On the Right Track This Christmas?

Honk and I had decided months ago that this would be a simple Christmas. We were determined to escape the crazy consumerism that distracts us from the true meaning of the holidays. It was time to get back to basics and focus on what was really important, like the birth of the savior, the love of family and friends, and the fact that we're broke. Our poor, deprived children would have to figure out some way to survive this winter without mindblowing toys like this kiddie ice rink (which can be yours too for the low, low price of $39.99!) American conspicuous consumption at its finest...


This Christmas would not find me wandering aimlessly through Target in a trance-like state, hypnotized by holiday toy sales. You would not discover me dazed in the princess aisle, slack-jawed and muttering to myself, "Must get her more princess dolls. NEED more princess dolls..." Those frivolous spending days were just where my pre-offspring waistline was- long gone with no foreseeable plans of returning.

We agreed to only buy the kids a couple of gifts, so we had to make them good ones- ones we knew they'd really love that would also hold their attention for more than three seconds. To me, this seemed like an easy task for a couple of reasons: 1. I am very in-tune with my children 2. At this point, I will do just about anything to end Lil' Miss's incessant pleas for "the pink Hannah Atana microphone because I want to sing so beautifully for everyone". And for Baby Dude? Well, I'd already bought his Christmas present months ago.

Nice, huh? Yeah, I thought so too. We bought the train set on sale way back during the summer and the beautiful table was courtesy of Grandpa Nudge and Grandma Lainey. I couldn't wait to see him play with it. He was crazy about those cars on tracks. Every time we browsed a toy store with one of those train tables set up, he'd go nutzo, running over to it and wiggling around like a dancin' fool. He was into it, pushing the train UP the hill, DOWN the hill, IN the tunnel, OUT of the tunnel... It was a strange sight to witness such raw intensity on the face of our happy-go-lucky boy.

Giving him that train set was what I was most excited about Christmas morning. I could hardly wait to see the expression on his face, to see him scream, shake, and dance around like a fool. Maybe he'd be so moved he'd even speak his first intelligible words or cry tears of joy. I was picturing Laura Ingall's face at the sight of that shiny copper penny in her Christmas stocking. Yeah, I may have set myself up for some disappointment.

Almost one week later he still hasn't touched that train set, hasn't even made eye contact with it. He's been too busy working on this...

Snow simulation thanks to the styrofoam packaging in the train table box. Niiiicccce...

I'd be great to find some deep meaning in all of this, maybe a connection to our ingenius plan to keep Christmas simple this year, but I'm way too annoyed to bother. All I know is that if he doesn't start pushing Thomas the train through that tunnel here pretty soon, he's getting an empty plastic water bottle from Santa next year.

Crustaceas Santas

If you've been following this blog at all then it will come as no surprise to you when I say that I've always been a bit of a worrier. (At this time, please refrain from smirking at your computer monitor and yelling, "Uh, yeah... Ya think?!") I've pretty much made an art form out of it. I can worry myself into a tightly wound bundle of nerves over just about anything. Growing up, I nearly made myself sick stressing about homework, failed alarm clocks, earthquake escape routes, undetected diseases, and the resurrection of Richard Ramirez (a.k.a the Night Stalker) who I believed had some unfinished business with me. And it's only intensified with motherhood. Now my fears and anxieties involve strange-looking rashes, sharp objects in little hands, asthmatic coughing attacks, delayed language, and unlocked doors from which Bonnie and Clyde could escape unnoticed.

Unfortunately, I may have passed this worrying gene on to Lil' Miss. The girl definitely has her share of phobias. These include but are not limited to face paint, old people with long hair, masks, old people with long beards, character costumes, and old people with loud voices. As you can imagine, this does not bode well for a certain gift-giving grandpa-type who we like to make a big deal about this time of year. Santa is definitely outside the Christmas periphery in our house. Literally. Lil' Miss has made it perfectly clear that he's not welcomed in here. No rooftop. No chimney. No tiptoe-ing around our living room with that long white beard and crazy red suit. She's agreed to leave a plate of cookies and a glass of milk out on the front porch for him in exchange for the presents he promised, but that's as close as he'll be getting to this house.

The advent calendar she picked out says it all.

Yep, it was the only Christmas scene where Santa was OUTSIDE, peeking in through the window.

I really thought I had Lil' Miss's Scorn of Santa all figured out. I believed in time she'd grow to love that white hair and beard as much as all the other kids in the world did. But a recent conversation revealed that I didn't have a clue about the nature of my daughter's fear.

