At the very moment I sat down to write this blog, my kids started fighting over their keyboard. So we had our two millionth lesson about sharing. I am obviously doing something wrong here. The “experts” are always yapping about how effective it is for parents to model good behaviors for their children. So instead of sneakily retreating to my room, closing my door, hoarding the last of the Cheez-Its, and pretending to put away laundry, I am going to model the desired behavior and share. Not once, but twice.
The first thing I would like to share is a piece by Jerry Mahoney, who is the mastermind behind the blog Mommy Man: The Adventures of a Gay Superdad. All parents find themselves completely unprepared at one point or another when their children drop one of those atomic bomb questions that we haven’t yet thought about how to answer. Jerry, thankfully, is there to help a straight parent out if and when your child becomes curious about gay parents (which he or she will inevitably encounter in today’s society). His advice packs a punch of good old common sense, and helps parents use the right kind of language to encourage acceptance, tolerance, and a whole lot of “everyone is different and that’s okay.” Plus, he references Brainy Smurf, so you know it has to be good. Check out his post, “How To Talk to Your Children About Gay Parents, By a Gay Parent.” While you are there, stick around. He has a lot of other great stuff about just being a parent…gay or otherwise.
Now if I could just find a piece called, “How to Talk to Your Children About Not Picking Their Noses and Eating Their Boogers, By a Reformed Nose Picker Who Ate His Boogers.”
The second thing I want to share is this:
Okay, I just realized this was maybe not the best picture to have in the same post as one that talks about gay parents, but stay with me here. This is the Hutzler 571 Banana Slicer, available on Amazon. Yes, it is a completely ridiculous uni-tasker (as Alton Brown of Food Network would call it), and a bit funny simply by its mere existence. But a friend of mine posted the link to this on his Facebook page instructing everyone to read the reviews. So I did. Hi.Lar.I.Ous. My husband and I were actually in tears from laughing so hard, starting off with the review, “No More Winning for You, Mr. Banana!” This is literally the best thing that has ever been on Amazon. So do yourself a favor, and go read a few of the 3,101 reviews (yes, seriously) of a banana slicer. I dare you not to at least crack a smile.
I just spent a mind-numbing half hour helping my son sign eighteen valentine cards for his classmates. Even he was getting bored, evident by his increasingly lax standards of how to make the letters in his name: “This is a different way to make a ‘C,’ Mom.” Looks good to me, buddy. No one is going to pay much attention to your valentine anyway since mom here went the cheap-o route this year and got the ones that don’t come with any candy.
The slow deterioration of good penmanship
I don’t care much about Valentine’s Day. It’s not that I dislike it; I am just completely apathetic toward it. Valentine’s Day is like the fifth guy from *NSync in the world of holidays…you know, the one that’s not Justin Timberlake, Joey Fatone, Lance Bass, or JC Chavez. You don’t mind that it’s there, but you also wouldn’t really notice if it wasn’t. (And since I spent a ridiculous amount of time deciding which holidays the other guys would be, please indulge this small tangent: Timberlake is totally the Thanksgiving-Christmas-New Year’s triplet threat. Fatone is Halloween; goofy, fun, and you know he has some mad skills for trading bad jokes for candy. Bass, he’s a firework who lets his colors burst like the Fourth of July. And just like the Easter Bunny tries to be as cool as Santa, Chavez ain’t no Timberlake. Now back to the point.)
I am not the only one in my house who feels this way about Valentine’s day. My husband has made a declaration that I never have to buy him a card as long as we live. He thinks they are a racket. In fact, he doesn’t want me to get him anything for Valentine’s day…well, anything that costs money. Wink, wink. (*eye roll*) But we always feel the need to help the kids put something together for one another. I have to be honest. Despite the fact that we know we all love each other, these little tokens of Cupid feel a little forced and trite. For example, my daughter informed me today that she was going to write a poem for everyone in our family: “Roses are red, Violets are blue, Happy Valentine’s Day, I love you.” (Members of our family, I am so sorry to ruin the surprise.) Forced. Trite.
What my kids don’t know is that they give me little valentines all year long. And this is what they look like in my head:
AHA! They DO really love each other!I adore the little notes Grace leaves for me all the timeTrue stories.I die from cuteness.I will mold her into my tiny clone. *maniacal laugh*He also realized we don’t live in a barn and actually closed the door.No words necessary
That means the pressure is off for Valentine’s Day. I already have everything I need; and I am pretty sure the rest of my family does, too. So we can instead enjoy the fun of Mardi Gras today and properly stuff our faces for Fat Tuesday. And then tomorrow on Ash Wednesday we can realize that all the crap we ate today might lead to that whole “to dust you shall return” thing happening just a wee bit sooner than later. But at least we won’t have to worry about last-minute Valentine gifts.
