9th grade. January.

Tamarind:
“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

That was the question I asked Zinnia and Brimley on New Year’s Eve. The three of us, and Grover, were spending the holiday together, just like we had since forever. Last year we were at Brimley’s house. It was the first time we didn’t have to be watched by a baby-sitter, as long as we took care of Grover, too.

This time, all four of us piled into Dad’s living room with our sleeping bags and snack bowls and watched balls drop on a bunch of different networks. Grover fell asleep early, as usual. He has never made it to midnight.

As fireworks exploded in Sydney, Hong Kong, Dubai, and Moscow for the fifth time on the screen, Zinnia told us what we already knew: she wanted to be a professional dancer.  “With a contemporary jazz company or in a stage show for an international DJ.”

Brimley responded with, “I want to be a doctor, maybe? But if I have to do more biology, I don’t know.” Brimley’s father is a doctor and his mother is a lawyer. Specifically, a cardiologist and a corporate attorney for mergers and acquisitions. Big words. They have plans for their son.

Then my friends expected me to provide my own answer. “I haven’t decided. I could be an architect. I liked making those Lego buildings. At least you have a hook, Zinnia: dancer. And Brimley, you have ‘doctor, maybe.’ I have, ‘kinda good at some things,’ which is unacceptable.”

“Why are you freaking?” Zinnia stuffed her face with kettle corn.

“I don’t stand out! I have to pick something.” 

“Because of the book?” Brimley asked.

Zinnia turned to him. “What book?”

I plucked my copy of How to Get into College from the bedroom and handed it to Zinnia, who was still poring through it when I fell asleep.

I woke up that morning to find Zinnia hovering over my face. Apparently, she had spent the rest of the night reading every page, because once my eyes had opened, she started flapping the paperback in the air, shouting, “How is anyone supposed to do this?”

Lilo:
Disappointing.

I wanted to enjoy the New Year’s Eve singles’ party. I really did. My friends looked like they were having a good time at the event. But it felt like everyone else was either trying too hard or not trying at all.

I should have maintained my low expectations for the night. For some reason, I had high hopes for a night-time affair with a group of drunken strangers on an overhyped holiday. I need to reevaluate my goals.

Here’s my new New Year’s resolution: stop pressuring myself to find someone new. From now on, I’m only going to attend singles’ events involving activities I’m actually interested in. No more random parties with hundreds of people I have nothing in common with, except our mutual lack of life-partners.

The next gathering for the unattached of Hennessey Park and its surrounding areas will be a cooking class. I like food and cooking it. Sign me up.

Grover:

I wanted to stay up till midnight. I really did. But I was so bored. Not by the TV celebrations. Those were fun. I like watching the people crammed like sardines in Times Square.

The boredom came from Tamarind and Brimley and Zinnia and their future talk. It put me to sleep. I usually like hanging out with my sister and her friends because they’re cool people. They don’t treat me like a little kid, like Zinnia and Brimley’s older sisters and brothers do.

I thought this would be the one night when Tamarind’s obsession with college would be contained. Instead, the infection has spread to Zinnia. Brimley will probably be next.

Why is Tamarind so worried about getting into a school that she’ll be going to three years from now? Like they won’t let her in? She’s great at everything. I’m the one who’ll be going to Clown College, if they’ll accept me. I can bring my own red nose.

9th grade. December.

Tamarind:
Thank goodness finals are over. One less thing to think about over winter break.

The plan is to spend the first part of the week with Mom through Christmas Eve, and then go to Dad’s apartment for Christmas and spent the rest of our vacation with him until school starts in January.

I didn’t come up with this plan. Mom and Dad did. I wanted to have a simple Christmas, but yet again, I’ll be moving from house to house. I thought about saying something, but I didn’t want to upset either of my parents; they’re more fragile than they look. So I stuffed my feelings, and I went along with their decision. As usual.

Though, I do like having two Christmas trees.

Lilo:
It’s Christmas Day, and Tamarind and Grover are gone. I took them to Jencks’s apartment this morning, and then I drove to Mommy and Poppy’s house to spend the rest of the holiday there. But I miss my children. After much internal deliberation, I decided to open up to my parents and tell them how I was feeling. They in turn told me about their first holidays without all of their children at home, when we’d moved away for school or for work or for relationships. I realized that this is a preview of letting go once Tamarind and Grover go to college and won’t live at home at all.

At least Mommy and Poppy had each other in their empty nest. I’ll just have me. Maybe it’s time to get out there and see what’s shaking. My friends keep telling me about singles’ mixers, even though half of them are married and living vicariously through my unattached life.

Fine. The next one’s scheduled for New Year’s Eve. No pressure.

Grover:

Dad says I have the Boxing Day Blues. I told him that with two homes and no chimney, there’s no point in believing in Santa anymore.

