A Christmas Present

This is not the conversation I expected to have about Christmas. As a matter of fact, in my wildest dreams I never could have imagined this request or how hard it is to fill it... what a wish fulfilling failure I've turned out to be...

Me: What do you want for Christmas?
Kid: I don't really need anything.
Me: True, but there has to be something.
Kid: I need mittens.
Me: DONE!

Until, I can't find mittens. Why didn't I know this in July when I was cruising art and craft fairs? Why don't I have a neighbor that knits? Why don't I know anyone that knits? Come to think of it, I'd be happy to learn if it's possible to drink martinis and knit. So, who wants a scarf next year for Christmas, knitted by a drunken knitter? That's a sales pitch if I've ever heard one.

In desperation, I called my in-laws. Help me, I said. The kid wants mittens. You're old, you have to have an old friend that knits. I can't let a kid down on Christmas for lack of mittens! This is almost Little Timmy Cratchett awful. The kid has everything. No, he has two or three of everything known to man and all he wants are mittens! He'll freeze his digits waiting for the bus in January without a fuzzy pair of hand knit mittens.

Christmas 2009 is now the holiday that may go down in the book as the Christmas where all the kid wanted was a pair of knit mittens and his lousy, too busy mother can't figure that out. I can feed him sushi and take him to see a Jasper James exhibit, but I can't rouse up one pair of mittens! I'm a failure!

And, now, it's worse. The other kid wants them too. Two pairs of mittens. I've got 9 days.

Prodigal Clothing

Boys go to school. Boys take extra stuff to school. This extra stuff doesn't always make it home. Just like the money I give them. There has to be change. Really. But I digress...In two days, we were missing:

3 sweatshirts

1 jacket

1 pair of jeans

2 pairs of gym shorts

2 pairs of socks

2 t shirts

a violin

This makes me cranky. Given the size of the lost and found box- it's more like a dumpster- at the school, we're not the only ones sacrificing stuff to it. I bet the janitors take loads to the box every night like a Mayan priest approaching an ancient pyramid. "Hoo Ha Hoo Ha. Here's more stuff for your monster sized stomach. Hoo Ha Hoo Ha."

You think I'm crazy. I see torches, dancing the whole bit. Come on, we have no idea what happens in that school after dark. I bet all of Peter's lost 6th grade homework ended up as a sacrifice.

Whenever a boys wears a jacket to school for the first time every fall, I wonder, "will I ever see you again? You were such a nice buy and on sale too." It's cold in the morning so, they wear the jacket. By midday it's not cold and the jacket gets left in science class or on the bleachers or in the hallway or on the bus. I can't explain the jeans or the gym clothes or my change.

Snoopy is dancing because at least some of our prodigal clothing returned to us over the weekend- three sweatshirts and a jacket, some of the gym clothes and the jeans. The violin is not missing (hurrah!). It was left at school so someone could avoid practicing it.

So help me if the violin gets sacrificed. That gives me the willies just thinking about it. Instead I will celebrate the return of the stuff- even the stinky gym clothes- and their escape from the BOX.