Dear Santa

Dear Santa,

I think I have been a very good girl this year. I haven't hauled off and hit anyone who asked me when I was "saved." I have made sure to tell my husband every day that I love him and sometimes I tell him more than once a day. I have suoported my daughter through a move that was really hard on her and I tried very hard to be pleasant and nice to the new moms I have met. I have even started talking to someone who might be able to help me take care of me. So as you see, I deserve everything I am about to ask for.

First, I would like to be able to make Christmas cookies again with my friend Jenn and her three kids. For some reason, my Christmases have never been the same since we both grew up and she stopped spending them with us. Everytime I have to tell someone about a great Christmas memory, I always talk about the time we misread the recipe for candy cane cookies and instead made candy cane doorstops. She's kind of my Christmas spirit and without her I struggle. So if you could send her an extra hug and maybe let her know that I really miss her at Christmas, I'd appreciate it.

Second, could you please let me know if my brother has passed on to a better place? I don't care if it is heaven, or some great beyond or even to a rock concert in the sky. I just need to know that the spirit that has been haunting me and now my daughter is not my brother, because if it is, I'm going to kill him. That violently rattling screen door yesterday really scared me and E, plus the voices that woke me up last night...yea, I'm thinking I would like that to stop. Can you do that for me Santa?

Third, could you send me a big sign that the Raptor can wear that says "PLEASE DON'T PET THE DOG!!!" He's doing so much better. Kids can now come over to our house and play without being growled at or bitten; he walks past people quietly if they just ignore him; he even has learned he can go out in the backyard by himself and he will not be abandoned. I love him so much but I just need people to work with us instead of against us. Do you have a sign like that?

Lastly, my therapist says that I need to accept that it is time to worry about what makes me happy and not try to make others happy at my expense. Hmm...that's kind of tough at Christmas time since I am the person who makes the Christmas cheer for my family and some church people. I know that I am not going to solve this problem this Christmas, but if you could Santa, can you help me see the things again that make me happy? Help me focus on my husband and daughter. Help me see all the good things that I have in my life like a comfortable home, food on the table, not one but two jobs (one of which is actually in my field) and hopefully, after I see my doctor next week, my health will return. Yeah, if you could take away this malicious cough, I would REALLY like that.

So that's it, Santa, that's all I want for Christmas. I hope it isn't too much to ask for. I'll leave you some lovely non-doorstop cookie for you!

Parenting with the Best Intentions

Usually I believe that parents of all walks of life are really just doing their best to get by. We all make mistakes and the best we can hope for is that we just don't mess our kids up too much.

But two things happen this time of year that makes me, as a preschool teacher, want to take some parents out back to the woodshed and take a good stick to them.

The first is sending your child to school after he or she has thrown up. When my daughter was younger, she was famous for throwing up at the drop of a hat. If she ate too much of something, or something that didn't agree with her, that would be it. Off her stomach it went and then she was fine. But I always kept her home from school just in case. Today one of my kids (whose parents are on the school board) came to school after throwing up at home. So, lucky me, I got to deal with her throwing up not once but TWICE everywhere. I called the parent to come get her and he refused to acknowledge that she was sick. He even got upset with me that I had separated her away from the rest of the students and put a garbage can beside her until he arrived. COME ON PEOPLE!!!! Don't send your kids to school sick. I don't care how much of a hardship it is.

But the thing that really burns my butt this time of year is the "You better be good or Santa isn't going to bring you anything." And yes, I know I say this every year BUT I HATE THAT PHRASE!!!! It makes it impossible for a kid to cope the entire month of December. How would you feel if someone told you that a magial fat man in a red suit was going to sneak into houses and bring toys to every single other kid in the world except you because you hit your brother or failed a spelling test or had a temper tantrum? If your kids are so wild that you have to resort to this threat, or, God forbid, you actually put an "elf on the shelf" who reports back to Santa every night, seek help. Seriously! There is no shame in admitting your kids are beyond your control and that you need parenting help. We've lost our village mentality and it is harder to raise kids now. In ten years I have seen a change in the children I teach, and not for the better. But whoever invented the "elf on the shelf" should be shot. One of my kid's mom put an elf on the shelf last week and it seems to have triggered latent OCD. In the past week she had developed alarming repetitive behaviors, a facial tic, and will be seeking the help of a doctor this week. Who knows if that was really the trigger, but it seems mighty coincidental and OCD can be triggered by extreme stress. So for the love of Christmas, think before you threaten your child with Santa.

And that's all I'm going to say about that....at least this year.

Can We Talk?

First and foremost, Happy Thanksgiving. I hope that everyone who is reading this has a little bit of home and comfort today.

