Mendolonium

Thomas has a friend.  Her name is Sally.  She’s about eight inches tall.  She’s  fuzzy.  And she’s a stuffed giraffe.

Sally has had quite the interesting, and at times, long life.  Often she is three years old and a “kid”.  Other times she is six, ten, twelve, or thirty-one and “a Mama”.  Rarely she does a bit of gender bending and is even “a Dada”.  Thomas isn’t entirely clear on how she came to live with us.  Sometimes he tells a story of finding her in the road, hurt, while on his way to “housey work”.  He tells us how she was hurt very badly, but that the doctors gave her some medicine to make her “comfortable” and that she was then able to come home with us.  Much like how our dog, Kermit came to live with us…hmmm.  Sally is, sadly, an orphan.  You see, her mother got stuck in tar.  Despite her tragic youth, Sally is quite fun to be around.  She loves to play with Legos and build block towers.  She is also quite clever and a whiz a puzzles.  Unlike most giraffes she has a diverse pallete and frequently requests nachos and ice cream in addition to munching on pretend trees.  Thomas, considerate of Sally’s needs, always requests an extra cookie for her and is always dismayed when he is informed he will have to share.   Sometimes Sally has bad behavior.  Thomas tries to stop her but she just loves to throw things and the other day she even took a swipe at Henry.  Much to Thomas’ chagrin, he suffered the consequences of Sally’s actions (being separated from Sally in solitary time-outs).  He claimed the assault was all Sally’s idea but I gave him the “if your friend does something inappropriate and you are with (and encourage) him you are responsible too” speech.  I thought I would have years before I had to pull that discussion out, but between him and Sally we’ve gotten a jump on the teenage years here.     Despite her occasional miscreant behavior, Sally can also be a great help to Thomas too.  When Thomas can’t admit to being tired or hungry, Sally will chime in that she needs a nap or a snack.  At night Sally gets tucked in under a fuzzy brown blanket with Thomas and he drifts off to sleep thinking “happy thoughts about giraffes”.

For a long time Thomas has been quite fond of turtles and giraffes.  About a year ago he found the giraffe at the bottom of his pile of stuffed animals and she’s been a daily character in our house ever since.  Sally began her life as “Gina the Giraffe”.  I earned Sally for selling a certain number of boxes of Girl Scout cookies the year I was nine years old.  Nine wasn’t the easiest year for me; we had moved in the middle of the school year and I had a hard time making friends.  I had my animals and dolls though and while it might seem silly as an adult, they really helped ease the loneliness.  That year, I took out a notebook and wrote down names for each one of my dozens of pretend friends along with their birthdays which I vowed to celebrate.   The celebrations only lasted about a week but every time I look at that giraffe I think of countless happy hours playing with my animals and dolls.   In 1988 I trudged through the snow on Superbowl Sunday to sell all those boxes of cookies.  I could have never imagined that twenty-one years from then those cookies would have resulted in a wonderful, soothing, magical friend for my son.  I wonder if someday, thirty or so years from now, one of Thomas’ children will find Sally in a box and take a liking to her – christening her with a new name and giving new life to an old friend.

It’s ten-thirty and Jeff has just emerged from the boys’ room after putting Thomas to bed, “What did you read him tonight?” he asks shaking his head.  “He’s scared of panthers.”.  “Oh”, I reply knowingly, “Not tonight…last night.  The story of grandpa and the panther in chapter two.  Tonight was chapter three:  The Long Rifle.”

Two nights ago I decided that Thomas and I had had enough of children’s books about bunnies, bears, and the occasional hapless monster.  I decided it was time to introduce Thomas to my favorite books of all time:  The Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder.  I explained to him that we would read a chapter every night.  The past three nights he has listened with rapt attention, hanging on every word.  While the stories of wolves, butchering pigs, and loading guns must in many ways seem like utter fantasy to a boy who has spent his entire life in vegetarian household located a densely populated inner suburb, he seems to grasp my explanation that the books are real, that they tell a story of the way things were.  After each chapter he asks me questions rapid-fire, like a tiny sleeper clad lawyer cross-examining a witness that he knows holds the truth.   “Why does Laura not want Susan [her corncob doll] to see her holding Mary’s doll?”, “Where are Laura and Mary’s toys?”, “Is a panther a bad animal?”.

