When kids are of a certain age, generally speaking, they don’t want to play with the little kids.  It’s fun to run away and hide from them and that sort of thing. I know this from observing Sean and I know this from personal experience. I was the youngest, and even worse, a girl.  I spent the better part of my early childhood chasing after my older brothers, hoping to be allowed to play.  Either of them would have rather eaten a pencil than let me to hang out with them.  In their defense, I may have been somewhat annoying.  Somewhat.

And of course all the little kids want to play with the big kids because it makes them feel big and important and one of the gang. Deep down inside, I think I still want that. Just a little.

Anyway, in the last year or so when Sean is with either of his two good neighbor buddies, both of whom have younger sibs, they think its quite fun to exclude the younger ones.  Collectively, we moms do not permit this.  When this happens, I threaten suggest to him that if everyone can’t play together then we will have to go home.  I am hoping that at some point he will absorb this exhortation and do it out of a heart response and not under duress.

So then awhile back, Sean had a day off of school, and since it was was a nice day we went to the park to throw around our Nerf football.  I’m quite good with a football. I can throw it with laser precision and get that pretty little spiral on it.  It’s pretty impressive and you wouldn’t know that I could do that by looking at me.  I bring that up now because there has never been another opportunity.

So we were throwing the football back and forth and a young boy, maybe a 3^rd or 4th grader, wanders through the park.  He stands off to the side watching, probably admiring my football spiraling skills or perhaps my tremendous beauty, I’m not sure which.  I ask him if he’d like to play. He does, so I toss him the football and step aside.  Sean and the boy throw the ball for awhile and all is calm, all is bright.

Shortly thereafter, two other boys pass through the park with a basketball.  They are 5^th or 6th graders, I can’t tell. I can only tell if someone is a 1^st grader.  They invite us to play a little b-ball (that’s basketball for you who are not as hip as I) and we set up teams; Sean and I and the 1^st boy against the two 5^th graders.

Aside: I can’t dribble a basketball to save my life. I do not have the basketball mojo. Never had it, never saw it, never been anywhere near it.  If I happen to make a basket it is a fluke of the laws of physics.  Tip:  If ever you are choosing up teams to play basketball, do not choose me.  I will understand.

There was something about the bigger of the two 5^th graders. I could just tell that he was an oldest child and that maybe his mom had issued threats and made him to play with the younger kids and that at some point he had taken it into his heart.  He made several well-veiled “flubs” and allowed Sean to get the ball and take it down court.  I really appreciated that.

It wasn’t too long after that these boys grew weary of having to play basketball with me and decided to play Monkey In The Middle with the football.  Back in the day, we called it Keep Away.  I begged off and sat off to the side to watch.

The two fifth graders put Sean and the 3^rd grader in the middle.  Sean had a great time running back and forth and trying to get the ball.  But the 3^rd grader didn’t like it. It seemed to bruise his pride.  He threw a bit of a hissy fit which all the other boys ignored.

Eventually the 3rd grader had enough and stomped off, which left just Sean as the monkey.  The older boy would again discreetly flub from time to time and allow Sean to capture the ball and get to be a ball thrower instead of the monkey.  But it wasn’t long though before the big boys were ready to move along.

“We gotta get going,” the big boy said to Sean.

He gave him a knuckle bump and thanked him for playing.

Sean beamed with importance.

I winked at the older boy which I hope he correctly interpreted as a nod of thanks and not some creepy-old-lady come on.

As we walked home, I noticed a little extra spring in his step.

“That boy that stomped off, what did you think about that?” I asked.

“Not good.  That’s being a bad sport,” he said.  “Dad doesn’t like that.”

“Yup,” I said, “Neither do I.”

I was pleased that he recognized that.

“That felt pretty good, didn’t it? That those boys wanted to play with you.”

He nodded.

“Maybe you could remember that next time Kendall and AJ want to play.”

He nodded and skipped ahead of me.

Two lessons in one day.

Probably more effective than 100 days of motherly exhortations.

So to all the moms of big boys out there who have gone to the trouble to teach them to look out for and include the little boys – thank you.  Thank you very much.

That’s called community.

Because I have super sharp powers of observation, I quickly realized that things probably were not going to go well.