However, maybe someone should send something to that fifth guy from *NSync. This is his holiday after all.
This is a post I wrote about a year ago, but I felt the driving need to re-blog it today as I will be heading to Chuck E. Cheese’s with my children for our preschool’s fundraiser night. Please pray that tonight I don’t encounter another reason to ever write another post like this…
Chuck E. Cheese’s.
That is all you have to say to hear a collective, audible grunt from every parent within earshot. It may very well be the place “where a kid can be a kid,” but it is most certainly the place where a parent can get a preview of one of the circles of Hell. Okay, that may be a bit of an exaggeration. But a place where your money gets you a mediocre pizza, a temporary tattoo and fun size Airhead candy for a mere 100 tickets, and a lingering sticky film over your entire body is not what I envision Heaven to be. Maybe Purgatory.
But I can deal with all of that. And I understand that in the eyes of my children, Chuck E. Cheese’s is the ultimate restaurant. After all, as a kid I felt the same way about its predecessor, Showbiz Pizza. So when faced with having to take my own kids to this pizza funland for a birthday party or fundraiser night (because those are pretty much the only circumstances under which we set foot in there), my audible grunt is not rooted in my disdain for the place. My distaste for Chuck E. Cheese’s comes from the mouse himself.
Yes, Chuck E. has scarred me for life. Let me take you back in time to the day it all happened…
The year was 1993. I was a sophomore in high school. For some reason completely incomprehensible to me now, but which clearly made sense to the idiot teenage brain, I went to Chuck E. Cheese’s with a few friends. Maybe we really wanted a neon pillow shaped liked an alien head and figured the best way to get one was to earn tickets playing Whack-A-Mole for an entire afternoon. Anyway, I remember it clearly. I was in the middle of one of my personal best rounds of skee ball when I felt a large, cartoonish presence next to me. There stood Chuck E., mimicking my skee ball maneuvers. Ha ha. Funny Chuck E. Now move along and go high-five some six-year-old. But he did not move on. He stood there for a little while, looking at me. I tried to ignore him and continued playing until he left. To my dismay, he did not stay away for long. He followed me, silently, creepily, from one game to the next. Don’t you have to go perform “Disco Chuck” or “Rockin’ Robin” with your band right about now? It was incredibly disturbing.
Finally, it must have been Chuck E.’s break time, because he scampered away behind a door, and I started breathing easy again. That is, until I turned around and found myself standing face to face with a Chuck E. Cheese employee – a human one this time. I thought maybe he was coming over to apologize for Chuck E.’s annoying behavior and to treat me to five free tokens for my inconvenience. I was mistaken. Here is how the conversation went down:
Employee: “Chuck E. wanted me to come out here and tell you that he thinks you’re cute.”
Me: <crickets chirping>
Employee: He’s a really nice guy. He wanted to know what you thought of his tail.
Me: <crickets chirping>
Employee: So when he comes back, you wanna hang out?
Me: I don’t date mice.
That’s right, ladies and gentlemen. I WAS HIT ON BY CHUCK E. CHEESE. Of all the celebrities whose eye I could have caught, that was my one shining moment. Pathetic. Disgusting. And down right Creepy with a capital C.
“Is that your tail or are you just happy to see me?” photo from arcadeheroes.com
And THAT is why I hate Chuck E. Cheese’s. Since that very unfortunate day, I shudder a little whenever I hear Chuck E.’s nasaly voice on a commercial. When we are at the restaurant, I get weirded out and have the urge to hide whenever Chuck E. starts walking the floor. But I grin and bear it, all so my kids can have their fun.
And that is exactly what I did this past Thursday when Michael’s preschool had their fundraising night at Chuck E. Cheese’s. I bought my pizza and tokens like a dutiful mother. I helped Grace score extra points on the basketball game so she could earn more tickets toward junk I don’t want in my house. And I even alerted Michael when I saw Chuck E. sauntering among the customers (no doubt scanning the crowd for some unsuspecting female on whom he could work his “playa” moves). Michael loves Chuck E. Cheese, and when he saw the mouse, he ran up and gave him a hug. As I watched, a bit horrified, I had the thought, “Oh Michael. You have no idea. Chuck E. Cheese could have been your father.”
Then I threw up a little in my mouth.
(The Chuck E. Saga continued a few years later. For the next chapter, click here.)
•••
Don’t want to miss a post? Want to stay updated on my author events and news? Subscribe to my Weekly Mayhem Newletter HERE!