A few minutes after Jeff came out of the den of supposedly sleeping boys Henry woke up for the 3rd time tonight.  It was my turn so I went in to soothe him back to sleep, pausing to listen at the boys’ door – just to make sure he did not settle him back to sleep.  For a brief few moments there was silence and then a wail punctuated the darkness seemed to demand, “Pick me up right now!”  I sprung into the room and swept Henry from his crib.  And then I heard a small, quiet sobbing from Thomas’ bed.  I looked over to see him huddled in the corner, tears shining on his face.  I sat down with Henry on Thomas’ bed – trying to comfort my two sad little boys.  I quickly called Jeff in and handed him the baby – instantly eliciting sobs of unjust protest from Henry.  Jeff left the room to walk with Henry and I asked Thomas what was wrong.  “I’m scared.”  “What is scaring you?” I asked with concern.  “Henry crying”, he replied pitifully, “He was crying and Mama needed to come pick him up.”  “Oh”, I said touched by his empathy for his brother and his obvious dependence on us as his parents to fix that which ails them.  I stroked his head, a gesture he usually shrugs away from, but tonight allowed me and told him that we would always take care of him and his brother; that we loved them so much; that we will keep them safe.  Thomas quieted and I breathed a sigh of relief when his eyes popped open and he stated with a bit of a question in his voice, “Panthers only live in Florida…”  “Yes, that’s right.  There are no panthers in California.  And our house has big strong walls, and doors, and windows so even if there were panthers here they could not get in.  And Kermit would bark at them so we would know they were coming.”  I said giving everything I had in reassurance.   The thought of our fourteen pound dog yapping away at a panther either comforted him of amused him and he smiled.  Jeff came back in the room with a now sleeping Henry.  For a few minutes the four of us were together in quiet darkness, warm in the only heated room in the house, secure in the knowledge that we and those that we love the most were all safe.

To my boys:  we may put you down, we may leave the room, but we will never let the panthers get you.

He is black or white; off or on; yes or no.  There is no grey, stand-by, or maybe in his world.

He is such a big boy now.  Somewhere in the past few months he shed his baby soft skin.  His hair is no longer soft and fine, but thick and often in need of a hairbrush.  He says he is “a kid” and I have to admit that he is right.  He is the consummate big brother; protective of “his baby” telling me that it is his job to “keep him safe”.

He wants so badly to be independent; yet to be reassured that we will always be there for him whenever he wants us.  Much of the time, when he needs to get something, he’ll just go and it do it himself; dragging a chair around the house to reach high places or stating matter-of-factly that “I need a stick” to fish something out from under the couch.  Other times; he will act utterly helpless claiming “I can’t” in a sad no-nonsense voice when we tell him to pick something up or get it himself.   In the mornings, he gets his breakfast.himself..most often strawberry yogurt for which he must pick out and retrieve his own spoon.  When he is done, he tosses the empty container in the recycling; pausing in front of the side-by-side recycling and trash bins to read, “Rrrr…eeee…cycling” off the label to assure himself that he chose the right receptacle.  We were at the park a couple of weeks ago and I told him to get ready to go home when he simply began to walk down the path towards our house.  I stopped him, and he protested, informing me that “I know the way home” and while I am quite sure that he does, I made him wait for me to take his brother out of the swing before we all walked home together.  While he insists that he is a big boy he will ask me to carry him into bed “like a baby” at night.  When I  was unable to do so a few night ago (I was nursing his brother) he collapsed into 45 minutes of sobbing on Jeff’s chest, shooting looks of betrayal in my direction.  After I finally was able to put the baby down and offer him hugs and kisses he pulled away, still hurt, admonishing me “Don’t do that Mama”.

He has an opinion.  He’ll tell you where he wants to go (or more often, that he doesn’t want to go anywhere).  He knows what he wants to do.  He’ll even tell you what his brother and what his stuffed animals want (as if our household is a democracy where by getting them to support his opionion the majoirty will rule).