You see, as I pulled into the parking lot, it was jam packed with cars.  Most of the cars were missing hub caps, some had windows covered with garbage bags secured with duct tape and others were missing the passenger seat.  And their owners were loitering in the parking lot smoking cigarettes.  Not that my car is new and fancy by any means.  But it does have hub caps and windows and all the seats.

So I artfully wedged my car into the last remaining spot, sucked in my gut and then I turned myself sideways and slithered out of my car and into the parking lot of loiterers, ostensibly there hoping to do business with the Texas Department of Public Safety.  Just like me.

I got a letter several months ago saying it was time to renew my drivers license!  I put that exclamation point there to imply I was on a fun adventure.  Did I convince you?

I procrastinated for two months but finally I could procrastinate no longer; I had to go.

I checked the website to make sure that I knew exactly where I was going and that I had everything I needed.  I needed ID, I needed proof of my social security number or a passport,  and most importantly, I needed to pay them $25 either with a check, cash or a Visa credit card. Check, check, check.  I had all those things.

I did not need proof of insurance or vehicle inspection or voters registration or any other hoop-jumping papers.  I realized that I would have a long wait, but I didn’t want to wait an hour (An hour! Hahaha!) and then have my number called only to have some clerk tell me I needed some sCrap of paper that was at home.  So I made every effort to secure all the required documents as specified on the web site.  I think ahead.

I made my way through the dirty parking lot and into the dirty building which was at or near the maximum occupancy rate.  There was not a teaspoon of air to breath that had not already been breathed by someone else.  I am more than a little claustrophobic and I felt myself getting a little woozy.  But this had to be done.  Finally it was my turn to get a number. It was number #80.

With pleading eyes and a wavering voice that implied I could go postal, I asked the young man behind the desk, please sir – is there was any way, any way at all, that I could do this any other way?  I was on both knees in the prayer position, head bowed, hands clasped, begging for mercy, intercession, a miracle, anything, anything at all.  He looked at my letter and my driver’s license and yawned.  Yes, he said, I could make this go away over the phone and then he wrote a number down across the top of my official DPS letter and handed it back to me.

“Really?!  Are you sure?” I asked incredulously.

He nodded.

I was elated.

But I also knew, deep in my heart, that he was wrong.

Nonetheless, I was going to enjoy my delusion and false elation for as long as I could.

I took my paper with the phone number, waded back through the icky parking lot of discarded diapers and cigarette butts and wedged myself back into my car and went home where I dialed the number, followed all the prompts and was told I could not complete my transaction over the phone and that I should present myself in person at my local DPS office.

I groused and stomped about and heaved heavy sighs of exasperation that my false elation was false.   I whined and complained to AD (who is immune to my whining and complaining).  And then I cursed the DPS and all of big government in my head.  And then I got back in my car and drove to another DPS office 20 miles away.  I believe that is the definition of psychosis – when you do the same thing hoping for a different result.

When I got to this DPS it was much better!  The parking lot was reasonably clean and I was able to get out of my car without first vaporizing.  I peeked in the windows of the building and there was hardly anyone there! This was going to be GREAT!  I followed the signs which pointed to the entrance several doors down.  When I walked through that door there were 632 people inside all of whom either a) were talking loudly in a foreign language on their cell phone or b) had a screaming baby standing in their lap, or c) both.

Awesome.

So, once again, I made my way to the front desk and got a number – 49!  That was pretty good, much better than 80.  I would just have to wait it out.  A chair even opened up; no one made a move for it, so I snagged it and sat down.  I pulled out my iTouch and started a game of Scrabble.  An hour later I looked up and they were on numbers 986, 343 and 299.  Clearly I did not understand their numbering system, but then again this was a system engineered by the same people who bring you the IRS, so it made sense in that it didn’t make any sense.

I looked up another hour later and they were on numbers 37, 461 and 128.  At about that time, I noticed a message flash on the screen that said they only accept cash at THIS location; no checks, no credit cards.  That was not mentioned on the website or by the person at the window who gave me #49 two hours ago.  I panicked for a moment wondering how much cash I had on me.  If I had waited there two hours and couldn’t complete my transaction because I had $24 but not $25, I might blow an artery.  Luckily I had the dough and so I breathed a sigh of relief and went back to playing Scrabble for another hour.

Finally, three hours from the time I arrived, #49 was called. I jumped out of my seat and fist-punched the air. Woo-hoo! I ran up to the window like I was on the Price Is Right. Come on down!