Can somebody tell me when little girls started becoming teenagers at age seven?
My daughter may look like a seven-year-old. She may still dress in clothes from Gymboree and have crooked teeth not quite yet ready for braces. But she has the sass factor of a sixteen-year-old. And frankly, I am a little tired of it.
I have recently been relieved that I am not the only mother struggling with this. I have witnessed the behavior in some of her friends and have heard exasperated “I-can-not-take-this-anymore” ventings from other moms. And just the other day, my friend Heather said of her young daughter, “I think she just finds being difficult an acceptable hobby.”
Well, that made me laugh out loud, of course. Yet it also confirmed my worst fear: we are facing an epidemic of sass among little girls. This is likely a by-product of years of letting girls in elementary school dress like teenagers planning to give it up on prom night. Little did we know that teenage fashion was simply the gateway drug to teenage attitudes.
I, for one, am not going to stand for it. I will not be made to feel irrelevant by my daughter until she is AT LEAST in middle school, like in the good old days. So I took immediate action.
And my immediate action wasn’t very successful. I can’t imagine why. Whenever my dad stopped dead in his tracks, glared at me with white-hot anger, and bellowed, “WHAAAAT did you saaaaay?,” that was enough to keep me on the path of straight and narrow. (My grandpa was also successful using this method the time I had just seen Little Shop of Horrors and decided to quote Audrey II’s line, “tough t*tties” to show my lack of sympathy towards one of my cousins. In my defense, I was too young to know what that meant. In grandpa’s defense, he didn’t care.) But apparently my fury does not strike the fear of God in my daughter. Instead, she ended up crying that I was”hurting her feelings,” then she went to her room, slammed the door, and proceeded to say sassy things about her horrible mother behind my back.
Next I tried the extremely mature tactic of sassing her right back. You wanna go down this road, little girl? Because you have no idea who you are dealing with. Not only could I post some major sass points in my day, but I also used to teach rooms full of teenage girls, some of whom were very privileged. Rich, spoiled teenage sass is about as top-notch as it gets. So between my own natural-born talent and my ivy league education in the art, I believe I have earned the equivalent of my B.A., Master’s Degree, and Ph.D in Sassology. But I guess the fact that I don’t use these degrees very often anymore (because I tend to communicate like, um, an adult) made me a little rusty. Grace matched my sass every time…and then raised the bar.
Admittedly, part of me wanted to throw in the towel. But that is not what moms do. So finally I decided to try a more thoughtful approach. Maybe I need to create that magical little panacea called a “teachable moment.” Grace’s usual defenses when she has done something wrong are “I didn’t realize I was doing it,” or “It was an accident.” While I know this isn’t true all the time, I can also give my daughter a break in realizing that sometimes the sass probably does fly out of her mouth before she has time to thoughtfully construct her words. Heck, that happens to me…and she is only seven, after all. So I came up with a plan.
I told Grace than whenever she speaks to me or anyone in a disrespectfully sassy tone, I would give her a warning by simply saying, SASSAFRAS. That is her cue to change her attitude, and if she doesn’t, then there will be a consequence. Pretty smart, if I do say so myself. My hope is for a gradual training in appropriate attitudes towards people. And I was certain Grace would be appreciative of my calm and reasonable treatment of this matter…
Grace: “Sassafras????? I don’t even know what sassafras is!!”
Me: “Right now all you need to know is that it means you are being sassy and you need to stop.”
Grace:”Why don’t you just say Miss Sassy? Sassafrasis stupid.”
Me: SASSAFRAS!!!
Grace: “What?”
Me: “You are doing it right now. Sassafras. Stop being sassy.”
Grace: “When I have a daughter, I’m going to use Miss Sassy. And she is not going to be sassy at all.”
Sigh. Despite the rocky start, I am going to stick with this plan for a while because I do think it has merit. But right now it feels like the only thing I am going to get out of sassafras is possibly a tasty microbrew.
Late to the game as usual, I just heard about a blog contest for “Top 25 Funny Moms” on the Circle of Moms website and decided…what the heck? I believe I would fall in the category known as “Up and Coming Funny Moms.” There are only 14 more voting days, but if you have a few seconds and deem me as worthy, head on over HERE and vote for “Are You Finished Yet?” You can vote once a day. I would very kindly appreciate it! If not, no worries. I will never know.
I’ve got a little bone to pick. And I’m warning you…I might get a little sassy.
