out of Kadesh

Excuse me while I swallow down the panic attack that is rising in my throat. Did anyone else blink and suddenly it’s five days till Christmas? I still feel like all my Christmas shopping is “early” Christmas shopping. Or at least, I did, until the mood of the crowd fighting its way into the Target parking lot turned sinister. To the guy who nearly ran me off the road in his Escalade: MY KID’S IN THE CAR YOU JACK WAGON! And those maxi pads you need will still be there when you get in the store, so CALM THE HELL DOWN.

I’m sorry I have abandoned you in this most wonderful and terrible of seasons, Reader. Please believe that I’m thinking of you in advance and how I’ll spin my story when I find myself running harried and panicked through Wal-Mart on the night before Christmas, zooming past all the white people shuffling around in Tweety-Bird t-shirts and pajama pants, boxes of open Cheez-Its in the crooks of their arms, wondering just how I let myself get to this point.

In the meantime, I have a gift for you. Behold, the Moste Wonderful Yon Cookies that ‘Ere Celebrated the Birth of our Lorde and Saviour Babye Jesus. These cookies are beyond amazing. You should make them. And eat them. And then I won’t be the only one whose ass is slowly creeping down the back of her legs. Thank you.

Chocolate Chocolate-Chip Cookies
or
What to Eat When You’re on Your Period (AHEM, Escalade Guy)
(Adapted from here. But mine are better. Promise.)

Ingredients

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Beat the butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla until it looks like this:

Add the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt.

Stir it up. Use your left hand so your right hand can take the picture, even though you’re not left-handed. Or, you can be like me, and stir it all up with your right hand, then switch so you can take the picture, and just PRETEND you’re stirring.

But don’t be like me. If you are you’ll spill the cocoa powder and flour all over the floor and your feet while you’re trying to maneuver the camera/spoon/hand/bowl situation. It’s not worth the mess you’ll have to clean up. Or the curse words your son will learn.

Best part: mix in the chocolate chips. I used the remains of the various bags of chocolate chips I had in the pantry, which included some bittersweet, some semisweet, and some slightly odd-tasting organic kind I got from the local organic grocery market. I got them in bulk. I just filled up the bag, tra la la, and took it up to the register, and… well… they cost 14 dollars. I’ll never do that again, y’all. Do you know what kind of pressure comes with $14 chocolate chips? I could never find anything to make that was good enough for them. If one dropped to the floor I was all NOBODY MOVE UNTIL WE FIND THAT CHOCOLATE CHIP. And if someone had robbed our house, I would have been like, Please, help yourself to the sofa, the computers, and the tv, BUT IF YOU TOUCH MY BAGGIE OF CHOCOLATE CHIPS I WILL CUT YOU.

I’m glad to be rid of them.

Once those are all mixed in, drop them by spoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets. I used an ice cream scoop. And I needed three cookie sheets. Even though I only have two. Sucks.

Bake for 10 minutes, or until they flatten out and set. Cool slightly on the cookie sheets before eating, IF YOU CAN.

Dudes. Make these for your Christmas presents. Cookies are a way better gift than that nail clipper gift-set you got your brother-in-law. (Sorry, Duane.) (Just kidding, that’s not what we got you; your nails are already nicely groomed.) (Just kidding, I have never noticed your nails. But I can definitely make you some cookies for Christmas, if you like.) (You’d be nuts to turn that offer down, bro.) That reminds me, feel free to add nuts to this recipe if you’re into that sort of thing.

Even though I’m super paranoid about giving him sugar and especially chocolate, because I don’t want him to turn into a chocolate fiend like his Mommy (and Daddy, and grandparents, and aunts and uncles, and let’s face it, everyone else I’ve ever met), I gave Noah a tiny bite.

See the little crumb on his tray? He’d been eating a banana at the time, and I swear to God he looked like he’d found religion when he tasted that cookie. He didn’t smile or anything, just kept staring at the crumb and rolling it around in his mouth.

Then he looked at me like, WTF was that woman? Also, WE HAVE A NEW STANDARD OF FOOD.