The gal behind the window found all my documents to be in order.  She asked me to take a vision test which worried me a little bit because after playing Scrabble on my itty bitty iTouch for three hours, I was just about cross-eyed. She apologized that she didn’t have any Clorox wipes to clean the eye machine.  I was disgusted to have to press my face into the same machine that everyone else had pressed their germy noggins into but I just went to my happy place and read the fifth line as requested, which is hard to do when you are holding your breath.

She then had me stand behind the blue line and smile for the camera. I didn’t even bother to put on lipstick. I wanted the DPS to see what they had done to me.  I forked over $25 and I was outta there.  If I was lucky, I would get my official license in the mail in six weeks.

I hold out little hope that will happen efficiently or timely or even at all, because you know, the postal service, DPS and the IRS are all brought to you by the letters U, S and A.  But I choose not to think about it for six-weeks.

I went home and took a Silkwood-style shower and prayed that Jesus would come back before my license expires again.

* * *

I love my USA I do, I do, I do. I hate the exasperatingly inefficient bureaucracy.

A week or so back, Sean and I were driving home from somewhere just as the sun was setting and the moon was as big and orange as I have ever seen in my entire life.  It was such a wondrous sight, that I pulled the car over to gaze upon it.

“Wowee Sean!” I exclaimed. “Look at the moon!  That is awesome!”

We rolled back the moon roof and looked up at this giant golden orb that seemed to hang just above our heads and threatened to drop right into the car.

Sean, although impressed, was not as astonished at its magnificence in the same ignorantly blissful manner as I.

“Mom,” he said, “The reason the moon is so orange right now is because of Jupiter.”

“Jupiter?”

“Yes. The moon, as you know, does not generate light on its own but reflects it off nearby planets.  Jupiter is orange and it is close to the moon right now, and that is why the moon looks so big and orange.”

“Yeah.  Sure.  Of course I knew that. Who doesn’t know THAT?”

“How old are you anyway?  Aren’t you supposed to be, like, seven?”

So then, yesterday, when the school sent home a letter saying that if Sean missed any more school this semester a “review” committee might determine that he can’t graduate 1^st grade, I laughed out loud.

Yes,  I laughed loud and long.  Right after I smoothed all my ruffled feathers back into place.

Back when we were pregnant and studying fervently for our advanced degrees in parenting, we came across this article which suggested that children under the age of two should not be allowed to watch any television, none at all.

Their theory was that the electronic medium of television alters the tender brain chemistry of toddlers and could play a role in some of the sensory issues that beset our children today, issues that we haven’t seen so much in previous generations.  That seemed like a reasonable hypothesis to us and so we went with it and it has served us well.

Not only do we think this policy has benefited Sean’s ability to focus and recall, but until he started public school, he had no idea what Transformers were or who Sponge Bob is.  And that, no doubt, has saved us a few bucks.

Surprisingly, we got a lot of push back on our no-TV stance from well-intended folks who couldn’t believe that we would deny Sean his right to Elmo.

“But Sesame Street is a good program,” they’d say mournfully as though we were withholding milk, “They can learn so much!”

Whether or not Sesame Street and Barney and the others are good or bad or somewhere in between is debatable.  But this is not about the message.  It’s about the medium.  Big Bird is not the issue.  The issue is the unrelenting barrage of imagery and noise that is television that screws with the brains of babies.

When we tried to explain this, that we were not Big Bird haters, the response was “But there are a lot of good shows for kids on television! They can learn to count!”  And I had to assume their inability to form a logical counter argument was that they watched television before they were two.  And I rest my case.

When Sean was about four, we relaxed our stance on television a little bit, but not much.  Now that he is older, our concern about the electronic nature of the medium has declined an itsy bitsy bit, but our concern over the message has increased exponentially.  We go to a lot of trouble to monitor and limit what he watches, but still, the crud creeps in, and boy is it sticky stuff.

Well, last week, we had the flu at our house and our highfalutin’ stance on television went right out the window. (And yesterday my stance on never wearing my PJs and robe to drive Sean to school also went out the window.  I can no longer sneer at those robe-wearers. This flu has been rough on us.)