This morning I sat down with my Cinnamon Chex and the Sunday funnies. Before reading the 74,502nd joke Dilbert makes at his boss’ expense, I immediately opened to the middle section to read one of my favorite columns,Life Sherpa by Joe Holleman. While I don’t always agree with his opinions, I really enjoy the common sense approach he applies to life; and he is usually good for a chuckle or two. Sometimes even a snort. He is kind of like a funnier, cooler, more likeable version of Dr. Phil. And he seems like a decent guy to have a beer with, which is one of my more discerning qualifications for liking people.
But I would be lying if I didn’t say I was a little miffed with today’s column. A reader by the name of “Eliza Dooalot” wrote in to vent her annoyance with parents who bring children to Mexican resorts or places like Las Vegas, thereby ruining the vacations of all the hard-working adults who paid good money for their trips. (Needless to say, I doubt I would want to have a beer with her. She would probably get all snippy that I brought my kids to the bar.) But I had no doubt that Sherpa would at least partially come to the defense of these parents she spoke of, seeing as how he is a man who usually acknowledges both sides of an argument.
I was wrong.
Instead, I felt a little betrayed. He painted parents of young children as people who think “the whole world finds their children as precious, fascinating and accomplished as they do.” He also states that the kids “can’t help that they were born to selfish people who are incapable of grasping the notion that they might have to give up some of their fun because they had children. And why should they? It’s so much easier to spoil everyone else’s good time than to deprive themselves.”
Oh, Sherpa. I would elaborate on more of what he wrote, but it’s just too painful to read again. But you can do so here, while I try to pull this knife out of my heart.
Now, I want to go on record as saying: Sherpa, I still love you. And I am smart enough to realize you don’t feel this way about all parents of young children. After all, you yourself are a parent, and your children were once young. And I will give it to you: there are irresponsible parents out there like those you speak of. We have all seen them, experienced them, perhaps even known some. I know I do. But if there is one thing that annoys me, it is generalizations. I can honestly say that 99.9% of the parents I know are NOT the kind of people described in the column, and they can’t be the only ones. It would be pretty silly to think I simply hit the jackpot when it comes to friends and acquaintances with children. Furthermore, if there is anything that gets me fired up, it is a misguided attack on something close to my heart.
Let’s start with the obvious: flying with young children to a Mexican resort. Please correct me if I am wrong, but Mexico has about as many vacation resorts as they do tortillas, many of which are designated as “adults only.” Problem solved. And if it is the “flying with children” part of the scenario that seems “inconsiderate,” well, let’s take a look at that. Flying with kids can admittedly be a disaster of epic magnitude waiting to happen. So, of course, “considerate parents” would simply choose vacation spots to which they can drive, therefore keeping the horrific deeds of their naughty children confined to their own family vehicles, right? First off, this notion suggests that certain people have more of a right to fly than others. But that is just ridiculous, so I won’t even address it. Believe it or not, in today’s economy, flying can often be a cheaper alternative to driving, especially when long distances are involved. Not only have gas prices been insane, but many parents who travel for work enjoy the benefit of frequent flyer miles which they save up and use to pay for family vacations. (Also astonishing is the fact that resorts, like those in say, Mexico, can also be paid for with points. And before you say “use your points at DisneyWorld,” I will mention that I can practically fly and stay at TWO Mexican resorts OR fly across the ocean to Ireland before I have enough points for a family of four to go to DisneyWorld. That’s what you call a Magic Racket.) Considering the rising costs of raising a family, maybe these parents aren’t being so selfish after all. Maybe they are just treating their children to a memory-making vacation while at the same time, saving money that can be used on more important things. Like college funds. Or mortgage payments.
What Happens in Vegas Isn’t Your Darn Business
Now, onto Vegas. I, for one, would never choose Vegas as a destination for a family vacation. I don’t think most parents would. Those card flippers on the strip are enough for me to keep my children outside a very large radius of the city…you know, the guys who hand out naked pictures of girls to promote Caesar knows what. However, it could be possible, just possible, that a family with small children might be in Vegas for another reason, like a convention or a tournament, of which they had no control over the location.
Case in point: my brother played club volleyball as a kid. One year, Nationals were held in Reno. While Reno isn’t as soaked in debauchery as Vegas, there isn’t a whole lot more to do there than gamble. And guess what is in every hotel? A casino. And guess where the food court and restaurants were in the hotel? On the other side of the casino from the elevators up to the rooms. So every time a poor kid wanted a meal, he had to walk through the casino floor filled with chain-smoking old ladies at slot machines, groups of drunk guys yelling profanities at the craps table, and scantily clad bar maids wiggling what God gave them. The gamblers probably didn’t want the kids there, but neither did their parents. I guess the parents could have not let their children leave the hotel rooms, but no one wants to see or hear what happens when kids are confined for too long. Either be annoyed while gambling or have your sleep disrupted by adolescents bouncing off the walls next door. Your choice.
