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Link has begun a running tally of Days Until Christmas. This is very exciting to him since we’ve reached single digits. And even more so now that we’ve rounded the corner of the weekend and Christmas is THIS WEEK! Kiki is excited as well, but much more quietly. Gleek has absolutely no sense of time at all. For her if it isn’t Right Now, it is too far away. Patches is clueless, but enjoys the general excitment in the air.

Yesterday Howard tried to introduce Link to the intricasies of Holiday Counting. 6 days to Christmas, but christmas day doesn’t actually count, so it’s only 5 days. And today is half over, so we don’t need to count it. So that’s only 4 days. Oh, but school gets out on Wednesday, so it is really like Christmas begins then, so it is only TWO days.

Link looked at him like he was nuts. Link knows how to count, and that was just silly.

I wear a watch. It isn’t a particularly nice watch, I’ve had it for years. I’ve replaced the band and the battery at least once. Just recently it became obvious that I’d have to do so again. In the spirit of thrift I decided that this could be a Christmas present to me from Gleek. So today I sent Howard and Gleek to the mall to get a new band and battery. The bill for this service came to $45. I had no idea that it would be so expensive. Had I gone to do this service myself I would have walked out of the store and gone to Walmart and bought myself a cheap $7 watch. Instead Howard was in a store with a three-year-old Buying a Present for Mommy. The battery and the band were already on the watch before he saw the bill. There really wasn’t any way for him to back out of the deal.

Now I’m just sick to my stomach. We just spent $45 on a watch that I don’t care that much about. That much money could have bought hours of fun for everyone in the form of a game. For $45 I could have bought a DDR rig for the xbox which I’d much rather have than a stupid watch.

Now I’m stuck. If I don’t wear the watch the money is a complete waste, but if I wear it I’ll be reiminded every day of how stupid I am for actually believing that repair would be cheaper than replacement. I just want to cry.

addendum: Things which seem awful after a night of too little sleep, seem much much better after a nap.

Last night Howard and I were both self-indulgent. Howard had rented the xbox game Fable which had to go back this morning, so he wanted to play as much as he could. I had a book (The Golden Key by Melanie Rawn et al) and was luxuriating in being able to disappear into the story without cries of “Mooo-ooom!” dragging me back. We both stayed up until 2 am. There is something really wonderfully fun about staying up way too late doing something you enjoy. For parents it is a guilty pleasure though, because you know you’ll pay for it big time the next day and so will the kids.

Patches was cheerfully awake at his usual hour (7:30 am). Gleek started hollering for me at 8am and that was the end of sleep. I dragged myself out of bed and into the kitchen where I found a kitchen full of dirty dishes and no counterspace anywhere. I shoved dishes aside, making teetering stacks in the sink, trying to create enough space to make french toast. Before anyone oohs or ahhs over the fact that I made french toast for kids on 6 hours of sleep, I should point out that making breakfast is just self defense. If I don’t fill up the noisy holes with food, they will continue to be noisy at me. Like fledgling birds, my children are capable of foraging for themselves, but they find it much simpler to flutter helplessly and holler until I put something in their mouths.

After breakfast my body switched into one of those high-energy not-enough-sleep-so-I’m-hyper modes. The kids’ work is mostly done. My work is mostly done. In theory I can enjoy a peaceful afternoon. But I suspect that if things get too peaceful, I’ll crash into a nap.

I had plans for today. I was going to go to bed on time. I was going to get all kinds of stuff done.

I didn’t get to bed on time, then Patches woke up sick and kept me up for a significant portion of the rest of the night. Right now I can’t even remember all the things I wanted to be efficient enough to get done.

Last night’s bedtime was emotionally wracking.  I was hoping for a much more peaceful process tonight.  In an effort to secure this I got everyone involved in a reading stories.  This worked for calming everyone down, but then I had to argue about stopping reading and turning out the light.  Link in particular didn’t want to stop reading.  The child I was afraid would dislike reading and get left behind in his classes was arguing because he didn’t want to stop reading.  That is a happy kind of argument to have.

With kids abed I decended the stairs.  I wasn’t down long though before I heard thumping over head.  It was quiet thumping, so I hoped it would settle on it’s own.  It didn’t, so after 10 minutes I trudged back upstairs to quell whatever enthusiasm was causing thumps.  The thumping was caused by Kiki.  She’d cleaned up the entire room to surprise me.

It isn’t hard to be a good mom when you have amazingly wonderful kids.

I have finally reached a time when my kids go to bed fairly easily. After years of playing whack-the-gopher (That one is down, this one pops up) at bedtime, my kids have finally learned to go to bed and stay there. So last night was highly annoying when Kiki and Link each got out of bed multiple times. Sometimes they didn’t even come to where I was, I could just hear the thump-thumping (Pitter-pat? get real.) of little feet up and down the stairs. I figured that all the out-of-bed was because they were wanting to watch more of Howard-playing-Fable. They’d been watching when I declared bedtime. I trudged myself upstairs a couple of times for warnings and revocations of Fable-watching priveledges. Each warning came with an increasing degree of displeasure/anger. Each time I returned downstairs where I was watching Howard play Fable. (Not fair, I know, but I’m the grown-up and need less sleep than they do.)