We were all sitting around the kitchen table talking about Christmas when Honk in usual fashion pushed the Santa issue a bit too hard. "Are you SURE you don't want to sleep out on the couch so you can see Santa when he comes down the chimney?" (Why do boys taunt us so?) Lil' Miss immediately curled up into herself and hid behind one of the chairs. She wouldn't even respond to his question. She was truly panicked at the prospect of that scenario. I think it was the first time Honk realized how intense her fear of Santa was and he whispered to me, "Man, she's seriously freaked out by him!"

Wanting him to understand her the way I thought I did, I suggested, "Lil' Miss, why don't you tell Daddy why you're scared of Santa."

Slowly, she crept out from behind the chair and held up her hands like she was making sock puppets. Then she opened and closed them like Pac Man and said, "Well, there's his Santa claws..."

Are you kidding me? Had the poor girl really mistaken his last name for a pair of pointed appendages? No wonder she didn't want to have anything to do with him! Santa was really just a GIANT LOBSTER disguised behind a long white beard and red suit! Now when I think about all those times we begged her to take a picture on Santa's lap, her butt cheeks only inches away from those sharp pinchers craftily hidden in his furry gloves... I can still see the absolute terror on her face.

As much as I liked the idea of Santa, I've decided to let it go. He's not the true meaning of Christmas anyways. And now I have one less thing to worry about as a mother. There's no longer a reason to fear the day I'll have to tell Lil' Miss that Santa doesn't really exist. She will not shed tears and her heart will not be broken. Quite the opposite, in fact. That revelation would probably be the best Christmas gift I could give her.

Oye! Have I Got a Boy for YOU!

Lil' Miss's preschool teacher is very thorough. On a dry erase board propped up outside her classroom, she jots down the day's highlights and even some reminders for parents to look over at pick-up time. It's a lifesaver for featherbrains such as myself. Tuesday's board said,

-Practiced Christmas songs
-Read story about baby Jesus
-Painted wreaths
-Don't forget to peek at our work on the art wall today!

At dismissal, all the moms filed into the room to collect our kids and check out their work. The teacher had asked each child the same question and typed up their responses on festive paper. The question was, "If you could give Jesus one gift this Christmas, what would you give Him?" Their answers were precious.

Elysse said, " ... I'd give Him a baby doll for Him to hold."

Charlie said, " ... I'd give Him a shirt to put in His closet."

Leah said, " ... I'd give Him a phone so He could call my mommy."

Lil' Miss said, " ... I'd give Him my friend Sophia so He could have someone to talk to."

Huddled together, all the moms just stood there looking up at the board and smiling until the teacher suddenly piped up, "You know, I did have to tweak Lil' Miss's original answer." She was not looking at me when she announced this, and I was way too afraid and embarrassed to ask what, praytell, my dear child had said. But, lucky for me, one of the other moms was not. "What did she SAY?"

"... I'd give him a woman."

Leave it to Lil' Miss Yenta to make sure that not even the Creator of the Universe was spending the holidays alone. Gotta love that kid!

Mom! Baby Dude's Ruining Christmas!

The bad news?

Baby Grinch was definitely ruining Christmas.

The good news?

He finally found a use for Honk's dirty, discarded socks.

As Lil' Miss would say, "order-ments!"

Holy Infant, so Tender and Mild

This year, Lil' Miss is playing the angel in her preschool's Christmas Nativity and I can't decide if I'm more excited to see her perform or to see Baby Dude's reaction from the front row. I know, first hand, that holiday entertainment can come in the most unexpected ways.

Every Christmas, my community Bible study also puts on a reinactment of the Navitity for the kids in the children's program. The teachers construct a pretty cool-looking manger scene and perform a theatrical retelling of the story. It's very dramatic. Plus, their costumes look historically accurate which always earns an extra point in my book. All the VIP's are there: the shepherds, wise men, animals, an angel, Mary, Joseph, and of course, baby Jesus. The kids LOVE it.

A couple of years ago, the head honchos in the children's department decided to get all fancy and scrap the plastic baby Jesus doll for a REAL baby instead. I'm guessing the "baby-saves-the-world" theme was a hard sell to kids who were probably wondering, "Why isn't he moving? Or crying? Save the world? How 'bout just BLINK YOUR EYES, baby Jesus? Let's start with that!"

So, about this time two years ago, the children's director peeked her head into my Bible study group, the group specifically for new moms. She was full of smiles and hellos but there was something suspicious about the way she never made eye contact with us. She was too busy inspecting the precious cargo in our arms. She just stood there, smiling and scanning the room like a hungry lion among gazelles. "We need a baby. A strapping young lad who can handle a tight swaddling." All eyes fell on me and the two-month old in my arms. Baby Dude was the Chosen One. Apparently everyone was in agreement that my boy was the only one who could play the baby king. This did not surprise me. They saw in him what I saw- a sweet, contented child destined for greatness. That and the fact that he was the only boy in the room.

