Category Archives: life

January 8, 2008 · 5:06 pm

Hide and Go Fish

Snags was three years old when he changed his name to “Eddie”. My sister-in-law had bought him a cute little pair of boxer shorts with a racecar on the front. Only, Snags refused to wear them until the day that he watched a Fisher Price Little People video that had a scene in it where one character, Eddie, was driving a race car. Then, like a typical three year old, Snags ran upstairs to his room, dug the boxer shorts out of his dresser drawer, and put them on, with the intent of keeping them on. For EVER. Snags could not be parted from those boxer shorts without considerable effort on my part. Months went by where Snags called the little boxer shorts his “Eddie Underwear” and he insisted on wearing them DAILY because, as he said, “They make me turn into Eddie.”

That is how I found myself washing the same pair of underwear out every. single. night. for months. so they would be clean for Snags to wear the next day. And that is also how I found myself buying a fish tank, Snags’ reward for no longer needing diapers.

But I wasn’t good with fish. Once, when I was a teenager, I had a goldfish that I’d gotten from somewhere. It lived in a bowl in my room. One summer as my family got ready to go on vacation I thought it ridiculous to pay a friend to feed one lousy goldfish, so I set about trying to kill it. I didn’t want to outright flush the thing, because that would have been fish murder. Instead, I poisoned its water with things like bleach and Seabreeze and vinegar. Anything clear that wouldn’t be noticeable to the untrained eye, but that might make the fish go belly up. Only, it didn’t work. The stupid fish lived, thrived in fact. And I ultimately had to pay a friend to feed it while we were on vacation.

Anyway, it wasn’t long before the fish in the tank that we bought Snags came down with ICH. My husband and I treated the tank but there was too much ICH and one afternoon, one of the fish, Dorothy, bought the proverbial fish farm. My husband scooped her out of the tank and flushed her off to fish heaven or wherever it is that dead goldfish go when flushed, and I was left to break the news to Snags.

I pulled Snags up onto my lap and said to him “Snags, I’m really sorry, but your fish Dorothy got really sick and she died.” I was worried that he might cry at the news but to my surprise he jumped up and asked to see her. I had to explain then that he couldn’t see her, how that wasn’t possible since his father had flushed her down the toilet.

“Why?” Snags asked.

“Well,” I stammered, “because that’s what you do with a fish when it dies. I am really sorry, Snags, are you upset?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “I am not upset but when Emily Elizabeth dies I am going to flush her down the toilet! Even though there was a good chance that Emily Elizabeth would die, because the entire tank was infected with ICH, I couldn’t help think back to my days of trying to kill my own goldfish, and I worried that Snags had inherited my murderous fish genes.

The next morning we woke up to find that Emily Elizabeth had indeed died. I scooped her out and Snags flushed her down the toilet and asked, rather matter of factly, “Mom, what do they do with the fish when they get to the sewer plant?” So obviously, there was no fish heaven in Snags’ mind. Or if there was, you didn’t get there through the plumbing.

We gave up on fish for a while after that. Then, one day Snags won another goldfish at a carnival. We brought it home in a plastic bag and dug out the old fish tank again. We set the tank with the little goldfish up on Snags’ dresser. Just a fish, in a tank. No gravel, no nothing. Why bother? I thought. I figured the fish would be dead in a matter of days anyway.

Except it wasn’t. This fish, whom Snags named “Mr. Fish” grew, and grew, and grew and grew. He was the lone fish in a 10 gallon tank, and he didn’t seem to mind being alone.

Snags wasn’t satisfied, however. He wanted more fish. He wanted a pond in the backyard complete with koi and waterfalls. We settled instead for a barrel pond with a pump, a plant, and four largish pond goldfish. Not koi, but some of their smaller sized and less expensive cousins. This, it turned out, was a mistake. The pump kept clogging from the fish waste. The water got dirty. Then the barrel started leaking.

I was all for letting the fish flop around in the empty drained out barrel until they stopped flopping, but my husband thought that was cruel. And Snags, well HE wanted an “airline” tank. A fish tank with a treasure chest that could open and close, one where air bubbles came out and rose to the surface. So, in an effort to spare the pond fish an early death, I took Snags to the pet store and we bought a 30 gallon “airline” tank. We set it up, we moved the pond fish into their new home. And we moved Mr. Fish into the tank as well. And then we got four pretty little fantail goldfish. And then Snags won another teeny tiny goldfish at yet another carnival. We dumped them all into the big tank. And there they have lived happily ever after…

That is, until a few days ago, when my husband noticed that one of the fantail goldfish was missing. Gone. Disappeared. Not there. Vanished. Without a trace. Now tell me, how does that happen? Did the fish have a fight? Did the other fish gang up on this one particular fish and chew her up? She’s not floating at the top, she’s not lying on the bottom, she’s not stuck inside the clamshell that spits out bubbles of air. She’s gone!

Did she jump out one day after my husband fed the fish and accidentally left the hood open? Did she flop out onto the carpet and die there? I think if she had flopped out and died under the tank cabinet that we would have smelled something fishy. Don’t you? Besides, I looked all around, the fish is not on the carpet, not under the tank cabinet. Did she flop out of the tank and land on the floor and maybe our dog ate her up like a Scooby Snack? I suppose it’s possible, but like Snags says, “it’s unlikely.” So where did the fish go? I have no clue. The fish is just…gone. And Snags? He’s totally over the “I want an airline tank” phase. I pointed out the missing fish to him and he couldn’t care less. He simply shrugged his shoulders and went back to building a Star Wars battle scene with his LEGOs. But I am perplexed. I am counting fish in my head. Maybe the missing fish never existed. Maybe we only ever had three fantail goldfish. Or maybe my husband secretly scooped her up and flushed her down the toilet. Maybe the murderous fish genes are in him too.

And then I think back to the days when we battled ICH and lost all of our original fish. How I was so worried about Snags learning about death in this way, watching fish die, and flushing them down the toilet. After each fish passed I’d ask him again if he was upset and finally, one day, he’d had enough. He turned to me and with an exasperated sigh said, “Mom, I’m not upset. I didn’t even want this tank. I wanted a fish BOWL!” And I can’t help wonder now, if maybe I should have listened to him then.

