Please stop knocking

Six and a half years ago, when I was about seven month pregnant with my first son, I spent a night in insomnia hell. As any woman who has been pregnant knows, at that point sleep is not easy to begin with. Add a song that just won't stop playing in your head.... Well, here's the story.

September 2006
10 weeks until baby
I wake after a (very) few hours of sleep with "Knock Three Times" stuck in my head.
I can't fall back to sleep because it just keeps playing: "Knock three times on the ceiling if you wanna dance. Twice on the pipe means the answer is no."
Hours later... The song is finally out of my head. Unfortunately, it has been replaced by "Tie a Yellow Ribbon." Damn you Tony Orlando and Dawn.
I did eventually fall back to sleep, but I was exhausted.

Every time I hear those songs, I remember that sleepless night.

The attic playroom

The house I grew up in was an American Foursquare built around 1908. It was white stucco and siding, with a shady front porch and a graceful elm tree out front. The basement was scary, at least when I was younger, what with the old 'octopus' furnace. As teenagers, the basement became our rec room, a place to play music and dance around, play darts.

But the attic was our playroom. Half the attic was used for storage and Dad's train set. The other half was ours. We stapled posters to the slanted ceiling and walls. The carpeting was a hodgepodge of remnants in different colors and styles. It was cold in the winter and hot in the summer, but it was a wonderland to us.

As we grew older, toys were boxed. Dress up clothes were donated to charity (or tossed in the case of a few gowns that were tattered). And then the old house was sold almost a decade ago and those boxes were unpacked in a new playroom at my parents' new house, entertaining the next generation.

But the kids are getting older and no longer play with some of our old 'friends'. This weekend it was time to cull some of the collection.

And so Mom, Tracy and I took a walk down memory lane.

The old play stove, still standing after all these years.

 The old play stove, handmade from plywood, an old faucet, and some paint, is still standing, solid as ever. Yes, it shows wear and tear, but it's simple design, with painted on burners, was all we ever needed.

It'll go in my sister's garage sale this spring, along with our many toy pots and pans, plastic food, and other play kitchen wonders.

It used to sit in the corner by the front windows in the attic playroom, the table and chairs nearby.

Tracy's dollhouse.

We each had our own dollhouse. The houses were identical, but we chose the shelf paper for the walls and floors, thus customizing them. Many a trip was taken to the local shop, which we walked to on our own, to buy new furniture and such for our dollhouses.

Mine didn't survive the move, but the boys still play with this one. They are very creative, choosing to put the kitchen on the second floor, for example.

The house will hopefully stand a few more years until they outgrow it.

Some of our old games.

Just as when we were growing up, there is a closet full of games. Many of the boxes are taped together and some pieces are surely missing, but we spent house playing those games.

I've brought a few home, adding them to our game shelves, but the rest still live in their closet, waiting for the boys to be ready for them.

There are a few they can play now, like Hungry Hungry Hippos, and some we need to introduce them to, like Can't Stop. That was always one of my favorites.

My babies, well-loved, not a retirement fund.

Yes, I was the perfect age in 1982 when Cabbage Patch Kids burst onto the scene. My first doll, the one with long hair, is not a 'real' Cabbage Patch doll, but I loved her just as much as the others that followed.

My Cabbage Patch Kids had quite a wardrobe, with 'real' clothes and handmade ones from craft fairs and ones my mom made.

Their diapers are long gone, but they and their clothes are ready to be loved by a little boy or girl.

Need a seat? Let me give you a hand.

Do you remember the Green Giant? His face (or hand) graced many items in my childhood. We had foot sleeping bags and patterned sleeping bags. And we had this chair.

Its molded plastic is just the right size for small bottoms. And it's staying right where it is, ready for little sprouts to sit cozy.

White picket fence not included.

Did every child of the 70s and 80s have one of these Fisher Price houses? With the odd little people and the single seat car? Two of these currently live in the playroom at my parents' house. One was ours and one lived at my grandparents' house in the basement playroom.

These compact little houses are a classic. Many an hour was spent on the domestic affairs of the little family in the perfect blue house.

Strawberry Shortcake and friends, before they were teens.

