Author Archives: snoozing on the sofa

Christmas advice for boys

An open letter to the boys who inhabit my house as Christmas draws near.

Christmas Day brings with it a lot of excitement. This excitement can make boys forget themselves and step outside of the bounds of acceptable decorum. When this happens, it creates a situation known as Too Much Christmas or TMC. TMC can result in a boy having to spend valuable Christmas minutes alone in his room, composing himself so he can resume his place in a civilized family before the Holiday gets away from him.

In order to minimize the risks of TMC, allow me to reiterate some general guidelines of behavior for boys of various ages.

Six-year-old boys

It is expected that you will wait until the entire family has opened all of their presents before you start tearing into the boxes containing your new toys and dumping the contents onto the floor. It would be wise for you to attempt to assemble only one new play set at a time, but if you insist on indiscriminately mixing sets, you should refrain from pouting when a crucial piece gets lost in the chaos.

In fact, you should refrain from pouting for any reason. This is your favorite day of the year. Don’t ruin it with a self-induced case of TMC.

Two-year-old boys

Santa brought you some very nice toys. Play with them. We understand that you want to help Big Brother build his kit, or tear it apart, as the case may be, but he doesn’t need your help. Yes, it’s sweet that you love playing with him, but today he has enough trouble keeping his parts organized, without your little hands moving things around.

Let him lose the first few pieces on his own so we don’t have to hear about how you ruined all his toys.

Eight-month-old boys

Don’t put that in your mouth! There are all kinds of little treasures scattered on the carpet today. Most of them are not food. If we don’t give it to you, it probably wasn’t meant to be swallowed. We don’t look forward to spending Christmas digging stuff out of your mouth, but we will if we have to. That’s not going to be fun for any of us, remember that.

Also, that’s probably Big Brother’s missing, crucial piece, so now I’ll have to hear about how you ruined his toys.

Forty-seven-year-old boys

Take a deep breath. You are the only one who would happily go up to your room and sit by yourself, but you are the only one not allowed to do it. It will be a madhouse, but you’ll get through it. You already had Too Much Christmas at about 7 a.m., but you’ve gotten your second wind. Yes, there will be whining and complaining – they will forget how happy they are at various points, but they will remember these moments fondly.  That’s the important thing.

Or maybe the important thing is when they’ve gone to bed and you can sit down with a tumbler of scotch. See? There’s always something to look forward to on Christmas.

Christmas cooperation

Nothing beats Christmas when all the little boys play together nicely (and then go to bed early).

Oh, Christmas Tree! Oh, Christmas Tree! We’ll try not to break you too much

Our six-year-old has been bugging us to put up the Christmas tree since Thanksgiving. There’s nothing wrong with this and I’m not complaining. I’m just stating a fact: he’s been bugging us about it. He’s six. That’s his job.

We’ve never put up our tree before December, though we have sometimes put it up early in December. But those were not years when we owned both a toddler and a baby. This year, the parents delayed as long as possible.

Buster won’t be too bad with the tree. He’ll break a few glass bulbs and yank some garland just to get into the spirit of the season. Then he’ll focus his destructive energy on other household objects as the tree becomes commonplace. Any real damage will be accidental, as he runs sideways into the tree while juking to avoid the football tackle of his big brother.

New Baby is a different story. He will eat the tree, one ornament at a time. It will become his seasonal commitment to consume any part of this giant Christmas cookie that can be reached from the crawling position. If he cannot reach a particularly juicy-looking berry, he will tug at branches with his Kung-Fu-Grip baby hands. He is a big, hungry baby, and his hunger feeds his ambition.

These are Mommy’s reason for delay. Daddy shares them, and adds a reason of his own. Daddy’s reason is that he will be left to assemble the tree with only the quality of help that a six-year-old and a two-year-old, working in unholy alliance, can provide.

Burgermeister Meisterburger

“Anyone who puts up a Christmas tree will be severely scolded in a cartoonish German accent!”

Mommy is the superhero of holiday cheer. She tracks down the most obscure gifts; she braves freezing cold for Christmas parades; she travels far to show her boys Santa, or even one of his less-renowned, black-nosed reindeer. But there is one thing Mommy doesn’t do. Mommy doesn’t put up Christmas trees.

Apparently, in the village where Mommy was a child, the Burgermeister Meisterburger decreed the decorating of Christmas trees a crime worthy of horrible punishments, because, to this day, Mommy flees to her quiet place at the prospect of tree trimming.

This leaves Daddy with his short stack of helpers. The moment they begin attempting to untangle strands of lights and free individual wire hooks from the grand hive of wire hooks, Daddy remembers who tangled the lights and packed the hooks into a wire nest at the end of last Christmas. This may remind him that, when it comes to tangling and untangling, little hands know only one direction.

This great revelation is useless. It will neither help him now, nor comfort him later, when a child asks, “Why won’t any of the lights in the middle of the tree light up?”

“Because that’s the tradition in this house, son. Are you almost done tying knots into the garland?”

We finally got the tree up and the lights on it, but then we had to take a break from all of the helping that was going on. It’s hard for anyone to get into the Christmas spirit once Daddy starts yelling.

We’ll take a breather, then give it another go. We should have it all up just in time to start taking it down.

who needs decorations?

Our progress to date. Maybe we’ll have more time to work on it after Christmas.