He wants to do whatever it is that the grown-ups are doing.  “Can I help?” is a frequent question in our house.  Before we can even say “Yes!” he is putting on his shoes and heading outside to the compost pile or dragging a chair across the kitchen to stand on while we cook.  He especially loves to bake and is now quite accurate at pouring ingredients into the bowl without spilling.  I am teaching him the proper way to whisk and to fold and he loves to work the food processor.  We make bread almost daily and he always asks for a hunk of dough to make his own creation.  In the past two weeks, his hunk has been a “jackhammer”, a “saw”, a “weed whacker”, and a “shovel”.  After rising and baking they all look to my untrained eyes like lumps be he carefully explains to me after they emerge from the oven, “See here, this is the point…”

He is always busy.  Legos are still his favorite toy, although lately he has been more interested in learning to play games and in activity books than toys.  He is learning to play chess with Jeff, I taught him “Connect 4″ (and he has actually beaten me when I have been somewhat distracted by his brother) and he is quite good at “Go Fish”.  Tonight we sat in front of the fireplace after his brother was asleep and played game after game of “Go Fish”.  He would literally vibrate with excitement when he realized that one of us was holding a match to his cards.

He loves to pretend.  He plays a version of hide and seek that he has (for reasons I do not fathom) named “Sack in the Poke”.  He tells me stories involving snowstorms, monsters, flying, and frequently his stuffed giraffe, Sally.  He has a recurring pretend scenario of going to “housey work” in which he packs a lunch and trots off to another room of the house to do his “work”.  He plays doctor with his stuffed animals and a medical kit I foraged for him out of our first aid supplies.  He has an excellent bedside manner and will compassionately inform his animals that they have “Migas” (a made-up disease of his own creation that according to him attacks the eyes and then progresses to the stomach).  He will then sadly inform them that they need a shot, but that “it is just a little poke”.  Sometimes our rugs are shark-infested waters or sometimes the dining room chairs are set up as a store selling marshmallows and chocolate.  Sometimes I am an anklyosaurus and sometimes he is a tiger.  It is so much fun to hear what he comes up with.

He adores stories, both oral and in book form.  When he is sad a surefire way to cheer him up is to tell him a story of an event from my childhood – he enjoys the ones with blood and injury the best.  He tells stories of his own making as well, informing me in advance whether it is a “real story” or “just pretend”.  He listens with rapt attention to long stories such as the classic Dr. Suess books I have started to read him, on occasion, even longer chapter books and I can hardly wait until he is old enough for Harry Potter.  Since we gave up nursing he has become  quite attached to his “cuddle story” – a story of his choosing that we read before nap and before bed.  I am attached to it too – it’s a lovely way to send him off to sleep.  He is reading on his own now; sounding out words as he unlocks the magical code that is written language.  He reads out the colors listed in his activity books, beaming with pride when he figures out which one reads “blue” and which one reads “black”.  He looks at the juice box and announces with excitement, Mama, it says apple on this!”

He asks big questions.  He seems to have realized that the world is a very big place and has a need to figure out how he fits into it.  We’ve talked about birth and death.  He can now tell you what happened to the dinosaurs.  He wants to know what the future will hold.  As we were putting away his Christmas ornaments in his box, I explained to him that he would take the box with him when he grew up and had his own Christmas tree.  He was enthralled by the concept and told me, “When I am a Dada you will come to my house for Chirstmas.  You will live far away from me so I will come pick you up.  I will drive you to my house.  My kids will come too.  We will watch DVDs in the car.  Not the DVDs we have now, but new ones.  The DVDs will have changed.  We will put the ornaments on my tree.  You can help me.”  Sounds good to me – although I wouldn’t mind if we lived close to one another.

He is, finally, a fantastic sleeper.  I can hardly believe that the same boy who was utterly incapable of putting himself back to sleep for nearly three years now wakes up in the middle of the night, gets a drink of water, and then settles himself back down.  He has a lot of trouble “turning off” to fall asleep but once he is in dreamland he sleeps like the proverbial log.  He especially loves to nap, happily sleeping two or even three hours in the afternoon,  sprawled out in his bed in his underwear looking for all the world like a tiny frat boy.  The napping can be a bit problematic – he still needs one – but not too much or he’ll be up until 10:00, 11:00, or even midnight.  I don’t mind too much.  He is, like me, a night-owl; getting his second wind after the sun sets.

He remembers everything.  At Target he recalls taking a walk there with our friend Conner over a year ago, how they shared Snappea crisps under the gazebos.  Although he hasn’t been to school since November he remembers his classmates names and what they liked to play with.  He talks about going to see trains with his Papa and about a summer day at the beach with his Grandma Linda.  Most impressively and disturbingly he remembers his first daycare – which he left at 21 months old, informing me that “We watched Sponge Bob during nap”, asking “Why did I have to go there?”, and then breaking my heart by telling me “I didn’t like it there.”

