Truly Super Duper

REDEMPTION!

This past weekend we all went on a shopping trip to a store.
An ordinary task for most people.
But for us, it is an unusual venture. Ever since Ryan's diagnosis we have kept him pretty sheltered. We do not take him to the stores with us very often. We took him out to a store probably less than half a dozen times last year. Shopping carts have so many germs and shoppers can be quite disgusting sneezing all over my precious boy. Well, maybe not directly on him, but near enough that it invades his air space. Now that he is suffering an upper respiratory infection just days after swimming in the cesspool of consumerism and bad hygiene, confirming my fears, I believe we may never leave the house again.

So we took him to Target this past weekend. Something we probably should've done before Christmas if we wanted to spare ourselves the embarrassment of failing the most important parental seasonal duty. <<see Santa Fail for details>>

We had a bunch of stuff to return (duplicates of gifts) so we were pretty excited about having a gift card to spend! We walked to the back of the store towards the toy section. To be honest, we had our doubts that we would find anything to fit the bill.

"Okay buddy here we are! Now we are going to look at some toys and we need you to tell us if you see the Super Duper Lightning McQueen Thingy." I explained.

"What does it look like again?" Robert tried to get him to divulge more info.

"It's super duper and has strings on it." He had just mentioned this small detail to me last week when I prodded him once again for info. I dismissed it at first but now I am not so sure. Now I am even more confused.

Great. Strings on a toy car? A car puppet? Doesn't make sense.

We slowly proceeded down each aisle and pointed out each Cars toy we thought might be the elusive prize. He dismissed them all. We even tried to play up the coolness of some of them, desperate to fill the void of his crushed Christmas dream, hoping he would be somehow convinced that this particular toy within our budget was super duper. But alas, he was not easily impressed.

We were coming to the end of the toy section. The aisles were now filled with clearance merchandise of rejected overstocked misfit toys. Our hopes were dim but we trudged forth.

Then we spied an entire shelf of large boxes with the Cars 2 logo. We studied the box and discovered it was a slot car race track, much like the ones we remembered having as kids. We reminisced for a moment then focused on our task.

This was not cool enough to be it. Could it be?

Then we saw it. There in the picture on the box, a child holding a remote that had a wire leading back to the box attached to the race track. As if it both occurred to us at the same time, Robert and I said "Strings!"

"Is this the super duper thingy?" I cautiously asked.

"He looked up from his giant Icee cup which was now half gone and nonchalantly said, "Yep, that's it." No thrill, no excitement, no jumping gleefully, no hugging and kissing everyone as he ran through the aisles crying with joy. Nope, nothing. Not the reaction we were expecting.

"Are you sure this is it?" Robert prodded.

"Yep, that's the one. The one with strings." Again, clinical, dry. As if we should've known this from the start. But this time he perked up slightly as he reached for the box to get a better look.

I could see a glimmer in his eyes. The look on his face - truly super duper! This was it! We had finally found it! The holy grail of Lightning McQueen toys - and at an incredibly discounted price! Who knew it would be a slot car track!

I must've been displaying that concerned look on my face that revealed my doubts of it's value as a toy worthy of our household. Robert looked at me then searched the box for battery information.

You see I have an unwritten checklist of toy ownership feasibility. He knew what I was thinking. This toy failed miserably. Being a Libra I like to weigh the pros and cons of EVERYTHING. I am quite proud of the skills I have to make decisions, the only problem is it sometimes takes forever to reach that decision. This one did not take long. My thought process went something like this: (and yes, there are 3 colorful voices in my head arguing at all times, a la 3 Stooges - the classic one, not the one with that modern day reality TV stooge - I can't even bring myself to post a link)

Does it require batteries? YES

Does it look like something we will have to change the batteries on often? of course 

Ugh! Let me guess, probably a size we do not have.

What size? D's
As I guessed, we do not have any - in fact we just gave some away for Christmas

Does it make noise? Yes.
Typical, though not a deal breaker

Does it have parts small enough for Rowan to eat? Yes.  
Uh, she'll try to eat anything
Does it look like they can get hurt playing with it? Huh! 
I can almost envision the blood.

Could they use the parts as weapons? Yep 
more blood. not looking good.

Are there many pieces? Yes  

about a zillion

Does it look like it's going to break? Uh,  

yes.

Do you have to put it together? ...

Duh!

Once together does it stay that way? :(

Warning! Warning!

BUT...

Is this the toy he wanted? Yes! Will he love it? Yes!! Will it relieve my guilt if I buy it? YES!!!

SOLD!

This year I'll be stocking up on batteries and taking him to the store in November, in a bubble, with plenty of Purell and antibiotics on hand. In the meantime, I need to brush up on my kid-speak deciphering skills.  As Lightning McQueen says, "Wish me luck!"

