While I am being peevish, I have another useful announcement. This for the people in the children’s clothing industry. So, here I go, up on the soap box:

<tap, tap, tap> Is this thing on?

Good.  Okay.

To the makers of little boys’ jeans:

Little boys need pockets.

While I would have thought that this would be self-evident to anyone that had more than two hours contact with little boys, I can tell you with absolute assurance that the idea of fake pockets on jeans is a complete non-starter.

Without pockets, it is impossible to follow the maternal directive to keep your hands in your pockets in public restrooms and other “less than clean places”.

Without pockets, where can a boy put his treasures for safe keeping? Where do the pennies, smooth rocks, flowers for mommy, and the occasional lost toad, take up residence?

Where do you put your hands on cold days when you have inevitably misplaced your mittens while climbing the monkey bars?

Where do you put your gum for safekeeping during lunch hour?

In case you are in doubt about this point – Little boys do NOT carry purses.

Considering the myriad of crucial reasons to which little boys are indebted to their pockets, sewing fake pockets onto boys jeans is just…plain…mean.

Little boys may not have the monetary clout of wads of cash in those little pockets.

But Mommies do.

And they don’t like fake pockets either.

To the husbands and children of the universe:

I apologize in advance if I shatter some long-cherished myths along the lines of the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy, but I have an announcement to make:

Ahem.

No.  It is not fairies who pick up your dirty socks and underwear up off of the floor at night and deposit them in the dirty clothes hamper or that put the cleaned and folded laundry back into your dresser drawers and closets.  If you wish to know the identity of the being who performs these services, take the members of your household and subtract all the children, pets, husbands and/or daddies and look at the remainder. You do the math.

However, if you choose to cling to this personal fantasy, be aware that it is traditional to leave payment for house fairies in the form of shiny trinkets.

Preferably of the solid gold variety.

Thank you. That is all.

I came from a “clean your plate” family.  In my mother’s defense, I do not ever explicitly remember hearing her say “There are children in Africa who would be grateful for your food…”, but I know with utmost certainty that my grandmother did.  In any case the message “Thou shalt not waste food” came through loud and clear.  It pains me to throw food away.  I feel a deep pang of guilt upon coming upon leftovers or produce that have gone past the point of no return in my refrigerator.  My Tupperware gets a workout.  Waste is a sin.

I remember distinctly rolling my eyes and thinking (if not being brave enough to actually say) the classic child’s response:  ”So, if the children in Africa WANT my lima beans, they can HAVE my lima beans.  Please just pack them up and send them.”  There is a lesson beyond “don’t waste” that was completely lost on me.  It is a message that has clicked only now that I have had “children in Africa” moments with my son.  It is only now that the well-worn words are coming out of my own mouth that I look back with a certain amount of shame on the lesson that I missed.

Accept providence with gratitude.  Be thankful for what you have.  Do not want when you are not wanting.

My son had a meltdown last evening over a coveted toy, a Batman sword with flashing lights and sound effects.  A very hard plastic sword whose safety in my son’s hands (to our household pets and possessions if not to himself) could not be guaranteed.  A sword that he emphatically Does. Not. Need.

When these sentiments were expressed to Harry, along with the request to put the toy back in its place on the store shelf, the desperate WANTING of youth overtook him.  Nothing but the possession of that sword was important, and when he couldn’t have it,  he was ready to trade in family and home with the need of it.  He screamed with defiance.

“I DON’T LOVE YOU ANYMORE!  I DON’T WANT YOU ANYMORE!  I WANT  A NEW MOMMY AND DADDY!  I WANT TO LIVE SOMEWHERE ELSE!”

I stopped and turned to look at him.  Keeping my voice as level and calm as possible, I played the “children in Africa” card, and there was an internal wincing as I realized it.

“Harry.  Do you know what happened last week?”

That got his interest.  He paused.  “No.”

“Harry, last week, there was a big earthquake far away in a place called Haiti.  And lots of little boys and girls lost all their toys.  Not only did they lose all their toys, but many of them lost their homes, and their mommies and daddies.  Some of them even died.  Isn’t that very sad?”

“Yes.”