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Filed under fish, humor, life

January 4, 2008 · 12:08 am

Banana Splits: The New Health Food

“Mom,” my six year old son said to me, “I think there should be rules against showing some kind of stuff on television. Those shows you were watching, they should not be allowed to have that on television, don’t you think?”

And I had to think back. What was I watching? Prison Break? Nope, we don’t have HBO. The Sopranos? Nope, again, no HBO and besides, I think that’s over and done with. Plus, this kid watches Star Wars, full of explosions and chases and The Force that kills. But then I remember. I was watching episode after episode of a show about an obesity treatment center in New York. Brookhaven something or other. It was New Year’s Day and I turned on the TV as I stepped onto the treadmill. I was curious as to why an obesity treatment center would let its patients have access to phones and the front door so they could call and order a large pizza with extra toppings, or Kung Pao Chicken with a side of pupu platter. Some of the patients have lived at this place for 2 years, even 4, without losing any weight at all. It wasn’t hard to see why, given the contraband food that was coming in and being consumed in the dark of night, but it was hard to fathom that the insurance companies paying for the treatment hadn’t questioned the fact that 800 pound Mary was still weighing in at 800 pounds after 3 years of “treatment”.

So I left the television on and watched with a sick fascination as I ran on the treadmill and I didn’t think much of it when my son wandered downstairs and sat quietly on the sofa. I guess at some point I noticed that he was staring, somewhat transfixed at the television, at the 700 pound man with the elephantitis of his leg, but then again, so was I. In hindsight, I should have turned the TV off.

It’s a new year, and people are making resolutions to lose weight and get in shape, and although this show didn’t offer the same kind of motivation as say, the season finale of The Biggest Loser, where you think if they can do it I can too, it had I thought, some motivational aspect to it. The negative reinforcement that makes you run just a little bit faster or a little bit farther as you think to yourself “No way would I let myself get like that. Certainly I’d give up the chocolate ice cream the moment I realized that I wasn’t able to squeeze through my front door anymore…”

After the treatment center show ended came episodes of Big Medicine, where they showed patients undergoing gastric bypass surgery and full body lifts to remove excess skin that remained after such profound weight loss. And still I watched, hoping to use the negative reinforcement as motivation to keep me on the treadmill for just another mile, or maybe even two.

Later that evening I tucked my son in bed and left his room. I had only taken about three steps beyond his bedroom door when he called me back, “Mommy,” he cried, “I need you.” So I turned back, opened his door. “What is it sweetheart? What do you need?”

“I’m worried,” he cried, as tears started to roll down his face. “I am afraid I am going to be like those people when I grow up.”

“What people, sweetheart? Who are you talking about?”

“Those people on TV, the ones with the tumors…” he sniffed.

And again I had to think back, those people on TV with the tumors? Then it hit me, the obesity clinic show… The man with elephantitis, the woman with the lipomas…

“Oh sweetheart!” I said. “Come here,” I said, and hugged him. “You won’t grow up to be like that I promise.”

“I won’t? How do you know?” he cried, his face now wet from a river of tears.

“Because,” I said, “Those people, they just didn’t take very good care of themselves, they didn’t eat enough healthy food or get enough exercise. And some of it’s genetics…”

“What’s genetics?” he asked.

“Genetics… genetics are like a secret code that comes from your parents to make you who you are. I have brown eyes and you have brown eyes and daddy had brown eyes,” I explained, “that’s genetics.” “And besides,” I went on, “Daddy and I aren’t like those people on TV, are we?”

“No,” he admitted.

“So” I said, “It’s not in your genetics to be like that. And even if it was I wouldn’t let you get like that. I would not let you eat too much junk food. I would make you eat healthy food. You play outside, you ride your bike, you get lots of exercise. And you eat carrots and other healthy food… Plus, you know what? With your food allergies you can’t eat a lot of junk food anyway. You can’t get a cheeseburger and french fries from McDonalds or Burger King. We cook mostly healthy food at home,” I said. “And besides,” I went on, desperate to convince him, “Some of those people probably eat bowls of potato chips for breakfast, and you don’t do that, you eat cereal.”

“Yeah,” he said, starting to brighten a little, “and cereal is healthy, right?”

It took about 30 minutes to convince him that he would be okay, that he wouldn’t end up like the people on television, so obese that they were confined to a hospital bed and unable to walk more than a few short steps, so obese that they suffered a host of related conditions such as cellulitis and elephantitis and seven pound tumors composed of fat and growing off the side of their thighs. I felt sad for these patients. I was curious about the ones who wanted help yet cheated on their diets nightly by ordering pizzas and breadsticks to eat as a snack after the evening meal had already been served. I was bothered that the patients could remain at the clinic for years without making any progress, away from their families who missed their presence at home. I was irritated that the show didn’t have follow-ups or success stories to share, no “It’s been 2 years since Mary left the clinic and she’s maintained her 500 pound weight loss despite all odds…” But mostly, I was saddened that the show had frightened my child to the point that it took 30 minutes to dry his tears and calm his fears.

I was nervous the next evening at dinner. Would my son refuse to eat? Would a plate of food remind him of that television show? But everything was fine. He announced that we should have a rule to eat healthy foods and then he cleaned his plate and asked for a banana split for dessert. “Bananas,” he told me, “are a healthy food! So we can eat banana splits! But you know what, Mom?” he continued, “Do you know why I don’t like salad? Because it doesn’t have any taste. Or it has taste but it also doesn’t have taste? So not having any taste gives it an X. And the taste it does have gets an X. So that’s a double X. And a double X is bad. But actually… well, I just hate salad. And I still think we need some rules about what shows we can watch on TV in this house. That show you were watching, that shouldn’t be allowed to be watched anymore, okay?”