Basically what I’m saying is don’t assume you know the reason a family with young children might be in an unlikely place. The only thing unlikely about the situation is that the parents are “selfish people who are incapable of grasping the notion that they might have to give up some of their fun because they had children.”
Does This Look Like Fun to You?
Totally precious…not
Which brings me to another can of worms I want to open: kids misbehave. It is a fact as true as the laws of physics. And guess what? Even kids of good parents, well-intentioned, attentive, responsible parents, misbehave. And yes, it is annoying. But here is the most shocking part: NO ONE IN THE WHOLE ENTIRE WORLD IS MORE ANNOYED AT MISBEHAVING CHILDREN THAN THE PARENTS OF SAID CHILDREN. Is there a kid at the pool being a brat, yelling the theme song to “Go, Diego, Go” and splashing everyone within five feet of him? I suspect this might be the type of “other people’s children” that Miss Eliza Dooalot must suffer and “put up with” on her vacation. But who is really the one who has to put up with it? Sure, for people like Eliza and other bystanders, this behavior can be disruptive and agitating. But Eliza has a choice; a choice to find another area by the pool to relax, a choice to crank up the music in her earphones, a choice to leave. This child’s parents do not have that choice. They not only have to be badgered by it, but they also have to do something to remedy it. And might I add that most parents are not only frustrated in their child’s misbehavior despite trying to teach them manners and respect every chance they get, but they are also embarrassed that their failings are on display for all to see, and their reaction to it is likely being judged.
A perfect example of this unfortunately happened to a friend of mine several years ago. She was moving her family from St. Louis to London after her husband was transferred. He had gone to London ahead of the family to start work, so she was poised to make a trans-Atlantic flight alone with three small children. Things got off to a rocky start, and her kids were already whining and pushing limits as they boarded the plane. As she made her way to her seat, juggling three children and all their carry-ons, another passenger made some snide comment loud enough for her to hear. She turned to him and said something along the lines of, “If you think I’M having a good time here, you are SORELY mistaken.” If I had been on that plane, I would have given her a standing ovation.
The Moral of the Story
All of these above reasons are why I got so angry reading that column. And I am not an unreasonable person. I am actually probably a lot more “old school” than most older generations would accredit to someone of my generation. I have even proclaimed myself to be the world’s youngest cranky old woman. So for me to take offense to these attitudes means something. Parents KNOW their kids can be annoying to other people. We do get it, since other people’s kids annoy us sometimes, too. We are just able to cut them some slack because we know in our hearts that parenting bites everyone in the backside every now and again. And we don’t think everyone thinks they are cute and adorable. Heck, there are times when even WE don’t think that. So to imply that we are clueless, self-centered people who are not mortified if the actions of our children inconvenience other people is grossly irresponsible. Even worse, to imply that we are negligent enough to abandon our parental judgment to allow ourselves to have fun at the expense of our children and everyone else is downright hurtful.
Obviously, everyone has a right to feel however they want on this issue. All I am really asking is instead of rushing to judgment, perhaps adults without young children should consider the fact that they don’t have the whole story. The world revolves around no ONE person; we all have to share this planet, and occasionally a Mexican resort. That means we will step on each others’ toes sometimes, even if there is no malice intended. I can empathize with a hard-working person who is just looking forward to a relaxing vacation; hopefully that person can also empathize with the fact that parents on vacation with children really aren’t on vacation at all. But we go, for our kids. For our family. And to be frankly honest, it’s a free country and we can choose to vacation wherever we want. So do you.
So let’s mend the fences, Sherpa. I can respect your opinion. And now you know mine. All is forgiven. And if you want to hang out with some really fantastic moms who hold absolutely no delusions about the strengths AND faults of their children, usually posting the good and the bad on Facebook for you to block, come have a beer with us. It will even be my treat, since you’re still one of my favorite columnists. I’m even enough of a good sport to let you invite Eliza Dooalot. But she has to pay for her own beer. I work too hard trying to raise future productive members of society to waste my well-deserved mom’s night-out money on her unsympathetic attitude.
It feels a little weird to be blogging. I mean, it has been exactly twenty-three days since I last posted something (not that I have been counting or anything). That is apparently long enough for the WordPress site to stop automatically logging me in, causing me to have to actually type in my username and password…which I almost couldn’t remember. It’s a good thing I am not entrusted with any classified information. I am pretty sure they don’t have a “remember me” box to check when logging into the nuclear launch codes.
