Re-living the Past....

While driving my kids to school this morning, a song playing on the radio, Reo Speedwagon's Can't fight this feeling, took me back almost instantly to my beginnings in high school, oh so many years ago. Back to the days of cassette tapes and 8-tracks and going to rock concerts filled with big-haired girls, and big-haired men, all of which wore make-up! (Try to envision it ladies. I know it's hard since you were like two, or maybe even still an egg in your mom's ovary during the early eighties.)

This song reminded me how I often would find myself in sticky situations as a teen. I seemed to be in trouble all the time. Or in some cases, trouble spots where I didn't have a clue I was making a bad decision. This song in particular made me think of a boy named Wayne, (yes his name should've been my first clue) who once took me for a ride in his car. He loved this song. He played it over and over. Rewind. Play. Rewind. Play. I know now he was trying to get me in the mood.

It didn't work. I was able to fight the feeling along with some colorful language and a really well placed shove!

But still, I think about that every single time I hear this song. Why was I so dumb?

It's sometimes difficult to remember, as adults, that we were once...unfinished. Young. Thin. Without a care in the world. This last week I've been trying to remind myself of this as I deal with my oldest child. He had an...incident at school that resulted in some disciplinary action. My thoughts have run the evolutionary scale from mildly furious, then just angry, to disappointment, and finally empathy. And so, having learned a valuable lesson at least for now - Think before you act - he's doing much better.

And I have learned the same. Before I condemn my son for making a bad decision I need to remember that common saying on many a headstone: As he is, I once was.

I survived my teens. So will he, hopefully relatively unscathed and with no permanent damage. I can only stand by and watch and hope for the best, trying not to pull all my hair out in the process. Trying to be understanding. Trying to remember that I too, was a little stinker.

My poor parents! I think I need to go write them a thank you card right now for not selling me to the gypsies.
Although that might've been fun...

Happy Christmas! Day 9 ~ Enough with Santa already~

A woman I know once told me that when her kids questioned whether Santa Claus existed, she would reply,

"If you don't believe you won't receive."

What???

That phrase and the picture from my last Christmas post got me thinking about a problem I've been having the last couple of years with my older children and Santa Claus. Call me Scrooge, call me a Bah Humbugger, but enough already with that charade. It's one thing when the children are little - they really get into it and it's not hard to fool them - but it's quite another when they're pre-teen and teenagers.

I feel like I need to train with the Secret Service specializing in:

~~the careful selection of different kinds of wrapping paper

~~how to disguise handwriting (I write with my LEFT HAND, duh)

~~making sure the gifts are hidden in Fort Knox- like places

Good grief it's a lot of work!

I was ten when I finally recognized the words, From Santa, in my mother's handwriting. I asked her about it, she gave me the skinny. Simple as that. She was probably relieved, like I would be that the circus of disguise could finally end.

I however, have one older son who refuses to get the hint - that Santa doesn't exist. Aren't they supposed to figure it out on their own? Aren't they supposed to put two and two together and finally ask?

So my problem is thus: Should we tell them the truth when they ask about the big Elf, or should we prolong it with a phrase like the one above? When they reach a certain age, is it just time to tell them?

One of the joys of parenting is bearing the heavy hand of truth.
Just one more thing no one tells us about before we reproduce..

That eventually we'll have to, in essence, kill Santa.