I am a member of a national commission regional group that meets telephonically, but every couple of years we meet in person in Chicago.  This March is one of those years.  Also?  I have a Chicago nephew that is due at the beginning of the year and will get to cuddle my new nephew.  Also?  Ben Kweller is playing in Chicago THE WEEKEND AFTER MY CONFERENCE.  So duh.  Long weekend in Chicago.

They usually put me up at the Palmer House (la-di-da).  But if I stay extra days I will be sleeping on my brother in law's couch, probably.  Which is fine.  Ben Kweller.  I loves him.

Chicago is a cool town.  I like how gritty it is and how the women dress well but reasonably in the winter.  They're all like, damn right I am wearing a hat and boots; it's friggin snowing; but yeah, it all matches and I am wearing red matte lipstick.  No reason to look like I'm going skiing if I am riding the El.

It was a good year for gifts for everyone, I think.  The XBox Kinnect was a huge hit, of course, but I got hits on really just about every gift I gave, which was nice.  I put a lot of time and thought into gifts and it was nice to see them appreciated.  Even my smartass gifts, like wrapping the teen's lost driver's license up (I found it in her car under the seat when I was digging for the insurance card).

My husband is a really good gift giver, which does not mean that he gives jewelry or Lexuses.  Although, I guess if I wanted those things he would give them to me.  But what he is good at is noticing things that I am interested in and buying me something related to it.  His first gift to me was a fountain pen like the one that is featured in my favorite John Irving novel.  Other notable gifts have included a Ramones poster and a long gold chain with a squirrel charm.  This year he gave me a collection of New York Times obituaries.  I seriously cried when I opened it.  The best gifts are the ones that you want and didn't know that you want and show that the person gifting you knows you and wants you to be happy.

I'm back at work this week.  The nonprofit world is one of grants and reports and the end of the year requires files to close and reports to be written.  So here I am.  Working. 

My son desperately wanted "Midnight in Paris" and knew that it came out on DVD on December 20th.  When December 20th came he reminded me first thing in the morning.  "Mom, Midnight in Paris is out.  Don't forget to order it so that I have it in time for Christmas."  And when the Amazon box arrived 2 days ago he knew it was his DVD and wanted to open it.  "I know what it is," he said.

Sigh.

Their gifts are wrapped and beneath the tree.  There is no Santa game at my house, but I did wait to put their presents out until they went to bed last night (actually during my 3am bathroom break) because otherwise they would snoop through them and guess what they had gotten.

Sigh.

It's 8:30 on Christmas morning and my son and I are the only ones up.  The cinnamon rolls are cooling on the counter and the oven is preheating for the turkey.  I will get out of my pajamas and put on actual clothes only because I am taking my kids over to their dad's.

If they are not up by the time I am done reading the paper I am going to have to wake the kids up to open their presents so we have time to do that before my kids have to leave.  Waking kids up on Christmas Morning?  These kids are way too cool for me.

I am feeling on high alert these days - this year - trying to figure out the next thing that will go wrong - I am experiencing anxiety and panic attacks - the feeling that you don't know what is going to happen next.

The kids are in finals now, and that's not enough, my daughter has to have an appendectomy.  And that's not enough.  I am in the basement and hear dripping water while my son is showering, open the crawl space and see water.  My other daughter cut her hand with an exacto knife during her art final and needed stitches.

I called into my office yet again today to say that I would not be in so I could wait for the plumbers.  And then the plumbers were at my house for FOUR HOURS trying to fix the broken shower drain.  I texted my husband to tell him that I thought it would be cheaper to just move.

But the last day of finals is tomorrow.  And my daughter's appendectomy scar is healing well and she did her portfolio presentations (she goes to a science focus school, so it's a little different than regular high school), so she only needs to take an incomplete in her Advanced Alegbra class.  And my office staff is friendly and helpful and sympathetic.  Also, my house is super, super clean since I spent four hours hanging around while the plumbers did their thing.

So I think this all explains why, after my afternoon hearing, I stopped at the nursery and bought a flipping Christmas tree - a huge, huge fir tree which was, of course, on sale.  I drove it home and stuffed it in water just as the teen came through the living room.

"Oh my God, mom, this tree is obnoxious," my teen said as she surveyed the giant tree.

"Well, yeah, it kinda is," I said.

"What are you going to put on it?"

"I dunno.  Lights?  Paper chains?  Cookies?"

"Ok, Laura Ingalls," she said as she breezed out of the room.

