Parenting & Personal(ity) Differences

The other night Tony and I were watching “The Singing Bee”. It’s a modern day “Name That Tune”. I’m a fountain of knowledge when it comes to mindless trivia and Tony’s knowledge in music lyrics always surprises me. It is very obvious to me when we watch that show that we grew up in completely different worlds – up until the point when we started dating. If there’s an old R&B or country song chances are he’s got the lyrics. I have to wait until a Duran Duran song pops up. In the episode we were watching the contestant was challenged to fill in the missing words to “this classic 1959 Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical number from The Sound of Music”. I shouted out “Oooh!!! I’ve got this one!” which I normally yell out facetiously when they throw completely obscure stuff on there. Cue music. Cue me singing the Do A Deer (Do Re Mi) song word for word. Tony’s jaw hit the floor. He swears he’s never heard the song before! I looked at him like he was nuts and insisted that everyone knows that song. He bet me that nobody else knows that song and I’m just a musical freak.

How is that possible? That song is a staple of my youth. I used to hang in my room with an old phonograph player and listen to The Sound of Music over and over and over. It was one of the 2 or 3 records I owned as a kid. Do Re Mi was one of the songs I loved to play on our little electric organ. I can still bang it out on my kids xylophone.

But I guess it comes down to who raised you. “Mrs. Robinson” is hardly a Broadway musical kinda mom. Her house is still adorned with an Elvis shrine (seriously). I remember growing up listening and singing along to Neil Diamond, John Denver, the Chieftans, James Galway, and various show tunes like The Sound of Music. Tony grew up with Elvis, Hank Williams and Reba.

It just solidifies that we are very different people, having been raised in very different ways, and our parenting skills will be just as different.

Which brings me around to the real reason for this post….

As I said in my last post, I’m taking a few things to heart about the holidays this year and how I want to form them for my kids. I spoke to Tony about the ideas and he seemed to be on board with me. With some very notable differences.

My intention/goal/idea/plan was to continue Christmas as normal, reducing the amount of presents in general and specifically reducing the amount credited to Santa. I thought this was the easiest of the goals as discussion wouldn’t be needed. Kids wake up on Christmas morning to a house with presents! And stockings! And magic! and happiness follows. And no "Santa brought me" tally needed.

Except that Tony decided to lay out a huge proclamation to the boys last night that Santa was only going to bring them one present. WTF?!!! Hysterics followed. Domino woke up this morning crying that “Dad told me a big lie that Santa will only bring me one present!”. I am trying my best to help Domino wrap his head around all that he will be given, I don’t want to completely discount what Tony said because I believe we’re supposed to be “on the same team”, but I’m also really pissed off that it’s even a topic of discussion in the first place. Why in the world would he say that to a 5 year old and a 4 year old?! When Domino's vocal list of the things that Santa is going to bring him started to grow, I told him "I'm sure Santa will bring you things that you'll love" and he was fine with that.

Tony's so on (over)board with the “one present from Santa” concept I expected he’d be on board with the “I wonder…” aspect of Santa. The one where we never speak of Santa as truth, but more with wonder and curiosity. He’s soooo not going along with that. He’s playing the Santa card left and right, threatening to tell Santa to not bring anything, to tell Santa to bring the boys lumps of coal if they don’t start following directions.

If you want to give Santa that much power over your children’s behavior, Santa better be willing to throw down more than one present.

I think I need to go expose the kids to some Julie Andrews.

The Santa Game

I did it. I “played the Santa card”.

I promised myself I wouldn’t, but after 3 rounds of time outs all before 9:30 AM I said those words I vowed I wouldn't say. “Santa’s watching. Do you think this is going to get you on the naughty or nice list?”.

And you know what? It worked. All of my granola ways of “look at how your brother is feeling when you do that to him” or “Wait! I hear Rascal's words! Listen to what he’s saying please!” or “Together we’re better – and what you’re doing doesn’t feel better, does it?”. All of those things go in one ear and right out the other. Play the Santa card and bamn! Perfect angels.

I’m conflicted about the whole Santa charade. Santa should really be considered a scary man. A big strange man who sneaks into your house while you’re sleeping. Who wears a bizarre red suit and doesn’t shave and has a funky laugh. It’s no wonder so many children freak out when thrown on this man’s lap. That should be the normal reaction. The smart reaction. I don’t want to sit on some strange man’s lap and hope that he’s going to break into my house in the middle of the night – even if he promises to bring me presents.