Sean came home from school sick with the flu on Friday, about 10 days ago.  He was sick on the couch until the next Thursday and then I was sick on the couch Thursday through the weekend and then AD took his turn on the couch.  Sean watched television the whole time he was sick and then whole time I was sick.  We have watched more television in the past 10 days than we have in the past seven years.   He was still only allowed to watch movies and Animal Planet and Discovery and Myth Busters and Word Girl and his usual mild semi-educational fare, definitely not any network crud, but still – a lot of television.

And at one point, I noticed I was developing some seriously sour feelings towards Flo, the Progressive chick and the State Farm guy with the weird forehead and thinking how ugly and annoying their kid would be.  It was about this time that Sean called to me from the sofa.

“Mom, can you come over here?”

I leaned over the sofa to feel his forehead.  Was he feeling worse?

He looks  up at me and tenderly reaches for my face.

“Mom,” he says, “ProActive could get rid of those red spots you have on your chin.”

“What?”

“It renews, revitalizes and repairs in just three easy steps.  You can order it on TV.”

“It works in as little as three days.  Katy Perry uses it.”

“Who’s Katy Perry?” I ask.

“I don’t know.  But you can get your money back if you’re not completely satisfied.”

I think they need to emend that study to report that not only does TV alter brain chemistry in children, but there is also the real danger that your kid will turn into Billy Mays in just 10 short days.

I guarantee it or your money back.

Many many moons ago, when our first set of next door neighbors lived next door (we are now on neighbors #3 which may or may not have something to do with us) they asked me if I would feed their cats while they were in Hawaii.

I said yes because it’s not in my nature to turn down a request for help.  And I thought they meant “feed” the cats.  How hard can it be to walk next door and pour some food in a bowl?  But since I had not owned a cat since I was three, I didn’t understand the full implications — feed the cat is code for change the litter box.

So a day before they were to leave for Hawaii, they called me over for my cat-feeding training.  When she took me to the guest bath off the kitchen, I started to get the idea that maybe this could involve something more than pouring food into a bowl.

“This!” she said waving her hand Vanna-style towards a plastic washtub on the floor, “This is the litter box!” Then she proceeded to instruct me in the fine art of poop scooping.

Although this was not what I thought I had signed up for, I couldn’t exactly back out. I had been duped like a trusting two-year-old.

So about a day after they left, I went over to “feed” the cats.  They (the cats) ran out to greet me.  They were happy to see me and mewed and purred and affectionately rubbed up against me and serpentined between my legs as I tried to walk.  The litter box was not too terribly atrocious in my estimation, so I held my nose and scooped poo, poured some food in their bowl, patted them on their little kitty heads and went on my merry way.  This wasn’t going to be so bad, and bonus – I’ll get a star in my crown.

About a day after that I went back for my second visit.  This time the cats did not come out to greet me but rather cowered in dark corners and hissed at me as I walked past.  I went to the guest bath for the scooping portion of the visit and good glory, I couldn’t believe my eyes.  They had dumped over the litter box, shredded the rug and shower curtain, pee’d all over everything and had apparently made a clumsy attempt at using the toilet paper.  These were some mad cats.  Vindictive too.  Some words immediately sprung to mind, all of them four-letter.  So much for that star in my crown.

I cleaned it up as best I could and took the shower curtain and rug home to wash.  Here’s a tip. If a cat pee’s on something?  Throw it away.  Three washings later and the rug and curtain still smelled like the garbage dump from hell.

For the remainder of my active duty, I ran in and scooped and fed as fast as I could and then ran out before they shredded me.  I was afraid. Very afraid.  They were plotting against me, I could feel it in my bones.

That was about 10 years ago, and memories fade, so when my friend Jennifer asked me to feed her cat while her family went skiing over Christmas, I of course said yes. How hard can it be to feed a cat?

When she called me over to give me feeding instructions and walked me to the laundry room, I had a flashback.

“This!” she said waving her hand Vanna-style, “This is the litter box!”  This was no ordinary litter box. This was the Rolls Royce of litter boxes.  It cleaned itself automatically and had moving parts and sensors.  It was nicer than my car.  And it was idiot proof, or at least it was until I came along.  She said I shouldn’t need to do anything because the box does it all automatically, but if does need to be changed, do this and this and this and put in a tray and then do this.  And at that point, I sort of blanked out in the same way I do when someone starts talking about percentages and fractions and information that I don’t think I need.

So about a day later I went over to feed the cat.  The cat ran out to greet me, mewed, purred and walked between my legs.