SANTA FAIL

The thin line between providing our children happiness and spoiling them rotten is a tightrope that I think all parents stumble across. For me, this has become a difficult task when I am consumed with overwhelming desire to never have Ryan face anything remotely disappointing ever again, after all that he has been through. But it seems I should give him more credit. Just the other day he proved to be amazingly hopeful in the face of disappointment.

We were in the car headed to my sister's house for my niece's 3rd birthday just this past Friday.  Rowan was asleep within minutes as the hypnotic engine played her favorite lullaby. Ryan played with a toy and hummed happily. I was fighting off a headache (the start of my current cold as it turns out), trying to concentrate on the road as the commercial noise on the radio softly buzzed in the background. Then from the back seat I heard a sweet little voice.

"I had so much fun the other day opening presents!" he chimed so cheerily, kicking his feet rhythmically against the back of the front seat.

"Oh, you mean on Christmas?" I clarified more than asked.

"Oh yeah, yeah, yeah... on Christmas, " he corrected. "That was so much fun!"

"Yes, it was a very special day and Santa was so very nice to bring us so many wonderful gifts." I tried to continue on, mentioning something about how just being together was gift enough but I was abruptly interrupted by the saddest sound ever.

"Yeah, it was so nice, even if Santa did forget to bring me the super duper Lightning McQueen race car thingy that I really, really wanted."

My heart sank. I had dreaded this moment but I thought it was going to happen on Christmas day, not nearly a week later. You see, for the past month we ran into Santa several times at a variety of venues. And each and every time when Santa asked what he wanted, he would instantly reply with the same exact answer: A Super Duper Lightning McQueen Race Car Thingy. He sounded so much like the kid in A Christmas Story, the same enthusiasm and quick tongued matter-of-fact manner that it made me giggle every time.

Believe me, I tried to figure out what in the world that was. I asked other moms and relatives if they could decipher the foreign language of my child. I only got the same deer-in-headlights look I'm sure I displayed the first time I heard him say it, followed by looks of pity and the unhelpful tidbits of "Well, you'd better figure it out soon." I looked through sale ads asking him to point it out to me. That proved to be too overwhelming for him because he ended up pointing to each and every awesome toy in the ad that he wanted Santa to bring for him. But none were the Super Duper gift he so coveted. I asked him to describe it for me to which he responded with a "You know mom, the super duper one." Riiiiight. How silly of me. I scavenged the aisles of several stores, even daring to ask a pimply seasonal worker if he knew what it was to which I got a blank stare which turned into a suspicious look as if I were playing some kind of a hidden camera joke on him. I even typed it into Google hoping maybe it would miraculously show me the item I sought instead of the 1,240,000 useless results. I was even desperate enough to ask my cryptic four year old to draw me a picture of it. "Mom. You know." was all I got. Apparently I have impressed my children so much with my incredible mind reading skills that they automatically assume my powers transcend the Santa-Parent barrier.

I ended up buying a few items that I thought perhaps were cool enough to qualify as super duper though in my heart I feared the worst. I even held out hope that our foundation Santas had hidden the prize amongst the generous piles of wrapped gifts. (The presents were ALL so very wonderful, by the way! Thank you Secret Santas!)

"Wha?" I stammered reaching for the radio knob to shut off the noise. "You didn't... Santa didn't..." I was so glad he could not see my horrified face.

"Santa must've forgot to bring the super duper Lightning McQueen race car thingy I asked for." He then let out a huge sigh of disappointment and my heart broke. "That's okay. I guess the elves just didn't know how to make it." he concluded. I imagine he was shaking his hanging head.

"Ohhhh. Can you tell me about it please? What does it look like? I'm just so sad about this." I pried for more info.

"Oh no Mom," he reassured, "Don't feel sad about it. It's not your fault."

I couldn't even breathe let alone speak as I tried to stifle laughter and tears.

"It's okay, mom. Maybe Santa will remember to bring it next year."

So although Santa obviously failed, Ryan's positive outlook persevered and that is a win in my book.

Speaking of Santa fail... This morning Daddy came downstairs with a box he found in our bedroom. Inside were a few small gifts that Santa had forgotten to put under the tree. D'oh! Hopefully Santa will have his act together next year!

We hope you all had a wonderful holiday and here's to a prosperous New Year!

Little White Lies

Sometimes it’s good to lie to your kids.

