Spoiling Christmas?

     I love my kids. Those darling little boys of mine with their lopsided smiles throwing peace signs in the air or dabbing so I can't get a decent photo for Christmas cards. They bring as much joy to my heart as they do Legos to the playroom floor - a infinite amount that stabs you with love unexpectedly at two a.m. My sons fill my world with happiness!
     Consequently, I want to reciprocate the feeling. And what can be more joyous than watching two little boys tearing through presents on Christmas morning throwing last year's discounted wrapping paper over their shoulders along with that carefully picked out present on Amazon. Cries of "Where's mine?" and "Are there anymore?" join the angel chorus of Pandora holiday favorites soaring out of a nearby speaker. They pause for the occasional photo holding their cherished gift for the five seconds necessary for a blurry picture on Instagram accompanied by another peace sign before tossing the gift onto the growing pile and shoving another chocolate orange slice in their mouths for energy.
     Sometimes, they will play with the new toy after mom and dad carefully extract the thing from its security ties. (Seriously, did the Pentagon design those black twisty security holders on the back of toys?) Of course, mom and dad will get roped into playing Monopoly Empire or Just Dance 59. Then the boxes will be cleared, the wrap thrown out in a black sack large enough to be St. Nick's, and the gifts will be put away, some forgotten about until I threaten to sell them or throw them away.
     As I work in my sons' closets, organizing toys and hanging up new clothes, I wonder if I'm spoiling them too much. There seems to be a fine line between wanting to make my kids happy and buy them their heart's desire and turning them into spoiled little brats who expect to get whatever they want. I love providing a happy childhood for my kids and revel in their smiles and ecstatic squeals when the husband and I discover the perfect game or toy that makes them dance around the family room like a sugar-powered Energizer Bunny. I remember my own happy childhood, and how my mom often went with out providing all those Barbie dolls and My Little Ponies that littered the underneath of our Christmas tree.
     But I cringe when the wrapping paper carnage is over, and they scramble under the tree pulling up the tree skirt and asking if there are anymore presents. I bite my lip and point to the mountain of books and video games already amassed in a corner. The beginnings of a lecture on gratitude and greed write itself in my brain just waiting for my tightly compressed lips to open. Sometimes I let it out, sometimes I count to ten and wonder if it will make a dent. Sometimes I realize they can't help it. I've conditioned them to expect a lot. They are a product of my spoiling, just as I am a product of the world I live in. A world of plenty of everything including expectations to bury your kids in gifts.
     I just don't want them to be, what's that nasty word that gets tossed around these days - Entitled. Yes, that's my biggest fear apart from spiders, the Big One (earthquake), and nuclear war. I don't want my sons to grow into narcissistic, spoiled, entitled little brats who believe the earth revolves around them, and they are entitled to everything they want. I need them to know there are limits - financially and ethically to our generosity.
     Plus, I want them to see the beauty in giving as well as getting. That's why we participate in toy drives and Angel Tree. I feel a little like the moral at the end of a Christmas movie as I try to impart my grown-up wisdom that the reason for the season is about love and bringing joy to others. They nod to get me off my soapbox and look solemn and help me wrap the toys. But like the kids they are they will still ask as I'm purchasing the angel gift - "Is that for me? Or I want that".
     Now, I have read on Facebook and others blogs that some families try to tamp down the spoiling with the three gifts rule: something they want, something to read, and something to wear. I've seen some other variations on this one, too. For about a second, my husband and I contemplated trying it out this year. Of course, that lasted as long as the three seconds it took to pull up Amazon Prime and start browsing Pokemon and art supplies. We get carried away picturing their bright little faces singing karaoke on a new machine or exclaiming best parents ever as they don their new Five Night's at Freddie's t-shirts and Pokemon socks.
     I am sure I failed this year to bring any semblance of restraint to Christmas gifts. But it's something to think about for next year. After all, I feel I owe the world and myself the gift of two kind, thoughtful, non-entitled boys who grow up to be good men.

Teaching my son not to be popular but be himself

     My oldest son is sensitive. He's like me, he doesn't just read books or watch movies. He invests himself in the characters. Let's himself get drawn in and immersed in the fictional world. Consequently, he gets very upset when something bad happens to his beloved characters. He cries. But what he said after watching a recent movie and crying nearly brought me to tears.
     Sitting on the edge of his bed, talking about the day's events and the movie, he told me he was afraid the other kids would make fun of him for crying. He said he didn't have as many friends at school as he used to. The boys were changing, their soft, sensitive, little kid interiors changing in time with their round, chubby exteriors becoming sharp-edged and hard. They cuss and bully each other and seek out other people's weaknesses as buttons to push, something to exploit and make fun of. Our world encourages this behavior. Even celebrates it. 
     And I'm not sure what to tell my son. I've never been popular. I've always had about two or three close friends I felt comfortable and secure with even now as an adult. For the most part, I've never conformed to what the world said was important. I've never worn the right clothes, said the right words, played the right games, or owned the right things. And those times that I did try to conform, stuffed into expensive jeans, primped and polished like a high-gloss Barbie, playing mind games to get attention, I hated it, feeling false and uncomfortable.
     Now, my mother's heart wants to protect my boy from hurt. Wants to wrap him in assurances that he'll always be well-liked and well-loved. But the brutal truth is that he won't be liked by everyone. That's not how the world works. Especially, when we don't share the world's values. Honestly, I don't want him to grow cold and hardened to emotions. I pray that he retains his warm heart, his boundless curiosity for knowledge, his enthusiasm for new activities and adventures. He skips when he walks, he believes any kid at the playground is a friend to play with, and he gives the best hugs.
     Now, I'm not saying he's perfect. He's a bit spastic and can overwhelm others like a Labrador puppy. He's forgetful and possessive of his things. And like all kids he sometimes thinks he needs the latest game or gadget to be happy.
     Yet, he's also content to talk with me about history for hours pouring over maps and learning about the past. If prompted he'll tell you in detail about the Donner Party or Civil War battleships or the Atomic Bomb - facts he's learned about in a series called Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales. But he'll go one further and discuss the police brutality on civil rights marches in Alabama and question racism comparing the water hoses being aimed at protestors in the 1960s with those being aimed at the protestors of the Dakota Access Pipeline. He'll get teary-eyed when discussing the Holocaust and the shoes of innocent victims piled high in Auschwitz. And I love discussing history with him and teaching him to learn from the past.
     I want my son to be sensitive and smart and empathetic and kind. But the world and the kids on the playground may not. So I also have to teach him to be strong and confident. I have to help him build a wall around his feelings so they don't get trampled on but also leave a large door so that his true friends may come in. I must teach him to see the best in others but not to be naive and trusting of everyone so he doesn't get taken advantage of.
     It's hard. He just wants to be loved by all. A goofy, happy-go-lucky, loving boy who likes to play. I love my boy. He means the world to me, but the world might be mean to him. But I mean to teach him to be strong enough to be himself. 
    