“Okay,” I agreed. “I’m sorry that show scared you. We won’t watch that anymore,” I said, as I turned to prepare his “healthy” banana split, complete with half a banana, a spoonful of soy ice cream, colorful sprinkles, and a sour cherry ball on top. Health food, indeed.

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Filed under food, health food, life, TV

January 2, 2008 · 1:40 am

His Idea of a New Year’s Eve Party

It’s New Year’s Eve and I’ve spent the day watching a marathon of episodes of Jon and Kate Plus Eight. At some point it occurs to me that I can’t take the crying and the whining anymore. It’s something I can’t stand in my own house, from one child, so why am I watching eight children do this on television? Why is the film crew placing boom microphones right above the crying children? As if their crying wasn’t already loud enough. It also occurs to me that this family on the screen in front of me goes to a lot more places than we do. The dad has a job but the mother isn’t paid for staying at home with the kids. How do they manage these trips to New York, and Florida, and California? Then I remember, oh yes, they are being filmed. The TV people probably have something to do with it all…

Snags has been watching some of these episodes as well, but by 3:00 he’s getting bored. His eyes are dark and he’s yawning. “What can I do, Mom?” he asks. Hmmm, I think… “Well,” I reply, “anyone who takes a nap gets to have a special New Year’s surprise tonight.” “What?” he asks as he eyes me wearily. He sees a trick coming on. A ploy designed solely to get him to take a nap. “Popcorn,” I tell him. “If you take a nap, you can have popcorn tonight when you are watching your New Year’s Eve Nick Jr. shows.” Surprisingly it works. “Okay,” he yells. “I’m going to take a nap!” And off he goes. He runs up the stairs and that’s the last I see of him for two hours. I lean back on the sofa, settle in to watch more crying and whining, to listen to the mom on TV bark orders to her husband in Toys R Us. How, I wonder, will this family turn out? Being filmed on TV was the death of Nick and Jessica. I’ve got to think that the stress of the show could have some negative impacts for this family down the road. I don’t know. I could be wrong. I hope I am.

At 5:00 p.m. Snags comes back downstairs. “I took a nap!” he announces. “And so did Dad. He was playing Xbox but he fell asleep. I wish I could play my video games but you want to watch this show…” he trails off.

“No, you can play your games,” I tell him. “I’ve seen enough of the show.”

“Really? Are you sure?” He’s excited. The television is all his. He can play Sonic, or Madagascar, or Star Wars LEGOs… And I am sure. I’ve listened to eight children cry and fuss and have meltdowns over and over and over again for hours. I listened to them while I ran on the treadmill, while I folded laundry, while I snacked on Ritz crackers. The sound of explosions and light sabers and beeps and blips of video games might actually be music to my ears now.

After dinner Snags turns the channel to Nick Jr. SpongeBob SquarePants is starting. A mini-marathon for New Year’s Eve. Snags has been talking about this for nearly a week. This, Nick Jr. and SpongeBob SquarePants, is THE WAY to ring in the new year when you are six. Snags pulls a pot from the cabinet, a jar of popcorn from the pantry. “Popcorn. Let’s have popcorn now!” he pleads.

I make the popcorn and Snags dances about the kitchen. “It’s time to PARTY!” he says. “Let’s PAR-TAY!”

Snags eats his popcorn at the kitchen table. He says we’ll all stay up until midnight and we’ll party. Only, SpongeBob ends at 10:00 p.m. I’m tired. I tell him that I am going to bed, but he can watch a movie on our portable DVD player, the one we take on long car trips. It’s still set up in his room, left there from when he was sick on Christmas Eve. Snags thinks this is a grand idea, a way to extend his New Year’s Eve partying. “You might want to cover your ears,” he says as he stands up. “HAPPY NEW YEAR!” he screams at the top of his lungs, before turning, heading up the stairs to his room.

“You have to lie down in your bed to watch the movie,” I tell him. “And you cannot get out of bed. Not even once.” “Okay,” he agrees, pleased. “But if my movie is over before midnight I will start it over again,” he says. I agree, that’s fine. He can do that as long as he stays in bed. Snags chooses Star Wars, Episode III as the DVD to watch. He hits the play button as I pull the covers up to his neck and kiss him goodnight.

Fifteen minutes later I go in to check on Snags, and he’s sound asleep, oblivious to the light sabers and storm troopers raging just a few feet away on the DVD player. He hasn’t made it ‘til midnight. Not even close. His “party” of SpongeBob and a bowl of popcorn has knocked him out. But I won’t wake him. I hope the sound of firecrackers and car horns honking throughout the neighborhood at midnight don’t wake him, either. I turn off the DVD player, turn out his bedroom lights, and lean down and whisper “Happy New Year” in his ear, then quietly close the door.

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Filed under life, New Year's Eve, party, popcorn, Snags, SpongeBob

December 27, 2007 · 8:08 pm

Christmas Rehash

Two days after Christmas: Belle looks around at all of the empty boxes and bags and vows to take them out to the trash, later, after she rests a bit, after she contemplates taking down all the decorations to get them out of the way before the New Year sneaks up on her.

The day after Christmas: Snags looks around at all of his new toys and announces, “Santa brought me way too many presents!” and then in the next breath he says, “I’m bored. There’s nothing to do. What should I do?” Belle bangs her head against the wall.

Christmas night: Belle hosts Christmas dinner for 16 people. The menu includes turkey, ham, glazed carrots, spinach casserole, stuffing, wild rice, foccacia, and lumpia (egg rolls). No white rice. Never forget to cook a pot of white rice when half of your relatives are of Filipino descent. (I won’t say anything else about that except to note, for the record, that my husband — of Filipino descent– was in charge of the menu and he deemed that his wild rice was enough, the white rice wouldn’t be necessary.) Dessert includes Christmas cookies and apple pie. Coffee, beer, and wine flow freely. Snags still doesn’t feel well enough to actually eat, so he skips the regular Christmas dinner and munches on a slice of dry toast. He could have eaten some white rice instead, but somebody chose not to make any this night.

