Christmas ADHD

It was a rough Christmas. To be honest, the entire holiday season has been a whirlwind of furious activity. When September arrived, I finally started feeling better. After one week shy of a year from the time my heart went haywire, I was finally starting to feel like my old self.

My old self took a look around and discovered my home was a mess. I spent several weeks scrubbing, cleaning, spackling, painting and barking orders at the rest of the household. New furniture was ordered and the place reorganized just in time to feed the multitudes for Thanksgiving. It took a week to prepare the food that would be devoured in less than two hours.

The next day I rested. Then it was time to prepare for Christmas. The days flew; the husband injured his shoulder at work. He needed care. He needed meds. He needed a doctor but convincing him of such is like trying to pull teeth on a tyrannosaur. We argued. I threw up my arms in surrender and tried to carry on.

The project this year was bath stuff—you know, soaps, oils, gels, salts, powders—all the stuff needed to enjoy a decadent bath, complete with chocolate truffles. What’s a luxurious bath without amazing chocolates? All of it had to be formulated, made by a caring hand for the women in the family. I turned my dining room into a laboratory.

Men don’t really care about luxuriating in a hot bath with fragrant salts and oils. For them it would be baked goods. The kitchen was turned into a bakery. I had to spend hours creating goodies and slapping the husband’s good hand every time he tried to sneak a treat.

Treats are a favorite of most men. They wander through life looking for some tasty confection to shove into their mouths. Grandma always said, “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.” I think some women should aim their culinary weapon more carefully. Some of them tend to cook for the wrong men and end up with broken hearts and fatherless children.

Oh, yeah—the child. In the midst of flurry and mayhem, the princess fell ill. She came back from the annual cookie baking at Grandma’s with a stuffed head and a slight fever. On Monday, I left work early to take her to the doctor. The poor kid had a sinus infection—or so they thought.

Missing time at work, behind on the gift projects and still trying to find time to do the shopping, Christmas was just a week away. The work week ended, the child was not improving. I was in the final push when she began crying in the night. Fortunately, I was still up furiously working away at getting things finished. At this point, I was no longer looking at the calendar, but at the clock.

The husband was pressed into taking her to urgent care. They sat there for three hours while the smoke hissed from my furious hands. The oven fired non-stop, with the aromas of various cookies mixing with the scents of lilacs, lavender, jasmine, oranges and cloves.

The salts spilled all over the floor.

I love my floor, durable hardwood that shines as highly polished wood should. I believe I wrote about the odyssey of having it installed. Home repairs always come with their own special problems. No matter how well you plan, how organized you are, something always goes wrong.

I have yet to paint the kitchen and dining room. Kitchens need fresh paint regularly, at least in homes where kitchens are used. I cook. I cook a lot. My walls are a mess. I really must get them done. Maybe I should paint them green. Green is a nice color for kitchens.

Where was I? The phone rang and the husband informed me the princess had strep. She was indeed very ill. That’s just fabulous. As I contemplated this new development, I set my bare foot in the spilled bath salts. Oh, yeah. Clean up the salts.

The timer went off and I couldn’t remember why I’d set it. Was there something in the oven? Butter cookies.

My husband loves butter cookies. He’d eat his weight in them every day, if I could bake that much. I would have to hide them if I wanted any left for Christmas presents. I had yet to wrap things and the daughter would be home soon.

So, I wrapped. Still working furiously, I had paper and ribbons strung across the living room floor. When she got home, she found a pile of packages covered in pretty paper. I told her she could decorate them with all the ribbons and trinkets from the wrapping box and turned her loose.

The husband returned to town to fetch meds and toilet paper. Antibiotics have an adverse effect on the digestive tract. I also asked him to get yogurt. It’s essential while taking antibiotics.

The day ended, the child tucked in and the next day was a mess. Not a surface in the main part of the house was clear. There were still cookies to bake, soaps to make, gifts to finish and a kid who was up in the night with an ear ache.

Ear pain is the worst. The poor kid has dealt with this since she was three months old. There is nothing more crazed in the world than a mother with a sick kid. When she’s in pain, I’d kill to have her healthy again.

Another dose of meds and a glance at the abandoned vacuum cleaner and I tried to remember what I was doing. The husband complained of throat pain. I demanded he see a doctor immediately. He told me to . . . Never mind.

Focus. Christmas gifts. Cookies? Tinsel is shiny.

The day sped by. It was a day when I cursed the Mayans. If the end of their calendar had meant the end of the world at midnight on the 21st, I wouldn’t be struggling to finish crap up. The Mayans were an interesting people. So much technology, so much violence. I wonder what they would think of our modern Christmas rituals.

The cookies are burning. I don’t even remember putting then in the oven.

