Last Tuesday, he and I visited friends for 2½ hours in the morning, went to Target® to return items and evaluate its stock of picture frames for Christmas gifts, then shopped at Homegoods® to see if I could find better frames.  Driving home, my son announced that his legs were hurting, and I said mine were too, plus I felt like I’d pulled a muscle in my groin, a side-effect of my pregnancy.

“Is today Monday?” he asked.

“No, it’s Tuesday.”

“What days did I say I would help you walk?”

“Sundays and Mondays.”

“Well, I’ll help you on Tuesdays too.”

“Well, thank you.”

 A couple of nights earlier, he’d told me that his toy elf would help me walk the other days of the week— although he has no toy elf.   To read our full conversation, see my December 21 “Back on Track for Christmas” post.

On Christmas Eve day, my family of five—my husband, my 15- and 13-year-old stepsons, my son and I—watched the movie Elf.  That night, as I put my son to bed, he said, “Santa had better not try to grab me.”

“Why would Santa try to grab you?”

“Because I’m about the size of an elf,” he said, matter-of-factly.

When I asked why Santa would need him, when he already has elves, he simply responded, “Because I’m about the size of an elf,” as if I were an idiot.

When he woke up around 2 a.m. Christmas Day, yelling for me because he was on the edge of his bed, about to fall, I moved him over, then listened as he, half-asleep, rambled about needing to make a trail of caramels down the chimney and around the pilot light in the gas fireplace, so Santa wouldn’t catch on fire.

I found this to be very polite, considering that he was worried about being kidnapped and enslaved as an elf.

My son, who wants to be a paleontologist, received a robotic dinosaur for Christmas, and today he told me in detail how he put his nose in the dinosaur’s mouth—and how it hurt. 

“Why would you have done that?” I asked.

“Well, he was turned off…”

“But you know his teeth are kind of sharp, so why would you have put your nose in his mouth?”

With no explanation for his experiment, he announced, index finger pointing, how I would not want to be bitten by his dinosaur, how his dinosaur has very sharp teeth, how his dinosaur is a very dangerous dinosaur.

So, he was sacrificing for the greater good? 

If only I could understand what goes on in his head.  I don’t, but I will continue to try.

Yesterday, Christmas Eve, Tracy, 41 and single, underwent her fourth in vitro fertilization (IVF) egg retrieval.  Today, she learned that seven of her 12 eggs fertilized, so today she is praying for the health and strength of her potential children.

All Tracy wishes for—this Christmas, or any other day for that matter—is to be a mother.  She will be a great one.  And, because of the outrageous expense of IVF, this is likely her final cycle. 

She—and I—believe in the power of prayer, including the greater power of a multitude of them.

So, today, tomorrow, Sunday and Monday, while Tracy waits for and then has her IVF embryo transfer, please say prayers for her and her embryos, prayers that this aspiring, deserving mother-to-be will be given the child or children she is meant to parent.

Thank you.  And, merry, merry Christmas.

UPDATE:  On January 10, Tracy found out that her IVF cycle was not successful.  Tracy, I am so sorry.

On Saturday, after I’d made a pretend phone call to Santa to report my son’s bad behavior, he’d been adamant that he would just open all of his Christmas gifts, currently wrapped and under our Christmas tree, on his birthday in February.  But, then, this afternoon, I had an epiphany and asked, “You really don’t want Santa to come?”

“I do!”

“Well, if you’ve decided that you’re not going to celebrate Christmas, that you’re not going to open gifts until your birthday, Santa won’t be bringing you presents this year.”

He was silent for a moment, then used his go-to phrase when trying to get out of trouble: “I was just kidding.”

And, now that he’s going to participate in Christmas after all, he’s drilling me with questions.  Tonight, after we read three bedtime books together, with me sitting in his miniature chair, with him struggling to stay on what’s left of my lap, he helped me heave myself out of the tiny chair and waddle across to his bed, then started the interrogation.

“Do you think Santa remembers what he gave me before?”

“Yes, I’m sure he does.”

“I wonder if he remembers giving me the tiny motorcycle.”

“I’m sure he does.”

“How does an elf make a tiny motorcycle?”

“Well, they have tiny hands to make tiny motorcycles, and they use tools.”

“Oh. “ 

Then, after a pause, he asked, “Is Santa nice or bad?”

“Santa’s the nicest ever.  That’s why he wants all of the kids in the world to be nice—and why he rewards you for being nice.”