Christmas morning: Snags wakes at 6:00 a.m. after a sick and feverish night filled with vomiting and crying. He announces that he feels well enough to go check and see if Santa came. Belle convinces him to wait just a bit but by 7:00 a.m. there is no stopping him. Snags runs down the stairs, looks at the tree and yells, “Santa came! Santa brought me all THIS? He brought me WAY too many presents!” Other utterances include “Yes! Yes! Yes! My LEGO Star Destroyer!” and “He brought me Quadrilla Twist and Rail!!!” and “Whoa! Santa brought me the Star Wars LEGO Republic Cruiser even though he also got me the Star Destroyer?!”

Christmas Eve: It’s time to head to church and to a relative’s home for Christmas Eve dinner. Snags looks miserable, and says his tummy hurts. He can’t muster the energy to get dressed in his holiday finest so Belle stays home with him where he proceeds to throw up in the middle of a warm bath. Belle scrubs the bathtub no fewer than three times and debates giving Snags any more Tylenol or Motrin to fight the newly developed fever and the horrendous sore throat he has but which the doctor claimed was viral. Belle’s Christmas Eve dinner consists of leftovers found in the back of the fridge. Snags is too unwell to eat anything at all.

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Filed under Christmas, life

December 19, 2007 · 1:47 am

Monkey Man

When my son was 17 months old he decided to give the terrible twos an early try and threw a tantrum in which he flung himself to the floor hitting his head on a plastic toy. The cut that appeared over his right brow looked like a third eye socket, minus the eye itself.

My son’s bravery for weathering the ambulance ride and a set of stitches that looked like a miniature railroad track had been installed on his forehead by the Borg, was a gift from the hospital nursing staff: a stuffed monkey, a little smaller than your normal beanie baby.

But at that age my son was more interested in stomping around the house and chasing our dog, and screaming “Gog-ga!” at her over and over again, than he was in playing with the stuffed monkey. So the monkey found its way to the bottom of a toy box, and there it stayed, buried other under things, until just the other day when Snags found it and pulled it out again.

At school, his class has been talking about community helpers, and so Snags decided that he would be a veterinarian when he grew up. He likes dogs, you see, and vets help the community by taking care of dogs. After further consideration though, Snags changed his mind. “I don’t want a dog to bite me,” he said, “a dog could bite me if I was a vet and had to give them a shot.” So now Snags wants to be a dog groomer when he grows up. Because, obviously, what dog in his right mind would bite someone who is wrestling them into a bath and blow dry and coming at them with a humming electric shaver?

Now the monkey has become Snag’s best friend and he is taking care of the monkey. When the monkey “broke his arm and his leg,” Snags fashioned little casts for him out of tissue and scotch tape. He made him a wheelchair out of a discarded Deer Park water bottle. Essentially, he’s taking care of the monkey exactly the way a good dog groomer would.

And to show his deep appreciation and admiration for this excellent care, or perhaps because he has simply nothing better to do, the monkey follows Snags everywhere, just like the little lamb followed Mary. Today, for example, the monkey followed Snags to Kindergarten, hitching a ride by climbing into the left front pocket of Snags’ sweatpants.

The monkey was clad in a pair of overalls that my husband had made him, all because Snags decided the monkey needed a pair of overalls. Snags’ original plan was to make the overalls out of paper, but my husband, Martha, offered up a pair of old Levi’s with which to salvage the denim from, and he offered to design and sew a teeny tiny pair of overalls by hand. He set about this task with the utmost concentration, admonishing Snags and I for distracting him. “You don’t understand how difficult this is,” he said. When I laughed at him he got huffy. “Then YOU make the overalls,” he growled. But I declined. “No, Martha,” I replied, “Remember, Snags was going to make the monkey some clothes out of paper, that would have been good enough for him. Cutting up an old pair of blue jeans to make an authentic pair of demin overalls, that was YOUR idea. So YOU do the sewing.”

A little later, the overalls were done, and monkey was dressed. The next day, monkey moved into his mansion. Snags spent hours up in his room positioning furniture into an old dollhouse we had. “Look, Mom!” Snags pointed. “The monkey is wealthy! He lives in this mansion!” And he’s dressed in overalls, I thought. Just like Jed Clampett. That toy box he lived in for the past four years must have been the mountains he came from before he moved to Beverly Hills…

Later that same evening Snags had dug out another small stuffed monkey from his toy box. This one was made of blue felt and lived in an old house that had previously belonged to Barbie. The blue monkey, Snags reported, was Monkey’s “crazy neighbor”.

As Snags got out of the car this morning to head into school, monkey was sticking halfway out of his pants pocket. I worried that maybe he would lose him, that monkey would fall out, get lost in a hallway, kicked down a staircase, never to be found again. I was relived when I got home from work and found monkey resting on the floor amid wrapping paper and bows and crayons and Halloween decorations pulled from storage. A block letter sign lay next to him. MONKEY MAN, the sign read. “Mom,” Snags said, “will you get your camera and film a movie I am making? It’s about Monkey Man. He’s a SUPER HERO!” I noticed that monkey’s tissue paper casts for his broken arm and leg had been removed. He was out of his water bottle wheel chair. Instead, he had donned a tissue paper cape, held securely in place with duct tape on his back. Monkey Man the Super Hero was ready for action. And Snags the dog groomer has become a helpful community movie director. All this to say, be on the lookout for MONKEY MAN, the movie, coming soon to a theater near you.

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Filed under humor, life, Monkey Man, my own brand of crazy, Snags, Super Hero

December 13, 2007 · 1:19 am

The Elf

It appears that we have a new addition to our household. It’s an elf. No, it’s not a short child. I can be cruel but I’m not that kind of cruel. Even if we had added a dwarf child to our family I would not go around introducing him as our elf, not even at Christmas time. This is a real live stuffed elf. And apparently, we’ve adopted him, although I have to be honest and admit it was not my intention to adopt anything. And certainly not an elf.

It’s the Kindergarten teacher’s fault. She told the children about some mischievous elves that came to her house in the night. Elves that did silly things. Elves that hung Halloween decorations on her Christmas tree. And then, she told the children how they could get their own elves. I wish I could say that you lure them with diamonds and pearls, but that’s not the way it works.