All I want for Christmas is Time, Baby

     I blame my over-wrought, fatigued, and hyper-caffenieted brain and the local radio station over-playing Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas" for my blog title. But I honestly hear it singing in my brain, "all I want for Christmas is time, baby" with a few oo, babys elongated and repeated over and over.
     Now if only time could be bottled in a cute Pinterest-stenciled bottle or gift-wrapped in a giant box with a ridiculously over-large red bow, I'd be a very happy woman. And I believe I'm not alone in this.
     Except, I am not just seeking time during the busy holiday season. That hectic time of year where we shuttle our kids from one "fun" activity to the next, exhausting ourselves for the sake of a happy family memory commemorated by twenty Instagram photos to prove we were having a good time or at least smiling for the camera before mom lost her cool again.
     I am not looking for a few more minutes to finish holiday shopping for whatever "it" gift my kids think they need (hatchimals, right?). And while I really do need more time to finish my Christmas cards, gift wrapping, cookie baking, party planning, and Christmas play practice schedule shuttling, etc; that's not the time I truly want.
    No, the time I desire is a bottle of an extra hour or two here and there to be used all year long so that I can escape and accomplish the thing I really enjoy doing - writing. Because between being a mother, taking care of the house, grocery shopping, remembering cousins, aunts, friends, grandmas birthdays, driving all over the city and back again (sounds like a more boring title for the Hobbit and lacks the dwarfs and dragon gold), and now working as a sub; my time falls through the cracks like the proverbial sands through the hourglass.
     But what I am left with most days is what I call "stupid time", that spare fifteen minutes between dropping kids off at the bus and when my next scheduled assignment or doctor's appointment, hair appointment, etc. happens. Or the majority of my spare time occurs in the half hour driving all over the Coachella Valley running errands and since they haven't invented robot-driven cars and after seeing I, Robot I'm afraid of my toaster getting ideas and planning with my Keurig to kill me or turn me into a battery like in the Matrix, writing while driving would not be a safe idea.
     If my wish could only be fulfilled, I'd slip my extra two hours a day along with it's companion half-carafe of coffee between getting off work and picking kids up from school. Two glorious hours to plot and create and kill off a few key characters, oh wait that's my George R.R. Martin mode kicking in, before being owned by my six-year-old until I finally win the bedtime battle and get him tucked in forty-five minutes past when I said "go to bed". (Yes, most nights he wins.)
      Not that I don't enjoy having him glued to my side for the five hours between school and bed. I mean, we accomplish a lot of things together like building forts and crying when it falls down, attempting art and crying when it doesn't turn out right, planting seeds and crying when they die after not being watered, helping mom with dishes and crying when we drop mom's favorite mug on the floor shattering it, or helping mom bake and crying when we don't get to crack the egg in the bowl or do crack it and cry over most of the shell ending up in the dough. Honestly, I do love him but need a Valium after several hours by his side. And isn't it amazing that the few minutes I do manage to sneak away from him while he's actually playing by himself, he manages to sense I'm sitting at my computer and runs to my side, quizzing me on what I just wrote, offering his help typing words he can't spell, or begging for help to write his own story. Yet, if I sit stock still on the couch doing nothing but staring at the latest mysterious stain on the wall, half-listening to the canned plot of Lab Rats, while counting my remaining brain cells, he leaves me alone for hours. It's only when his bat ears hear my feet walking somewhere with purpose that he springs into action.
     And please for the love of all that's holy or unholy do not tell a mother that she can get her stuff done when the kids go to bed. Because by the time I have fought two kids into bed after a long day of driving, working, cleaning, shopping, cooking, picking up, nagging, and listening to detailed play by plays of Minecraft gaming sessions, my brain resembles a television on the fritz. No channels come in, all stories are halted, left streaming through the atmosphere with no reception to pick them up and air them. Nothing but grey, staticky fuzz and a buzzing sound. It's enough for me to slump onto my side of the couch and watch non-Disney programming and occasionally give into the husband's amorous overtures. You know those subtle offers to rub your shoulders or cuddle only to have a penis tapping out Morse code on your back. Dot, dot, dot, I want sex, dot, dot, dot.
     So my selfish wish for Christmas isn't a Coach handbag, Lularoe leggings, or whatever diamond necklace K Jewelers tries to tell me I want - it's just time. Self-indulgent, all mine, no strings attached "me" time. Now do they sell it on Amazon?