They don’t make it easy on Santa

Our six-year-old had to be prodded into starting his Christmas list. Having to write down words and ideas is so far below the dignity of a First Grade scholar. It’s much easier to watch toy commercials and say “I want that!” at the conclusion of each.

Once begun, he threw himself into the spirit of his list. He learned he could be more specific in his desires when they were the fruits of his own mind rather than the mass market spit balls of the Toy Industrial Complex.

xmass list_Page_1 xmass list_Page_2

Those who haven’t been following along may find it odd that four lines on the list call specifically for German items. The rest of us are relieved that it is only four items. This leaves several items that Santa could plausibly supply to a child in the United States.

I’ve contacted Santa. Following is his assessment of the likelihood of supplying each listed item:

A German Subway Set – Santa’s Response: “WTF?”

What makes a toy subway German? And what makes a train set into a subway? Are you planning to set this up in a crawl space under the floor? How would the kid even play with that?

A Police Car with Sirens that can light up – Santa’s Response: “At least this makes sense.”

But doesn’t this kid already have police cars, some with sirens that light up. And aren’t most of them neglected or broken?

A German Army Truck and Helicopter – Santa’s Response: “Kids in Germany don’t even ask for that.”

An army truck and/or helicopter I could probably do, but now I’ve got to have flags painted on them? The elves aren’t good with flags.

An iPad – Santa’s Response: “Yeah . . . No.”

$o many reasons; $o little time.

A German Army Suit with a Beret (Side note: I wondered why he asked how to spell beret) – Santa’s Response: “This request has been filed with German Subway Set.”

Such a shame. We have tons of children’s French Army uniforms with berets, but fresh out of German.

A Call of Duty KREO Set – Santa’s Response: “Well, KREO are cheaper than LEGOs.”

So if there is such a thing as a Call of Duty KREO set, well, maybe.

A Nintendo 3DS – Santa’s Response: “Is that a real thing?”

I lost track when the elves were still making the original DS? We’re up to 3 now? Can it be Japanese, or does that have to be German too?

An MSU Football Costume – Santa’s Response: “Great choice of team, but how about we start out with a sweatshirt or some pajamas?”

He’ll get a full uniform when he makes the team. Go Green!

A Star Wars LEGO Set – Santa’s Response: “Didn’t he just get a bunch of those for his birthday?”

Maybe if they have a good sale.

A Boom Co Blaster – Santa’s Response: “Isn’t this just a poorer quality Nerf gun?”

And aren’t there already tons of lost Nerf gun darts hiding behind all the furniture in your house?

A World War I German Army Helmet – Santa’s Response: “Cool. I’d like one of those, myself.”

But has he checked prices online? Are his parents willing to give up their first-born child in exchange? Does he realize who their first-born child is?

***

I’m not sure what happened to the last entry. He probably wants something he has no hope of spelling. Maybe I’ll just get him something that starts with B. Or maybe I’ll fill it in with A Big Lump of Coal – German Coal.

 

It’s Absolute Mayhem! And this time, my children are not the cause

When fellow blogger, Kelly Suellentrop, first asked for help spreading the word about her new children’s book, Absolute Mayhem, I vacillated. I’m playing catch-up on my own writing these days and I didn’t want to commit to something if I lacked the time to follow through.

Then, I remembered how daunting it is to navigate the process of self-publishing your first book. How do you take a stack of paper with words or drawings on the sheets and turn that pile into an actual book that people can buy? (And I’m not talking about a comb-bound course packet from the Kinko’s copy center.) It’s not an easy process the third or fourth time you do it. The first time, it’s a mind-blowing mystery. To borrow from Kelly’s book title, it’s Absolute Mayhem.

It’s a lonely, confusing process, and anyone who makes it through deserves congratulations and support from the independent author community.

I signed up to help.

And then I had that moment. If you interact with writers at all, you know that moment. It goes like this in your head: “Oh my God! What if I don’t like the book? I’ve just agreed to blog about it, but what if I hate it? How will I get out of it? I know. I’ll tell her my blog is busy washing its hair.”

Before I opened the electronic proof file Kelly sent, I crossed my fingers and pleaded, “Please be good. Please be good. Nobody ever buys the hair washing excuse.”

Then, I opened the file and forgot all about making excuses, because Absolute Mayhem is an awesome children’s book. I don’t have to mince words. I don’t have to finesse anything. I get to relax and tell the truth, which is simply that I really like this book.

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Absolute Mayhem is the story of Lulu and Milo, siblings who dutifully do their schoolwork and chores all week long in anticipation of the fun they expect to have on the weekend. During the week, they rely upon their imaginations. But on the weekend, it’s Absolute Mayhem as they live their dreams.

I love the artwork in this book – not for any technical reasons, because I have no artistic talent, so I wouldn’t know a technical reason if it bit me in the deep lower back. The art here has an endearing playfulness. It’s the funny, little touches, like the rabbit spraying air freshener around the doggy doo in the back yard, that make the illustrations special.

The story is relatable to both kids and adults, a target that many children’s books miss. As a parent of three, I’ve been exposed to approximately 3.2 metric tons of children’s literature and this one is up there with the best of them.

Absolute Mayhem on Amazon.com

Kelly Suellentrop’s author website

Kelly Suellentrop’s blog: are you finished yet?