Dear Santa

My dear Santa, I know you and Amazon...er, I mean, the elves are busy with the toys and the cheer and all that, but I just wanted to put in what I realize is a pretty last-minute request.

I need an elf.

Or a wife.

Or a project manager.

Or at the very least, an intern.

That's why this request is so late. There was no one to remind me to make it.

There was also no one to countdown the number of shopping days until Christmas, which is why until earlier today, I had not bought a present for anyone other than Pie (and her gift was the one I'd intended to buy her last year). Can't the elves/Amazon even send a reminder email, Santa?

There was also no one to remind me that the Girl Scouts were going caroling at the nursing home this afternoon (some kind mother noticed Lucy milling around and called to ask if she should take her).

There is no food planned for the pre-Christmas gift exchange dinner we're having with Jason's family (oh, the gifts).

And these are just the handful of undone tasks THAT I KNOW ABOUT.

So, Santa baby, all I want for Christmas is an elf. You've got legions of them. I need a real self-starter. Someone enterprising, young, willing to share a room with Lu. In the event the elf can't reach the pedals on our cars, I'd need an elf willing to ride a tricycle or big wheel to run errands. We can provide this elf not only a loving home, but lots of opportunities and connections in the world of marketing.

And Santa, don't give me some crap about cultural mores and the weather and how hard it would be for this elf to adjust to life down here, because I know what kind of sweatshop you're running up at the North Pole. I hear that at least a couple of times a year, they find elves on ice floes off Greenland, seeking asylum.

So send me an elf. Alternately, send me a Mrs. Claus, because I hear you have several of those, too. And don't send the one who "knows her way around a Pole." Send the one who went to Northwestern. Or the one who bakes.

Look, Santa, I'm falling apart down here. You've got wives AND elves. Think of someone besides your fat self and the kids for once.

Lylas and Merry Christmas,

Kate

Milostones: 15 months

After Lu's piano lesson Saturday, we went to Upper Crust Bakery. On the way in, Milo made some friends through the window and spent a full minute engaging them in a little game called "I Am Cute This Way? How Bout This Way?" which involves him cocking his head and smiling. As we were eating, the window people came up to tell us how delightful he was. And he is. He is one of the most charming people I know. Except for the following developments:

1) Knows how to take the lid off a marker. We learned this by discovering him with orange marker all over his mouth a la The Joker. Really makes life complicated with a 6-year-old artist who WILL  NOT BE STIFLED.

2) Chooses violence. The kid is a lover and a fighter, choosing to splash/bang/hit/bonk whenever he can. He hurls his sippy cup to the ground for the joy of seeing it splat. His hug is more head-butt than actual hug.

3) Throws fits. Hurls himself dramatically, face forward, to the ground when you take, say, a Sharpie away from him.

Ah, Milo, I miss your docility. But I love you anyway.

Home School

There's a family of three red-headed boys, roughly ages 6-10, who live on the corner about a block down the street. They can frequently be seen in the front yard of their red-brick ranch house, horsing around, brandishing swords, playing in the mud, sometimes in various states of undress, often at odd hours of the schoolday. Jason and I have surmised that they are home-schooled, and they are making it look like a lot of fun. The notion of homeschooling is thrilling to me: the idea that parents wouldn't need an institution, or a professional, or some kind of overseer to make sure the learning is right. While it's clear the learning is not patently right in our current system, I shiver a little at the idea of doing it on my own. The parents of those red-headed boys are brave and strange.

Yesterday I ran past the red-head house during my "lunch break" at 2 p.m., the break I allowed myself after a day in the home office and inside my own head. The dad was standing in front of the oldest boy with a tackle dummy, and the boy, in full pads and jersey, was doing football drills. I couldn't help but think, "It's just so weird. Shouldn't he be in school? Doesn't he need a team?"

And then I realized, shouldn't I be in school? I am doing the professional equivalent of homeschooling. No institution, no overseer, no team, just me. Alongside the other brave, strange people who do their own thing during school hours.

Cautionary Tales

Yesterday, Lu asked me what grade Trina taught, and I said, "Trina takes care of preschoolers and babies like Milo. What do you mean?" "Well, she works at a high school. Why are there babies at a high school?"

Why, indeed. As she asked this question, I was washing dishes and she was coloring, so I had some buffer time to formulate a response.

"Because sometimes the students have babies and they need someone to help take care of them while they're at school."

So. Many. Things. To. Say. About choices. About opportunity. About responsibility.  About promise. About maybe getting her on the Pill when she is six just to be safe.

But I got some great advice from my brilliant friend Steve, whose kids are now in/graduated from college and have not fathered any children that we know of: "Parenting is like being on the witness stand. Only answer the very question you are being asked. Kids are smart about asking for the information they need, when they need it."

My answer hung in the air for a few (dare I say it ) pregnant moments. Then she said, "Oh."

Every Which Way But Loose

Milo's communication skills are...limited, but improving. He's still below the composite verbal level of Clyde the Chimp, but does sweetly grunt about 20 word-like sounds. He's perfecting The Nod, approximately seven subtle variations of shaking his head, mostly in the yes direction, though he does have one very slow and hypnotic hybrid yes-no that I think he will be using to sell condos and woo ladies in the future. His default is a primate point-and-grunt/nod. He did this at dinner, gesturing desperately for more asparagus. Jason said, "He's like a foreigner."

Houston, We Have a Problem

Today on the way home from Girl Scouts, I was probing Lucy about what she wanted for Christmas (people have begun to ask). She said, "Well, I do have a Santa list, but the thing I really want is something only he can get me because they don't have it at the mall or it's probably too expensive for anyone to buy me." "What is it?"

"MOM, you KNOW, it's that flying machine I've been asking for. The space shuttle?!!"

"Oh."

Creative License

Today, as I put on my running shoes, I noticed that one of my socks had a face and some stripes drawn on it. In Sharpie. A reclaimed sock puppet, apparently. These moments are frequent. Lucy thinks everything in this house — be it a sock, a medical bill, my work notebook — is just material for her art. The other day she put together a car/"speeder bike" using a security dowel from one of our windows, an Ikea stool and many, many Band-aids. I cannot argue with her ingenuity. But after a cooking injury last week,  I did have to bandage myself with Scotch tape and some random gauze I found (given to us to treat Milo's circumcision scar?), because we had no Band-aids. Someone is going to suffer for her art.

Sometimes...

...after a happy morning, after you have dropped off your genius six-year-old at school filled with confidence about her upcoming spelling test, as you take the almost-not-a-baby out of his carseat at preschool and he smells like the apple cinnamon yogurt he ate for breakfast, like an apple dumpling you just want to eat up, you are struck by the perfection of your life. But it only happens sometimes.