Dear Noah,

Good news! You made it a whole year without your Daddy and me accidentally destroying you. One year down, 17 to go! You’ll be fine. I hope.

What a busy month you had, Bubba. You went to visit your Grandmommy and Granddaddy a couple of times, they came to visit you, you visited your aunt and uncle and four cousins, and you had two birthdays and an early Christmas. Not to mention you had your first Thanksgiving. You were so patient with all the traveling we had to do, and I’m so thankful to you. I know your bum must get numb sitting in the same position in your car seat for so long. I speak from experience. You see, my arm goes asleep every night because a) I’m trying not to move so you don’t wake up and start acting like a butthead, and b) your big noggin is usually resting on it. (Sorry Love Bug, sometimes Mommy has to remind you who has it worst around here. ME.)

Sometimes I wish I could get inside that head of yours so I could figure out what you’re thinking. You do the weirdest things and your Daddy and me can only look at each other and shrug, like when you emphatically nod out of nowhere. Usually we laugh, too, which only encourages you. For instance, now you think it’s funny when you fart. I blame your Daddy for this. Which only makes sense, since he still laughs at his own farts. I don’t know what I’m going to do with the pair of you, both of you crop dusting all over the house and giggling to yourselves about it. But you do all these other odd things too, like you started laying your head on the floor at every opportunity. And then you look up at us and grin really big, like you’ve just accomplished something awesome. While you’re down there, you like to give the floor a big french kiss, which gives Mommy heart palpitations because of all the dog and cat hair I’m sure you’re consuming. Blech! Also, you FREAK OUT when the kitty comes around. You start laughing and clapping and you reach out your hand to give him a pat but right as you’ve psyched yourself up to do it, you chicken out and turn around in a burst of manic energy and give me a huge squeeze around the neck, then turn back to the kitty to repeat the process. I have no idea where this came from, since he’s been around the whole time you’ve been living here. He just looks at you and blinks slowly, then looks at me as if for explanation, but I have none.

The funniest thing you’ve started doing is balling up your fists, grinning from ear to ear, and tensing your entire body in some weird expression of ultimate excitement and joy. It’s so hilarious. I have no idea what you could suddenly be so happy about that your little body can’t handle it and goes all maniacally tense. I’m like, nothing’s changed, man. Here we are, playing with your blocks, just like we have been for the past 15 minutes. Nevertheless, something has made you very, very gleeful. I think you must be plotting something mischievous in your head.

You can blow kisses, you can feed yourself with a fork (you hand it back and forth between your Daddy and me so we can take turns doing the honor of spearing your food for you and handing it back to you) and you’re about five minutes away from being able to walk. If you aren’t paying attention, you can stand up on your own for several seconds, but if you realize you’re doing it you immediately sit down, like one of those Loony Toons who are able to walk right off a cliff into the air until they realize they aren’t standing on anything and they plummet to the bottom. And of course you’re still pushing that push-mobile all over the house. It’s actually become obnoxious though, because you get annoyed whenever you get stuck and you start whining for us to help turn you around. It’s sort of funny, because I’ll watch you walk to the opposite end of the room and when you’re about a foot away from the wall you start whining and looking back at me, just anticipating the frustration you’re ABOUT to feel when you can no longer push the darn thing.

You know how to point to the things you want and grunt. Your Daddy and me have been trying to teach you to sign “please” simply to stop the whining and grunting. You also went from not wanting to nurse to wanting to nurse ALL THE LIVELONG DAY. I guess it’s because of those four teeth that have been burrowing through the bone for the past month. And you bypass the sign for “milk” and the sign for “please” which I’ve been teaching you since you were, oh, four days old or so. Those are wimpy and subtle. Why should you bother with sign language when you could just RIP MY SHIRT OFF INSTEAD. (By the way, I really don’t appreciate this. I’m starting to wonder if I should ever go out in public with you again.)

