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Children thrive with schedules, but not with your schedules. With theirs. And so our lovely happy bouncy child enjoyed a day of Christmas fun, but began to fret and shriek and growl about 5pm, and passed out entirely on the way to Christmas Eve at his great-gran’s. His bedtime is normally 7 or so and I just didn’t have the heart–or let’s face it, the guts–to wake him.

Instead, I dropped Matt off to be our family representative and then to sleep over at his folks, while I drove the desolate Christmas highway back home with our exhausted manger-baby (though you would need an extra-large manger for this one). I was greeted by a house that indeed smelled a little like a stable, since the cat missed the litter box again, but little lord Nathan neither awaked nor made crying, flopping instead into his manger like the passed-out partier that he was. The cattle didn’t low, but the cat meowed frantically for love and food.

It’s one of my stranger Christmas Eves–in fact, I don’t know that I’ve ever been alone on this particular day before. After settling Nathan I brought in the day’s haul of gifts, fed and petted the cat, and watched Antiques Roadshow a little while eating my Christmas bowl of cereal. Just me and Nathan and the cat, alone but warm and fed and relatively ok with the way things are. I’ve had worse.

We are recovering; so much so that Matt can go back to his SecondLife singing gigs, and I am not feeling like Hot Aching Death. I have felt that way for what must be only 10 days or so but feels like 100 years.

I can deal with coughing/sniffing/etc. etc. but this cold came with body aches that felt like I’d been beaten with a sack of hot nickels and extreme sinus headaches. The Tylenol could not really cope as every day, two metric tons of blockage would shift to press against a new place–my lower left temple, my freaking JAWline, the BACK of my head, and various other places where a headache Shouldn’t Be. As the last of these (I hope) lifted this morning on the way to Family Christmas 1 (of 3), the sun came out, the birds sang, and I could have skipped across six or eight daisy-covered meadows in joy. The state of non-pain, after weeks of pain, is the best state of all.

So we never got our Christmas tree up. Exra gifts that we wanted to get were not gotten. Lights purchased in November went un-strung in December, and so while our neighbors put up happy festive displays of animatronic reindeer and seizure-inducing marquee lights, our house was the dark, gloomy one that makes the children cry. Considering that we did decorate a little for Halloween, I’m now worried as to what the neighbors think of our spiritual inclinations.

We’ve had Bare Minimum Christmas many times, but mostly due to cash-free-ness or being out of town. I had so many plans this year now that neither applied, but our Walking Death Cold put a kibosh on doing anything extra that didn’t involve blowing amazing amounts of goo out of our heads. Thankfully, Nathan is still too young to notice and feel ashamed. Plenty of time for that next year.

…in fact, it makes them delay it. And I don’t mean strict “abstinence ed” either. Via Feministing, news of a CDC study that shows:

…teenage boys who had sex education in school were 71 percent less likely to have intercourse before age 15, and teen girls who had sex education were 59 percent less likely to have sex before age 15.

Sex education also increased the likelihood that teen boys would use contraceptives the first time they had sex. . . But sex education appeared to have no effect on whether teen girls used birth control, the researchers found.

Additionally, black teenage girls who received sex ed in school were 91 percent less likely to have sex before age 15.

That 91% figures is pretty amazing.

Now for those who have always opposed sex ed* on the principle that sex magically won’t happen if you don’t talk about it, this poses a dilemma. Do you change your tactics to do something that actually helps teenagers postpone sex? Or do you go “lalalalalalala” and pretend that abstinence-only programs work, despite lots and lots of evidence to the contrary? In other words, what’s more important: being anti-sex-ed, or helping kids?

When kids are ignorant about sex, or only get told weird, negative, one-sided and inaccurate things about it (the way most abstinence-only programs do), bad things happen. Pregnancy rates go up, STD rates go up, and an awful lot of lives get affected.

This is a big issue with me, because what I see is adults letting kids down in a monumental way, because they are uncomfortable with the knowlege that their kids will one day have sex. Being so squeamish or scared to tell your kid about sex or let someone else do so that you keep them in ignorance is BAD PARENTING. Because what your kids don’t know can really hurt them. They need knowledge to protect themselves, because ignorance surely won’t. It’s like putting them behind the wheel without teaching them to drive. Irresponsible.

It’s about control, too. By the time sex becomes an issue, your kid is not under your direct supervision 24/7 anymore. They are at friends’ houses, at school, at parties, on band trips. They are going to have to make decisions about sex without you around to make them be responsible–so if you don’t teach them how to think for themselves and how to protect themselves beforehand, you’ve missed your chance. And you can tell them your preferences for what they do, but ultimately, you can’t make them adhere to those preferences, and as a parent, you have to accept that. Once your teenage son and his girlfriend announce a pregnancy, punishment is a moot point. The best you can do is try to teach him beforehand why he should try to stay out of that situation, for his sake and hers. And then, you have to let them go, and hope for the best. Which is terrifying. But that’s parenting. And for me, if some other adult is able to back up what I teach my son about respect and responsibility, that’s even better.

*All comprehensive sex ed programs I’ve ever heard about, by the way, do tell you that abstinence is in fact the best way to avoid pregnancy, disease, and other complications. Telling someone how condoms work does not equal telling them that they need to have lots and lots of sex, right now.

…but this endless chain of colds is kicking my ass. And Matt’s, and Nathan’s, although they seem to be on the mend. My freaking ears hurt because I’ve blown my nose so much for the last 3 days, and still, my head keeps producing astonishing amounts of mucous. No decongestant seems to be able to stop it for more than an hour or two. So yeah, not sleeping too great either.

If I don’t feel better by tomorrow, it’s off to the doctor, though if it’s a virus, which I’m sure it is, the most he can do is prescribe a stronger decongestant. Or maybe some morphine, or Vicodin. Whatever. At this point, I’d gladly take something that knocked me out until I was better, even if I missed Christmas. Not like I can taste, hear, or breathe properly anyway.

So yeah, see what you haven’t been missing? This. I promise that when I feel better, I’ll post some cute Nathan pics and maybe even not write long pointless bitter rants about my nasal passages. In the meantime, Merry Christmas.