In fact, I’d never even heard about enticing elves to visit until Snags came home from school and started talking about it, telling me how we could attract elves to our house by luring them with crackers and water. “If you want Santa to come,” he said, “you leave out cookies and milk. But if you want the elves to come, you leave out crackers and water!” And then he set about arranging sixteen Ritz crackers and a plastic tumbler of ice water on top of a paper towel at our kitchen table. To lure the elves.

I forgot about the food sitting out on the table until a few hours later when I was heading up to bed. When I saw the crackers arranged so nicely I remembered Snags’ story, and his plan to attract an elf. If he caught one, he said, he’d keep it in a cage. Similar, I suppose, to a zookeeper or to those good parents – the ones I heard about on the news a while back, the ones who kept all of their children in cages…

Now I couldn’t disappoint him, so I shoveled the crackers in my mouth and dumped the water down the sink and sat down to think. I had two brand new Star Wars ornaments hidden away, ornaments I had planned to hang on the tree on Christmas Eve or give to Snags as a gift on Christmas morning. I decided to hang them on the tree and write a note to Snags from the elves. A note saying they’d put something on the tree for him to find, and they were off to do some mischief at other homes, and they’d be back to visit NEXT year.

Only, that wasn’t how the elves were supposed to work. It turned out that Snags hadn’t told me the entire story. He hadn’t told me the part of the story where the elves stayed at your house and looked like a stuffed elf by day, but at night, they came alive, consumed the crackers and water you left them, and performed acts of mischief, every night from December 1st until Santa takes them back to the North Pole on Christmas Eve.

And so, Snags woke up in the morning and ran down the stairs to look for elves. His sharp intake of breath at the sight of the missing crackers and overturned plastic tumbler that once held water for the elves, was so loud that I heard it upstairs, even with my head pressed into the pillow.

Snags ran up the stairs with the note: “Read this! Out loud!” he demanded. After I finished, he ran from my room and down the stairs to search the tree. He found the ornaments but he wasn’t appeased. He kept searching for more, for more evidence that the elves had been around. “Mom,” he asked, “Wasn’t this bag of dog treats on the other counter over here last night? I think the elves moved it.” “Mom,” he went on, “Who left this spoon in the sink? I think the elves did it. I’m going,” he said like Encyclopedia Brown, “to look for more clues.”

And so he went, room to room, hunting for clues, hunting for the elves. When it was time to leave for school, he was unhappy. He hadn’t found the elves. He could not keep them in a cage. If the elves weren’t staying at our house then he wanted them to take the ornaments back. Star Wars be damned.

An hour after school started I received an email from Snags’ teacher. Subject line: elves. “I thought you might want to check this out,” she had written. And then she had included a link to a site that explained the whole story of the mischief making elves, a site where you can order one of your very own. She went on to say she had bought an elf from a craft show, but that she’d seen similar ones for sale at a local store. I’m no dummy, I could read what was left unwritten: Snags told me about the elves that left the Star Wars ornaments on your tree. You did it WRONG! HERE is how you can make it right…

And that is how we ended up adopting our very own elf. My husband picked one up from the local store and brought it home and hid it in Snags’ room. He pulled Kleenex from a box and tossed them on Snag’s floor. He pulled CDs off his dresser and spread them around. I undecorated the tree in his room, spreading the ornaments on the floor, the bed, the furniture. The room looked, in the end, exactly like the kind of mess a mischievous elf might make while your six-year old self is toiling away at Kindergarten.

When I picked Snags up after school he was very excited. “Mom! You HAVE to call Santa Claus. You have to tell him that we want to ADOPT an elf! That’s why the elves didn’t stay. That’s why they said they’d be back next year. Santa has to know you want to ADOPT an elf and then he’ll let them stay! We have to put crackers and water out all over again tonight, okay? Will you call Santa? Will you? Will you mom? Will you?” I said I’d think about it. I told him I’d have to look up Santa’s phone number, even though the truth is, I already had it on my speed dial.

When we got home, Snags begged me once again. “Please mom, do it now. Call Santa and tell him we want to adopt an elf…” But before I could press a button on the phone, my husband’s voice boomed from upstairs: “Snags! Get up here right now!” Snags threw a worried look in my direction and headed up the stairs. I followed.

My husband pointed to the mess in Snags’ room. “You have to clean this up,” he said. And Snags began to protest. “I didn’t make that mess!”

“Snags!” I said, “Did you do this before we left for school? Why would you do something like this? I don’t understand why you would do this!”

“But I didn’t do it,” he insisted. “Maybe the elves did it.”

“There aren’t any elves, Snags,” I said. “You saw the note. They left you a few ornaments and said they’d be back next year. They didn’t stay here.”

And just as tears started to roll down his face at the injustice of it all, at being accused of making a mess he hadn’t made, and of having to clean it up on top of it all, Snags saw the note on his pillow, saw the end of the pointed elf hat peeking out of a box he had left on his nightstand, and his tears turned into joy. “Ha!” he shouted. “It WAS the elf! I told you I didn’t make this mess! This…” he screamed in joy, “This is just like the elf at school! He threw paper on the floor today while we were at lunch. When we got back to class the paper was all over! Yay! I have an elf! I have an elf! I am so happy I have an elf!” And then Snags danced a little dance.

Snags was ready for bed a full hour before his usual bedtime. He took his bath, brushed his teeth, put his pajamas on. He made a table for the elf out of an overturned Kleenex box. He placed two Ritz crackers and a Dixie Cup full of water on top. He filled an empty shirt box with hand towels to make a bed for the elf. He emptied trash cans and turned them upside down, creating a stair case leading from his night stand to the floor, so the elf could go do his mischief without having to jump down, without risking injury from a potential fall. Then he sat on his bed, staring at the elf, as if willing it to come alive before his very eyes.

