One of my favourite poems is by Richard Hugo and contains the line: “May your favourite tree be blooming in December.” It’s a rather melancholy poem in its entirety, but isn’t that a wonderful line?

In the spirit of December-blooming trees, I leave you for the season with these Christmas wishes:

May your inlaws be sweet and reasonable.
May your spouse be grateful.
May your turkey be moist.
May your mornings include quiet moments.
May your presents include books.
May your house smell of pine and cinnamon.
May your children be like sugar plums.
May each day be full of blessings.

See you in the New Year!

My husband has been taking a course all week in the assessment of ADLs. That’s OT-speak for Activities of Daily Living. Basically, he’s assessing whether or not people can manage their lives independently.

There are physical components to this. (Do you have the shoulder range to comb your own hair? The back strength to wash your own tub?) But there are also plenty of psychological components. To live on your own, you must be somewhat logical and organized.

For example, if you dump all of your stuff on top of the desk when you come home, and then your phone rings but you miss the call because the phone is under the pile of dumped stuff, you lose a point on Min’s assessment scale.

If you begin a load of laundry, but get completely distracted partway through and don’t return to the laundry for several hours, you lose a point.

If you go downstairs to get a pen, then forget what you’re looking for once you’re down there, you lose a point.

Can you see where this is going?

Obviously, I am not independently capable of my ADLs.

There’s a new librarian filling in at the kids’ school until Christmas.

“Does he know you yet?” I asked my daughter.

“Well, he doesn’t know my name,” she said. “But today he said, ‘Hey, Girl Who Loves Books, come help this guy with his bibliography.'”

“So he knows you.”

“Yeah.”

We took the kids to see Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day yesterday. They liked it, but I loved it. I thought it was hilarious. Even before the family got to the day in question, I was already scheduling their activities in my head.

So they have a driver’s test, a prom, a school play, a birthday party, a book launch, and a job interview… all tomorrow?

I found it so funny because that sort of scheduling actually happens. Sometimes our family calendar has to be expanded to fit the entire, giant Mac screen, just because there are so many items on each day. Colour coded, of course. Stop at the bank (Min), car shopping with a friend (Min), buy groceries (me), phone meeting (me), buy new leggings before evening event (me), make dinner before noon because there’s no time after (me), cross-country practice (both kids, drop off by me, pick up by Min), followed by soccer practice (Min and one kid), with dinner in between (everyone), then evening work event (me). Yikes!

Sometimes, it’s best to look only one hour ahead on the calendar. And often, it’s best not to look at the calendar at all until at least an hour of writing is done.

Most days don’t fall apart. Most of them run just fine, without nearly the vehicle damage experienced in the movie.

But watching that fictional family cope yesterday made me think… maybe when cities are creating emergency response teams, they shouldn’t bother with the firefighters and paramedics. Maybe they should go right for the parents.