My work day ended with a conference call about budget cuts and the dire situation of legal services for poor people, not to mention the dire situation of the staff who help them.  I need to make paper chains.  I have a few hours to myself this evening while the kids have dinner with their dad and Bill picks his kids up for their holiday visit with us.  I am going to have Craft Time and decorate my tree.  When the kids get home I will shuffle them in and out of the shower, which now drains through a pipe and not into my basement, and quiz Spanish verb conjugation and then we will sit in the beauty of the glowing tree.  Or at least that is the plan.  Best laid and all that.

We had a free airline ticket and a free room.  We added my ticket and upgraded the room, which is how we ended up in Vegas for the weekend.  We had a pretty fabulous room on the top floor of the Flamingo, which is one of my favorite places to stay.  We moved through our weekend doing what we wanted, which is easy when you're in Vegas.  You can pretty much do whatever you want whenever you want to.  Sunday we were sitting at a restaurant when Bill wanted to smoke a cigar and I wanted to find a couch and the Broncos game.  I had just ordered a beer (beer in a bourbon barrel - yummy), so I asked, "Can I get a to go cup?" and easy as that, I was on my way.  On top of that is the silliness of Vegas - the people, the ice rink on top of the fake canal, a giant frog in a cowboy hat singing, just on and on.

Naps, good sex, great food, and winning big on the games I bet on Sunday.  (Go, Chiefs!)  I shopped, Bill smoked a ton of cigars and played cards.  We went downtown on our last day and hung out watching football and drinking too much.  We went to Hugo's Cellar for a steak and rode back to the Strip leaning against one another on the bus.  We were giddy with good times.

It's been a rough fall and we were a bit apprehensive about this trip, but I am so very glad that we took some time off together and found pleasure in one another.  Vegas has always been a favorite destination - the same but different - kind of a like a long term relationship.

I play in two fantasy football leagues.  I take them pretty seriously, but I missed the drafts in one league due to an emergency in my immediate family, so my team for that league were randomly selected.  I won the Fully Krausened League last year and my reward was a piece of cheese shaped like the State of Wisconsin.  Classy league, that is.  I am not doing so well this year in that league (5-8), despite my careful selections in the draft and my careful monitoring this season.  There has just been only so much I can do with what I got.  In my family league though I am 12-2 and headed for the prize, which has yet to be determined.  Trash talking with my dad has been an interesting outcome of that league, but also I have been met with hard fast evidence that I am better off with computer assigned players than picking them myself.

I remarked to Bill that I like Tony Romo way more than Eli Manning, but Manning has proved to be a fortuitous QB to have this season.  "Tony has more style points," I explained.

"What style?"

"Well, he's good looking, and he's interesting.  He does dopey stuff and dated Jessica Simpson.  You know how people always always remember Joe Namath laying in a chaise lounge guaranteeing a Super Bowl?  I remember Tony Romo laying in a chaise lounge holding one of Jessica Simpson's stupid little dogs."

"Did that really happen?"

"Of course!  You know, if I had a Fantasy Football League I would totally have three categories of points.  You would get the usual game stat points of course, but then also aethetics points, you know, for looking good, and then style points, you know, for doing something interesting."

"How can you judge aesthetics?"

"It's science.  You can scan someone's face and computers can tell you that they're symmetrical.  And that's what humans are attracted to."

"And how about the style points?"

"I dunno.  Like, non-sport stories, for example.  That could be counted."

"So the highest points would be awarded to good looking, high scoring, drama queens."

"Right, like Michael Vick.  Michael Vick would get tons of points in my league."

"No one would ever want to be in your league," he said.

I blame Craig Morten for all of this.  As a Denver resident in the 70s I could not help but be a fan, but then in the 80s I read a story in the paper about Craig Morten having ligaments taken out of his legs and put in his arm so that he could keep throwing a football.  I could not understand wanting to play football so much that I would have surgery like that.  But I have always thought that he should have gotten some style points for that decision.  Or at least a piece of cheese shaped like Colorado.  Those are easier to find than WI shaped cheeses.

I had a fantastic weekend.  I spent all day Saturday judging at the debate tournament at my daughter's high school.  It was great.  I enjoyed getting to know her coach better (he's really young, but he knows what he is doing and is more fun and less flaky than I originally thought) and met all the kids on the team (they don't compete in their home tournament, they just help run it).  I was delighted at how much the same it is as when I was in high school, right down to the people.  Some of my favorite coaches are still around and remember me.  Some former opponents are there as coaches or, like me, there as supportive parents.  It was fun to see everyone.