Second, it has come to my attention that people really wanted to donate to a Wii fund for E. I greatly appreciate that there are people generous enough in the world who are willing to give a complete stranger money for a gift for their daughter. You are amazing people with kind hearts. But although I appreciate your offer, I must refuse. Hubby and I have spent years straightening ourselves out financially. Now that E is older and we can finally afford to give her a Wii, even if it means we buy less for ourselves, WE want to give her the Wii. It means more that we are buying it without going into debt, making her sacrifice and to be giving it to her now. We are fine. I am enjoying the fact that I only have $15 to spend on Hubby this Christmas. His gifts are going to mean more to him and to me, also. So thanks, but I must decline.

Third, I always associate myself as a Southern writer even though I am a true Midwesterner. But whenever we come here to Florida I am reminded that I am just a poser. I go from the polite, nouveax South to Down-South, DEEP Down-South. Now you may not think of Florida as being the deep South, but there are pockets here that rival Biloxi, MS and Mobile, Al. Since I have been here, I have been fed homemade black-eyed peas, creamed corn, sticky rice with tomato gravy and pan-fried pork chops. The house we are in is the oldest house in the town and it is filled from floor to ceiling with country knick-knacks and antiques. I kid you not, Country Living may one day come here to do a pictorial spread. There's even a swinging bed on the back porch.

People get together just to chew the fat and talk about the Snow Birds and Damn Yankees. I surreptitiously leave the room when these conversations start. But the air feels different here, heavier and more humid. We are surrounded by orange groves and flowering bushes. Banyan trees grow native here and Spanish moss abounds. It's amazing. It's so different here that my father-in-law just asked who Bob Marley was. It is the true South.

Lastly, I must answer some of my commenters who think the real alarms going off are a message. I must say I am starting to agree. I purposely didn't mention that the night my fire alarm went off, I felt that tell-tale tugging at my feet. Sticking to my desire to keep myself closed off to all things spiritual, I firmly told whatever it was to go away. It was only a few hours later that the alarm went off. But I still wasn't convinced, until we arrived here in Florida. We had only been here a few hours and I was upstairs reading to E before she went to bed when my in-laws security alarm malfunctioned. It's warning beep kept going off, alerting them that something was wrong with Section 14. Only there is no section 14. My father-in-law called the alarm company and they couldn't figure out what was going wrong. They agreed there was no section 14.

I was starting to get freaked out. ANOTHER alarm was going off. What the hell? But then I got to thinking about the number 14. Remember when hand-held calculators came out and we all spent so much time creating words with numbers, flipping the calculator over and reading them. HELLO, OHIO, HI!!!! Think of 14 on a digital screen. The four on a calculator does not look like a closed four, it looks like an upside down h. Was my message a ghost saying "hi?" Am I crazy? Who's trying to talk to me again? Do I even want to answer?

Anywho, I have one more day here and will be driving the long drive back up 95. I still have my deep, malicious cough and the fuzzy animals here are not helping, so wish me luck surviving my last day and the long drive home. Not to mention the crush of relatives that set off all of my "too close to my personal space" bells. Ahh, tis the season....Happy Thanksgiving.

Show Me What You Got

Okay blogosphere. In 3 days I will be barreling into the Sunshine State coming straight down I-95 until we hit Orlando. Help me stay on my new "healthy" eating binge. I am looking for information on places to stop along 95 where 1.) E can play for free and 2.) we can eat for cheap without having to eat fast food. Homegrown restuarants, church playgrounds, parks and play areas, sandwich shops and cool delis are what we are looking for.

If you are a resident of Florida or Georgia--or a frequent tourist--please help me out!

Best Line Ever

I so totally meant to post about this the night it happened, but life got in the way. I am working for a teaching theater and I have a great group of kids. Some have talent, some don't. My theater is not about bursting bubbles, though, so I treat them all like they're great. Real life will start to kick their butts soon enough.

Anywho, my male lead in our show has not yet embraced the fact that he is gay. Now, before you go "Hey, how judgmental is she?", wait! All my life I have been surrounded by gay men. My best friends in college were all a group of gay men who spent a lot of time together, too much time, if you get my meaning. I have learned the intricacies of gayness and I wholeheartedly applaud those who accept themselves.

But for this 14 year-old boy, his gayness stands in his way of his acting. It is not that he can't act because he's gay, it's because he hasn't come out and so when he does something really feminine, I can't call him on it because it is not my place. I want his character to be more like Barney on How I Met Your Mother (played by a gay actor) and he is playing it more like the guy who won the most recent Big Brother (or was he runner-up?).

He comes from a very religious family and I am not sure he will ever accept who he is. Which brings me to a Grey's Anatomy episode a while back. I have to say, I've been disappointed with the show this season. It has just seemed more like a soap opera than a drama. But the episode where Callie stood up to her religious father made Hubby and I cheer, actually cheer. I found a small clip here. Somewhere in that same episode Callie and her dad go head to head with bible verses about homosexuality. I think I should memorize her part for future interactions with religious homophobes.