On the second visit, the cat hid in a corner and hissed at me as I walked past.  And the Rolls Royce litter box seemed to be on the blink.  So I scooped and said four-letter words in my head and got out of there as fast as I could.

On the third visit, I noticed that when I went in that the door from the house to the garage was open.  No worries, I figured that it popped open when I opened the garage door as sometimes happens at our house.

So I go in and call for the cat, scoop and feed. The cat makes no appearance, but I figure she hates my guts and can’t stand the sight of me. And Jennifer said that she sometimes hides, so I left it at that and went home.

About two hours later, this horrifying thought occurs to me:  What if the door to the garage popped open when I left on the second visit and the cat was not hiding in the house but was in the garage when I arrived?  Since I left the garage door OPEN when I was calling/feeding/scooping, perhaps the cat availed herself of the opportunity to escape the hell that is having me feed her and scoop her poop.

And that horrifying thought was followed by this even more horrifying thought:  I don’t really know what Jennifer’s cat looks like.  Being able to identify Jennifer’s cat was one of those things that fell into the category of “stuff I don’t really need to know”.

And then even more horrifying thoughts followed:  How am I going to find a cat that I can’t identify? What if I find a cat slinking around Jennifer’s house and I force it inside and it’s not even her cat?   And then she comes home to a new cat?

So I go back over to Jennifer’s house to find the cat.  She has most of the doors closed off, so if it is there, it can only be in a few places.  I call and call and call for the cat. I search and search and search every possible place for the cat.  But NO CAT.  So I went home distraught over the fact that my friendship with Jennifer has ended.

As I sat at my desk, trying to order the horrifying thoughts and figure out how I am going to tell Jennifer that I lost her cat, I get an email from her saying how her girls were crying because they really miss the cat.  I had a problem.  A big problem.  And so I did what I always do when I have a problem, I turn to the ultimate problem solver – AD.

AD takes command and control of the situation and launches Operation Find The Cat.  He orders Sean and me to go with him back to Jennifer’s house for a search and rescue.  First we do a reconnaissance of the property, even though we have no idea what the cat looks like.  Our plan is to capture all the cats we can find and then we’ll line them all up and figure out which one is most likely to be Jennifer’s cat.  No cats were found on or near the exterior of the property, so we then systematically search the garage and the inside of the house.

Finally, after 30 minutes of calling and searching, hand-wringing and brow-beating, Sean finds the stupid cat hiding behind the curtains in the guest room.  The cat smirks at me and hisses.  I stick my tongue out at the cat and we leave. I breathe a sigh of relief.  My friendship with Jennifer has been saved.  At least until she reads this.

So while I am perfectly capable of watching your kid while you are gone, please do not ask me to “feed your cat.”

So a Sunday or two back, because it was cold, I pulled on a pair of tights to wear with a wool skirt.  I normally wear pants to church when it’s cold.  And by pants I mean slacks, not jeans.  I am not a wear-jeans-to-church kind of gal, but if you are that’s okay, not that there’s anything wrong with it, judge not, yada yada, whatever.  But for some reason I thought I would wear a skirt even though it was near freezing.

Sidebar:  Sean really likes it when I wear a skirt or a dress, perhaps because it is so seldom.  I have a few strapless sparkly cocktail dresses left over from back in the day and he’ll often pull one of those out and suggest I wear it to church.  One time in pre-K, for a Mother’s Day project, he was supposed to draw a picture of me and then write a sentence about me.  His sentence was “My mom has a lot of fancy skirts.”  I have one fancy-ish skirt.

Yet Another Sidebar: Okay, here’s a new trend I have observed that puzzles me – bare legs all the time, even when it is seriously cold outside.  In the summer when it’s warm, I like to wear a skirt with sandals.  That makes sense.  But when it is below, say 75?  I do NOT want the icy wind howling up the antique gams.  Not only because it’s uncomfortably cold but because blue goose-bumpy legs are not attractive.  But then again, I was a young gal in the 70’s and 80’s and owned approximately 3,825 pairs of L’eggs.  I am a product of the panty-hose generation.  Even if I had really great legs, which I do not, I would not go bare-legged with spike heels and a pencil skirt in January.

So, on this particular cold Sunday, as we were heading out the door for church — me in my plaid wool skirt, turtle neck, Mary Janes and black tights (can’t you just picture the sexiness?)  Sean is walking behind me and makes a funny little cat-call whistle sound – woot-WOOoooh! – (because he can’t actually whistle) and says, “Mom! I reeeeally like those high heel socks!”