I thought that when your parents split up, you get twice the presents, because they are each trying to buy your love and make up for traumatizing you for life. Tamarind told me our parents were downsizing and I should make do with the generous gifts I received and some children don’t get any gifts and don’t have any parents. I told Tamarind I expected Mom and Dad to give us more stuff to make us like them more. How else can we decide who our favorite parent is?

Tamarind gave me a dirty look and told Dad she was going to hang out with Brimley and Zinnia at the Monkey Bar.

And why wasn’t I invited?

9th grade. November.

Tamarind:
Thanksgiving. The first real holiday we’ve had to split between parents. Wednesday and Thursday with Mom, and Friday, Saturday, and Sunday with Dad. This house rotation is not fun. I wish Mom and Dad could move from home to home instead of me and Grover. That’s the only bad part, though: living in two places, making sure I have duplicates of everything. Sharing a room with Grover at Dad’s apartment isn’t terrible, since it’s only on the weekend, and Grover usually falls asleep on the couch at night playing video games.

The good part is that my parents look happier than they have been in a while. At least Mom does. Dad looks a little lost. He’s lived in this apartment for over four months, but he’s not always sure where things are, or where they should be. Like where to put the cereal or the bread or the peanut butter. He asked me if they went in the cabinet or in the refrigerator. I told him Mom puts most stuff in the refrigerator so it doesn’t go bad as quickly, but technically those items could go in the cabinet. Then Dad shoved everything in the grocery bag in the refrigerator, even the canned peas, and he wandered into the living room to watch a sports documentary.

Thank goodness our grandparents came over on Friday. They brought food. At least it looked like food…

Lilo:
Last weekend, while my kids were away, I watched a marathon of Couponing to the Max. In an attempt to save money, I later decided to apply what I learned to the upcoming Black Friday. What was I thinking?  It’s like I watched a day’s worth of track and field and decided to compete in the Olympics.

On Thursday night, after Jencks picked up Tamarind and Grover, I reviewed my strategy for the next day, a meticulous itinerary designed to simultaneously stock up on bargains and take my mind off of not having my children with me for the rest of the holiday weekend. I asked my mother if she’d like to join my excursion. She vehemently declined, but my father eagerly invited himself along to function as backup and defense. I jokingly suggested he wear his old high school football jersey. Why was I surprised when number 86 showed up at my door at dawn, ready to feel the adrenaline rush?

                                                                                                 

I had big goals for Black Friday, involving six different department stores and over 100 coupons, including combinations of offers that allowed me to either acquire items for free or get paid to take them out of the store. I also knew that if I was going to do this, I couldn’t become a hoarder, primarily because I didn’t have enough space in the townhouse to create a stockpile like the couponers on the show.

Poppy and I started at the grocery store around the corner. That is also, coincidentally, where we stopped. I didn’t realize how exhausting accumulating all those items could be, especially when fellow customers were elbowing us out of the way. Couponing cuts five hours worth of bargain hunting into a 22-minute episode. I lasted about an hour and half before I wanted to collapse. Poppy put up a good fight, but he had no objections to returning home early.

After we organized two shopping carts worth of boxes and bags and cans and bottles into my kitchen cabinets, I took a well-deserved mid-morning nap on the couch while Poppy attempted to take in a smattering of college bowls on the TV. When I woke up around noon, the LACal Coyotes were leading the NorCal Sea Lions 28 to 6 (Go Coyotes!). Poppy was knocked out on the loveseat, imitating a buzz saw.

I went to the kitchen, baked one of the 10 frozen pizzas I’d purchased for 50 cents each, and ate a steaming slice over my sink full of dirty dishes.

It was a good day.

Grover:

Two Thanksgivings means two days of eating. That’s what I had planned, anyway. Thursday was turkey, ham, yams, lumpia, green beans, pumpkin pie, enchiladas, cornbread, roast pork, and adobo with mostly Mom’s side of the family. I had never called them that before because we used to have one big party at Grammy and Grampy’s house since it held the most people in the yard and everybody was everybody’s family. Now that Mom and Dad aren’t together anymore, not as many people showed up, and the ones who did looked uncomfortable around Mom.

Friday was not what I had expected either, but for a different reason. Our grandparents on Dad’s side brought what I thought was another full Thanksgiving meal, and I was ready to chow down. We opened the containers, and all the food looked normal and smelled normal. But when I ate it off my plate, it tasted blech. Abuelito said something about cleansing his colon, so all the dishes he and Abuelita cooked were either low-cholesterol, low-sugar, low-fat, vegan, or raw. Raw? How do you cook raw food? They didn’t bring any sushi or sashimi, so what were they feeding us?

When I asked our grandparents why they couldn’t have made the new stuff and some of the old stuff, too, Tamarind told me to stop complaining because this was a healthier way to eat. I noticed she didn’t finish her kale and quinoa casserole or her gluten-free apple pie. Neither did Dad. I bet all the leftovers will still be in the refrigerator when we visit next weekend.