Strawberry Shortcake is making a resurgence. But I had the original dolls. Orange Blossom has sadly been lost to the rough play of rambunctious little boys, but Strawberry Shortcake, Lemon Meringue, Blueberry Muffin, Raspberry Tart, Lime Chiffon, Butter Cookie, Cherry Cuddler, and Apple Dumplin', along with their pets, the Berry Bake Shoppe, Snail Cart (with Escargot), and Flitter-Bit the Butterfly, still come out to play with the boys. Their hair no longer smells yummy, but they were well-loved.

It's a bug, bug, bug, bug world.

 I admit, I liked bugs. Most don't bother me and many are very cool. Maybe Bug World House was a ploy to stop me from waving worms in my sister's face, but I loved it. It was one of the coolest toys. Wil and Sam have both loved to play with it too.

It has an eggshell shower, a potato balcony, a peapod hammock, and cute bug friends. What could be better?

Creative play at its best: Puzzle Town!

And then there's Puzzle Town. This is a set that will not be leaving the family anytime soon. As soon as I pulled a few pieces out to take a picture, the whole family gathered in the playroom to build the buildings.

Richard Scarry was a genius. And marketing a version of his world that kids could build and play with, changing every time, was the best idea ever. We didn't have all the sets, but enough to make a working village from farm to shops to house to city hall. I wish Playskool still made these.


There were so many toys and so many memories. Some toys mean too much to get rid of, but others need to be loved again. That's the lesson of Toy Story: toys should be played with. While it's a little sad parting with pieces of my childhood, the baby dolls and Barbie dolls, the tiny plastic plates and tea cups, the costume jewelry and all the rest that we culled will hopefully find good homes and bring happy memories to another generation.

Christmas memories

I love Christmas. I get that from my mom. Christmas music, Christmas lights, Santa, Christmas cookies....

Growing up, we spent Christmas Eve with my dad's parents. We usually had a Bohemian style meal of pork roast. With two holiday meals in a row, it was nice to not have turkey. Afterward, we'd go to midnight mass. I think I was a teenager before I actually stayed awake through mass. The choir would sing for an hour beforehand as parishioners arrived. That was the best part.

Christmas morning was spent at home, where we had donuts for breakfast after opening our piles of presents. The Christmas music would be playing. Yes, I know the words to a lot of Christmas songs. Even some of the obscure verses.

In the afternoon, we'd go to my mom's parents' or one of her brother's for Christmas dinner. There were a lot of cousins, so we'd play while the turkey finished cooking. After dinner, there would be another batch of presents to open, then time to play with our new toys. If we were at Grandma and Grandpa's, we'd try to find the chirping bird in the Christmas tree and giggle at the stegosaurus in the nativity set.

As we got older, the traditions changed a little. We no longer visited my dad's side of the family, opening Christmas Eve up to new traditions, like spending time with my sister's mother-in-law. With my mom's side of the family, we aged into the grab bag at 18, so instead of a present from each family, we joined the drawing of names at Thanksgiving.

Every year we would spend a weekend baking dozens of cookies: toffee squares, pumpkin cookies, Imperial cookies, sugar cookies, butter cookies, lemon squares, Bible class cookies, chocolate covered pretzels. We brought plates of cookies to our neighbors every year. They were also our contribution to the Christmas dinner.

Until I was in college, we had a real tree every year. One year, after a drought, the tree we brought lost all it's needles about 2 or 3 days before Christmas. One moment it looked ok, although it had been shedding some needles. The next, we heard a rustling sound as every needle fell to the floor. What else does one do but go to the nearest gas station lot and buy a new tree - then invite the neighbors over for an impromptu tree-trimming party. The best thing? Plenty of neighbors came over to help redecorate the tree. We served hot chocolate and plenty of those Christmas cookies. Before we knew it, the new tree was fully decorated.

Sometime over the holiday season we made time to go to downtown Chicago and view the windows on State Street. Marshall Fields always had the best windows, but other stores had neat displays too. Driving around looking at Christmas lights was another tradition. The downtown area of the town I grew up in had a Christmas walk every year. We'd wander through the stores, enjoying carolers and hot cider or cocoa, munch cookies, see Santa arrive on a fire truck. I remember going to Brookfield Zoo each year for Holiday Magic. Wandering around the zoo after dark, with every tree lit, was a special treat.

Over the years, all the 'grandkids' have grown up and most of us are married. There's a new generation of kids. We're more spread out and traditions have adapted.

Some years we spend Christmas with Chris's family and some years we make the trek up to Chicago to see my extended family. Christmas with my parents, my sister and brother-in-law and their kids takes place on the weekend.