But I wish all young kids going through their sexual identity crises could have someone who stands on a table top and screams "You can't pray away the gay!" Then adults like me, who want to hold open and honest conversations with kids could make a difference. This male-child could have an adult whom he doesn't have to hide around, doesn't have to worry about slipping around. He could realize his sexuality is just another part of him, like his hair color or his eye color. I can't be the person standing on the table top because that would make him run screaming from the room.

But instead he goes to a fundamentalist religious school everyday and hears that his "kind" are bad. He doesn't even know he is his "kind" and he will struggle for the next few years and experiment in dangerous ways because he is ashamed and lost. Shame on all the religious zealots who created this atomosphere.


YOU CAN'T PRAY AWAY THE GAY!!!!!

Oops, I did it again....

There's something about the people here in CountryTime. It's definitely a God and Country kind of place. Families are tight and you can find many generations living on the same block. There'll be a lot of men hunting on Thanksgiving Day and women doing the cooking but they'll all say grace when it comes time to eat.

So you can imagine I am just a little out of step here. I genuinely feel the people are trying to like me, but they just don't GET me. I'll say something a little off-color or brazen and I'll get this wide-eyed "No you didn't" kind of stare from these very Southern and genteel kind of people. They all say "Praise the Lord" and "amen" whenever anyone says the slightest thing positive, and then they look at me in my silence and wonder why I don't join in.

The other day we were having a kid's meeting at church. I was standing around talking to some of the other parents and one of the very nice fathers told me he wanted to take his wife up to Historic Town to see the lighting of the "illuminaries." I asked him if that meant they were lighting famous people on fire. He just stared at me with this blank and slightly put off kind of way. Now, maybe I shouldn't have mocked him, but he mocks me all the time. That's just the banter we seem to have established and I thought he would take it in a joking manner.

Things got worse, though, when we started talking about the military. The kids were making Christmas cards for the Red Cross' "Holiday for Heroes" program and E asked if Mr. Bill was going to be home soon. Mr. Bill is our friend who flies a marine helicopter and is over in Afghanistan right now. Mr. Bill also happens to be incredibly tall and good-looking, plays guitar and sings really well. That's the kind of man I could sink my teeth into. I mentioned to the group that Mr. Bill was my secret crush and you should have heard the gasp that went around the room. Hubby knows how I feel about Mr. Bill. He doesn't care because it is harmless and Mr. Bill has a beautiful Amazonian wife who could kick my ass. But I broke the sacred bonds of marriage by suggesting I might actually find someone besides my Hubby attractive. It was so weird.

I'm just the oddball here. Oh well, in a few days I will be leaving for Florida to see the in-laws where I will really feel out of step. Hey Wide Lawns, you need to have a margarita with me because I believe you only live 90 minutes from where I am going to be. I'll even treat!

It had to be the fire alarm

When E was 5 she was attending kindergarten at our local public school. She had already been tested for the gifted program and so would stay in her K class for science and social studies but walk (by herself) from the far end of the K hall all the way through the school to the farthest end of the 1st grade hall so she could take 1st grade math and reading. Imagine a Giant H. That's how E's school was designed.

Now remember, my daughter has severe issues with anxiety. Enough that we sought treatment. But she has reason to be anxious, she's got my weirdness magnet. One day while she was walking from K to 1st, the school fire alarm went off. E had left the K hall but hadn't made it into the 1st grade hall. She was stuck in the bar of the of the H so to speak. When the alarm went off the doors automatically closed. I guess that's to contain the fire if there is one. E was too tiny to be able to open them by herself, so she was trapped in a hall all alone with the alarm blaring. No one thought to look for her, however, because the K teacher thought the 1st grade teacher had her and the 1st grade teacher thought the K teacher had her. You can imagine how scared she was. The principal found her on his final swing through the school.

Well, fast forward to today. E has been struggling again with her anxiety. I think it is because she is so lonely. There's no kids to run out and play with here. Several weeks ago there was a fire at her school. The alarm went off and all the kids filed outside while it was put out. I thought E was okay with it, but she wasn't.

Then I had my lovely little toaster oven fire and her nerves just became shot. One thing happened and another and we discovered her anxiety overwhelmed her leading to some embarrassment at school. So Hubby and I have been diligently doing our best to try to comfort her and still not allow her to succumb to her fears. It's not easy but we were doing it, until last night that is....

Our fire alarm went off in the middle of the night. Not just the "beeping to alert you that the battery needs changing", but the big, long terrifying, blinding-white noise alarm. I struggled out of my sleep and charged through the house to get to E in case there really was a fire. There wasn't (we still don't know why our alarm went off) but she was shaking uncontrollably. So was I, as a matter of fact. But now we have to start over. Of course it had to be the alarm!

On a side note, my car is possessed. Something is going wrong with my key clicker and the doors keep locking themselves over and over. I try to get in and it keeps locking. It's quite comical to see me outside begging my car to let me in.