So beyond the Santa Claus himself issues - what about the loot. Why is this strange man getting credit for the hours and hours of shopping, the awesome presents that *I* picked out with the love of my heart knowing exactly what the boys would enjoy, the endless wrapping, the massive bank account drainage… why does this stranger get to be the hero in all of this?

My early childhood guru/mentor Mz Lori had some wonderful words about the whole Christmas craziness that I have been thinking a lot about. Many of them I’ve tried to adopt this year.

Mz Lori never tells the kids about Santa. If they bring him up to her she always tries to create a level of magic and curiosity without ever speaking as truth. “I wonder…” and “I’ve heard it said…” when she’s approached. When we had a “Santa” come to the school to deliver books to the kids, she never called him Santa. The kids all made their assumptions based on his costume and she never lied. There were a lot of “Wow! Do you think?” coming out of her mouth, but never “hey kids – here’s Santa!”. When children were fearful, she explained to everyone that was a perfectly normal reaction to a strange person that you don’t know. She instilled a bit of stranger safety along with holiday wishes. Gotta love that.

She also commented during our monthly parent meeting that with her own children she always called it the “Santa game”. As they got older and they started to piece things together she would say “Do you want to keep playing the Santa game? It is kinda fun” and they could tell her one way or the other. I like the idea of it being a game, a game played with my kids that they can continue to play if they choose instead of having to explain how the world has been lying to them for years.

And probably the most important piece of advice I’m trying to take to heart this year is that these years are the precedent setting years. If you go overboard, they’ll expect that again next year. And the year after. And so on. She said the best gift under the tree should be from the parents, not the strange man in the red suit. I haven’t quite figured out how that works when my boys have written a letter to Santa asking for something specific, but perhaps just that item and the stocking stuffers are from Santa and the other great stuff is from the real heroes of Mom & Dad.

I’m still sorting it all out and figuring out what our family’s truth about the holiday is and will be. For many the holiday is about religion and for us that is not the case. What I’d like to see the holiday be about is family, and what our family can do for each other to show how much we love and appreciate each other...

… without threat of being put on a naughty list.

How Hard Can It Be?

Famous Last Words: “How Hard Can It Be?”

Domino came home from K/1 today with an amazing gingerbread house. I precariously carried it in one hand on a slippery red plastic plate, while balancing a 40+ pound sleeping Rascal and the “Wednesday Envelope” (important school paperwork for the week) in the other arm. I drove home with the gingerbread house placed very carefully on the center console between the driver and passenger seats, my arm bracing it like a seatbelt from any potential catastrophes.

Of course, Monkey See Monkey Do is the modus operandi in this house. Rascal was very upset that he didn’t have his own gingerbread house and asked if he could have one too. “Well hell, it’s just some graham crackers, frosting and some decorations. They made them in kindergarten today”, I thought. “How hard can it be?”

What a mess!!!!!

Martha Stewart I'm not. Ok, obviously there’s a difference between “icing” and “frosting” – differences I couldn’t fully explain before tonight, until I was covered in half a can of greasy Duncan Hines vanilla frosting, while watching the walls of the gingerbread house wobble back and forth like they were experiencing the Loma Prieta earthquake at ground zero.

I started off the house with rectangular walls and quickly realized that wasn’t working for me. I modified my architecture to more of a cabin than a house, reducing the side walls to squares hoping less square footage would give it more stability. But like a trailer park in a tornado, I could tell I was headed for holiday decoration implosion.

When the house finally collapsed (and when I say finally, I think it was only in place for 3 minutes or less) I was really worried how Rascal would react. I laughed and said “Oh no! The big bad wolf blew our house in!” Rascal laughed hysterically and asked if he could decorate it now. Sure kiddo, go to town. For Rascal, decorating=eating candy right out of the bowls. He helped himself to 2 M&Ms, 2 chocolate chips and 2 Skittles (passing up the red nerds and the smarties) and announced he was all done.

Lesson to learn from the 4 year old: A fatally flawed gingerbread house can be much more fun than it's pretty counterpart. (Also, you can eat just a few pieces of candy, realize you don't want any more, walk away and not think about them again...)

Next year I’m sticking to gingerbread men.