We try to spend Christmas morning at home so the boys can wake up to presents from Santa under our tree. They are the perfect age this year, understanding Christmas and excited for Santa to come.

I try to bake a few batches of cookies every year (toffee squares, pumpkin cookies and Imperial cookies this year). We also go to the Indy Zoo to see Santa and the lights. The boys love decorating cookies with Mrs. Claus. We go to Fountain Square Mall to look at the decorations and see Santa. Our rule with Santa is that the boys can only ask for the one thing they want most; the rest has to go in a letter. The beauty of this is that they understand Santa is busy so they can't take up too much time, but it makes it easier to find that one thing they really want.

If we're home on Christmas, or on Christmas Eve, we started a new tradition: "Traditional Holiday Pasta". It started one year when we couldn't travel to Evansville due to a bad snow storm. Stuck at home, we made what was on hand. This year, we're hosting Christmas. It'll just be the four of us and Chris's parents. We're having lasagna for dinner.

Thanksgiving memories

It's that time of year again when Thanksgiving gets lost between the ghoulish, sugar fueled giddiness of Halloween and the bedecked hysteria of Christmas. I like Thanksgiving. I like Halloween and Christmas too. But I'd really like Thanksgiving to have its due. 

Growing up, we always spent Thanksgiving with my mom's side of the family. Each year was at a different house. There was a rotation for Thanksgiving and another for Christmas, based on who had enough space. Some years Grandma hosted, or Great-Aunt Elaine, or my mom, or one of my aunts.

The food was usually the same, with minor variations: turkey roasted in the oven, sage stuffing cooked in the bird, gravy. Heart-attack mashed potatoes, with a brick of cream cheese and a stick of butter. Sweet potatoes. Broccoli casserole - the kind with Velveeta and crushed Ritz crackers. Caponi Macaroni, my grandma's macaroni salad that beats store-bought hands down. A choice of Jello-like canned or Aunt Jill's homemade cranberries. Rolls. Pickles and olives, usually eaten as hors d'oevers while we waited for the turkey to be ready.

Grace would be said, giving thanks for the meal before us and for all the good things that had happened in the family that year. The uncles would pile their plates high, everything mixing together. Some of us kept our food neatly separated*. When we were all stuffed and couldn't eat a bite more, there were the pies: pumpkin, of course, and apple. Often a chocolate variety as well. We'd pile whipped cream on the pumpkin pie until it toppled over. 

Afterward, the kitchen would be cleaned, the tv turned on. If we were at Aunt Elaine's, she would play the organ. I have fond memories of sitting next to her while she played Christmas carols. At Grandma's, the kids would disperse to the basement play area tucked next to Grandpa's work bench. We knew better than to play with his tools. 

Some time in the evening, the adults would draw names for the Christmas grab bag. They would each write their name and three gift ideas under $20. The trick was to get a name that wasn't in your own household. 

On the way home, we'd tune the radio to a station playing Christmas carols. These were the first signs of the Christmas season. It wasn't a never-ending barrage from September on. But once Thanksgiving was over, all bets were off.

We would go to the Christmas tree farm and cut down our tree on the day that has come to be called Black Friday. It would go in a bucket of water in the shed until we were ready to put it up, much closer to Christmas. We'd spend the weekend decorating the house, starting with the outside lights. Christmas music would blare from the record player; hot chocolate would be drunk. This was the start of Christmas.

But not before we enjoyed our Thanksgiving. Not before we gave thanks and enjoyed a day with family.

Nowadays, we usually go to Chris's parents'. There are some different dishes and ours are the only kids there.  My parents usually join us, and Chris's grandparents, and some friends. We eat, the kids play. Sometimes the kids watch a movie while football plays in the other room. There's often ham in addition to the turkey. Sometimes Downs family specialties like creamed onions and turnips join a wild rice dish from a family friend. Dessert is usually a fantastic creation from another family friend who loves making cheesecakes and other delights. There's usually still a pumpkin pie for the traditionalists.

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* Legal moves when filling a holiday plate: the turkey, mashed potatoes, and stuffing can touch. They can all be covered with gravy, depending on preference. A skilled plate fille will use the mashed potatoes and stuffing as walls around the turkey to keep the gravy from spreading. Cranberries must be segregated from everything else, especially the mac salad. Putting broccoli casserole between those two is an excellent buffer, although some broccoli may be lost to spreading cranberry juice.