The BEST Christmas EVER

As a kid, I always loved the book The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. When I became a teacher, I was thrilled to discover a class set of it in the book room that I was able to drag out and read with my classes each year at Christmas time. And this year, I bought a copy to read with my children.

It had been awhile since I had read the story. I mostly remembered the wild, crazy Herdman children, and I thought a couple of my wild, crazy children would appreciate their characters. What I did NOT remember were the church people.

I doubt I even noticed those characters much as a child, or even as a young, foolish, beginning teacher. But I certainly noticed them now! Noticed them, and was appalled.

Appalled because I KNOW THOSE PEOPLE.

Appalled because I AM THOSE PEOPLE.

I AM Alice Wendleken, with her superior attitude, thinking that looking the right way, and talking the right way, and knowing all the right stuff is what being a Christian is all about. Because “Christ-follower” and “good person/productive citizen/having a moral compass” sometimes all starts to feel like the same thing.

And I AM Mrs. Armstrong, who thinks that her way is absolutely, without a doubt the BEST way, and who, I suspect, finds a whole lot of her value/worth in “serving” all over the place without ever actually managing to become a servant.

And most of all, I AM the father and the brother and all the other members of the congregation who feel that they’ve heard all of this before, seen all of this before, done all of this before; they know all there is to know, especially when it comes to the Christmas story.

I found myself in tears at the end of the book as I saw that nativity scene through the eyes of the Herdmans—a wild and crazy crew, sure, but one who hadn’t gotten numb to the biblical account of Jesus’s birth. It made me wonder how this happened! And when! HOW LONG have I been reading Luke 2 and singing Christmas carols without even noticing the enormity of the sacrifice Jesus is making here?

When I really started looking, I saw how easy it had been to miss it. After all, listen to the Christmas carols we sing!

Silent night, holy night

All is calm, all is bright

But was it really? Was it really silent and calm? I doubt it. Mary was giving birth in a barn, surrounded by animals who probably smelled less than fragrant, with no epidural and no warm water pool. I bet that night was hectic, and stressful, and loud, and messy. And the nights to follow were probably not much better. Learning to nurse? No picnic. Mary probably hit that breaking point where she was in tears from exhaustion from being woken up 100 times a night by her newborn. She might have gotten mastitis like many other new moms. She might have lost her temper with Joseph after sleeping on a barn floor for several days in a row.

How about “Away in a Manger”?

The cattle are lowing, the baby awakes

But little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes

Really? Are we sure about that? Baby Jesus didn’t cry? Because Jesus was FULLY HUMAN. That means he cried, just like any other baby! He got hungry, got the hiccups, had gas, spit up, pooped, got diaper rash…! He did ALL of it.

I’ve been so guilty of turning this story into some cheesy Hallmark special. I’ve taken out all the mundane, messy, HUMAN stuff and left Jesus as a SUPER BABY with ultra-special, barely-human parents. Somehow, I guess I thought that made a better story. But really, it just waters it down.

WHAT A SACRIFICE to become FULLY human. To choose to be raised by inexperienced, fully human, fallible parents. To live through the reflux, and teething, and snot, and diarrhea, and scraped knees, and body odor, and acne, and hormones, and… and… and… AND ALL OF IT.

WHAT an AMAZING,

LIFE-CHANGING,

MOOD-ALTERING,

PRIDE-SMASHING,

PRIORITY-CHANGING,

JOYOUS,

LOVING,

WONDERFUL story.

Merry Christmas.

MY Kid is THAT Kid

You know how there’s always THAT KID that other parents don’t want THEIR KID associating with? The one that’s a bad influence, is always in trouble, has issues with authority, consistently displays poor judgment, maybe dresses a little too wild, etc. It’s hard enough to enforce any attempts to keep them apart when they spend hours without parental interference at school and extracurricular activities… But what do you do when they live together?

WHAT DO YOU DO when they’re BROTHERS??????????

Honestly, I don’t even know which kid is the “good” one and which is the “bad” one anymore. All I know is that BOTH OF THEM are constantly into SOMETHING. And the SOMETHING is always more ridiculous than anything that either of them could have come up with on their own. They just feed off of each other 24/7/365. 

For example:

Normal children strip down naked and run about the house laughing. It’s not something we encourage, but it’s not something to get alarmed about either.

MY children strip down naked OUTSIDE. Then they convince each other to throw their clothes onto the roof of the house to rot during the next thunderstorm whilst they clog up the gutters. Then they pee on each other. Again, all outside for the neighbors to see. Because we definitely needed another reason for the neighbors to consider calling CPS.

For another example:

Normal children will either step on a bug to squish it, or they will run to an adult and ask them to squish it.

