Counting Down the Months

I thought for sure this past Christmas would be the year that Spencer and Allison finally figured out that Santa is not real. Frankly, I'm tired of the jolly old, red-suited man getting all the credit for the cool toys that Bruce and I agonize over picking out. Any crazy person who visits Toys R Us in the month before Christmas to buy that special toy deserves credit of some kind. Lifelong gratitude comes to mind.

But, no. Our younger two are holding fast to the idea that Santa lives in all his greatness up at the North Pole where little elves rush to do his every whim in toy making. And the streets are paved with candy. And Mrs. Claus makes hot chocolate and cookies for dinner. But never fish.

We don't make Christmas all about Santa by any means. All our children understand about Jesus' birth long before they can even pronounce Santa's name. We read to them each Christmas Eve from the book of Luke about Christ's birth.

But probably my favorite holiday movie is Polar Express, which we own. And we wear the DVD player out watching that thing each year. Seriously, how can you resist singing the Hot Chocolate song? "Hot, hot... oh, we got it. Hot, hot... yo, we got it. Hot, hot... say, we got it. Hot chocolate!" It's better if you tap your feet, too.

So, anyway, the whole idea of the movie is to believe.

Spencer is super gung ho about Christmas. One of these days I envision him actually helping his wife decorate for the holidays, instead of simply opening a very large cardboard box, pulling out a pre-lit tree, fluffing a bit and pronouncing: "I've done my part".

I just can't make myself tell him that Santa is bunkum.

I was beside myself excited when he came home from school before Christmas telling me about a classmate of his that told him Santa was not real.

"Oh, this is THE DAY," I thought. "No more pretending. Santa... poof, be gone!"

I asked Spencer what he thought about Santa, whether he was real or not. And he said: "I think that Blake just isn't going to get any gifts this year. Because Santa won't give you gifts if you don't believe."

Well, crud.

Another brick wall.

This morning while driving the kids to school, I nearly destroyed the myth. I was distracted by the fact that Clay was not feeling well, but I was making him go to school anyway. He doesn't have any strong symptoms that help me justify keeping him home, so off to school he went, even though he cried and said that I wasn't listening to him when he told me he wasn't feeling well. And, of course, I understood that to mean: You don't believe me. You don't love me enough to keep me home when I feel yucky.

All that Mommy Guilt was wriggling around in my head when I heard Spencer talking about reindeer flying.

I'm always spitting out facts to the kids when I can. Just doing my part to educate. So I said, "They can't really fly, Spencer."

Um... what?! Well, if reindeer can't fly, then how do they pull Santa through the sky on Christmas Eve when he's on his mission?

Scramble, scramble, scramble. What to say that isn't lying but preserves his innocent belief in a fraud?

And then my sickly older son saved me. Unintentionally, I'm sure.

"Can you believe that it's already the end of February? Seems like it was Christmas just the other day."

Whew!

Distraction. It's a fine thing.

"You know what that means, don't you?" I asked. "Well, it means we only have 10 more months to go until next Christmas!"

"Mom, please," my pitiful sick boy said about his brother, "Don't get him started!"

You know, at this point, I really should just consider paying someone to burst my children's bubbles. Five bucks to any takers who don't mind seeing a sweet-faced girl and a red-headed boisterous boy with crestfallen looks on their faces when you tell them Santa is not real. If you can do it without making them cry, I'll give you ten bucks. Per child. Call me.

My Babies

Allison is in trouble. She's in her room. My girl has taken a shine to kicking people. Sometimes in very painful places.

So in the interest of us ever becoming grandparents, she's getting a lengthy time out right now.

And Clay is evaluating how many children are too many.

"I think three is too much of a handful," he said. "So I plan to stick with just two."

Well, my sweet firstborn... "What if your wife wants six babies?" I asked.

"Yikes!" he replied.

Then Spencer checked in with his plans.

"I want six kids," he said. "You want to know why? Because I love babies."

Well, my sweet second born... "You know all babies grow up. And you still have to feed them when they're big." I said. (I couldn't help it. All these snow days are killing me. I feel new empathy for the ladies in the lunch room at school. I just can't feed these kids enough to fill them!)

"I know," he said. "But even when they're big, they'll still be MY babies."

See. That right there tells me there's nothing wrong with that boy's hearing!

I tell him the same thing all the time.

"Grow up all you want; you'll always be my baby!"

Valentine's Day Treat

Bruce and I had our Valentine's Day date early, thanks to our awesome church's Parent's Night Out on Friday.