Apparently my ballots were a huge hit with the tab room (the people who add up points and wins and losses in between rounds).  I was gleefully thanked and told how "old school" I was by the older tab room coaches.  My former partner Scott was one who came up to talk to me and he actually clapped me on the back and told me that he had read all my ballots and that I was just what LD needed (LD is a type of debate).  "You're going to be around for awhile?" he asked.  "Yeah, my daughter is just a freshman," I said.  "Good," he said with a big, genuine smile.

I was surprised at how invested I was in the whole thing.  I felt the tension of the kids and the elation and the disappointment.  I judged in finals, so I knew who to watch when the award was announced.  The girl's face was a ball of tension and then as she heard her name it all relaxed as her eyes and mouth flew open and she went up to get her first place trophy.  I stopped by to congratulate her after the awards ceremony and she was all smiles and even looked teary.  "Congratulations," I said.  "You had a good day."  "I did!  Thank you!" she gushed as her big, warm eyes looked at mine.  I was all smiles myself.  I was so very happy for her and knew how hard she had worked and how much she deserved her win.  I was exhausted on Saturday night when we came home, it was if I myself had competed.

This morning I read the paper front to back except for the magazine.  It's always a good Sunday when I can get the whole paper read.  And I spent the afternoon performing at an art gallery winter solstice event.  I came home to soup, and took a long walk with my husband and dog.  We had an exceptionally interactive walk.  We talked about the week and our trip next weekend, but my favorite is when we make up stories about other people, like the people who live in the houses that we were walking by.  There was a definite Christmas theme tonight due to the lights and trees and moving reindeer.  One house had luminarias out and we decided that the woman who lived there was now being shunned by the other neighbors and couldn't figure out why (that particular street always does luminarias on Christmas Eve).  Home to our house devoid of all Christmas decorations, but lit, inviting and warm.  It always feels good to come in from the cold.  That's why I like going out in the first place.

One of the hardest things for me to accept as a parent is that my children (I made them!  I grew them!  I nursed them and wiped their poo!) don't want me to touch them anymore, but they touch other people and allow themselves to be touched.  Some is the casual hugging and arms around the waist stuff that teenagers do with their freinds but recoil from with their parents.  The other is of course the more intimate touching and with my oldest as she hit puberty it really freaked me out that boys wanted to touch her.  It just made my head sort of feel like it was going to explode.  And of course, she wants to be touched.  I mean, we all do.  (There was an excellent, excellent, excellent article in the New York Times magazine a few weeks ago about teaching kids to have good sex which I totally agree with.)

I'm pretty upfront with my kids and have friends who are likewise upfront.  I have a friend who has repeatedly told my kids, anything you can't tell your mom?  You can tell me.  Call me anytime.  Depending on how much wine she has had, she'll get even more specific in her talk about trimesters and abortions and parental permission, etc., so she's a little over the top, but I am grateful for her.  I think saying things out loud, so that kids know it's ok to say outloud, is good.

Last year my oldest daughter got serious about a boy that I really liked, for a change.  He hung out and talked with me when he was at my house (made eye contact even!) and treated my daughter well by including her in his family events and friends (can you tell that she dated some real losers before this kid?).  He also, you know, had sex with her.  And it was difficult for me to deal with in an emotional way.  I see and hear all kinds of things about teenagers and sex and have had middle school kids as clients who are moms.  Professionally nothing shocks me, but personally it is difficult, you know?  I started finding the Tabasco out on the counter sometimes when I came home from work, and I knew this kid well enough to know that he put Tabasco on EVERYTHING.  The first time I saw it on the counter when I got home it was like my brain put on the brakes and everything slammed into the front.  But along with all the stuff that freaked me out, I reminded myself that this was an ok kid and that if it's going to happen, I was glad it was with him.  It was teh Tabasco bottle that let me know that they were coming to the house over the lunch hour and eating, but also doing other things, no doubt.  I knew that I had finally accepted the relationship when I would just smile when I saw the Tabasco bottle.  I appreciated it that they were discrete and appreciated it that they weren't as sneaking and smart as they thought (as the adult I have to feel like I at least know what is going on - I hate not knowing).  Also, no pregnancies, which is my biggest concern.  Teen sex is going to happen.  I just want it to be safe and I want it to be with someone that cares about my kid.

