Both my kids are home for Christmas. Sparky is home from school; and Nell doesn’t have dance for 2 weeks, which feels like she’s home from living apart from us.
Most mothers are ecstatic at times like this, and I am, too. I never thought I’d be the kind of mom who baked extra treats and made them special meals, because I sure wasn’t that kind of mother when they were around all the time. But here I am, rolling cookies in sugar and slicing sandwiches in half. I disgust myself.
But I can’t help it! Dammit all, I like them. They’re good company- funny and smart and opinionated- and like my own friends, for whom I stock wine and brand-name crackers, I want to trick them into coming back more often.
I am Hansel and Gretel’s witch, and now I totally get her! Feed them so you can eat them up! It all makes perfect sense.
Image from the National Library of Scotland.
http://www.nls.uk/exhibitions/treasures/grimms-fairy-tales/hansel-and-gretel
(Here are my victims, just to fill out the story:
Sparky, my son, whom you met in the Washington Generals post, is 20, and I had him when I was married to my first husband. He has survived every terrible parenting mistake I had in me, and speaks to me anyway. I will not say that he comes home from college only for the good meals and bags of groceries, but neither will I stop having those at the ready. He is easily the bravest person I have ever met.
Nell is 14, and a dancer, and her father. If you met my husband and thought he was dry and hilarious, but wondered if he was available in “Girl”, she is that model. She got the astounding physique, the discipline, the calm, the sense of self rooted deep where no one can buffet it, and the death stare. I never worry about her, which is a weird thing to say about a teenage girl.)