Then I heard it. thump-thump-thump-Thump-Thump-Thump A child had come down the stairs into the kitchen. Mad, I launched myself off the couch and ran for the stairs to the kitchen hoping to catch a child in obvious violation of Stay-In-Bed. The child heard me coming THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP the little feet made a fast retreat upstairs to the bedroom. I jogged after and entered the room to find Kiki in bed and Link’s bed empty. What I did not find was Link. I looked in all the corners of the room. Asked Kiki if she knew where he was, she said she didn’t. Then, thinking he might have taken refuge in one of the other bedrooms I searched them. Still no Link. I called for him repeatedly, getting madder and madder at his non-response. I knew he was some where he could hear me and he was HIDING FROM ME. 5 minutes of searching had me back in his bedroom ready to turn the place upside down. Link sensed that Mommy’s anger was reaching a very serious stage and decided it was better to appear. He crawled out of the cubby-hole by Kiki’s bed. He’d hidden and she’d lied. I was boiling. They got a full volume scolding. Howard heard it and added his clout to mine. Then with a command to STAY-IN-BED-OR-ELSE we left the room. I was so mad I was shaking.

As expected, 10 minutes later Kiki called out to me in tears. She had spent the time feeling the weight of her “sins” and wanted to appologize and make things right. Link did as well. As usual, honest appologies from the kids was the perfect solvent for my anger. We had hugs and talked through honesty and repentence and how to make things right when you’ve done something wrong. And I learned the whole story.

It turns out that Kiki and Link had been trying to sneak oranges from the kitchen. Chalain and Chaliren had given us some wonderful clementine oranges which the kids loved. Link was hungry and didn’t think I’d let him out of bed for an extra snack, so they made a plan to sneak oranges to their room and eat them. (Food in the bedroom is verboten.) They had quite an elaborate little plan which included several reconaissance missions before the actual sneak attempt. Part of me is pleased that they are capable of working and planning together to get things they want. I’m even more pleased that they chose confession and absolution rather than forever keeping hidden the fact that they were trying to break several rules in one go. Mostly I just laugh in my head, all that frustration and upset over oranges.

They didn’t get oranges, but they did get some cheese so they wouldn’t go to sleep hungry. Even more important we had a really good shared learning experience about crime, guilt, punishment, forgivness, and redemption.

I do not like stories or movies that feature threatened children. They never bothered me until I actually had kids, but now I can’t watch or read them at all. I am completely unable to disconnect the Mommy Bear circuit long enough to enjoy the fiction, so I avoid it.

Today I was reading a mild thriller (book title omitted to avoid spoilers). The book tricked me. I was introduced to a pair of children that were a match to Gleek and Patches in genders and ages. I was introduced to them obliquely in such a way that I never expected them to be seriously threatened. I saw them several times and thought “Oh how cute! JUST like Patches!” And then the children were not only threatened, but the little boy died.

I finished the book because it was hard not to. Then I threw it. I am MAD. I am mad at that author for making me care about those children. I’m mad the little boy died unecessarily from a bioterror weapon. I’m mad that his father comitted suicide and I never heard whether the mother recovered from the gunshot wound and I have no idea what happened to the terrorized little girl. And all of this is part of a subplot as if this tragedy wasn’t really important. This was NOT a happy book. A well written, interesting book, but not happy. I won’t be reading any more of this author’s books because I can’t trust her to not make me mad.

The rest of this evening will be spent snuggling Patches and generally appreciating how wonderful all of my kids are.

Some of you reading this journal may be uncomfortable or angry with the stand Howard and I have taken on Santa Claus. That is fine. I am not going to judge anyone for their parenting decisions even where those parenting decisions diverge from my own. Parenting is hard enough without having others tell you what you should and shouldn’t do. The only parents I would pass judgements on are the ones who “parent” without thinking and even then I mostly feel pity and concern for the neglected children. I doubt anyone reading this journal falls into that category.

Do I believe it is possible to be a loving and thoughtful parent while still allowing/teaching belief in Santa Claus? Absolutely. I grew up inside the Santa mythos and if I can be as good a parent as my parents were, I’ll count myself as sucessful. Every parent must find their own balance for what they teach their children. All I ask/hope is that parents think through what they are teaching and direct it, rather than letting their kids drift in the societal flow.

Tonight I went to a church christmas party.  I have no idea how many hours of work went into putting it together.  It was obviously a labor of love because you couldn’t pay someone to work that hard.  The walls were lined with mural sized scenery paintings and they’d constructed a train that kids could ride in.  They even did a  reading of The Polar Express complete with costumed actors.

That was the problem.  I took my kids to a church function where they were told a powerful and beautiful story about believing in Santa Claus.  Christ was not mentioned once in the entire evening.

I suddenly understand what it must be like for a non-religious person to be surrounded by christian assumptions.  I don’t believe in Santa Claus.  I don’t teach Santa Claus to my kids.  We all have fun together pretending about Santa Claus sometimes, but we all know it is a pretend game.  I’m never going to have to face a child who feels like the magic is gone from Christmas because they figured out the truth.  I will never teach my children anything as truth that I don’t believe is true.

This puts my family at odds with 99% of American society.  Santa Claus is pushed at my children in school, by friends, in stores, in books, in movies, just about everywhere.  I’d have thought they’d be taught correctly at Church.  To be fair, they are taught many wonderful and truthful things each Sunday.  We come home feeling enriched and peaceful.  Tonight I came home tired and empty.  Howard was furious.  (He wrote his own entry about it.) 

The kids had a great time at the party.  They don’t know how upset their parents were.  There is no gain from us ranting and raving in front of them.  Particularly when it could get back to the people who labored long, hard, and lovingly with the best intentions.  But before bed I snuggled the kids together and we read The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.  That is a book with a wonderful message and no Santa Claus anywhere.