Oh hey, Twitter. I forgot you were in here. (photo courtesy of iStockphoto.com)
I guess I can chalk up my lack of blogging to taking to heart the idea that “life grows sideways.”* I have been rolling with the punches. And the punches just haven’t seemed to be landing on blogging lately…or Facebook…or Twitter. (Actually, the punches NEVER land on Twitter. My Twitter account is pretty much like those leftovers you know you should throw out, but you put them in Tupperware anyway because you just MIGHT find a use for them. Like you just MIGHT become one of those people who researches creative ways to reinvent leftovers into a brand new meal. But you never do. But you are also one of those people who is not so good at cleaning out your fridge, so the leftovers just sit somewhere in the back next to the jar of barley malt you bought last year because you needed one tablespoon of it to make homemade bagels, which of course you have never made since. Are you sensing why I am not so good at capping my thoughts to 140 characters?)
What I HAVE been rolling with is basketball practices; indoor soccer games; tumbling classes; birthday parties; First Communion meetings; Brownie meetings; overseeing the selling of Girl Scout cookies; making Walmart my unfortunate second home; powder puff derbies (well, just one of those); sporadic workout schedules; ice skating; school volunteering; randomly deciding to reorganize the kitchen on a Monday afternoon; realizing that a freshly reorganized kitchen “needs” some pops of color by way of new utensil, flour, sugar, and tea cannisters; “sacrificing” my time to scour Pier One and T.J. Maxx for said sources of pops of color…you know, typical mom stuff. Because typical mom stuff is how I roll. Just consider my theme song “Roll With It” by Steve Winwood. That’s right. Winwood. Hey, that brassy 80’s tune worked for my grade school soccer team. Get it?…roll with it…like a ball. Uh huh. We even had a little sideline dance. Take that David Beckham.
I have also found myself, as always, rolling with the hilarity and awkwardness provided by my children. Here are just a few noteworthy moments:
– My son can be rather creative in his dress-up play. He is fearless when it comes to making bold and daring choices. Some of you may remember this ensemble from a previous post:
He has also proven to be unfazed by gender stereotypes, following in the footsteps of young male actors during the time of Shakespeare and stepping into a female role…or the role of a robot monster who also happens to be wearing a dress:
And then just today, he designed this outfit for “Wacky Wednesday” at school:
But the real beauty of his fashion choices are in his interpretations of what the dressing-up transforms him into. Last week, Michael came up to me in just his skivvies and asked me to tie a piece of crepe paper around his neck. It ended up looking like a bow tie. Let me just reinforce that picture for you…skivvies and bow tie. He said he was being a sea monster, which came as a huge relief to me. Because my first guess was Magic Mike.
“Hey, chickie. How ’bout you and me do a little egg fertilizing?” (photo source: Wikipedia)
– Just before Christmas, I mentioned that Grace’s advancing age is bringing on all kinds of questions I am not ready to answer. I also mentioned that I was more comfortable answering her questions about sex than I was about Santa. Well, I may have spoken too soon on that one. The questions I was referring to in the previous post were ones she was asking about anatomy, mostly female. No problem. Last night, however, my husband and I got the “big one.” And it all started with hard-boiled eggs. At dinner, Grace was proudly recounting how she had learned to hard boil an egg. Which led to this:
Grace: “What exactly is the yellow part of the egg? (a bit fearful) Is it the baby chicken?”
Kurt: “No, because the eggs we eat aren’t fertilized. It only becomes a chick if the egg is fertilized.”
Grace:(satisfied, but only for a millisecond) “Oh. What does fertilized mean?”
Me: “You know how human babies are made from part of a mom and part of a dad? Well, it is the same with chickens. The eggs we eat only have the mom part, not the dad part.”
Grace: “But how does the dad part get to the mom part?”
Me:(hoping desperately that she is talking about chicken parents) “Uh, I am not exactly sure how the dad part gets into the egg…” (can you feel my uneasiness?)
Grace: “No, not the chickens. Like people. How does the dad get his part into the mom?”
Me:(DAMN YOU CHICKENS AND YOUR UNFERTILIZED EGGS!!!!! DAMN ME FOR BUYING REAL EGGS INSTEAD OF EGG BEATERS THIS WEEK!!!! DAMN, DAMN, DAMN!!!!)
Kurt:(Eating tomato bisque, just ignoring the whole conversation by this point, mostly because he loves my tomato bisque, and our chatter was ruining the moment between him and his soup spoon. And now that I think of it, I am really annoyed at his timely love affair with tomato bisque when he was the one who brought up fertilizing in the first place. Stupid enginerd.)
Me: “Well, I would love to tell you about that, but it is kind of grown-up stuff, and the dinner table isn’t really the place to discuss it.”