Thursday is what my middle kid calls "Quiche Night," which is the day that she and her best friend make quiche for dinner.  They alternate the location (I always like it when it is at my house since it means I don't have to make dinner).  The girls sometimes include other friends in Quiche Night, and yesterday, on the way to debate, I found out that not only was Quiche Night not at my house, but the cute, smart musical boys who have been hovering in my daughter's vicinity all fall, were invited to Quiche Night.  Sigh.  And, "You don't need to pick me up, Mom.  Bob can just give me a ride home."  The band boys travel as a group, which I like, so my daughter wasn't be alone with Bob, but the idea freaks me out a little.  I checked things off in my head: I know these boys, I know their mothers, they have been in my house and are nice to everyone - dog, brother, etc., they are good students and have college plans and careers planned.  "Yeah, ok, he can give you a ride home."  And so here it goes with Teenager #2 and boys with cars.

I really did not think about all of this when I had babies.  Babies are so easy.  When it comes to stress?  Give me poopy screaming kids over teenaged girls in a car with a boy any day.  One of my coworkers recently had a baby.  "I hardly got any sleep last night," she complained.  "Yeah, me either," I said.  And they talk about how kids don't come with a manual, but babies do.  Feeding and safety are about all you need to know for a baby.  But teenagers?  It's way more complicated than just the mechanics of meeting their needs to stay alive.

So it was just me and my son for dinner last night.  We did some shopping and I took him out for ribs (the poor boy lives with vegetarians, so I try to indulge his need for meat when I can).  He is in the window to teenagerhood, he's my baby, and he's my boy, so we have a different relationship than the one I have with the girls.  When he and I got home my middle daughter was sitting on the couch watching tv and making paper dolls from foreign countries for a school assignment.  Quiche Night went well, she reported.  And I noted that not only had Bob brought her home safely, he had brought her home early and she was working on homework.  Points for Bob.  We sat on the couch with her and played with the paperdolls, and for a moment I had my young children again.  We watched Top Gear and my son leaned his shoulder against my shoulder while we sat together.  I barely breathe when that happens anymore.  I just notice it.

My college debate partner had a crush on me.  We spent a lot time together researching and writing arguments and doing practice rounds.  We traveled for tournaments and spent entire weekends with each other.  It took the guy months, but finally he asked me to a movie.  It went something like this.

"So, that John Lennon movie is out and I bet you want to see that.  Maybe we could go after the tournament?"

No explicit date language.  No profession of love.  But, you know, his eyes were all shiny and moist and this normally very confident guy was suddenly very nervous.

"Sure, that sounds good," I said.

Keeping it breezy.  Hoping that I wouldn't have to tell him that I wasn't interested in him in That Way.

So at the tournament a judge took a fancy to me and flirted with me and while hanging around with us (after handing in the ballot, but still, um, yeah) he said, "So what are you doing tonight?"  (He was a graduate student at a nearby university.)

"We're going to a movie," I said.  "Would you like to come along?"

And I could see my dear, sweet debate partner's face holding it together, but there was just the slightest indication from him that his heart was breaking.

So we all went to the movie.  I sat between them.  I went on to date the graduate student for awhile, but my partner and I never talked about him again.  "I need to go," I would say after we were done working, and we never talked about where I was going or who I was seeing, even though we both knew.

This weekend my daughter's high school is sponsoring a debate tournament and my former partner will be there.  He is a teacher and coaches another high school's team.  I already know how this will go.  We will smile and hug and reminisce a bit.  And we will never talk about the night that we almost had a date and I invited someone else to come along.

The 12 year old, who is now taller than both of his older sisters and taller than me, outgrew the winter coat that was supposed to last through this year, too.  So we unexpectedly went coat shopping last night, which of course turned into more as the other kids chimed in with what they needed.

"Where are we going?" he asked as we headed to the car with his teenaged sisters in tow.

"TJ Maxx," I said.

He groaned, "Why?  I hate TJ Maxx."

"Yeah, but your sister needs something from there."

"What?"

"You don't want to know," I said.

"What?" he insisted again.

"Bras.  I need bras," his sister said from the back seat.

"Argh!" he yelled covering his ears.  "Enough!  Stop!"

"What about tampons?  Do we need tampons?" one sister asked the other.

"Fine!  Whatever!  Just stop!" he said.

And I laughed at my man-sized child who still gets freaked out by the mere idea of women's underwear or that we could talk about it so casually.

Last night I also registered him for the ACT.  He qualified to take the test in 7th grade because of his high standardized test scores.  He dutifully put the test date on his planner and asked if he could have a test prep book.  I could not help but notice that my youngest child is in some ways my most grown up child, and that makes me hopeful that I have at least done some of this parenting stuff right.  But then, he's not a teenager yet, and I can't imagine his size at 17.  6 feet tall?  More?  Hopefully the teasing from his sisters will help him be confident and nonchalant about lady things.  And hopefully he'll have some academic success that will make his senior year easier on me than his sister's.