Yes Lola, there is a "Santa."

I knew sooner or later the question would surface. She is five and profoundly curious, I just was not ready for it... "Mom, some of the kids are saying there's no Santa. He's made up like the Tooth Fairy and parents buy the gifts." She wasn't looking at me as she wondered, she continued her scribbles at the dining room table.

Oh crap! Think fast! It is a dilemma. Are we dishonest to tell our children these myths? Are we harming them, creating false hopes? We know the time is so fleeting, they are so little for only so long. The days of footie pajamas and story times and selfless snuggling will end, replaced by self consciousness and peer pressures and children who are growing up.

"Well, what do you think?" I thought it best to ask her, before I added my two cents, hoping for a bit more time to think. "I'd like to think he's real" she said. "Me too, he's real like the feeling you get when it snows for the first time, real the way cookies smell baking, real in the way you hug someone and it makes them happy and it makes you feel happy."

I'm glad she's made her own choice to believe a little while longer. I still believe, don't you?

I See Colors.

I had just read a story to Lola. We're trying to have her in bed by 8-ish lately. She seems to be more agreeable in the morning. Rocket science for parents!

We usually then have this great in depth conversation, our best at her bedtime. It's her way of stalling the inevitable. "Mom, I hate Cameron, he pulls my hair and pokes me on the bus." I asked who Cameron was and told her boys can be a bit silly like that. I told her to give him the most maniacal look she could muster and then tell him to stop or she would eat him for breakfast. She laughed. "Let's not use the word *hate* OK? That's a really strong word to use."

"When I say the word HATE I see the color BLACK. When I hear or say the word SHIT, I see the color RED." Her family rule for Sean and me, is to not have us use the word shit around her. She rules with an iron fist that kid! "Lola, that's what I mean, those are really strong words and your mind and your body are reacting to them by seeing colors in your mind!"

She excitedly propped up on one elbow, the bathroom light across the hall nudging into our private conversation, she squinted, "Mom! You get me, you really get me!!!!"

It's been a while, but I'm back.

Lola's rules for driving.

1. Never wear an eyepatch while driving.

2. Never wear a blindfold while driving to your cousins.

3. Never, and I mean NEVER eat while driving, especially a burrito!

Walmarted Again :(

Little old Greenfield is fighting the Big Box war! A Connecticut developer is (hoping/praying/scheming/plotting/eating our young) planning to build a 135,000 square foot discount store along the French King Highway. Oh the horrors and gnashing and wailing that resound throughout our Pioneer Valley!

Greenfield is a bucolic little town full of charm and hippies, street kids, whole grain families of all shapes, sizes and orientations. There are organic awesome groceries stores rubbing economic elbows with larger, stockholder-ish grocery stores. There are old buildings seeing new interested owners reviving downtown. There are used bookstores, coffee shops, art spaces, adventurous dining (a BBQ joint is opening in the spot now vacant because the Thai restaurant found a larger spot.)

There are families. Gay, straight, off the grid, on the grid, solar panels, family beds, breastfeeding, organic farming, organic thinking....Got Hope? End This War! Love Makes A Family! Farmer's Markets downtown now accepting Food Stamps (now renamed something else?)

You have Mercedes Station Wagons parked next to Smart Cars, parked next to 20 year old Subarus, parked next to Hybrids, parked next to recumbent bikes, parked next to Volvos, parked next to vintage beater cars with a few Mini Coppers to add spice.

You've got students, business owners, bankers, bakers, moms off to the yoga class. You've got your professionals in their ubiquitous white dress shirts jaywalking to their next triumph. You've got the middle class (tightly in the middle...) You've got the Super Comfortable, you've got the struggling who aren't sure about the next day.

You've got your locavores, sensuously rolling in the local fare of this great valley. You've got your McDonalds junkies, Dunkin Donut freaks....Why buy organic fruits and veggies? There's nothing wrong with the artificial coloring in my kids yogurt! You've got vegetarian neighbors, backyard gardens, Kill Your TV, NPR, This Old House.

You've got summer carnivals and Autumn fairs. Two day music festivals. Arts, crafts, Harvest Suppers, local folks and tourists. You've got humanity eating, sleeping, growing, producing, engaging, loving, fighting, living, dying, starting, ending, driving, walking, crawling, building, tearing down, and CONSUMING.

Is a proposed Walmart really going to be the stick in the spoke of Greenfield? Sure there are the stories of underpaid employees, ill treated, overworked, lousy health insurance plans. There are the reported sweat shops run by child labor to produce the Hanna Montana t shirts. There are the tainted deli sandwiches eaten by many. Remember the "news" story a few years back....Donald Trump and then wife Ivana back to school shopping at a *gasp* Walmart!!!!

If you are outraged, then by gum do something about it!!!! Traffic will be a crazed mess on my street for certain!!!! I am not a Walmart fan (I have shopped there. My 5 year old wanted a Hanna Montana backpack for school. That is another story all on its own!) but I can say gratefully that I am not at an economic state to be forced to spend my earnings there. Is anti Walmart sentiment a bit of classicism? Who are the people that shop there, their annual income? Some will say "have you seen the people that shop there?"

