Wilmington Weekend Update: Wilmington Weekend Update #18

You may have noticed our Christmas card this year did not come with an enclosed newsletter. We had planned to include a single-spaced screed documenting all our children’s athletic accomplishments, our own professional triumphs, and a listing of the glamorous vacations we took, but the letter came out to something like ten pages, and we couldn’t afford the extra postage, having blown our raises taking the kids to Saint Barths to celebrate their MVP awards in soccer. So instead we included the URL for this blog.

Where, you might ask, are the promised photos of Julian’s adorable performance in the preschool Christmas concert? For weeks we practiced singing “Frosty the Snowman” and “Rocking Around the Christmas Tree” with Julian until we wanted to string Frosty up from the Christmas Tree. I dashed to preschool early Thursday to make sure we had plenty of time for dinner, baths, and the show. But when I picked him up, all excited about the show Julian stomped his feet and said, “I don’t want to sing in the show!”
“But it will be fun!” I insisted. “Mommy and Daddy are coming to watch, and Abby and Sellers will be there, and everyone will clap!”
“No! I don’t want to sing in the show!”
“Come on, Julian, you know, Frosty the Snowman was a jolly happy soul?”
“No! I’m not going to sing!”
This continued in the car all the way to pick up Abby and Sellers and all the way toward McDonalds, our traditional pre-show meal. Finally I called Margaret.
“He doesn’t want to sing.”
“Fine,” she said. “Screw the show.”
So we did. We went home, didn’t speed through baths to get to the hospital auditorium on time, and had a lovely evening albeit overshadowed by the suspicion that we were the world’s worst parents. But after our second glass of wine we decided someone, somewhere must be worse, if only by a teeny bit. Perhaps we’ll start a trend boycotting these productions. It’s the new old-fashioned way.

The thing about accidents is if you expected them they wouldn’t be accidents. So I woke up Saturday just thinking what a busy day we had ahead of us, with cards to address, presents to wrap, and 30 dormant cherry saplings from the Arbor Day Foundation slowly dying in the garage for lack of dirt. The day started routinely enough with Sellers’s second basketball practice and game. I had an extra-good run that morning, and so when we arrived at the court and found we had no coach, I was feeling athletic enough to line Sellers’s teammates up and do some shooting drills (don’t worry, I didn’t give them any pointers). The coach did arrive just at game time, and the kids loped up and down the court, ultimately making up for the prior week’s drubbing with a 6-6 tie. Sellers touched the ball once, I think, but after I realized the camera battery was at home I got busy talking to the other dads and missed some of the action.

Sellers and I brought doughnuts home, and I started dashing around getting to all the stuff we had to do. And that was how I came to be running down the steps to the garage. Here I have to explain a little: four plain boards get you from our kitchen down to the concrete floor of the garage. As I was working my way down them I changed my mind about whether to exit through the garage door or the side door. My feet, all hyped up from running and coaching basketball, made the turn early, and suddenly I found myself airborne. Now this may sound clumsy, even ungainly. But while there were no witnesses, my memory of the fall would suggest that I plummeted to the floor with a grace and elegance rarely if ever matched in the history of traumatic falls. I considered landing on my head, but I made another last-minute decision, flinging my left hand out to stop myself. Margaret heard a crash and a yell, then silence. Then my voice: “This is going to be bad. Margaret? Margaret! Help!”

In times of emergency people do superhuman things. I’ve heard there’s an old lady who lifted a Volkswagen to save a child. Margaret got three children out from in front of the television, dressed, and into the car in, like, two minutes max. I still wasn’t sure what I’d done to myself, I just knew my left arm wouldn’t work and at thirty-nine I was discovering for the first time a level of pain I’d not previously known. Margaret got us to the Cape Fear Memorial Hospital Emergency entrance in record time, helping me slump into a wheelchair and wheeling me up to the triage nurse. I’ve been to the Cape Fear several times, but I’d never before noticed just how bumpy their floor is.