There was a loud crash at the back of the house. I didn’t bother to find out what it was. It didn’t matter. I still had to clean up bath salts.

Cookie sheets loaded with balls of raw dough were shoved in the oven. Melted soap had to be poured into molds.

The kid was screaming again. The pain was unbearable. Her regular doctor could get her in right away. Get dressed. Now!

The strep was drug resistant. They put her on something stronger and recommended complete bed rest. Well, duh. It was Christmas Eve and Christmas with the family was just canceled. While driving to the pharmacy, I made all the calls needed to inform family, blew up at my sister who didn’t want to help get the gifts to my mother’s—after all the hard work—and got the kid home. The concern now was her infected eardrum rupturing. It did, later that night. It’s the first time it’s ever happened.

Christmas Eve. I’m in a panic. There are things to finish. My brother-in-law generously offered to pick up the gifts for my mother’s party. I suspect it was because I blew up at my sister, then called my mother to tell her I would bring the things myself , then my mother probably called my sister to tell her to cooperate and now the entire family is angry at me. I don’t care at this point. I’m still walking in spilled bath salts. I grabbed a broom.

The broom lay forgotten on the floor while I boxed, bagged, wrapped and tagged. It was all done when the man arrived. He didn’t look very happy. I’m sorry for that. Truly I am, but I shoved the thought to the side while tending the child’s pain. I put a pot of soup on, tripped over the broom and skinned a toe on the bath salts.

The husband announced he was hungry. The kid wanted to unwrap gifts. The sausage we were supposed to share with the in-laws for Christmas Eve dinner needed to be cooked. Forgetting completely about the soup, I started a loaf of bread to go with the spaghetti I was now planning.

The lights on the tree are pretty. It would be nice if I could enjoy it. I sat down to gaze at it. The kid announced she was hungry. I had to feed her because she was losing weight from lack of appetite. I just put a tray in her lap when the husband returned with some of her favorite soup from her favorite restaurant. Excellent timing.

I was done. Finally. After stubbing my toe on the broom in a pile of bath salts, I cursed and began packing all my supplies. The husband complained about the mess on the floor, but didn’t bother to help clean it up. Instead, he made a bee line for the piles of cookies I’d failed to hide.

The sun was shining on the melting ice outside the window. Shiny. The cat ran through the room and skidded on the salts. I finally remembered to clean them up, finished packing the supplies, put the centerpiece in place and headed for the living room.

“Can we unwrap presents yet?”

The child was finished with her lunch, patiently holding the tray with its uneaten remnants of food. Dropping a handful of tissue paper, I took the tray and tried to find a clear surface in the kitchen to set it on. It was a mess. The cat found something to bat across the floor and right underfoot. The dog chased after the cat. I tripped and knocked over a jar of bath salts.

To occupy the kid, I let her open a gift. It was a sketch kit, complete with everything a sickly child needed to occupy her hands. She was overjoyed.

I stepped in bath salts while carrying empty tea things to the kitchen and went in search of the broom. I found something that needed to be wrapped and went back to the piles of crap in the living room. Ribbons and bows and tape and paper—all over the floor. Decorating gifts is a creative talent of mine. I enjoy it. I don’t use those cheap ribbons available only at holiday time. I go to fabric stores and buy the good stuff. I use lace and ornaments and candy canes.

The husband growled about gritty salt under his feet.

I abandoned the living room mess and went in search of the broom. The kid wanted water.

The sausage was burning.

The dog was chasing the cat.

The stockings were hung with great care.

The last batch of cookies were disappearing down my husband’s gullet.

I forgot what I was going to write about. Christmas rituals? Insanity. Ooo, that golden ornament is shiny. Nice.

The Fichus, the Frog, the Cat and the Dog.

Remember Fred? He’s the pretty little tree frog who visits the outside of my living room window late every evening. I love to watch him slurp up bugs in the illumination of the table lamp. He’s funny, cute and productive.

Remember the fichus tree? Yes, the very tree I nearly destroyed during my misadventures at washing windows. It still sits by the glass doors at the back of the house, soaking up sunshine and all the water we can throw at it. The poor thing is riddled with scars from the cat’s attempts at climbing.

Ah, the cat—that woe-be-gone feline, long suffering and plotting his revenge on the entire household. Fuzzball hasn’t been the same since we introduced the dog to our little family. He wants her dead and that’s no lie. One of these days, I fear the little pup will be found strung up by her ears with a snickering kitty lying in her bed.

Which brings us to Lucy. Lucy is a cute little Bichon who thinks she’s Rambo, the Terminator and Angelina Jolie all wrapped up in one cuddly package of white fluff. Her word is law and when she barks, the cat runs.