Grace: “Why not? We’re just sitting here, eating and talking. The food doesn’t care.”
Me: “But Michael isn’t quite old enough to know about that kind of stuff yet.”
Michael: “I hate eggs. Chickens have eyeballs. I hate this soup.”
Me: “Um…well,…you know maybe we…(trails off into undefinable mumblings)…HEY! You, little miss, have not told me ONE thing about how school was today!
Grace: “Oh, it was really good! Our class got our 100th marble today for doing good stuff so we are going to have a movie day with popcorn.”
Me: “Wow! I want to hear ALL about these marbles…fascinating…”
I have been feeling uninspired lately. Which is funny, because I have been having a lovely time of things. Christmas was merry, providing gathering after gathering of friends and family for whom I am ever increasingly grateful. Our typical Midwestern grumblings about there being no point in getting the kids new snow boots thanks to global warming has been silenced by a smattering of powdered fluff…not quite enough to cover the tops of grassy blades, but enough for some good snowballs and the breaking in of brand new sleds that sat untouched last year. And of course, tonight is New Year’s Eve, which we will spend with good friends. There will no doubt be a lot of laughter as we sit on the brink of yearly rebirth.
True, I have been busy. It is a busy time of year. But it has nevertheless been in the back of my mind that I should be writing some cleverly witty post about New Year’s: a new take on resolutions (i.e. a new way to beat a dead horse)? A reflection on the past year (i.e. regurgitate my archives)? Make a montage to Dick Clark (i.e. play the sentimental card)? But I just could not muster the desire. I just could not think of anything to say that I felt anyone should devote even a few minutes of their time to read.
But then I read these words as I was checking Facebook: “Life grows sideways.” It is a line from a book written by Michael Nesmith called The American Gene (available for download at videoranch.com), which admittedly, I have yet to read. But the notion intrigued me; it made sense. Life does not build on itself in a linear sense with predictable moments of change. The only reason we see the changing of December 31st to January 1st as a new beginning is because we have assigned that meaning to it. For some of us, it becomes a new beginning because we make it so. We use the excuse of a fresh, unmarked calendar as the impetus to make changes. And there is nothing wrong with that in the least. But for others of us, things stay relatively the same, including our attitudes. Or if we do change, it is not because we are suddenly writing 2013 at the end of the date. Metamorphosis can happen at any time. We can choose to reinvent ourselves on a Wednesday in the middle of September. Or life can choose to throw something at us when we least expect it, giving us no choice but to change.
More than anything, pondering the idea that “life grows sideways” helped me understand why perhaps I have not been feeling so motivated to write a New Year’s post. Instead, I stopped worrying about it and went outside to watch my kids play in the snow. Then I sat down and let all these thoughts flow out of me. Inspiration does come when you least expect it. Now I can feel as if I have met my self-imposed deadline, and enjoy watching the ball drop exactly when I expect it to.
It can be stressful to have a seven-year-old at Christmastime. Why? Because there is questioning. A lot of questioning. You know, about that plump guy in the red suit.
I have to be honest; Grace’s prying questions about Santa make me more uncomfortable than the few questions she has already asked me about S-E-X. Questions about sex, while a little awkward, haven’t been that hard to answer because I am making sure she has accurate facts, giving her knowledge that not only makes her feel okay about her own body, but will hopefully lead to informed and responsible decisions in the future. I subscribe to the very wise motto of G.I. Joe: Now you know, and knowing is half the battle.
But answering all these endless questions about Santa means I am doing the exact opposite: I am perpetrating a lie.
To tell…or not to tell? Copley Photo
It all started at the very beginning of December. We were in the car, sitting at a stoplight. The car behind us caught my eye in the rearview mirror because it had those little reindeer antlers on either side. I glanced at the driver for a glimpse of this person with undoubted Christmas cheer, and lo and behold…it was an older gentleman, with a round face, a long, fuzzy white beard, and a red shirt. I couldn’t believe my luck! Last year we happened upon a reindeer in our backyard just before Christmas, and now this! So I announced to the kids, “Look who is driving the car behind us!” They both quickly turned around, and Michael yelled, with an energy like the one that comes from eating too many pixie sticks, “SANTA!!!!!!”
