

7:43 AM: Eli appears at my bedside. I’m momentarily confused, then realize Ben must have gotten up first. I pull Eli up next to me and we snuggle under the covers.

7:46 AM: Tony appears at my bedside; having heard Eli get up, he’s come to whisk him away. Eli slides out of bed and bids me his customary farewell: “Bye! Good luck! Have good sleep! Wuh-vee!” (“love you”). “Bye, Eli!” I answer, “Wuh-vee!” And pull the comforter over my head.

later: Tony comes back to our room. I smell cinnamon. “We made scones,” he says, and I hear him put a plate down on my bedside table. I mumble a thanks without opening my eyes or moving.

later still: I hear Tony come in and get dressed, but don’t hear the boys. I’m expecting them to come leaping on to the bed any minute, and drift back to sleep until they do.

later again: Hungry. I sit up and eat my scone with the glass of milk Tony has left for me. I pull the laptop into bed and send some emails, start taking notes for a column. The house is still quiet, but I figure the guys are all in Ben and Eli’s room, playing trains and lego. I picture them, all in pjs’, Tony’s cappuccino balanced on a lego structure, each of them taking turns from the small bowl of cashews on one of the train platforms.

finally: I get up and pad down the hall. No one in Ben and Eli’s room. Hmm. Downstairs, the boys’ pajamas are on the living room floor. The closet door’s open, and their jackets and shoes are gone. Oh! I finally get it.

9:30 AM: I consider a minute, and then start my day. I vacuum the house (guests coming tomorrow), watch a movie, go for a run, read the paper, start writing my next column. A perfect Saturday morning.

It’s been six days now.

Six days of tiny, simple meals of plain rice and dry cereal, eaten under watchful supervision. Six days of urging sips of water or diluted apple juice every few minutes.

Six days of wondering who it’d hit next (first Tony, then Eli, then Ben, then Eli again, then Ben and me both) and if this seeming recovery was really an end to it or just a lull.

Six days of middle-of-the-night laundry and careful negotiations with Eli so that we could wash his soiled patch blanket (Ben — hurrah! — is old enough now to get himself to the bathroom on time).

Six days of missed parties and playdates. Six days of extra Oswald and Sesame Street.

I’m trying not to feel too pathetic about us all, despite this list. We have plenty of videos and Lego and it’s been nearly 24 hours since anyone’s been actively sick, so maybe we’re on the way out of the tunnel.

But, Tony’s going out of town this afternoon–his first trip away since before Eli was born. My nearest friend is also sick, as is her baby, and her husband’s out of town this week, too. So I’ve got the fragile crew all on my own and my defenses are weak. Wish me luck!