My favorite you-thing is still the dancing. Whenever you hear music, even if it’s just me singing, you move your little body in time to the music. You’ve got great rhythm, Noah. You really do bob your head right along to the beat of whatever we’re listening to. So your Daddy and I bought you a drum set for your birthday, which you can play like a fiend. You remind me of Animal from the Muppets. You love the crash of the symbol the best, and you send the cat and the dog running for cover every time you pull out those drum sticks. It’s awesome. Keep it up.

Oh man, a whole year. I just can’t believe it. Last night, as I rocked you to sleep, I sang you this song, and it made me remember when I first sang it to you as a newborn baby. It happened one night almost a year ago, when I was absent-mindedly singing “Rockabye Baby” to you and I was suddenly all, wow, this song is, like, morbid and weird. So I changed the words to reflect my heart more than the original version, which includes something about a baby falling from a tree. Yikes. And here we are, a whole year later, and I am still singing it to you at bedtime. I love you, sweet baby boy. Happy birthday, Love Bug.

Rockabye Noah, here in my arms
I’ll keep you safe, protect you from harm.
When you feel scared I’ll always be here
So Noah my darling, don’t ever fear.

Love,
Mommy

December is here at long last, and in the spare moments between Noah’s nap (add an “s” to that if the stars align perfectly and Jupiter is in the seventh house), I’ve been getting ready for the holidays. Last weekend, Lance and I were brainstorming ways to have a Christmas tree in our front window without it ending up upside down in a pile of electrical cords, glass ornaments, and prickly pine needles on top of Noah’s head, and we were all, Baby gates! No. Caution tape! …No. We finally conceded that the only way to make it work was to buy a four-foot tree and put it on top of a table. We couldn’t find one short enough and had to get the tree guy to cut like a foot off the bottom of the tree, and he nearly passed out over the chopping station when we asked him to do that. After about five minutes of trying to convince him that we really REALLY wanted him to cut off that much, I was sorely tempted to scream out OH MY GOD WHAT ARE YOU DOING! when he was halfway through the tree trunk, but I was worried he’d saw his arm off out of panic, so I refrained. You never know what might set those Christmas tree guys off.

When we got it home, I only put four strands of lights on it. Oh, you think that’s a lot for a three-and-a-half foot tree, do you? Well, tell that to my other seven strands of lights that are still sitting in their storage bin, wondering why I’m waiting so long to finish putting them on the tree this year. SO THERE, Mr. Lance “ANOTHER-strand!?-That-thing’s-going-to-burst-into-flames” Roggendorff.

So now we have a sweet dwarf tree that sits on top of a table in our living room, and from the street it looks like… a tree sitting on top of a table, but without a top because that part is hidden above the window. So it actually looks like a bush sitting on top of a table with a “Holy-shit-let’s-keep-this-thing-well-watered” amount of lights.

Also, last weekend Lance put up our outside lights. They’re lookin’ hot, y’all, and kind of like we might be doubling as a mexican restaurant in here. Our house is the most brightly lit one in the neighborhood. At least I think so. I can’t actually see anything from our porch at night without sunglasses on. Just kidding, but seriously, we may or may not have blown two fuses in the three days the lights have been up, and we may or may not cringe and cover our privates every time we plug them in, and that’s all I’m going to say about it.

Alas, I have no picture for you, Reader, but I promise to get some before this season is over. It’s important that I do this because I’m about 99% sure Lance is going to throttle me if I ever ask him to hang Christmas lights again. Ok, I’m a bit anal, and Lance is a bit testy when he’s teetering precariously on the top rung of a ladder, one side of which is sinking quickly into the mud and the other of which is balanced on a brick he found somewhere in the back yard. Especially when I’m down on solid ground yelling up at him things like, “More to the left! The LEFT! Wait, what are you doing now? No, no, that needs to be over the edge. Well that just looks straight up messy.” And he’s like, “Here? Like this?” And he’s rubbing his temples and clenching his fists together and letting out a steady stream of curses.

And I’m all, “When you’re done with that strand, let me know and I’ll hand you the next one. Uh… you’re not planning on leaving those like THAT are you?”

And Lance is like “ZOINK!”