I squirmed in my seat as all the moms smiled in my direction. This arrangement made me uncomfortable. It felt very stage-momish, like one day I'm offering him up in the baby Jesus gig and the next I'm driving him to L.A. for a Pamper's commercial. Or like an inferiority complex waiting to happen. Would he always feel like I was comparing him to the messiah he once played? Would he become one of those obsessive kids who rewrote his homework over and over again until it was perfect and all the while ranted, "I'LL NEVER BE GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU!"? Not to mention the concerns I had about Lil' Miss, only a two-year-old at the time. She was still new to big sisterhood and was having enough trouble just accepting the fact that we were actually going to keep Baby Dude, that we would NOT be returning him to the Rent-a-Baby center after all. The competition for attention was already fierce. Now cute little Mr. Perfecto has to be the SAVIOR OF THE WORLD? Couldn't he settle for best thumb sucker or loudest crier? In the end, I consented, but not without hesitation.

The next week I arrived a bit early and met the costumed teachers in the classroom where the Nativity would be performed. The plan was that I'd hang out behind the manger set with Baby Dude in my arms and pass him through the window to "Mary" when she arrived on the scene. It seemed like a no-brainer until the kids arrived and I discovered that Lil' Miss was sitting in the front row, dead center, just a few feet away from where I was crouched down holding Baby Dude. I held my breath, hoping and praying she would not see me. I watched as she surveyed the stage scene, examining every detail like a city building inspector. It was only a matter of time now.

Sure enough, a few moments later, she caught a glimpse of me through the window. You could actually see her thinking, "What the... ? Is that my... ?" Then she got up off her little chair and leaned forward, even squinted her eyes a bit to get a closer look. All I could do was sit there perfectly still and try to pretend that I didn't see her. But it was too late. We were in an undeniable staredown. I could see the brow furrowing, the eyes welling and the lip quivering. I panicked. That was my baby girl on the verge. So, I sheepishly smiled and waved back.

That move was stupidity at its finest. It just confirmed for her that she was only a few feet and a cardboard wall away from the loving arms of her mama. The floodgates opened and Lil' Miss started to cry. Actually, she was laughing and crying at the same time. It was so sad that I almost joined in. I could hear a nearby teacher consoling her, "It's okay, honey! It's okay." That poor thing, all red-faced and sniffling, was trying to get her act together but every time she looked in my direction a new wave of weeping would crash over her.

She finally calmed down just as the play began, but every time a new character came onto the scene, she started in again with the wailing and nervous laughing. When the beautiful white angel appeared, she reached her breaking point, blubbering all over again with tears streaming down her cheeks. The whole room was dead silent except for the heart-wrenching sobs of my daughter. And while all this was going on, my blessed son, full of grace and light, rested peacefully in the manger.

If the point of all this was to help us remember the story of Christmas, then mission accomplished. I'll never forget.

She said, He Said

Lil' Miss and Baby Dude are still young enough to think cleaning the house is fun. Not as fun as making a decent mess, but still a good time. When I'm vacuuming, they follow me around with their popping push-toys and little lawnmower. When I'm wiping countertops, they grab their own rag to "redo" my work. When I finish cleaning the glass patio door, they're right behind me, scrubbing it with a soapy sponge. Very helpful, indeed.

Of course, this optimistic view of housework does not apply to cleaning up their own rooms... by themselves. If I'm not there, singing the "Clean-up, Clean-up" song and putting away toys right alongside them, they want no part in it. It's probably because they just can't stand being away from me... Yeah, right! More like misery loves company.

Yesterday, I told Lil' Miss she had to put her toys away in her room, a chore that involves picking up her princesses and putting them in baskets underneath her bed. Simple enough for a bright, able-bodied four-year-old. Or so you'd think. I might as well have told her to paint the ceiling or build a bookshelf by her response. She was a wreck, rolling around on the carpet, sobbing and moaning. "Moooooommmm! I caaaaannnn't! It's tooooooo haaaaarrrrrd!" Think Pat from Saturday Night Live.

me: Honey, you can do this! You're a big girl and you're a lot tougher than you think.

her: No, I'm nooooot! I caaaaannnn't dooooooo iiiiiiiiit!

me: Yes, you caaaaaaan! (This did not go over very well.)

her: I CAAAAAANNNN'T!

me: Wait. I have an idea. Why don't you pray and ask God to help you do this. He's always with you and you can talk to him about how hard it is. I bet He'll help you.

her: Alright...

With shoulders hunched and head bowed, she slowly shuffled to her room and returned a few minutes later.

her: Mom, I prayed.

me: You did? How'd it go?

her: Good. God said He was going to help me.

me: That's so great! Why don't you go ahead then and get started cleaning your room.

her: No, Mom. God said He can do it all by Hisself.