“Now when we get home, I want you to go straight to your room without any supper.  I want you to look around and think very hard and decide if you really want to lose all your toys and your room.  I want you to think very hard about whether you really want to lose your mommy and daddy and never see them again.  Because, Harry, sometimes that happens to little boys and girls.  And it isn’t very nice or respectful for you to behave this way when you have so much.”

I would love to say this ended the screaming instantly but it didn’t.  He did go straight to his room, where he continued to fuss for a time, before he declared he was done and wanted to make the appropriate apologies and have his dinner.

The sword has not been mentioned again.

I have no idea if he even has the beginning of an understanding of gratitude.  I don’t think it occurs to him for a moment how fortunate his life is, even among his peers.  But I do have an obligation to teach the lesson I missed, even at the expense of the “children in Haiti”.  If I gave away every possession I owned, I could not right all the unfairness in the world.    I can at least teach my privileged son to be thankful.   Generosity starts with gratitude and I hope the message leads him better than it did me.

When two women show up at a wedding wearing the same thing, it’s a crisis.

When two little boys show up at a wedding wearing the same thing – it’s adorable!

The news is heartbreaking.

I know this.  I know what this is like.  I know what it is to lose your home, to lose everything.  I know what it is to frantically try to reach friends and loved ones, to wonder if they are still okay, if they have been spared.

I have seen my entire community dismantled at the capricious hand of nature.

I also know the kindness of strangers and the open door in the night.  I have survived on it.  I was lucky enough to still be living in one of the most affluent countries on earth.

Please, help.   In whatever way you can, however small.

Believe me, it makes a difference.

I know this.

I have seen some really, really stupid warning labels in my life. I think my all time favorite is the hang-tag on a blow dryer that cautioned “Do not use in shower”. I no longer own a blow dryer. Any product whose manufacturer reasonably believes that their clientele would think it a fine idea to simultaneously wash and dry their hair does not include me in its target audience.

But what about the warning labels that are desperately needed that nobody ever thinks of?

Like the one that should be on Veggie Tales videos. The one that should say something like:

Warning – Viewing this video may result in a recreation of the Battle of Jericho around your bed in early morning hours.

Now that one? That one is a real warning.

Have you ever had one of those days when the realization hits you like a speeding train that your entire life is dictated by everyone else’s needs and yours have become completely and utterly irrelevant?

Yep. Going into the end of the first decade of the 21st century, that’s my life.

On top of all the other situations that have conspired to make this holiday a dismal failure, I have been working on an incredibly complicated report for work. We have a situation, without going into too many details, that is rather an unprecedented case, that required analyses that even the regulatory agency overseeing us has never had to deal with. As a consequence, the analysis took longer to finish than we expected. I cannot write a report without the analysis, and I had hoped to make up for the delay in the writing process.

So, despite having to put down two of my beloved pets, despite being so sick I cannot swallow my own spit, despite having my statistics handed to me a week late, I have been working 10 hour (or more) days for every single day this holiday, except Christmas day itself. I have deferred leave. I have propped myself up with massive amounts of pharmaceuticals (now, that’s irony for you), and when I finally had to just admit defeat and inform the client of a one week delay (which, considering the myriad of other factors in their submission package, will not delay  a thing in the ultimate view), they completely, totally, lose their minds.

Unfortunately, they don’t have the breadth of experience for me to try to explain precisely why what we are doing is non-standard, and precisely how the contribution of another contractor adds to the complexity of the issue, so pretty much I just have to suck it up.

With a fever pushing 102, a throat on fire, pain in every large muscle of my body, I have put in a 12-hour day today, and I am completely going to miss Christmas with my family this weekend.

2009 – You suck.

That is all.

I feel like I am tempting fate to write this, but we had a last bit of 2009 sadness on Christmas Eve.  I didn’t want to write about it, on that Christmas when I was just starting to feel a bit of Christmas magic returned, but it was there in the background,  a dark shadow in the corner of the warm holiday glow.

On Christmas Eve, we took a second of our dogs to her final rest.  Anna, my adopted racing greyhound girl, was still bright-eyed and sweet at venerable thirteen, but her body finally failed her.  A disc in her back ruptured, and by the time we realized what had happened, her hindquarters were paralyzed and unfeeling and she could no longer rise to eat or drink or relieve herself.  Her large, clear, brown eyes were a mask of misery and, in consideration of her age and general health, there was nothing we could do to reasonably restore her to a bearable life.  On Christmas Eve, we gave her a final gift and released her from a life of pain.