Now, the pets are evenly matched in size, if not temperament. Where Lucy is playful, Fuzzy’s hateful. Where Lucy is protective, Fuzzball is scheming. Where Lucy is a walking Hoover, Fuzzy is starving—mostly because the dog harasses all his food away from him. At any given moment there’s a new battle with the cat spitting and the dog barking and fur flying. I keep telling the pup the cat is going to get her one of these days. One fun thing about dogs is they just don’t care. When they’re right, they’re right and the world can be damned.

Okay, enough setup.

Back to Fred. I didn’t realize how many relatives a tree frog could have. When I watered the fichus today, a frog jumped out. In my house? A tree frog? How cute! Well, when I saw it, I knew I had to remove the little sucker. It doesn’t belong in my home and with the psycho pets, it didn’t stand a chance.

True to form, when I reached for it, the cat had to investigate. You heard that curiosity killed the cat? This time it nearly killed the frog and didn’t do much good for the fichus. Now, don’t get angry with the cat. He’s only doing what cats do. It’s instinct. When food hops by, you attack. That’s the law of nature. Be opportunistic.

Of course I wasn’t about to let the pampered tom make breakfast of Fred’s kin. What kind of person would I be? After all, there’s not much sport in chomping on an amphibian outside its natural habitat. So I reached for it. And it hopped. I reached again and the cat lunged.

A lunging cat is tantamount to an invitation for a bouncing Bichon. The dog lunged for the cat as the cat lunged for the frog. The frog jumped on my leg and I jumped back.

The dog began barking, the cat took off running—straight up the fichus. The fichus was ripped out at the roots—again—and the frog landed on my face.

In the melee of hissing, spitting, barking and a fair amount of screaming from yours truly, I could have sworn I heard someone yell, “Timber!” A plume of potting soil hit the ceiling and the cat landed on the dining table. The dog jumped straight upward in an attempt to bite the cat and I peeled Fred, Jr. off my face. Then the cat spied the frog in my hand.

No, it’s not what you’re thinking. Fuzzball would not dare to attack little slimy green things in my hand. But the frog saw the cat and wiggled free. It landed on top of my head and the cat was lost in the moment. He forgot—for the briefest of time—just whose head it was. He went sailing from the top of the table. I looked up in time to see a fifteen pound ball of Maine Coon fur hurdling toward my face (he used to be twenty pounds, but as I said earlier, he’s being systematically starved by the pup).

At the same time I saw him, Mr. Fuzzball caught sight of my eyes. Ever see a cat put on the brakes in mid-air? Allow me to offer you a visual: The body twists, turns, curls; the head rears back; the legs stretch out and bear down with claws out—just hoping to catch something, anything that will help it stop.

I ducked. He hit my shoulder and slammed into the floor. The dog charged, barking and snarling while the cat hissed and headed for higher ground. The frog was hopelessly tangled in my hair—and I was doing a decent amount of hissing and snarling of my own.

Finally, I had the frog in my hand. He peed all over it, made a strange croaking sound and burrowed into my fist. Lucy stood not three feet away, wagging her tail innocently as she looked up at me from the scattered potting soil on the floor. The tree lay upon a chair, its sad branches reaching as if trying to right itself. The cat growled from some unknown hiding place a few feet away.

Enter the daughter. She wanted to know what was going on. Being the farm-girl that I am, I decided to show her the frog and tell her how it manages to stick to things. “See the sticky pads on its feet?” I said. And it escaped my clutches, landing on the screen door.

The chase was on again. The cat appeared from nowhere, climbing up the new screen door with his over-sized claws. The dog grabbed a mouthful of cat tail and the frog moved higher. The tree shifted and landed on the floor, spraying the door with what was left of the potting soil. The princess ran for cover.

I slapped the dog down, clutched at cat fur with one hand and the frog with the other. Tossing the cat backward, I threw the door open and evicted Fred, Jr. before turning on my own errant animals. They both shuddered and disappeared when I screeched those fatal words, “You’re all dead!”

I managed to find the pup and toss her out the front door. With broom and dustpan in hand, I went to work on the dining room—and the tree. The stately fichus is lucky it’s not kindling. After scooping up twenty pounds of potting soil and repotting it, I pruned away the broken branches and wiped my brow.

Another tree frog jumped out. What the hell? Where are these things coming from? Of course the answer is in the over-abundance of rain we’ve had this year. This time, I scooped up the frog with both hands while simultaneously sliding the door open with my foot. I wasn’t worried about being delicate. I gave the little creature a pitch and slammed the door.

That was about two hours ago. Is it too early to break into the vanilla extract that I made last month? Or I could take a hit off the bourbon, or the scotch—maybe vodka? I know! Absinthe! That’s what I need.

I think I’ll have a talk with Fred tonight about his wayward kiddies. The next time I see one in the house, I’m going to put mini frog’s legs on the menu for supper.