I remember being pregnant with Ryan, my first, and saying how I did not want to perpetuate the lie of Christmas, namely Santa Claus. While it’s true I did not want my kid to become one of those punk little whiny eight-year-olds who think that the only reason for the month of December is to celebrate a big fat man in red, or a greedy and selfish kid who thinks that the holiday is somehow a second birthday party just for him. I was more worried about having a broken hearted kid that reflected my eleven year old self after discovering that Santa was not real. Yes, I was eleven and in the fifth grade when I discovered the truth. After a week of kids laughing at me and subjecting me to tales of how they caught their parents on Christmas Eve wrapping presents and placing them under the tree, I bravely asked my mother to set me straight. I think she was shocked that I still believed. And try as she may to keep up the rouse, I could see the truth in her eyes and I was devastated. I probably said something like, “Well, I suppose the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy aren’t real either, huh?” I wept as the bricks and mortar of childhood imagination crumbled into a pile of dust. The dreams and fancies of fantasy and legend vanished into thin air. The twinkle in my eye dimmed to a dull shine. My very innocence died a cruel death that day. I decided I did not want to subject my children to such deception. So for a while I was quite pleased my son had no interest in such things.

But sometimes it’s good to lie to your kids. Sometimes the wonder in their eyes and the excitement they exude make it all worthwhile. My son is 4 this year and so far I have noticed that four year olds have a good memory, can aptly pay attention (when they want to), and take delight in the fantasy and whimsy of fairy tales, as if you can see the gears of imagination working in that tiny noggin. He was not always like this you see. For the past several years the holiday has come and gone with just a mention, just a passing gesture, and without a detailed explanation to the man in red. Not that any in length description would have made a lasting impression anyhow on a kid whose attention wavered at the slightest sound, a kid who changed his favorite color every day, and who could care less about nonsense traditional fairy tales. He has always been a very matter-of-fact kind of kid. He takes delight in numbers and letters and the way things work. His favorite things are alarms and sirens, smoke detectors, and medical devices that make noise. He seemed to prefer the truth and detailed explanations on how things work. Fairy tales and stories were met with looks of doubt and questions of feasibility. You can’t pull the wool over his eyes. He didn’t care much for TV or movies and in fact did not sit through an entire movie undistracted until he was nearly three years old. Then I was subjected to the same movie playing in a loop nonstop for a week straight, hearing him reciting it word for word, until I found myself humming along to the soundtrack in the middle of the day. 

But I digress; I never saw the sense in taking the time or energy to explain the whole story to him when he had no interest to begin with. For him Christmas encompassed the tangible: snow, decorations, a tree, lots of food, and family, and of course presents. That was fine with me. But this year, he is four and he asks a great many of questions on things that are difficult to explain. After a year of dealing with some of those hard-to-explain things in his life, he has discovered that there are some amazing things in the intangible: the giant tumor that could not be seen and that made him very ill, the skill of the doctors and mysterious multi-colored medicines that made him feel better, and the belief in God and prayer that worked miracles on his very life.

So last night, I took a step in the direction I said I would never venture. I decided in a split second that it was unfair of me to rob him of the enchantment and wonder of the belief in mythological beings that have become the cornerstone of any American childhood. I want him to be just a regular kid and experience all the things ordinary kids do. I guess that this is one thing that has changed for our family since he was diagnosed. I've learned to loosen up. So here we were in the middle of the night, way past his bed time, wide awake and having a conversation about winter. And it honestly didn’t occur to me until we were in the middle of a conversation, that he did not know much about the season. I first hesitantly asked him if he knew the story of Santa Claus. His answer was, of course, a confused no. Immediately his delight and anticipation grew as if I was about to present him with a grand gift. And so began my lie.  

He giggled with glee. His eyes twinkled with delight. He listened intently and with such eagerness as if every word of my story was an ever growing crescendo to a magnificent climax. I told him of the village hidden away at the North Pole, the magical elves who cobble away all year long making special toys, the fanciful flying reindeer, the giant red sled and the sack filled with gifts. I described in great detail the velvety red suit, the snowy white beard, the bowl full of jelly belly. I tried not to leave out any element of the fairy tale that I had once treasured so fondly as a child. And when the story was over he asked me to tell it again and again. Each time I told it was as good as the first. It was as if the story was a treasured secret, a pirate’s chest, and he had just discovered the key to unlock it’s riches. And I found myself feeling like a kid again as I recalled the feelings of enchantment. For a moment I had felt that overwhelming swell of mystery and exhilaration that I once felt so long ago. I had recaptured my lost innocence. 

Finally I broke the spell, insisting we had to go to sleep. It was getting very late and here we were giggling and whispering in bed together in the dark of the night. There was something charming about that; being there in that moment in time cuddled under the covers on a chilly night, with my precious son, enveloped in sheer happiness, knowing an intangible, mystical world may exist. As I tucked him in with visions of flying reindeer, magical elves, and whatever else his imagination dared to dream, I realized why the stories have been passed down for so long. I snuggled up next to him and as he drifted off to sleep I began to cry for my rediscovered spirit of youth.