In the morning, the crackers and water were gone, the family room floor, previously clear and free of toys, was littered with LEGOS and pillows off the sofa. The elf was found hiding in Snags’ Christmas stocking, too tired after all that mischief to make it back up the stairs to Snags’ room and his shirt box bed. And Snags, happy to have his very own elf, cleaned up the LEGOs with hardly any protest after my threat that I would call Santa and tell him to come get the mischievous elf right now if he didn’t clean up the mess. The deal, I said, is that YOU clean up any mischievous messes the elf makes. And if you don’t, the elf, he’s out of here!”

And so this, I think, is going to be fun. Snags is going to clean up messes he didn’t even make! Because I AM that kind of cruel. In fact, tomorrow morning, I think he’ll be folding a load of laundry that the elf brings up from the dryer and dumps all over the sofa. Yes, I think that’s what he’s going do… I just have this feeling about it. Or maybe that feeling is simply hunger, for a cracker…

14 Comments

Filed under Christmas, elves, humor, Kindergarten, life, Snags

December 11, 2007 · 2:30 am

Jesus Versus Darth Plagueis

It’s 3:00 p.m. on Saturday afternoon and we are driving home after a morning filled with indoor soccer practice and an afternoon spent in a crowded mall buying Christmas presents for various friends and relatives. The conversation in the car is about to take a sudden left and then a sharp right into the religion of the Star Wars obsessed, but right now I am still thinking about the mall…

Santa Claus was at the mall, but he’s taken a break, probably for lunch, and so we wait in line for his return. Snags has scoped out Santa’s sled and determined that this is the REAL Santa, because “Look! He’s got three XBOX 360s in his sleigh! And why would he have those if he wasn’t the REAL Santa?” Snags is torn between waiting not so patiently in line for Santa to return from where ever he’s ventured off to, and leaving the line to hunt him down somewhere in the mall, perhaps in the food court.

“I don’t think Santa wants to be bothered when he’s trying to eat his lunch,” I tell Snags.

He ponders this for a moment before he spots Santa’s coat and hat hanging from a hook near his sleigh. He decides that I am probably right, that it might be hard to find Santa since he’s left his uniform behind. “He might look like a regular guy out there. Except,” Snags proclaims, “Santa has a long beard, right? He couldn’t take that off!”

I convince Snags that we should just wait where we are, Santa’s due back in 25 minutes anyway, and the line forming behind us has at least 30 people in it.

So we wait, and I listen and silently sigh while Snags goes on to ponder where Santa parked his reindeer. He wants to look for them, but I know the parking lot is full of nothing but cars.

Eventually Santa returns, carrying a metal lunch box and a large thermos, proof that he was indeed on his lunch break. But now he’s full and ready to have hordes of children sit on his lap, tell him what they want for Christmas, and get their picture taken with him.

When it’s his turn, Snags lies and tells Santa that yes, he’s been a good boy all year. I know he’s lying because even though I cannot hear him speaking, I see his nervous glance in my direction as he answers. His worry is palpable, I can tell he’s afraid I might jump forward and refute his claim to goodness. I don’t. I let him convince Santa that he is worthy of the three things he’s asking for this year: a Star Wars LEGO Star Destroyer, a Quadrilla Twist and Rail (made in China, full of lead?), and some kind of door alarm for his bedroom door. I don’t understand this last request. I am not surprised by it, but this is the child who is afraid of fire alarms sounding and home security systems beeping. An alarm on his bedroom door suggests he’s entered into therapy, the kind where the doctor purposely exposes you to your fears so that eventually they don’t scare you anymore. And I know that is not the case.

I fork over $19.99 for two 5×7 shots of Snags forcing a nervous smile on Santa’s lap – nervous I’m sure because he still doesn’t know if he’s got Santa fooled or not, and he doesn’t know if a lying alarm might sound when he climbs down from Santa’s lap.

Lately, before bed, Snags has been looking at an old book I have on Rome. I bought it back in ancient times, when I was a Junior in High School, and went to Rome on a trip. The book is full of glossy color photos of fountains and Roman architecture and statues. Michelangelo’s Pietà has caught his eye, so I’ve been trying to explain it to him. It’s Christmas time, and we should be celebrating Jesus’ birth, but Snags is currently worrying over Jesus’ death. He won’t leave it until Easter and it must be playing somewhere in the back of his mind because now in the car, on our way home from the mall and Santa, we pass a church with a cemetery beside it. Snags asks from the back seat, “Mom, why do all the gravestones have crosses on them? It’s not like there are a whole bunch of Jesuses buried all over the place!”

My husband is driving and so we explain, as best we can, what the crosses mean. Snags seems to understand and we continue on our way until the sudden left and sharp right come at us, like questions from a child’s mind so often do, out of nowhere…

“Mom,” Snags asks, “Do you know the difference between Jesus and Darth Plagueis?”

My head starts to spin with the craziness of the question. I feel like Dorothy in the tornado in The Wizard of Oz. “Um…” I stall. “Uh… let me think,” I say.

And here my husband starts to shake with silent laughter. I can see him trying not to pump a fist into the air in triumph, trying not to say “Ha! He asked YOU! You take that one…”

“Uh…” I say. “Jesus was a good guy, and anybody with Darth in their name is a bad guy?” I venture.

“How about Jesus was a real person and Darth Plagueis is just a made up character in a movie?” my husband offers, trying to help me out, although I can see he’s still shaking with laughter.

“Yes, that, but also,” Snags says. “Also, Jesus could save himself and Darth Plagueis couldn’t!”

And I sigh and say that “Yeah, I see what you mean.” Although I don’t. I have no idea who Darth Plagueis is, expect to know that he’s from Star Wars, and a bad guy to boot. I say a silent prayer promising to take Snags to church on Sunday if lightening doesn’t strike us all down right then and there.

It turns out that Darth Plagueis was a Sith Lord who found a way to prevent death and create life. The legend of Darth Plagueis is recounted in a brief scene in the movie Revenge of the Sith where Chancellor Palpatine tells the story to Anakin Skywalker. “Ironic,” Palpatine says. “He could save others from death, but not himself.”

And somehow, some way, Snags has remembered this scene, these supposed facts, and put them together into a Jesus versus Darth Plagueis scene in his mind.