MY children HUNT bugs to kill. And not just at home, no sirree. They stalk bugs in public locals, such as the OB office, where they stand atop the nice, cushioned, waiting room chairs on tiptoe after ripping off their shoes. And there, they bang the life out of the harmless cricket that is unfortunate enough to be on the wall above their head until it falls to the floor in complete and utter dead-ness. And then they stomp it some more, just in case.

For yet another example:

Normal children jump on the bed. Again, it’s not a behavior we encourage, but we don’t freak out too much since it’s completely normal.

MY children start out jumping on the bed. Then they convince each other to push the beds close enough to jump from one bed to the other while performing ninja moves. Then they steal the slats from under the bed and build a plank connecting the two headboards where they walk precariously on a 4-inch-width piece of splintery wood from one headboard to the other where they will dive onto the mattress. And probably perform a somersault on the way down.

See? Do you see how things spiral out of control? It’s insane! And the worst part: they are starting to drag the baby into their crazy.

Yesterday, when the older two stripped down naked, they stripped the baby down naked too. I do not know why. I will NEVER understand why children—especially BOY children—are obsessed with naked behinds. But they are, and they apparently drag others into the madness as early as possible. (As a side note, in addition to stripping him stark, raving naked, they have taught him the word “poo poo”. My sweet, precious child knows a whopping 5 words or so, all of which he says in this super cute little baby voice. Yet now he can participate in the potty humor. Yippee skippee.)

Today, the baby climbed right on top of that headboard with his two big brothers, ready to walk the Plank of Death right alongside them. Thankfully, I was able to grab him and get him back to safety before an ER visit was necessitated. But I feel one is on the horizon.

Child Spacing Pros and Cons

At some point, every couple has to decide on the number and spacing of their children. Unfortunately, no one actually has any experience or expertise in the child-spacing arena at the time the decision has to be made, so it’s mostly guesswork based on those you can observe around you. 

Some couples want their kids to be born close together in the hopes that they will be able to play together and entertain each other. Maybe they hope they will be able to deal with the sleepless nights and endless diapering better if they just stay in the groove. Or maybe they’re thinking that they don’t want to deal with storing baby gear indefinitely, so they’ll get all their usage in quickly. Maybe one or both spouses are older than the average new mom and dad, so they feel a sense of urgency to “get this show on the road”, so to speak. Regardless of their reasoning, these couples opt to space their kiddos 2 or less years apart.

Other couples feel they need a little more time in between babies. They might be wanting to guaranteed a potty-trained Baby #1 before introducing Baby #2, or have the older one be more independent before adding another helpless one into the mix. Maybe these parents are concerned that the first child won’t get to fully experience “being a baby” if another baby comes too soon. Regardless of their reasoning, these couples opt to space their kiddos 3-4 years apart.

Still other couples wait even longer—5 years, 6 year, 10 years! Some opt to stop after the first little one. And some do no planning at all, figuring they’ll just take what they get whenever they get it, if they get it at all. 

We personally did a little combo of planning and oops-ing, but our vision was to have our children spaced right at 2 years apart. We were successful with Baby #1 and Baby #2, but the math got a little off with Baby #3. He got here a mere 17 months later. And then our little Oopsy will be right at 18 months behind him. 

Now, obviously, since all 4 of our kiddos fall into the “Closely Spaced” category, I can offer absolutely zero advice on any other spacing options. However, I have constructed a quick little Pros and Cons List for those considering this same close spacing. 

PROS:

1.      They will be very close when they get older. Theoretically. 

CONS:

1.      Every child is in various stages of potty training simultaneously, from full-time diaper-wearer, to nighttime diaper-wearer only, to full-time underwear-er with wet sheets at least once per week. Know that book, Everyone Poops? True story. And at least 50% of the time, the poop does not make it into the proper receptacle. Other true stories include: Everyone Pees, and Everyone Picks Their Nose and Wipes the Findings in Random Locations, and Everyone Sits on Your Lap to Toot.

2.      No one is far enough removed from the baby stage to have much sympathy for the ACTUAL baby when he steals toys or knocks over someone’s Lego structure, nor to have any sense of what it means to share. So that play time that we thought was going to be so precious because everyone would be just the right age to play so well together? That was lunacy. Play time reminds me of the Cornucopia scene from The Hunger Games: everyone runs for the exact same toy, then the losers attack the winner and engage in a chokehold death struggle until a victor finally emerges. And again, there is no leniency for even the tiniest of contestants. So baby brother is only 12 months old and has toddled unsteadily into the brawl? Dude. It’s on like Donkey Kong. 

