Needopedia

December 8, 2025

You know what the best thing about sitting down to write my annual Christmas nonsense? It means that my house is tidy, the gifts are ordered, the parties planned, the offspring settled, and the cats unmurdered. Ergo, this will be written later. Much later.

December 14-16, 2025

Dear Beloveds,

If we can say that spring has sprung, then surely we can declare that winter has falled now. I have not been interrupted for the last 7 minutes, so I’m taking it as a sign that the people and appliances are hibernating, and I can sit down with my own brain for a spell.

I’ve heard it said that the more stable, attached, and loved your kids feel, the weirder they behave. Malarky, of course, but it’s malarky I am best served by embracing. Wes changed his personal style from teen slob to femboy, which means wearing shorts and a sweatshirt no matter how hot or cold it is. Piper, like Kyla, waited until her senior year to have her autism suspicions confirmed, and seasoned it with some inattentive ADHD. Kyla is doing her best to expand her loveable geek horizons by getting into Dungeons & Dragons at college.

Last year, I got to wonder what Kyla would be doing after graduation and I’m so pleased she has found the right school for her brain and vibe just down in Olympia at Evergreen State College. [With geoducks as their mascots, and Greenies as their nickname, they’re not even trying to mask the weird.] I’m glad she was able to enter as a sophomore, because she’d like to major in everything, and is working toward a 5-year Bachelor of Science & Arts.[1] Phrases like “using paleo-oceanography to investigate the ocean’s chemical composition during the Archean era” pop out of her mouth occasionally and I have to run to my Kindle and find a sexy witchmance to read to bring back the equilibrium.

This school year, I get to wonder where Piper will be this time next year. Kindergarten Piper’s career goal was to be a farmer/animal-rescuer/paleontologist. She graduates this June and is figuring out how to balance 1) a gap year at a wildlife sanctuary outside Spokane that offers a zookeeper certification and 2) a major in zoology at Washington State University (Wazzu, for our non-WA family). I am looking for a club to join called “Moms who are pretty sure their child will not eat when they live 5 hours away.” Piper is a genius at resisting all my efforts of her getting a job, eating more than two veggies, and not napping after school.[2] On the other hand, we belt our show tunes together on our way to hold babies in the nursery on Sundays and play word games together. As she likes to remind me, she is delightful.

Wes continues to be mistaken for a llama in his hairstyle choice. [It’s okay to make fun of him here as he has his earbuds in and isn’t paying attention.] In order of time spent, he prioritizes listening to music, 3D modeling, school, gaming, eating, parkour, rock-climbing, and being chomped on by Baby Girl (aka Catniss, aka Cat #3). He and Dwayne are bonding (“bonding”) over physics homework, which I can only hope means I no longer have to feign interest in blackholes. 3D modeling is still his passion, enough that he was up early every day for a summer intensive in the subject. This season, he is solely responsible for the eight batches of rumballs served at Need parties, a different role from his summer job of assisting Dwayne to build, yes, another pergola.

I spent the spring making peace that our yard can’t grow grass, and in a deranged fit of energy and gardenitis[3], dug it all up and built seven different gardens amongst statues, flagstone paths, a fountain, and a firepit. That was probably the catalyst to my continuing saga of frozen shoulder, a “condition anyone can get but is mostly experienced by middle-aged women”, if anyone wants to know how gracefully I’m aging.

The other event my gardenitis awoke was Dwayne’s sleeper brain cell of needing to build upon,  and ideally destroy, anything I plant. In a modern rendering of the Ship of Theseus, Dwayne took apart and replaced board by board his first ever pergola, conveniently located at the end of my new gardens. There’s a reason seeds are not usually planted under heavy footprints and heavier loads of lumber. To give Dwayne credit, the rebuild is absolutely beautiful and it will outlast both us and the house. Both the plants and I survived the ordeal, but it was a close one.

Which is why our November ten-day vacation in Kauai, the Garden Island, may not be such a coincidence. With Kyla at college, Piper was the Oldest Available Need, and she and Wes fabulously ran the world while we were gone. Perhaps my best parenting might be done from a distance…and a two-hour time difference.

In my darker moments, I realize I spend a lot of my time and brainpower doing all the stuff that nobody else wants to do or even considers. (Seriously, why are there always 3 errands to run on the way home from work every time?)  I brighten that thought by remembering I can usually listen to books doing those tasks—168 books this year and counting! On the other hand, I’ve written about 2 blog posts in 2025. I’ll at least post my favorite books before 2026.

The brightness of Christmas does not diminish the loss of an uncle and two aunts—both Mom’s sisters—earlier this year. I am mindful that for many, the holidays are bathed in both light and shadow. Wherever you fall on the spectrum, please accept my love and a long-distance hug.

Warmly yours, with no blame and full permission from her family,

Denise, for Dwayne, Kyla (19), Piper (17.8), & Wes (15.9)

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[1] That’s what we get for always saying we’re an AND family, not an OR family, at least when Dwayne wants both the latte and banana bread, and I want all the plants.

[2] Curiously related? Huh.

[3] Dangerous but rarely deadly.