Almost on cue, the man behind us smiled and waved at the kids. It was, for lack of a better word, precious. Just as I was feeling my own giant boost of yuletide glow, Grace said, a bit accusingly, “What would Santa be doing driving around here?” I explained that maybe he was making the rounds, checking up on kids, getting reports from all the Elves on the Shelves. She was quiet for a second. “I kind of think Santa is real. But I kind of think he is a fairy tale.” Well, isn’t that just Grinchy. And then the questions began…
I know what she’s doing. I can tell she is conflicted. She wants to believe Santa is real, but that maturing brain of hers is feeding her more and more of this thing call “logic,” and she’s not so sure she likes the taste of it. Therefore, instead of coming straight out with the question, “Is there really a Santa Claus?” she is asking every possible question about his practicality to see how I respond. Grace: What is Santa’s address?….Me: Just write “Santa Clause – North Pole. The post office will know where it goes because there is only one Santa….Grace: But if no one has ever seen Santa and his workshop is secret, how does the mailman know where he lives?….Me: (crap)
What am I supposed to do? Tell her that I am incredibly impressed with her abilities in deduction, throw up my hands to the fact that I will likely soon be out-smarted, and say, “Congratulations! I think you have just about figured it out. I will spare you the last two zillion questions you were going to ask me and just confirm what you are hinting at. THERE IS NO SANTA CLAUS. And your parents are liars. Merry Christmas.”
Nope. That is not what I do at all. Instead, I conspire with my husband to dig ourselves even deeper in this jolly old lie. Ladies and gentlemen, witness our deception:
Grace’s Email from Santa
A few days ago, I was at the computer sending some emails when Grace asked me if the reason Santa knew all this stuff about her and Michael was because I emailed him. I confessed that I had absolutely no idea what Santa’s email address was. So Miss Smarty Pants said, “Just Google it.” I hesitantly typed in the words “Santa’s email address,” fearing that an entry would pop up saying something like “Trick your kids with this fake email address to Santa…because we all know Santa is not real.” Luckily, the first entry was an actual site where kids could send emails to Santa. And it was adorable. Grace entered her information and her note to Santa, then hit send. A screen popped up with a message that the email was being sent…then it said Santa was reading the email…then it said he was writing one back to her. Within a few minutes, Santa’s email was ready for her to read. She was a bit skeptical that he had written it so quickly, but that doubt was soon squashed once she read the email. It was very personal and even somehow had picked up from what she had written in the free-form comment section the fact that she had a brother. I was relieved to see she seemed quite satisfied.
But apparently her wheels had been turning all afternoon, because at dinner time she informed us she had a sneaky idea. She wasn’t so sure Santa had actually written that email, or that there really was a Santa to even email. So she had devised an “experiment.” She wanted my husband to go back to the site and enter in his name, but say he was 6-years-old and from Canada. By her reasoning, if Santa was real and really writing these emails, he would certainly know that Kurtis was actually an adult…and not living in Canada.
Well, *%$#@. But I have to admit, she is kind of a genius. And a little maniacal.
We knew we couldn’t talk our way out of this, so my husband agreed to do it. He went downstairs and started the email. All of a sudden, he came racing back upstairs, whipped into the family room and said in a hushed voice, “QUICK! Get on the Kindle, pretend you are Santa, and send an email to me saying that you know I was tricking you!” OOOOOH! You handsome devil you! But there was just one problem. I panicked, “But the site doesn’t send it to your email address! Santa’s email just pops up on the site after a minute or two!!!” But my enginerd had already taken care of that. He had unplugged the router so when they hit “send” nothing would happen. Then when he plugged the router back in, he quickly opened his email to find this message waiting in his inbox:
Subject: Naughty, Naughty
HO HO HO! You tried to trick old Santa! I know you don’t live in Canada.
Love, Santa
P.S. Rudolph thought that was a funny joke!
I know. The tangled web of lies we weave. But I have to say, it was totally worth it to see the look on her face and hear her exclaim, “YES! The email was really from Santa!”
Maybe I am setting her up for a bigger disappointment when she finally does learn the truth. Maybe I am being selfish. I know that the elaborate lengths my husband and I have gone to in order to keep Grace believing are in part for us. We see her losing pieces of “little” every day. Sure, her innocence still outweighs her worldliness. But childhood starts to look different around this age. It isn’t necessarily better or worse, but change is always hard. Every parent knows that faint tug of longing that comes whenever you catch a glimpse of a photo of your child during younger years. Remember…that squeaky voice…the way that tiny hand felt around your finger…that unquestionable belief in anything that could be imagined…it was adorable.
My Cutest Christmas Angel when she was 1-year-old
But seven-year-olds can be pretty adorable, too. Grace reminded me of that when she took a bit of offense to Santa’s use of the word “joke.”
“It wasn’t a joke. It was an EXPERIMENT.”
Maybe I will remember that line when Grace finally does come to the real conclusion about Santa Claus. And then I will let her eat the cookies her little brother leaves for him. I might need a lot of cookies.
Are You Finished Yet? 