It was a hard thing.  She was not a dog that you could get “close” to.  She was a gentle, quiet dog, with that inherent greyhound elegance and infinite patience.  But she was aloof.  Retired to her meant retired, and her world revolved around a soft place to lay her bones and good food to eat.

Nevertheless, I got accustomed to stepping over and around her slender but sprawling frame on the carpet.  I got used to her following us around like a gray ghost on the edge of family gatherings.  I got used to her silent, watchful presence.  And without her to announce dinnertime to us in her short, ringing bark, we often forget to feed our one remaining dog until well past the scheduled hour.  I was unprepared for the hole her absence has created.

We have so much more room in our house now.   The remaining member of our pack, our diminutive (in stature only), Jack Russell Terrier is parsimonious of space and resources, even if her personality is large enough to fill a room.  The big wire crates are gone,  the big water jug has been replaced by a modest bowl, and the economy-sized food bin is a sad relic, unnecessary in our new dog-reduced state.

But the spaciousness echoes with a bit of emptiness, and at night I still find myself stepping around the place on the floor, that place that seems still so warm with the memory of quiet gray dog, and a phase of my life that is slowly passing away.

The Angel (Hieronymus) Gabriel

My son is a serious child. He came by it honestly, being passed down from the maternal side. My people are stoic New Englanders for the most part. They will make exceptions, and when they do, they will break into boisterous partying like no others (must be the Italian/Irish genes), but it almost inevitably involves either bars, hockey, or racehorses, or a combination of the three. Daily life is something to be braved. Living is serious business.

This is not to say that Harry is not a happy child. He practically exudes quiet self-contentedness, and when he does become excited, he is his father’s son. When Harry is joyful, the world glows. He dances uninhibitedly. He sings. He giggles with complete abandon.  He smiles with his whole body.  Self-consciousness does not suppress his expression of joy and wonder.

I have had a very hard time getting in the Christmas spirit in the years post-Katrina.  Normally I am almost embarrassingly enthusiastic about Christmas.  I will start playing Christmas carols as soon as it is decently appropriate to do so.  My standard for not driving people nuts is that I try not to turn them on until the Friday after Thanksgiving.  I bake cookies from the same Christmas cookie recipe – handed down to my mother from her mother-in-law.  I have Christmas ornaments on my tree dating from 1979.  I still have them – our Christmas decorations were the only thing that survived Katrina completely intact, riding out the storm safely ensconced in the attic, where they narrowly missed getting crushed by a fallen pine.

But since Katrina, I have only take those decorations out once.  I haven’t had the heart to put up a tree and decorate a house that, try as I might, I have never been able to apply the word “home” to and have it ring true.  I did it once to give it a good college try, but I never had the same wholly warm feeling.

But this is the first year that my son is showing demonstrable excitement about everything Christmas.  It’s like he suddenly woke up into a big dream, and it’s all unbearably wonderful to him.  The Christmas tree, the decorations, the lights, the presents, the cookies – he wants it all, and he drinks in every last bit.  And I am warmed to find that it is not all Santa Claus and toys, either – I mean it’s some of that, but, he’s FOUR.  That has to be remembered.

Despite the excitement of the wrapped presents under the tree, the subject of God and Jesus and the Christmas Story comes up in conversation a LOT with Harry.  It’s Baby Jesus’ birthday.  And Baby Jesus came because God loved us.  That’s Harry – without prompting, without lecturing, it is child’s pure interpretation of God’s love for the world, as reflected in a parent’s love for their child.  To him, Christmas is a giant celebration of that love – the love that forms the center of his life.  The constant love that forgives, that guides, that never abandons.

So our Christmas tree is back in our living room in the place of honor, and the mantel and door are decorated with greenery and holiday greetings, and the happiness of Christmas, through a little boy’s wondering smile, is finding a way back in our hearts.

And isn’t that the meaning of Christmas?  That a little boy should teach us to be better people?

Just ask Harry – he’ll tell you all about it.