And I chuckled because high heel socks sounds so much more sexy than control-top tights.

Perhaps that’s how we could bring back pantyhose  – we could call them high heel socks.

If there was one thing I thought I knew about my child it is this:  He cannot keep a secret.

Early in December, Sean brought home a flyer from school announcing the annual Holiday Shop!  I put the exclamation point there so you might know just how thrilled I was with this news.

The flyer reported which classes would visit the Holiday Shop on which days and at what time.  The flyer also stated with vehemence (probably inferred on my part) that there would be NO preview this year and that the vendor was the same as last year and that it was NOT a school fundraiser.  It was totally for-profit crunk selling.

As it turns out, we were not at the school last year, so that information, vehement or otherwise, was not useful to me.

What information I did require was the following:  What in the heck is a Holiday Shop? What kind of holiday crunk is stocked in Ye Olde Holiday Shoppe, and most importantly how much does this crunk cost?  Oh, and hey, what about the kiddos who have no Holiday Shop spending money?  And then the question I always have when it comes to these kinds of extra-curricular events:  Can’t we just do math or phonics instead?

So as usual when faced with a conundrum, I called my friend Jennifer who knows stuff.  She gave me the low-down on the Holiday Shop and a suggested a budget of about $5 to $10.

When I talked to Sean later, I asked him about how much he thought he needed for this shopping spree.  He said about $30.  So I said, how about $5?  He said how about $10?  I said how about I give you $5 and you take $5 out of your bank.  He said, “Deal!” and we shook on it and signed the papers.

Then we had a little chat about how this was Christmas, not Seanmas, and that the purpose of the Holiday Shop was so that he might buy presents for others, and by others I meant People Who Are Not Sean.  Then we had a discussion about fractions and percentages as we negotiated about how much he could spend on himself.

The next day I sent him off to school with his $5 and my $5 expecting the same winning results you might get in Las Vegas.  When he came home from school I asked to see his purchases.  With much pride he showed me the Cowboys pennant he bought for his father and the camouflage-motif pencil he bought for Papa George.  And then he showed me the dog-tag style necklace with a soccer pendant he bought for himself.

“Did you get anything else?” I asked coyly, “Anything for anyone else?”

“Nope,” he said definitively and handed me the $7.25 he did not spend.

I chuckled to myself as I turned his backpack inside out looking for the other gifts. Surely there were other gifts, surely.  But no….

We wrapped the pennant and the pencil and put them under the tree and I thought no more of it because I knew my broken and wounded heart would someday mend.

On Christmas Eve I unwrapped the gifts from my big boyfriend and my little boyfriend — an ornament from Target which I had purchased myself and handed off to big boyfriend for wrapping, and a pair of much-needed slippers which I requested.  No surprises there but much delight all the same.

“Oh, one more thing Mom!” Sean said as he dove under the tree.  He returned with a tiny package, merrily wrapped with a ribbon and secured with a lot of tape.  He handed it to me, glowing, as though it were a jewel he had just plucked from its slumber in the earth.

I couldn’t imagine what it could be but suspected it was something that he had made at school, something with glitter and glue and probably macaroni.

Inside was a pretty little ring with a blue stone that he had purchased at the Holiday Shop.

“Are you surprised Mom? Are you? You thought I forgot you, didn’t you!” he laughed.

“It cost a dollar!” he enthused, then  quickly added, “I’m sorry it’s not a real diamond.”

“I love it,” I said with all honestly.

I slipped it on my finger, adjusted the band for a custom-fit and then held out my hand to admire it.

It was a complete surprise.

It was beautiful.

It pinched my finger.

And my heart.

Random, Stray and Otherwise Unassigned Thoughts:

If I could just find the right color of blush I wouldn’t look so washed out.

Someday I will find the “right” haircut and I’ll have fabulous easy to do hair that always looks great.

Jeans are comfortable.

My kid is astonishingly smarter/cuter/funnier than all the other kids.

My seven-year-old will always be the loving, delightful and polite little fella he is today.

My husband forgets to take out the trash on purpose.

If I get it on sale, I’m saving money.

I can still shop in Juniors.

Everyone else has it together/knows what they’re doing.