He brings me the greatest joy and the deepest frustration.

He is amazing.

He is my “Bee-Bub”.

He is my Thomas.

And now I shall attempt to tackle a subject more controversial than religion or politics…Christmas gifts.

We are fortunate to have a very generous family and we all received many lovely presents this year.  Unfortunately, we also received far, far more than we are comfortable with.  It seems a bit ridiculous to complain about the an abundance of gifts – a problem of rich, first-world privilege and, in truth, it is a problem that many other people in our own county and throughout the wold would be thrilled to have.  However, excessive consumerism and the promotion of a materialistic culture is, in part, the very reason why so many others in the world are mired in poverty.  Now I am not about to suggest that we celebrate Christmas by all exchanging nothing but socks hand knitted from wool spun from dryer lint whilst we sit around in our unheated house nibbling on homegrown carrots.  Both Jeff and I view Christmas as a celebration and as such believe that it should be a time of feast, decorations, and even presents.  It is simply that we want the materialistic aspects (i.e., the presents) to be done in moderation with a focus on sustainability.  The thing is, we all know that while it is simple to say we want such a thing it is much harder to implement in practice.

I knew we were in trouble on Christmas morning after we had opened all the presents at our home and I realized that we had received more than enough good things, yet we still had another, larger, Christmas celebration to attend that eventing.  Watching Thomas tear through presents on Christmas evening began to make me feel sad rather than joyous.  I tried to enforce a rule to go up and say “thank-you” to the gift giver after each present (which Thomas bless his little heart was sweetly doing), but somehow the present opening seemed to proceed at an ever more frantic pace and the thank-yous dropped off as the night went on.   And I felt embarrassed at the end of the evening, when it was clear that we would never fit all the leftover food we had brought along with all the presents into our car alone.  Christmas really all came crashing down on me the morning of December 26th when I steeped out of our bedroom, walked into the living room, and almost cried.  It looked like a bomb from Target had gone off.  While our little family of four use reusable fabric wrapping between the wrapping paper from presents people had brought and the cardboard boxes from Amazon our recycling container was overflowing.  It upset me so much that I actually left Thomas with my parents, packed up the baby, and raced off to the store to return a few things.  While out I thought about  what future Christmases might entail (if each child gets 5 – 10 things from each seat of grandparents and we have another 15 Christmases or so that will be hundreds of items coming into our house over the years).   The thought of it was overwhelming, both from the standpoint of resource use and from the perspective of having to find a place to put it all.

We have a lovely two bedroom house.  It is relatively small but it fits our needs perfectly.  There simply isn’t room for hundreds of more toys and clothes, and books.  Yes, one can even have too many books, which I adore, but we simply have no where to put them all.*  One might say that some toys will break and that we can donate the old toys but that’s not how we live our lives.  Jeff and I try very hard to buy durable long-lasting toys for the kids that will not wear out.  (I expect that Henry will be passing his Christmas present from this year down to his children).  We are also not done having children so we will be keeping all the toys the boy grow out of for their younger brothers and/or sisters.  I also very much want to teach our children that life, including celebrations in life, such as Christmas, is about so much more than material goods.   So effective Christmas 2010 we are going to make some changes.

• There will be no traveling on Christmas day.  There were some family health issues that necessitated the two celebrations on Christmas day this year, but regardless we will not be repeating it next year.  It was simply too stressful.  I actually think it would be much more fun for everyone to have several “Christmas” celebrations scatted throughout the week or so of the actual holiday so that’s what we will encourage.
• We will set aside some time on Christmas day four just the four of us:  Jeff, Thomas, Henry, and me – most likely first thing in the morning.   Based on everyone’s schedules we will set a time (say 9:00 or 10:00 am) after which we will be happy to host any and all friends and family.  Before our guests arrive we will open stockings and a present or two with the kids as a special time for just the four of us.
• The food, while plentiful and celebratory, will be toned down – Christmas dinner will not be on the scale of Thanksgiving.  As much as I love spending all day cooking in the kitchen (and I really do) I want to spend most of Christmas day relaxing, hanging out with my family, and watching my kids enjoy their new presents.  An overabundance of food can also lead to waste as I saw this year when I ended up having to throw away food that simply could not be eaten in a reasonable amount of time.
• Jeff and I will strive to make or buy used – all of our gifts, save perhaps a few special things that will be purchased from sustainable producers.  This means that Jeff and I now, in January, are thinking and planning about what we want to give everyone next year.  We will encourage the kids to make/create gifts as well.

