[An entirely true story for the season and poking a little fun at the new FCC rules]

On the way to this morning’s Snowflake run we spotted a Santa-elf-old man-sexy chick hybrid

then a bodyless, fro-wearing Santa

As soon as Benjamin realized they were fakes he went back to obsessing over his new Playmobile knight.

[Dear FCC: Playmobile did not pay me to say that. I bought my son a Playmobile because I grew up playing with Playmobiles and I love them].

Letting Benjamin bring the Playmobile was a bad call because the pieces fall off every two seconds.

When we walked into the registration room bursting with families, little kids and mascots – Benjamin still wouldn’t break his laser focus on the knight.

“See? See (Mr. Columbus Crew Cat)? This is my golden knight!”

[Dear FCC: The Crew did not pay me to post this photo. The Cat was in the right place at the right time. But, full disclosure, a long-time friend of mine - Steve Sirk - just wrote this cool book about The Crew.]

Then we spotted the one person Benjamin had been dying to meet…

Santa Claus.

Benjamin’s mouth dropped open and he stared up into the air at the towering man above him, with his big red suit and his stone white beard. It was the man he’d been talking and imagining up for months. Like he had been on the car ride over.

“Mommy?”

“Yeah, Benjamin?”

“I miss Santa.”

“But you haven’t met him yet.”

“Yeah. I have, mama, I know Santa. I do know him.”

A few pictures with Santa later, we heard orders from overhead: head to the starting line. Santa had moved on and we were trailing behind our friends. Pieces of the knight were still falling and Benjamin was stopping to pick up each one.

When I took the knight and put him in my pocket Benjamin dropped into a full-on, kicking, stomping and, running away from me tantrum.

I told our friends to “just keep going.” We would catch up.

And then I settled myself into the moment.I closed my eyes and wished that I had a few extra arms and maybe the ability to hypnotize him. I also felt like the worst mother in the world as every other family walked by – happy and tantrum-free.

Why my kid? Why?

Me. It has to be me.

And then up from the escalator came Santa Claus. Seeing Benjamin clearly distraught, Santa stopped and then scooped him up into his arms for a hug.

A really big hug.

“I miss my Daddy,” Benjamin cried into Santa’s beard.

“Well, where is he?” Santa asked.

Benjamin didn’t answer and neither did I.

Where was he?

Not there. That’s where. But we’re not sure where that is. You know what, instead of explaining – let’s just keep walking.

And so we did. Santa leading the way.

All the way to the starting line.

“They can’t start without us,” he told Benjamin as we ran up – a few minutes late.

Then Santa left us to head up front – to announce the start of the race. But then he stopped and came running back, “Wait,” he said to Benjamin, “you come up here with me.”

Santa took Benjamin’s hand and then (see them up there – behind the mascots?) he said

“On your mark, get set…

“GO!”

And then, they dashed

together

all the way to the finish line.

[And no, Santa Claus did not pay me to write this post. But I'll admit this story does seem familiar. Only in this one, there is no bell to lose and I think Mr. Benjamin will be believing in Mr. Santa Clause for the rest of his life.]

P.S.

If anyone ever gives me anything to give to you, or to mention to you – I always, always say so… that means, this blog won’t be changing at all. Full disclosure here – clearly and always.

P.P.S.

The Santa picture and more recent shots are in my new Winter 09 Photo Album.

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Yesterday morning I woke up still in a fabulous mood after an amazing night with Kris. We hadn’t had one like that in a while. I have been stressing out about our relationship and my fears have been controlling my emotions, the way I’ve been treating him – everything for the past few weeks.

Read my eye-opening post on “Do I need therapy?”and you can see why…the perfect advice (from commenter Tim) came at the perfect time and I was able to let go of my fears for one night…and one morning…and one afternoon. And now it’s been 48 hours relatively fear free.

So yesterday morning, my new fearless self, asked Kris if he could watch Benjamin while I ran to the grocery and of course, he said yes. He suited Benjamin up and took him to the park while I had nearly one hour of stress free shopping.

Believe it or not, this was the first time I’ve asked a man in my life for help as a single mother. I know I’m not alone in this unhealthy practice of denying ourselves the time we need to be alone.

My theories on why single mothers are afraid to ask boyfriends for help:

• We have been on our own for a while. The idea of receiving help and then possibly getting used to it and then losing it scares us to death.
• We expect men to offer help. But in reality they may feel intimidated – after all, from their vantage point it looks like we have everything under control, and they don’t want to insult our pride.
• We don’t want to scare them off. When we are with someone we may not want to make them feel like dating us would be “hard” or require major household duties on their part.

But we have to remind ourselves – this is our life. If they truly want to be with us it will take some extra “work” on their part. But it shouldn’t feel like work. When I got back from the grocery I thanked Kris again. He said, “No don’t worry about it – we had fun!” I grabbed Benjamin to take him up for his nap. When a friend is over I usually hurry upstairs and lay him down while they wait…but Kris sticks his head around the stairs, “can I come?”

“Sure!” Wow. Is this really happening? He comes upstairs and we all cuddle together on the big nursery chair while Benjamin falls asleep. Amazing. I think he’s falling in love with both of us. I know I’m falling in love with him…I can feel it and this time I’m not going to sabatoge our relationship because of my own fears.

Related posts:

1. Something amazing happened.
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I tried to go shopping last night…my friend offered to take Benjamin for a few hours. I thought – geez – two hours – that’s plenty of time to get some major Christmas shopping done. No way. I used to spend days shopping. Picking out the perfect presents. My shopping decisions were quick. They had to be. Time was running out. I kept looking at my clock. 15 more minutes…hurry. Who else? Who else?

Then I looked at the line. It wrapped around and around in a snake path through the front of the store. Forget it. I dropped my cart. Walked out and drove home. I had to, I had to pick up Benjamin. Wow. Two hours in a store and what do I get? Two hours of my life I’ll never have back. Yuck. That wasn’t fun. This used to be fun, right? Am I just older? Have I lost my Christmas spirit? A long line like that – that was enough to dash any single mom’s spirits. I can’t do this.

So, I am going to do the bulk of my Christmas shopping online. I love shopping online but the truth is – I would rather be in a store. Taking my time. Or would I? After being a completely broke (now I’m a moderately broke) single mother for a solid year of my life I guess shopping has lost its luster. Plus, taking the time to do it isn’t realistic.

No choice so why bother thinking about it?

Shopping online rocks because:

• You get fun packages in the mail
• Or you can mail them straight to the recipient
• Shipping is practically free on most sites
• No impulse buys
• I can compare a dozen store’s prices in 5 minutes
• I think much longer before making a purchase
• I can do it in my pajamas

Happy shopping! Any tips please pass them on.

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2. Online Dating Etiquette: How to break up…virtually.
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