3.      Everyone is a mess-maker while no one is a mess-cleaner-upper. From sun up to sun down, it’s spilled drinks, dropped plates full of freshly prepared food, toys flung far and wide, shredded books, unrolled toilet paper rolls, dirty laundry taken from the hamper and redistributed around the house, etc. And while our oldest is able to now assist with some of the pick-up, he’s slow. Slow. As. Christmas. And while he’s moving at his geriatric pace, the others are sure to be creating new messes. In fact, he might create a new mess himself while in the midst of picking one up. For example, he recently accidentally pushed the wrong button on the vacuum. So rather than turning OFF the machine, he opened it up, spilling out everything he just cleaned up, plus extra. 

4.      Laundry. Laundry everywhere. Mountains and mountains of laundry EVERYWHERE. And no one old enough to fold neatly or reach the top drawer of the dresser. And this is not your everyday laundry. These are piles of clothes drenched in pee, smeared with blood and mud and snot and food, literally left outside in the elements for a week before anyone noticed. And due to all the extra substances that find their way to the children’s clothing, they sometimes go through 3 or 4 outfits in one day, none of which will be placed in the hamper without multiple reminders.  

5.      Everyone needs constant supervision, but no one thinks they do. Why? Because they’re not “the baby”, they’re “big brother/sister” to someone. Therefore, they are far too old to hold your hand in the parking lot, or ride in the shopping cart, or sit in a booster seat, or take a nap. “I’M BIG!” they insist. So as far as they are concerned, they can check the mail without you going with them, close their bedroom door and play without you in there, use the scissors and sharp knives and glue without assistance… And the actual baby? Well, everyone else is doing those things, so I want to, too!

6.      No one is fully sleep trained yet. The potty-trained-by-day child is a wet-the-bed-by-night child. Which means a wake-up call for Mom and Dad to change pajamas and sheets and calm a foul-smelling, half-asleep kid. The baby is either still eating throughout the night, or teething, or both. Mom and Dad might as well camp out in the rocker. Any paci-suckers are unable to function during cold season and allergy season because they can’t breathe through their nose NOR their mouth. In Texas, those two seasons cover about 10 months of the year. Another wake-up call for Mom and Dad. And any remaining children are woken up by the ones already mentioned. More wake-up calls for Mom and Dad. So basically, closely spaced children = no sleep for at least a solid decade.  

NAME THAT BABY!

Naming the baby. I swear it’s a more stressful job than birthing the baby. 

You’ve got to find a name that you and your spouse can agree on, a name that the baby will like, a name that will grow with them, a name that can’t be turned into a taunt, a name that doesn’t have inappropriate initials, a name that others can pronounce and spell… 

  

AAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!

And that’s not all you have to think about. 

Is the name you are considering too popular? Too strange? Anyone’s ex or enemy?

Are you naming the baby after a grandmother? Well, what about the other grandmother? What if she’s offended? What if she figures out that you think her name is hideous? Or that she’s not your favorite after all?

And is it true that a child’s name can influence his/her personality? What if the name you choose today ends up being the name of the psycho killer in the next big horror flick? Or already was the name of a psycho killer in a flick you’ve never heard of but others will reference for the rest of your sweet child’s life?

The task is daunting.

And then, after you’ve considered Aaaaaaaallllll the possibilities and implications, when you’ve finally, finally, FINALLY landed on a name that you absolutely love and think is PERFECT, it is absolutely guaranteed that SOMEONE will tell you how much they hate it. 

I am currently in the midst of this hideous name-finding process for the fourth time. But rather than getting easier, it has gotten harder. 

For one, when you choose a family name for that first child and another family member gets offended that you left him/her out, you have an excuse: “Oh, this is just our FIRST child’s name! But we are going to have more children, so we’ll catch you next time!”

This justification does not work on Baby #4 when you’ve told everyone emphatically that this is most definitely the LAST baby you will ever birth EVER, EVER, EVER. Now, everyone knows that this is their LAST CHANCE to get their name in. And unless you intend to be one of those crazy people who give their kid 15 extra middle names, you are bound to leave someone out. And you will never live it down.

When we branch out of family names, we run into a new problem: name associations. After being a student for 16 years, then teaching for 7 more years, plus the hubster’s 20 or so years as a student and 7.5 years of teaching, we now have a grand total of 50.5 years worth of names that are potentially ruined for us for all of eternity. So while I understand that you are trying to be helpful when you throw out the name fill-in-the-blank, which you think is a perfectly lovely name, please understand that in my world, fill-in-the-blank is a smart-mouthed bully with equally obnoxious parents, or a snobby cheerleader that steals everyone’s boyfriends, or an adulterous drug user, etc.

