I have a Christmas dilemma. My father-in-law and mother-in-law are divorced. My father-in-law is an asshole of the self-pitying, self-help, it’s-all-about-me variety. I’ve only met him once, and he spent most of that evening in total silence because he “felt too bad about himself.” He’s never met his grandchildren or made any moves in the direction of having anything to do with them; he doesn’t even congratulate us when we have a new baby. Every year, because I like to manage gifts and Paul does not, I send my father-in-law a Christmas package. He doesn’t send out cards or gifts because he’s “not emotionally up to it.” Nor does he say anything about the card and gifts we send, presumably for the same reason.

This year–just like every other year after the first one–I’ve been considering not sending any more Christmas packages. Why should we spend time and money on someone we dislike so much, someone who doesn’t even seem to be glad we did it? I even made the decision not to send one this year. But then one of my friends pointed out that the kind gesture of sending a Christmas package to a difficult family member is not invalidated by his crappy response to it, and not only did I agree with her, I felt a lot better about the decision to send one.

But I do keep thinking about it, and also, I’m not sure what to send. I don’t know him, and neither does Paul. If we send anything that isn’t mind-readingly perfect, he uses it as an opportunity to descend into a deep depression about how no one really knows him. I was thinking of sending a puzzle book and a bunch of soup (Amazon.com has a grocery section, he’s a guy living alone, soup seemed like a comfort food and it ships for free), shipped directly to him, unwrapped. Or, I could get the things shipped to me, then wrap them and repack them along with some homemade stuff–cookies, fudge, whatever. That’s a new level of effort, though: more time, more errands, more money, more tasks.

I don’t even know what I’m asking here. Thoughts, I guess. What you’d do. Gift ideas for assholes you barely know but are accidentally related to.

Elizabeth is on my lap. This is the third day in a row she’s declined a nap. The first day I let her skip it. The second day I made her stay in her crib the whole time. Today I did a mix of both. Consistency, that’s my middle name. It should be driving me mad that she’s not sleeping, since this is usually my big break: Robert in school, William in kindergarten, Elizabeth and Edward sleeping. Instead it’s made me feel more affectionate toward her. I think–and this is pitiful–it’s because this time together is such an exponential increase in our usual one-on-one time. The trouble with having a larger family is that there is very little one-on-one time.

I had an OB appointment yesterday. It was the first time I’d seen the OB who handled most of my last pregnancy. He was surprised and amused and pleased to see me again. There were jokes about knowing how this works, have to stop meeting like this, etc.

Can we talk about the name Penelope? Is that a crazy name, or within the realm of possibility for a new baby? I think it’s pretty, but maybe too unusual?

The past few nights, Elizabeth has been a basketcase/angel. A basketcase in her crib, and angel if we get her up. What started it off was that she had croup Friday night, and so we kept her up for awhile after steaming/chilling her, just to make sure it had worked and that she could breathe. She had so much fun, she wants to start a nightly tradition.

Last night after she’d been screaming on and off for two hours, including making herself throw up a little and needing a bath, I took her out to the living room. I turned off all the lights except the Christmas tree lights, and I rocked her in the recliner. I could smell the baby shampoo we’d just used on her hair. I could see the beautiful Christmas ornaments and lights. Elizabeth was snuggled in, and she hasn’t done much snuggling in her life: she’s more of a queenly posture type. So I was drinking it in: wishing she wasn’t up, wishing we weren’t having a Sleep Struggle that was apparently going to need a Solution, but also enjoying the unusual experience of a cuddly toddler falling asleep on me.

But I was also wondering if this was going to take much longer, because it was 9:00 when I got her up, and at 9:30 I need to shower and get ready for bed, so the last 30 minutes of my free time were ticking away and I was still “at work.”

Obviously what I should learn from this experience is to be more “in the moment,” and to soak up these beautiful times whenever they happen: the lights, the shampoo, the snuggle. Instead what I learned (for about the millionth time) is that there is no way to do this parenting thing perfectly. It either isn’t possible to soak up all these beautiful times, or else it is but I’m failing. And if I wasn’t failing at this, I’d be failing at some other aspect–along with the other aspects I’m already failing at, because we all fail at some stuff.

I’ve never had a job where I worried so much about not being perfect at it. It seems to come with the territory: every mother I know worries that she should be doing this differently, or that differently, or this more, or that not at all. Probably the worrying is a good sign: it means we care about doing a good job, and it means we want to do what’s best for our children. That’s like saying it’s “good for your character,” though: big deal, I’d rather be perfect.

You’re dying, right? EAR HATS. Nothing is better than an ear hat, except TWO ear hats. I took the twins out shopping like this, and strangers were clutching their hearts and falling backward against store shelves.

Each week I read Kaz Cooke’s week-by-week pregnancy guide, A Bun in the Oven. This week she wrote that it’s common to be weepy and emotional. I thought, “That’s funny, I was weepy and emotional with previous pregnancies, but not with this one.” Then I was in the living room while the kids were watching Arthur, and it was an episode with Mr. Rogers on it, and I’d never seen that one. I was feeling all warm and sentimental about Mr. Rogers, especially when there was that little section of “live” TV between animated segments of Arthur and Mr. Rogers himself was on, explaining to children how cartoons are made and how the voices are done. And suddenly I remembered that Mr. Rogers had died, and I burst into tears. And I’m doing it again as I’m writing! So apparently things are par for the course.

