CHRISTMAS LIST PUTS FEAR IN MOM’S HEART

Atari's have gone the way of ancient electronics.  Modern moms:  Think X-Box! 

“Mom, I’ve got my Christmas list ready,” four-year-old Michael informed me two weeks after Halloween.  He handed me a roll of toilet paper inscribed with magic-markered hieroglyphics.

“Let’s see,” I began hopefully, “it says here that because Mikey has been pretty good this year, he thinks he’s entitled to one sack of marbles and a new yoyo.”

Not! That little boy who religiously watches Saturday morning cartoons with all their commercials, had more sophisticated plans.

“No, Mommy, that’s not what I wrote,” he protested, twisting his tongue on every “s” like Winthrop in THE MUSIC MAN.  “What I really want is a 10-speed.”  His voice was firm, despite the childish lisp.

“But, Son, your legs are much too short to ride a bike like that!”

“That’s okay,” he had it all planned out, “I don’t want to have to wait around for it when I get big.”

Next on the list—my hands began to shake as I calculated the impact of such requests multiplied by the demands of six children—was a television.

“What would you do with another TV?” I asked.  “We already have two!”

“I’d put it in my room, so I could play with my Atari there.”

“Honey, you don’t even have an Atari!”

“I was just getting to that,” he cut me off.

I wiped the cold sweat off my forehead with the napkin list and handed it back to him with a sigh.

“Young man,” I said, “it’s time you got a job!”

I don't think there's a television in here, Mom!

CHILDREN: HEAVEN, A PLACE WITH NO SKINNED KNEES

“What’s Heaven like?" three-year-old Matthew asks with eyes as wet as April and a trembling lower lip.

We have just buried the little boy’s pet hamster in a velvet-lined watch box, capping the tiny grave with a paving stone. Gone to Heaven, my husband has inscribed the marker with a piece of yellow chalk. 

 

“Heaven is happy,” I say, patting the pudgy hands that so often had cradled silky, little Munchie to his heart. 

“But, what is Heaven like?” my son asks again, because happy means too many things to really comfort him.

“Oh, Heaven is lovely and it’s warm,” I try again, remembering how poor Munchkin had shivered at the end.

By now the child is sitting in my lap.  I trace the even ridges where a plastic bandage protects one badly scraped knee.

“Heaven is happy and lovely and warm and safe--a place where little boys don’t ever get skinned knees,” I say at last.

My son relaxes then. I feel the tension ebbing as he settles back beneath my chin.

“Because the sidewalks there are soft?  He lifts his lighted face to ask.

“Because,” I say and hold him very close.

"Because the sidewalks there are soft?" he turns his lighted face to ask.