We could, of course, try the creative route where we make a name up completely out of thin air, but then you end up with something like Lemonjello (leh-MON-jell-oh). True story. 

Or we could be those people who use random objects as names, like River, or Street, or Apple. I even know someone named Talon. I wonder if his mother understands that a talon is a claw, and therefore, her child is named Claw. Maybe she does know this and is simply an avid Inspector Gadget fan, so she named her son after Dr. Claw. Maybe. 

Perhaps we could do an adjective or descriptor name instead: Blythe, Precious, Rebel… My favorite of these type names is Brazen. Seriously, do people bother looking up the definitions of words before branding their kids with them? Brazen, if you don’t know already, means “shameless or impudent” (I realize you might not be familiar with “impudent” either, so here ya go—it means “impertinent”, AKA RUDE). So, in a nutshell, your child’s name is “Jerk Face”.  Good job, parents. 

See how I judge these names? That’s what people do! No name is good in the end. Someone, somewhere will think it is the stupidest, most gosh-awful thing they’ve ever heard. And they’ll tell you all about it. Or they’ll laugh about it in front of their kids, who will, in turn, taunt your sweet baby on the school playground. 

You know what I miss? I miss the days of the Bible. Where moms and dads just told it like it is. Sure, to us, it just sounds like a pretty name (or a not-so-pretty one…), but it was so much more! A full description of your mental state at the time. So you were having some preggie cravings for corn? Name = Abib, AKA Tender, green ear of corn. Feeling rashy? Name = Adummim, AKA Red spots. Think it’s funny that you’re preggers? Name = Isaac, AKA Laughter.

If only I knew the perfectly consolidated Hebrew word for “Oh, goody! more stretch marks” or “I’m scared of this girl”. Perhaps we will just name her “Heartburn” and be done with it.

You Just Can't

I know I said a couple of weeks ago that I am a super positive person, but that was clearly either sarcasm or a flat out lie. Today, I shall prove how incredibly NOT positive I really am by pointing out all the things one CANNOT DO with a broken foot and riding a scooter. 

1.      Operate a trash can that utilizes a foot pedal to open the lid. 

Who knew that trash cans were a two-foot device? I think this would be the perfect time to justify one of those motion-sensor cans...

2.      Procure your own motorized shopping cart. 

It doesn’t really matter if you’ve broken your left foot or your right because driving is not the issue. The problem is getting inside once you reach your destination. Sure, you can hop on one foot to the trunk, balance on one leg while you unload the scooter, then scoot your little self inside to the carts. But then what? Push your scooter alongside the motorized shopping cart back to the car? 

3.      Put down the foot rest on a recliner.

Unless, of course, your healthy foot is part Hulk. Then you’re golden.

I wonder if this is similar to the way that men feel when asked to put down the toilet seat...?

4.      Carry your own plate and drink to the table.

Just give up on hot food altogether because your kid’s not going to carry freshly microwaved food for you. But you can garner sympathy for something that won’t burn their fingers. Sandwich, anyone? For the next 6 weeks? 

5.      Stop your crazy toddler from jumping off the mini-fridge onto the futon.

You probably also cannot one-foot-edly get him to the ER when this little activity ends badly…

6.      Stop your crazy toddler from jumping off the train table.

Fun times! Another potential ER visit!

7.      Catch your crazy toddler when he runs away from you.

This one might be a positive if #5 and #6 happened first…

8.      Enforce time out for your crazy toddler.

Good news—you CAN put yourself in time out! 

9.      Wash the bottom of your good foot.

There’s just no good way to balance enough to scrub that foot. And there’s no pedicure to cover for this shortcoming, either. The best bet that I have found is to drop my loofah onto the shower floor, stand on top of it, and twist back and forth. Does that sound at all efficient, effective, or any other positive adjectives to you?

10.   Get a slick, wet baby out of the bathtub.

This task isn’t easy on a good day. While crippled? Well, the kids might just be a little more dirty than normal for a few weeks.

11.   Check a mailbox that lives at the end of a rock driveway.

The children will not understand this. They will blow past you on their bicycles and mock your geriatric pace. Ignore them. Allowing a competitive spirit to creep in and overpower the fear and logic is foolish. Speed up while on those rocks, and you will die. 

12.   Sweep up the piles of goldfish, animal crackers, poptarts, and other crumbly junk food you’ve allowed your children to consume while you’ve been unable to provide proper nourishment. 

Actually, that’s only half true. YOU actually CAN sweep up the piles of crumbs left behind by your children! But… you cannot operate the dustpan. So all you’ve really managed to accomplish is push the dirty, disgusting, stale food remains into an irresistible pile of temptation for the baby and toddler, who have no qualms when it comes to eating off the floor.