And the other day, Paul was telling me the plot of some absurdly sentimental Christmas carol in which a cat and a mouse keep each other warm on a cold Christmas night and the cat dies, and when he got to that part I was nearly screaming with laughter about the silly maudlin song, but I also started weeping and almost couldn’t stop, and then later in the shower I thought of the cat dying and started crying again. It’s not even a real cat! As Paul said, in an affectionate but gently mocking voice when he saw that I had started crying, “I’m pretty sure it’s not based on a true story.”

This morning when the twins woke up I went into their room as usual, saying, “Good morning, babies!” Then the wall of scent hit me. It was clear immediately that someone had thrown up. Outward Me: “Oh, honey! Did you frow up? Oh, sweetie! Are you all right? Don’t worry, we’ll get this all cleaned up!” Inward Me: “Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Oh, shit shit shit.”

There are few things as difficult and gross as a toddler with a stomach virus. An older child can be set up on a towel-covered couch with a bucket and the television. A baby can be strapped into a towel-covered bouncy seat. A toddler, all is lost and you might as well burn the house down afterwards.

They won’t stay put. They can’t use a bucket. They can’t tell you that they’re about to throw up. When they do throw up, they play with it. They hate to have their hair washed, and holy crap does it ever need it now.

My only lingering hope is that this was a one-time thing, something that disagreed with her that she has now thrown up. I am hoping beyond reason that this is now over. But I am suspecting that it is not over, and that not only will she continue to throw up, her twin brother will soon start throwing up as well. This is the sort of situation for which the expression “The only way out of it is through it” was coined. Or if it wasn’t, it should have been.

This new version of Blogger is making me crabby. Blogger kept nagging me every time I logged in to switch to their new improved thing, and so I finally did, and now I keep running into trouble. People can’t comment on my blog anymore as their logged-in selves if they still have the old version for their own blogs; they have to select “other” and type in their information that way if they don’t want to be anonymous. I can’t comment on old-version blogs as my logged-in self, either, but have to do the same work-around process. This is annoying, and should have been fixed before they went to the new version. I don’t know if I wish I’d never switched, or if I wish everyone else would switch. Either version is fine with me (I’ve noticed no improvements in the new version) as long as we’re all doing the same one. The commenting problem is silly.

As I understand it, this is part of the merge with Google. I happened to already have a Gmail account, but I wonder what happens if you don’t? Since you have to log in to the new Blogger with your Gmail information, do they let you sign up for a Gmail account if you don’t already have one? Usually Gmail accounts are invitation only. Well, if any of you need a Gmail invitation, I have some spares. Let me know if you need one.

I was changing a twin’s diaper and treating a diaper rash and readying that rashy baby for bed, and as usual my mind was drifting to more interesting matters such as myself.

At first I was thinking that I am a demanding person who requires excessive stimulation to stay interested in life, but then I started thinking that actually I’m not. The original train of thought was because I realized I was all excited that Edward had a new pair of pants to wear for the first time tomorrow, and it occurred to me that I like for one twin or the other to have some new piece of clothing about once a week, and that that’s a lot. It isn’t that I gratify that desire, it’s just that that’s what I’d like best. Actually, if we’re using the term “like best,” what I’d probably like BEST is to have an entire new outfit for each twin every few days. But for pure maintenance of fun levels, one single item per week is plenty: it’s fun to do the laundry with that new item to process, and it’s fun to dress the baby using that item in different combinations with existing items.

Then I thought that I’m the same way with other things: I like to have a new hair product of some sort every couple of weeks, for example. A new conditioner, a new leave-in thing, something like that. If I have a new conditioner in the shower, I feel kind of happy and excited to face something I usually consider a time-stealing chore. New conditioner makes shower more fun; new baby pants makes baby care more fun. New things give me something to look forward to. Therefore, I’m someone who needs a lot of stimulation and change and variety in order to look forward to life.

But then I reconsidered. A pair of $5.58 pants (30% off at Target) makes me excited to do laundry, and then improves my moral when I’m dressing twins at 6:15 a.m.–and continues to do so the next five times the pants go through the laundry and back in the drawer? A $.68 bottle of Suave (after $1 coupon routinely given out by Target) “blonde highlight enhancing” conditioner makes me feel cheery in the shower for two weeks? That’s not a lot of excitement to ask for out of life. Some people have to pay $200 for lift tickets and ski rental. Or have to have affairs. Or have to go to parties and bars. Or have to meet new people all the time. Or have to go to new places all the time. I like to stay home in my own house, and I like to shop at familiar stores, and I like to stay with my current husband (though I’m not promising I’d say no right away to Seth Green, should he appear at my door begging for my company), and I like to read library books, and periodically I like to have an inexpensive new thing to restore my interest in household tasks. I think that counts as low-maintenance.

You read the icon right: I finished my 50,000-word NaNoWriMo novel. It is so, so bad. The writing is embarrassing. The plot is lame. The characters bear no resemblance to real living people, but instead walk around like paper dolls. The dialogue is not anything like the way people talk. But it is DONE. I FINISHED it. I was queasy, but I did it anyway, and lo a month has gone by like a snap.

Hi, visitors from Diary of a Playgroup Dropout!

See the entry below for a Chocolate-Crusted Pumpkin Cheesecake recipe that will BLOW YOUR LITTLE MINDS! It’s too late to make it for Thanksgiving dinner, but you can make it quickly today, eat a huge section, and them claim it’s leftover from Thanksgiving, and too bad you’ll have to finish it off. If I finish off my own leftover pan too soon, I plan to make another pan and say that one is the leftovers.

Thanksgiving was great. I ate my own weight in turkey and mashed potatoes, and then also had cherry pie, vanilla ice cream, and cheesecake. If I were a bear, I could now safely hibernate for the entire winter on my stored food supply.