“Maybe next Christmas, if I’m the nicest ever, the elfs will make me a tiny trophy.”

“Yes, maybe.  Let’s work on that.  Let’s be the nicest ever.”

“I can help you get up and walk every day.  Then the elfs might make me a tiny trophy for next Christmas.”

“That would be so nice.  And, it’s elves, with a v.  It’s one of those weird rules where the word for one elf has an f at the end, but the word for more than one is elves, ending in ves.”

Ignoring my English lesson, he abruptly said, “Let’s make a decision.”

“OK.”

“I will help you get up and walk on Sundays.”

“Why only Sundays?”

“Well, I’ll help on Mondays too.”

“OK…  What am I supposed to do the other five days of the week?”

“My toy elf will help you.”  (FYI:  He doesn’t have a toy elf.)

“How is a toy elf going to help me get up and walk?”

“I’ll pretend he’s real.”

“Well, a pretend elf isn’t going to be able to help me get up and walk.  He’s pretend.”

“If he doesn’t help you, I’ll shoot him in the leg.”

“If you shoot him in the leg, you’re not going to get a trophy for being ‘the nicest ever.’”

“No, that’s for next Christmas.”

“So, you think that you can shoot an elf in the leg this Christmas, then next Christmas get a ‘nicest ever’ trophy?  I’m telling you right now that if you shoot an elf in the leg, you’ll be getting coal for the rest of your life.”

With that, I told him I needed to take a bath and, while I was gone, he should tell God and Jesus everything he is thankful for.  We usually do this together, but, tonight the concept of doing so solo made him ask, “Can they even hear me?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’m going to tell Santa what I want for Christmas.”

“OK.  You do that.”

We’ve also discussed how Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus, but my son’s questions led me to explain that Jesus died a long time ago, he died because he was nailed to a cross by bad men, “nailed to the cross” means that the bad men hammered nails into his feet and hands, he rose from the dead and is now in Heaven, and so on.  But that’s material for another day. 

I don’t remember being so inquisitive when I was a kid…

This year, my Santa strategy has had little impact.  He’s questioned whether Santa has time to watch him.  He’s debated whether Santa can see him when he’s inside our house.

So, yesterday, when he desperately needed a nap, yet flat-out refused to go into his bedroom, I called Santa, admitting to my son that, in these last few days before Christmas, Santa may very well be too busy to be personally watching 24/7.

I dialed the phone, asked for Santa, then acted as if I were put on hold.  I heard my son move to just outside the room, so he could hear my conversation. 

“Hi, Santa,” I said, identifying myself and my son by name, address and the United States of America.  “I’m so sorry to bother you, but he was sick for an entire week and a half.  He has asthma, you know, which made his virus more serious, then he had two ear infections.  And, he desperately needs to take a nap today, but he won’t even go into his room.”

I waited a minute, then said, “Hmmmm…  Uh-huh.  OK, I’ll tell him that.  Thanks, Santa.  I’ll call you back on Christmas Eve to give you an update on how he’s acting.”

After I got off the phone, I heard my son sneak down the stairs to hide the fact that he’d been eavesdropping.  I yelled down, “Sweetie, come here.  I have a message for you from Santa.”

He didn’t answer, so I went into his bedroom, and I lay down on his bed, convinced he would come in within minutes to submit to a nap.  I woke up two hours later, alone.

I was incredulous.  He wholeheartedly believes in Santa, but he ignored the call.  When I went downstairs post-nap, I asked him why he didn’t come up when I said Santa had a message for him.  Unemotional, he said, “I don’t want any Christmas presents this year.  I’m going to wait until my birthday, because then I’ll be a year older, which is cool.”

I asked, “You don’t want ANY Christmas presents?”

“No.”

“So, all of the wrapped presents under the tree, you’re just going to wait until February to open them?”

“Yes.”

I questioned him again today, and he insisted that he doesn’t want any Christmas gifts. 

So, my plan backfired:  Rather than conform to Santa-acceptable behaviors, like napping, he’s opting out of the holiday, deciding instead to focus on his 5^th birthday, for which he believes there are no strings attached.  At Christmas, he knows he needs to be good to be rewarded.  But, for his birthday, he thinks simply turning a year older guarantees gifts.

We open family gifts on Christmas Eve, when my stepsons are with us, so I have four days to fix this…

Any ideas???