Fun-sized Snickers are a healthy nutritious snack.

Someday I will get rid of The Mole.

And then I will have a beautiful Southern Living yard.

Coffee counts towards my daily 8-glasses of water because it’s made with water.

That weird smell coming from the sink disposal is probably nothing.

I got the following comment from Lil on my previous post and it really got me to thinking:

“My grown sister and I were talking a few days ago about Christmases past and she was saying that thinking back on our childhood Christmases, she never got THE thing she really wanted, she always got a variation or knock off of the desired object and that she never had a WOW Christmas because of it. I said that my poor mom was trying to make four kids happy on a limited budget and had done pretty darned well. But her lingering disappointment in those Christmases past made me think that maybe for my kid, the memory of getting what he really wants on Christmas, at least with one toy, is worth the expense.

On the other hand, I have a friend and in her family of five kids, they each got one item of clothing on Christmas morning and then all went out sledding and she had wonderful memories of that!

I guess with Christmas, we’re really just trying to make happy memories for our kids, however that is possible, with the realization of a dream come true gift, or/and a great happy time with family.”

And I thought, you know that is a very interesting discussion point and one that is probably worthy of an entire post.

I’m torn.

The philosophical side of me sniffs and dismisses toys and gifts, the side that tries to ponder upon loftier things.  The six-year-old poor girl in me wants the Hollywood stage set Christmas and the IT doll wrapped in shiny foil paper and a sparkly bow.  And a pretty red velvet dress. And those sides are like two siblings in the backseat of a car on a trip to eternity, slap fighting the whole way.

My parents never had money for the IT toy or even the knock-off IT toy and while I had a wonderful childhood, I had the impression that everyone else except us was having a Norman Rockwell Christmas and getting IT toys and new pajamas and spending money from grandma and were delirious with joy on Christmas morning.  And because of that, for me, Christmas always came with a feeling of disappointment.  And that disappointment seems to have nestled deep within me and feeds my desire to give Sean at least one IT toy.

One the other hand….

If you (meaning me) are focused inward then it’s easy to believe in the false-Christmas that retailers sell, the one that can never be had, and you deny yourself the joy of the season.   But if you (meaning me) adjust your expectations and focus out, then you (meaning me) can tap into the joy of Christmas and anesthetize the disappointment. To some degree.  I’m pretty sure that makes no sense to you (meaning you) because it barely makes sense to me.

So while I do indulge my inner poor girl and buy Sean at least one thing he really wants, AD and I go to considerable efforts to counter that by playing down the gifts and focusing on the traditions that we are creating as a family and on the story of the birth of Christ as told in Luke.

When Sean is a grown man, I want him to remember Christmas in our house as a time of joy more so than whether or not he got a Bakugan when he was seven.  I guess he can let you know in another 15 years or so.

I would love to hear your thoughts and stories.

So that y’all may go on with your holidays, I shall reveal to you the secrets of the House of Antique as it relates to obscure toy requests:

1) A machine gun.  Sean wants the Nerf machine gun but it is $40 and we already have three other Nerf guns.  He will get the $15 Walmart no-name obnoxious noise making variety which I will deeply regret two minutes seconds after it is loosed from its packaging.

After purchasing a number of Tonka obnoxious-noise-making Trucks and an Alvin the Chipmunk who sings Up On The Rooftop every time you walk past, you’d think I’d learn. But no.  I get visions of his eyes lighting up and his grubby little hands clapping with joy and I lose my mind and buy stuff I hate.  Apparently I’m nuts.  Or just nutty about that boy.

2)  A Bakugan Kit.   This “kit” is the exorbitantly over-priced Tupperware container for his growing collection of Bakugans, and by growing collection I mean we have two that we got in Happy Meals (one of which is lost at the moment).  Last week I had never heard of a Bakugan and I still don’t really know what they are.  Were it not for kids at school, Sean would still not know what they are.  &!@# school kids.

3) A microscope. This he is also not getting, although I really want to get him one.  I want to wait until I can buy a good sturdy one.  Anyone who has any microscope buying insider info, I’d love to hear from you.

4) A lie detector kit — as seen in Sky Mall magazine.  Also not getting this as it would surely be used against me.

What he is getting are Zoobs and a blocks and marbles super set and a new soccer ball.  Oh yeah, and the stupid machine gun.

Merry Giftmas to all and to all a good night!