But our real Valentine's treat fell on the correct day when Spencer and Allison got baptized last night.

Spencer has probably not let a full week go by since he asked Jesus into his heart back in November without asking, "When can I be baptized?"

We were working our way through this neat magazine that we got from the children's minister at church, so we had a tentative date in mind for Spencer's baptism.

But then Allison started asking questions about Jesus and his sacrifice and sin and heaven. Before we knew it, she asked Jesus into her heart in December.

So we pushed the PAUSE button on Spencer while catching Allison up in the booklet.

I would not have picked the timing this way, necessarily. You know, no matter how many times I repeat the phrases, "Life's not fair; get used to it" to my kids, I still try to make things "fair". It's just proof that I don't even get close to perfect parenting.

My thoughts would have been for Spencer to have his special day. And for Allison to continue on her slower pace until she was fully ready, and then she'd have her special day.

But my thoughts are not God's thoughts, nor my ways His ways. Thankfully.

He knew before those critters were born that Spencer and his boldness would lead the way in Allison's curiosity taking full shape. They've both been exposed to the same amount of church, Sunday school, Bible Study Fellowship and Vacation Bible school. But they are not the same children, even if they are twins. Rooming together for their first nine months of life is pretty much where their personal similarities end.

Yesterday at breakfast while Bruce prayed about their upcoming baptisms that night, I peeked. (Real moms peek while praying with children. Especially moms of boys. It's necessary. And that's all I'm going to say about that.) Because I peeked, I got the sweetest blessing of seeing Spencer and Allison's personalities perfectly displayed.

Bruce was waxing eloquently in his prayer. Both kids had their eyes shut, amazingly! Allison's hugely smiling face was lifted up toward heaven, like she was beaming at God. Spencer's head was bowed, but his right arm was lifted up toward heaven... and his hand was making the "rock on" sign.

Yep, those are my twins! Thank you, Jesus!

After morning church services, and lunch, Spencer was immediately ready to turn around and head back to church.

"I'm ready to be baptized... now!" he said at least once an hour until we were finally ready to return to church for evening services. But first, a picture for mom.

Once we were there, a couple from church walked us through the process. And the education minister talked with Spencer and Allison about baptism. Then the kids got changed into these nifty, green jumper shorts things.

They were ready. I did my best to keep them quiet while listening to the beginning of the worship service, hoping that any exuberance on their part wouldn't be too loud.



The lady helping us actually asked at one point which one of them was more hyper. I don't think anyone has ever asked me that before. Spencer generally wins that title hands-down. I finally just told them to sit until it was time.





See that? Role reversal!

And then it was time.

Ladies first.



And then our little gentleman.



I just realized they both did the same thing with their hands when they were nervous, right before being immersed.

Both kids were excited about the candles they'd be given. Even thought we're new at this church, they've seen enough baptisms now to understand the meaning.



We're lights for Jesus in this dark world. And they were waiting for their charge to "go light your world".

I'm sure this was the best Valentine's Day ever.

Rodents and Winter Weather

It seems that the rodent up in Pennsylvania is accurate this year... we are ankle deep in more winter, as "predicted" on Groundhog Day. And the kids are on their ninth snow day this school year.

Today I discovered that people are not the only creatures who are crazy sick of snow. Our dog Dixie flipped out just a bit earlier today.

I hadn't gone out for the day to feed her yet. And I really didn't want to. It's been below freezing all day and hasn't stopped snowing since we woke up this morning.

I kept peeping out the window to see if our sweet Labrador had come out of her doghouse. By noon, I saw her playing in the snow.

She looked like she had a pine cone in her mouth. She often finds pine cones in our backyard, puts them in her dog food dish, and carries the whole thing around like it's filet mignon and she's a waitress at a fine restaurant.

But, this time, the closer Dixie got to our kitchen window, where I stood watching her, the more I realized, "That is not a pine cone in her mouth!"

The object swayed as our dog walked. A pine cone does not sway.

Nor does it have itty bitty feet. And the object dangling from our dog's mouth definitely had some itty bitty feet.

I got our camera out and zoomed in for a picture, but it was snowing too hard to see clearly exactly what Dixie had caught. My best guess is that it was either a mouse or a mole.

My poor puppy's brain has frozen and she thinks she's a cat!

Thankfully, I'm certain this dementia is reversible and it's only partial. Dixie then walked to my favorite tree, dug a hole in the ground at its base, dropped her mouthful, and gave the dead thing a proper burial.

Only 37 more days until Spring.