Dinner and bedtime pass without incident as I think about what mass we should go to in the morning. It will depend on what time I get back from my morning run. My clothes are set out and ready to go.

But at 3:00 a.m Sunday morning I am awaken from sleep by Snags calling, “Mom! I need you!” I go into his room to find he’s gotten sick in the middle of the night and vomited all over the place. It looks like I won’t be running in the morning after all. And church won’t be seeing the likes of us this weekend either. I guess Jesus and Darth Plagueis will have to work things out without us. I hope the good guy wins. His birthday is coming up, after all.

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Filed under Christmas, Darth Plagueis, humor, Jesus, LEGOs, life, Santa, Snags, Star Wars

December 6, 2007 · 1:55 am

Under Penalty of Law and Other Things

Having just purchased a new bed, one larger than I’ve ever had before, and consequently, new bedding to go with it, I am once again reminded of those formidable tags that hang off of home furnishings and threaten you with jail time if you so much as wave a pair of scissors in their direction. You know the tags I am talking about, right? The ones that are large, white and read Do Not Remove UNDER PENALTY OF LAW…

As a child I was both intrigued and frightened by those tags. My parents had a set of stacking foot stools: dark wood with mustard yellow colored fake leather cushioning, about 2 ½ feet square, and one stacked on top of the other. Take them apart and you had two foot stools. Stacked, you had one uncomfortable too-low-to-the-ground seat. Still, I suppose it was a better option than making guests sit on the floor when the sofa was already full.

Anyway, on the back of those stools were the Penalty of Law tags. I pondered them often. I am not sure if they had the word consumer on them back then. If they did, I didn’t know what consumer meant. So I didn’t understand why the tags couldn’t be removed. How would they know? I wondered. And how quickly would the police show up at my door if I removed one of the tags? It just didn’t make sense to me. My parents owned those foot stools. They paid for them. They were in OUR family room. But the tags, they belonged to THE LAW. Cut them off and it was obvious: you’d go to jail.

Of course, later, when I was older, I realized that wasn’t true at all and I had my fun cutting Penalty of Law tags off furniture anytime I came across them. Especially the ones on furniture that belonged to me. I understood the word consumer by that point.

But now, once again, I’ve got tags hanging off my new mattress and my new comforter and new pillows and I am a little wary about touching the tags. I think it’s because the bed we bought, it has a 30-day (or should that be night?) sleep guarantee. My husband and I bought the bed, but if we don’t like the quality of our sleep over the next 30 days, we can call the store and exchange the mattress for a different one. Or so they say. And so, I am reluctant to cut off the tags. It’s my bed, sure. But if I cut off the tags and then decide in a few weeks that I don’t want it anymore, will they come after me for removing the tags? That old fear has crept back upon me. Christmas is coming, and I’m not willing to be penalized under the law for cutting the tags off a mattress before my 30-day trial is up. In other words, I’ve got things to do HERE. I’m not knitting a stocking, like Martha, from a jail cell.

So far I like the bed. It’s comfortable. It’s large. It’s so large, in fact, that there is no need for ANYONE to touch me while I am sleeping. That includes my husband. And the dog. There’s room enough for all of us. Each in our own little area. Only… my little area of comforter, it’s got those damn tags hanging off of it. When I pull the comforter up at night the tags hit me in the face. And it’s night time, I’ve just climbed into bed. I don’t feel like getting up to find the scissors. So there I am, with the tags waving in my face all night long, taunting me.

Last night I slept with the tags in my face and my pajamas on inside-out. It’s not something I normally do, wear my pajamas like that, and I didn’t do it by mistake. Snags begged me to. The weather man had forecasted some snow showers for our area today, and Snags’ kindergarten teacher had told his class that if they slept with their pajamas on inside-out it would make it snow. The sleepy-time version of a snow dance, I presume. So Snags took his bath then came downstairs with his pajamas on inside-out.

“They’re only calling for an inch of snow,” I told him.

“Yes, Mom. But PLEASE, if you and dad would sleep with your pajamas on inside out too we might get like eight FEET of snow!” he said excitedly.

I sighed but agreed to try it.

I don’t think I’ll be doing that again. We didn’t get eight feet of snow, but there must be close to five inches of snow out there right now. The roads are messy. Schools let out early today. I bet they’ll be delayed tomorrow. We have to shovel.

I thought we were in the middle of a global warming crisis. The only explanation I can find then, for this snow, the extra snow above what the weather man called for, is the trick of the inside-out pajamas. I think I’ll have a word with Snags’ teacher for even suggesting it, for encouraging this snow along.

The snow that fell is the dry fluffy kind. The kind that doesn’t stick together well at all. Snags came home from school today and made a snowman by scooping snow into a Glad Ware container and sticking a carrot into the middle of it. He wanted to bring it inside, store it in the freezer. I wouldn’t let him. I told him he couldn’t do it, UNDER PENALTY OF LAW.

6 Comments

Filed under humor, life, snow

November 29, 2007 · 1:01 am

Goodbye, November! I Gotta Get a Move On…

In an email I sent to my Uncle listing possible things he could get my son for Christmas (hey, he ASKED, I don’t just make up lists and send them out to people), I told him: “Anything NOT Star Wars or LEGOs would be good. We are drowning in LEGOs and Santa’s bringing more and if I have to hear Snags go on and on about Star Wars and Obi Wan Kenobi anymore I swear I will poke my ears out with the first thing I can get my hands on – probably a LEGO.”

But that’s a lie. A total bold faced lie. Because actually, at the time I wrote that email, I had already dug my ear drums out with the tines of a fork. The whole ordeal was a bit messier than I had anticipated and so I tried to staunch the flow of blood with the first thing I could get my hands on – and that WAS a bunch of LEGOs. Only LEGOs aren’t cotton, so they aren’t very absorbent in that impervious hard plastic surface sort of way, and so I was forced to sit there and build tiny LEGO dams while the blood poured from my empty ear sockets all over my keyboard. I shoved the little plastic LEGO dams into the holes that once held ear drums, and here I type with sticky fingers telling all the world the truth. That I am a liar and I am sick to death of hearing about Star Wars. Honestly, I only lied in the first place because I didn’t want to alarm my Uncle over all the blood.