That’s all well and good for us, but what about everyone else.  While we recognize that what everyone else does we are thinking about some options:

• Do nothing and just return/donate that which we don’t want/need. This is what we’ve done the past few years but it is not going to work anymore.  Buying something made overseas, wrapping it in disposable (but non-recyclable paper), and then putting something back in the car to return/donate seems to me to be a horrible squander of resources.  While I am sure Miss Manners would disapprove and tell me to simply thank the gift-giver and quietly deal with it on my own ,I think the problems of climate change and resource depletion far outweigh considerations of etiquette.   I also don’t want my family to use their hard earned money on things that I will just return or donate.  And quite frankly running about town doing so is not my idea of fun.
• Simply tell our friends and family to keep things low-key.**  Make sure that they know we appreciate and enjoy used and/or homemade gifts.   I think it would be great to also give gifts to others (i.e., charity) in our name.  I think the boys would get a kick out of a “gift” of animals to a family in need.   And in the end, the truth is that no gifts are even necessary.  It is special just to put up a tree, to bake platters of goodies, and to spend time with the ones we love.  Happily, Thomas feels the same way.  Last week he was a bit sad that Christmastime was over and so he came up with a plan*** .  We would build a fire in the fireplace using our Christmas tree as fuel****.  Then Jeff would sit in one of our living room chairs and hold Thomas.  I would sit in the other chair and hold Henry.  Jeff would drink hot chocolate.  Thomas and I would drink warm chocolate.  Henry would abstain as he is a baby.  We would drink our respective beverages, tell stories, and sit around the fire.  We implemented Thomas’ plan (save for Henry – he went to bed at 7:30) and it was one of the best nights ever with Thomas.  He was so happy and utterly adorable with little pink cheeks smiling in the firelight.  It really drove home the point that Christmastime is much more than just presents for him and I want to make sure we keep it that way.
• Impose a limit on presents. We already have  rule against electronic presents/presents with batteries.  The limit we have been considering is two physical gifts per child plus one shared physical gift (between the kids or family).  Things like a children’s museum membership or a day of fun with the grandparents would be exempt from this rule.  Between us, the grandparents, aunts, and uncles this would still give the kids on the order of ten presents each to open – hardly deprivation.

Do you have more ideas for reducing consumption but keeping the fun?  I would be interested in hearing everyone’s thoughts about these issues.

I truly enjoyed Christmas as a child, but as an adult I can’t remember any of the presents I ever received, except a microscope when I was ten (Oh how I wanted that microscope).  What I do remember was the year we hiked into a national forest and cut down two Christmas trees (with a permit, I hope).  I remember making dozens of spritz cookies with my mom’s old, reliable cookie “shooter”.  And I remember the Christmas that I was in the hospital with pneumonia and my parents held off celebrating and opening presents until I could come home.  Those are the kind of memories (save the pneumonia) that I want for my boys and for us.

* My dream home (in my mind) has an honest-to-goodness library with floor to ceiling wood bookshelves, a fireplace, reading lamps, and cozy chairs to curl up in.  I honestly think that if I had a house with such a room and with a big, warm kitchen/pantry the rest of the house could be a shack and I wouldn’t care.

** Hey look!  My friends and family read this blog so I just did that.  Sneaky.

*** Jeff taught Thomas the concept of a plan last week and, boy, did Thomas pick up on that one quickly.  Now we hear, “I have a plan!”

**** We actually have a tradition (eight years!) of cutting up and burning our Christmas tree in the fireplace.  It all stems from Christmas 2001 when Jeff lost his wedding ring the same night he put lights on the Christmas tree.  We searched high and low for that ring but it was nowhere to be found.  We feared it was stuck in the Christmas tree and didn’t want to risk accidentally throwing the ring away so we burned our Christmas tree piece by piece in search of the elusive ring of gold.  We didn’t find the ring then (Jeff’s brother actually found it in our couch three years later – and yes, we had looked there) but a tradition was born and we have re-used our Christmas tree as firewood ever since.