Everyone there was lovely, except perhaps the radiology tech, who asked me to do things that simply were not humanly possible. Abby kept me company while Margaret watched the boys and addressed Christmas cards. My x-ray showed not the fracture I had feared but a dislocation of the left shoulder. Then, thank God, came the morphine. I know they put my shoulder back where it goes, but the last thing I remember is Dr. Bowers saying, “That’s not doing the trick. Give him another two of Versed.” That did the trick. My arm is still confined to a sling, but it’s unlikely to need surgery. I’m definitely going a little slower in this blasted thing, but at least I can still type.

Sunday was routine except of course for the sling and the St. James Parish Christmas Pageant. I personally have no experience with church pageants, but Margaret assured me they are a reliable source of hilarity. This is the first year our children have made it to Sunday school with any regularity and therefore their first year to be offered (non-speaking) roles in the pageant. Abby was up for shepherd, but she felt animal-keeper was a better fit. And since we happened to have two animal costumes in the attic from a couple of Halloweens ago she knew just what creatures she should keep. We were pretty sure we had something akin to an ancient gamekeeper’s garb, figuring Sellers’s Jedi Knight costume would sort of fit the bill. Just call her Abby Wan Kenobi, zebra keeper of Bethlehem.

Method Acting

Mary Grace Milam, narrator.

Caroline Milam, wise, uh, man?

Tom Milam and Wilson

After the pageant Margaret stayed up until 4:00 AM addressing Christmas cards for our family and her business. I was on forced rest per the orthopedist’s orders, so I served as Physically Challenged Elf as we ran about town completing various Christmas-related tasks. Tuesday and Wednesday I worked reduced schedules and honed the story of how I fell down the stairs. It wasn’t bad, but I was thrilled when my Christmas break began Thursday.

Abby was even more thrilled Thursday because of the culmination of her class project. In New Hanover County second graders incubate eggs and watch the chicks hatch. Abby’s teacher, Mrs. McIntyre, decided that since Abby was so special and so responsible and loved animals so much she could take a chick home if her parents said it was okay. I have no idea what we’ve done to Mrs. McIntyre to make her hate us so. Of course I said no way on earth would we take home a chick, especially after I read a little on the web and learned how difficult it can be to care for one. Abby was terribly sad, but after our history with the rodents I wasn’t changing my mind, no matter how much she cried and begged.

So our chick’s name is Peep, and I picked her up on Thursday. We’re still waiting to find out if she’ll be a laying hen or a crowing hen. If she even looks like she’s going to be one of the crowing kind we know a farmer who promises to give her a good home. Peep is very social, and becomes agitated if we leave her alone. She likes to sleep in my hands and peck feed from my palm. We take her in the yard to exercise and eat ants and gnats. Saturday Night Live star Dana Carvey used to get huge laughs playing a Chinese immigrant with a fowl whose tag line was, “Chicken make a lousy house pet!” But Peep is, I have to say, the most engaging animal we’ve had so far, including all the rodents and yes, the cat. Peep is, in fact, the cutest damn thing to ever sleep in its own stool. If she is indeed a girl (and it’s pretty much impossible to know at first) just stop by around spring – omelets are on the house!

Abby with Peep, Stella Luna (the hamster we're sitting with full disclosure to her mommy), and two tadpoles. Where's that Jedi costume?

So I love a chicken. Is that so wrong?

Chicken Supermodel

Saturday Julian had another haircut. We are now notorious at Bangz Hair Salon, but Jonathan was as good-natured as ever. We tried to get Julian in the chair and quickly fled to the staff lounge. But this time, with two parents holding him, Wonder Pets on the television, and a series of clean towels in his mouth to keep out hair, he did remarkably well, even admitting at one point, “it tickles.” Perhaps we can move out of the break room for haircuts by his sixteenth birthday.

For the afternoon Margaret finished planting her trees, following the prior week’s Yoshino cherries with dogwoods and forsythia. As you can see Julian actually was a big help. The idea that he could do more good than harm is novel to us, but it’s happening now from time to time. At this rate I’ll soon have another excuse to squirm out of doing yard work.

Saturday evening we met Bill Hession and Nancy Cunningham (“the Hessinghams”) and their boys Jake and Sean for Enchanted Airlie. Julian met Santa Clause, which you can see went well. Sellers was also quite shy with Santa, suspecting the Big Elf can see dark places in his soul.