But like I said, Santa IS bringing more Star Wars LEGOs to our house this Christmas, so I fear I can’t escape the coming waves of Star Ships engaged in the battles of my obsessed child’s devising. I have seriously considered calling Santa and telling him “NO! Return those LEGOs to your toy storage locker that is Toys R Us, don’t bring them here!”, but then they were the first thing Snags asked for in his letter to Santa, and they were the first things he marked as “Top Choice” on his list, like a butcher grading cuts of meat. So I can’t bring myself to do it. Plus ~~Santa~~ I can’t find the receipt.

So Christmas is coming and thankfully I’ve already completed some of my shopping. I got my parents… oh wait, they might read this so I can’t say. But I got my husband… nope, better not tell you that either. Okay, so instead I’ll tell you about my brother’s Christmas wish-list. He didn’t prioritize it so I don’t know if this was his “Top Choice” or not, but one of the items on his list was the Magic Wallet. Have you heard of it? It’s been around for years. I think my brother even had one once upon a time. It must have worn out. He wants a new one. But he wants the Original Magic Wallet, not the new Magic Wallet Plus. Basically the concept is you open it up, drop in a dollar bill or a receipt or something, close it up, and it “magically” moves the paper to it’s proper place. Well, more or less. It’s not really magic at all, having elastic bands that hook it all together not unlike a Jacob’s Ladder toy. Something which, by the way, I always wanted when I was a kid. Something I still haven’t figured out to this day. But anyway, the Magic Wallet… I can just picture my brother now, using the wallet as a prop for his pick-up line at a bar, saying something like “Hello beautiful! See if you can find what I have hidden in my Magic Wallet!” Word to my brother: If I DO get you the Magic Wallet for Christmas, DON’T use that line. It’s awful. It’s sure to get a drink thrown in your face and very possibly a kick to your nuts. So you know, you’ve been warned.

But Christmas! It’s almost here. Only 26 or so days left and there is still so much to do! I’ve got gifts to wrap, bows to tie, cards to sign and mail, and decorations to dig out of the basement. The tree has been up for a week now but I’ve got to rearrange the ornaments. Snags hung them all at a six year old level, so the bottom third of the tree looks like it’s wearing a skirt of baubles, the rest looks quite naked. Rearranging is definitely in order.

I have menus to plan and more presents to shop for. I have to buy more Scotch Tape so I can wrap the things I’ve bought. Snags has used all that I had in a fit of creativity. He’s building some sort of display, something that combines Star Wars figurines and space crafts, LEGOs, scraps of wood from the garage, and I think, some of the figures from our Nativity Scene, all Scotch Taped together on my coffee table. Warning to those coming for Christmas: there may not be any place to set your drinks down.

Which reminds me, I have to go to the liquor store. Drinks! I am going to need them. I hear they help numb the pain. And my ears, shoved full of LEGOs as they are, they are starting to throb.

8 Comments

Filed under Christmas, humor, LEGOs, life, Magic Wallet

November 27, 2007 · 2:01 am

Spanish on T.V.

A commercial came on T.V. the other day. It was for Muzzy, the award winning language program that claims to teach young children how to speak a foreign language. In the commercial, the two children mesmerized by the Muzzy program are speaking Spanish. One is a little blonde haired girl, the other a curly haired red headed boy. Freckles abound but their accents are perfecto!

Snags saw the commercial and turned to me. “Can you get me that?” he asked. “We already have it,” I told him, as I got up to dig it out of the clutter that covers the countertop of the bar in our basement. I had bought the Muzzy program two years ago, when Snags was three or four years old and attending daycare. Part of the daycare curriculum taught the children Spanish, assorted words here or there related to whatever theme of the week was being addressed, words that they could never hope to string together into an actual sentence. And even if they could, well, the teachers teaching it were more or less teenage babysitters, fresh out of high school, some even still in it, and attending child care courses at the local community college so they could babysit hordes of children over the summer and get paid miserably for it. In that setting, the proper pronunciation of Spanish was a pipe dream.

Now, aside from saying no hablo Espanole and being able to count from uno to diez, I don’t speak any Spanish myself. But my husband speaks some, enough to know the daycare teachers were totally butchering the pronunciation of all they tried to teach. It drove him insane when he’d try to correct Snags’ pronunciation of carro de bomberos (Spanish word for fire truck) only to have Snags argue back, “No, Dad! You’re WRONG! You say it like this… that’s how Miss Karen taught us!”

So when the Muzzy fliers started arriving in the mail and the commercials started showing up on TV, I was intrigued. I thought, if I bought the program, that not only could Snags learn to speak Spanish, but if I watched the DVDs with him, then I could too!

It turned out, for me anyway, that learning Spanish was not quite as simple as popping in a DVD and watching a cartoon involving a fuzzy green monster. And Snags, well he was in his Bob the Builder phase, so Muzzy, he more or less got stuck back in the box he came in and shoved under a pile of junk on that basement counter.

But now Snags is in Kindergarten, and his interest in learning is ever expanding. He ponders places like Ancient Egypt and dead languages, like Latin.

Latin. The language my husband studied for three whole years when he was in high school. I laugh at him now, picturing him conjugating Latin verbs on words he would never use outside of a textbook and classroom. He argues with me, claims his study of Latin was useful. “It helped me get a higher score on my SATs!” he says. Maybe so, but he’s 40 now, the SATs are long behind him, and Latin, it’s STILL a dead language.

But Snags, he’s intrigued. As he climbed the stairs with the first of the Muzzy DVDs clutched in his hand, he turned and asked me: “Will this teach me that dead language? That one that dad knows?”

“That dead language?” I laughed. “You mean Latin? No sweetheart, it won’t. It’s supposed to teach you Spanish though.”

Veremos!

6 Comments

Filed under humor, Latin, learning languages, life, Muzzy, Spanish