Gingerb

Today is gingerbread house decorating day! Hurrah hooray! Decorating the gingerbread house has always been my favorite holiday tradition, I think because it's a creative endeavor that involves sugar. Also, it's consistently been the one moment of the year when I get to hear your grandmother, my mother, swear like a sailor, and this shattering of the linguistic covenant of parenthood has always been its own special reward. Even now.

Preparation for the decorating party begins, for your grandmother, days in advance, when she takes out the worn manila envelope that has the piece patterns inside of it. On the outside of the envelope, a child tried to write the word "Gingerbread" but miscalculated the size of her letters so it says "Gingerb" instead, the "b" trailing down the side of the envelope and ending in a blob of ink. After the pieces are baked, they sit out on cookie sheets for three days to harden. Because there is a limited amount of counter space in the kitchen, Grandma Ricki usually puts the cookie sheets on top of the dresser in the patchwork bedroom upstairs. After the house is decorated, it will sit on a special silver platter in front of the windows in the sun room.

We are not allowed to start breaking candy bits off the house until after Christmas. Then there is a week during which the house changes from a Hansel and Gretel vacation cottage to an abandoned shack in the frosting ghetto. One year, candy pieces started disappearing two days before Christmas. Ricki was furious. "This isn't funny," she would remind all of us, repeatedly. Then later, more desperately, "I would just like it to look nice for Christmas day, you guys. Please stop. Please." We all denied the crime but Ricki continued to shake her head in exasperation every time she looked at the house, finally resorting to angling it so that the side that had sustained the most damage faced the neighbors. Then, early Christmas morning, Ricki caught Sunshine, the dog, with her paws on the side of the silver tray, delicately removing a single green gumdrop from the roof. And so we were forgiven.

Yesterday, you had a play date with Leo and Anna and Owen. Leo and Anna are older than you are by a few months. They kicked and flailed and chortled, gummed rattles and heaved globs of white spit up onto their bibs. You, on the other hand, tend to go quiet and extremely watchful when there are other babies around. I laid you on your back on the jungle animal blanket (made for you by Carolyn) and you folded your hands on your chest and turned your head to the side and watched.

We made, as a Christmas gift, a calendar filled with pictures of your first three months. In only three photos (out of two dozen at least) are you smiling. This is partly because you become stoic as soon as I take the camera out. You refuse to participate in posed joy. But it is also because you are often intense. Last night, you refused to nurse for many minutes because you were so fixated on the upper corner of the bedroom. No light there, no bright object. I think you are seeing spirits, ghosts, a presence beyond my recognition. I think at those moments of Bethany, of John Steven Paul and Grandma Dythe and baby Payton, and I wonder if they are hovering near.