Locals are hoping to have the proposed square footage reduced. Lots of Big Box meeting are scheduled locally so all can have their say. Living in this area has made me mindful and fully supportive of spending my dollars as locally as possible. I remember our first snowstorm in our new house and buying a shovel at the local hardware store (long closed now.) I was so proud of myself for spending $17 on that shovel when I could have driven to Home Depot and spent maybe $10?

Is it possible that all can coexist? It's not going to be built smack in the middle of downtown (thank God!) Maybe there are families hoping for employment, health insurance, and less expensive goods. Their everyday worries far outweigh traffic snarls and the insidious global takeover of Walmart.

Sadly, the world is not a fair playing field.

Just my humble opinion...

This Is Too Good To Make Up

"Mom, some people in other countries eat sheep brains, I wouldn't because my belly would be filled with sheep memories."

All Of This In Five Minutes

"Does it hurt to have babies?" I'm not going to sugar coat this one...in the simplest terms I told Lola it hurts like a shot hurts, only for a while. HA! "Mom, why can't I adopt instead?" Of course I said this was also a way to do it if she wished. I told her she had lots and lots of years to think about this. From my lips to God's ears! "Just adopt for me and let me have the baby. I don't want it to hurt."

"Are superheros real, like in the cartoons?" "No, not with superpowers, X-ray vision, super heated rays blasting from their eyes to melt walls, super power wonder twins activate!" I told her there are REAL superheros. People that help others and make the world a better place. Maybe teachers, doctors, nurses, people that give to those who don't have much. "Like Santa and you and Daddy."

To be ranked with Santa...not bad.

Holy Crap, Or IS It?

We're back from a fantastic, well deserved vacation in Ocean Pines Maryland. Sean's youngest brother,his wife and son live about two hours from there. It was just what I had wished for. Lots of quality beach time and playing in the waves with Lola. Gibson loved the ocean but only in our arms with wave mist tickling his toes. I had more time to get to know my sister in law, who I've always know was a great woman and a devoted mom.

Driving back to Massachusetts was nothing short of hellacious! What Map Quest said would be a 7 and a half hour drive turned into a death rattle of 10 plus hours!!! Traffic was creeping by and we'd see the same irritated drivers with that "just wanna get home" weary expression on their faces. The kids were troopers, watching their DVDs, coloring, sleeping (Gibson), and playing with their stuffed animals. Gibson would hold Pup Pup up to the window and say "I see the pool!" whenever we would pass a body of water. He called the ocean the "pool" too!

We were navigating through New York, lower level, George Washington Bridge when the kids began to sing and make screeching noises together, trying to out decibel each other. Reading directions and making sure we weren't heading into Harlem was a bit dicey and we yelled at the kids to be quiet until we were out of the city.

Under quiet duress, Lola noticed lots of great buildings. She asked who made all the buildings. I told her people, architects, etc. I explained about blueprints and the machinery and bricks, windows, all the stuff needed to fabricate a building. She's often said she wants to be an architect or a rock singer when she grows up.

"Does it hurt when God makes people?" We were gloriously free from the sooty confinement of I 95 and on our way to I 91 when she asked this. "You know, when people are here, when they were born from God." Oddly enough, I never mention the word "GOD." Sure, when she tags along to Mass with the ending promise of a donut, she may have remembered a thing or two, but I usually speak in the "Jesus" lingo to her. The sweet, humble, young man who was the cute Italian ceramic babe nestled in the hay under the Christmas tree. The Jesus who is the Shepherd finding the poor lost baby lamb caught in the wicked bramble. The Jesus who is kind, likes to share his toys, not lip off to Mom, and eats his veggies and doesn't wipe his boogers on the pillow case at night, kind of Jesus.

I could feel Sean instantly tense up at the wheel. "I don't think it hurts him at all baby bear." She persists "But how does he do it?" I suggest by way of women having babies. "But why have babies all the time? Why does he let us do it that way?" My head is spinning and I don't want to dig myself into a religious tar pit. I would rather like to get out of the blankety-blankety car, have a couple glasses of wine and revel at the fact we are finally home!

"Because he loves us and it's his way of wanting more people to love each other and not be lonely." I felt pretty smug with my answer and Lola wanted her Simon the Chipmunk stuffed animal she won at the Ocean City Boardwalk.

Later that evening (10 and a half hours later, as fore mentioned) Sean said he wasn't really happy with my answers and didn't want his kids having any false ideas. "Do we really know there is a God?" "Are YOU really certain? I want her to make her own conclusions and not have her believing in fairy tales. I want her to know of other religions and other ways. I want her to have discussions with people and be aware there are other opinions and beliefs."

Sean and I have oil and water views on organized religion and subscribed belief systems. We've made it work so far, after ten years of living together, then a marriage in a Catholic church (thanks Mom), ten additional years of wedded bliss, baptism of both our children into said church, weathering heated arguments about my beliefs and the trauma (mostly self made) and all doubt and good 'ol Catholic Guilt!!! I can say we respectfully agree to disagree at most times. Do I know God exists? I sure as hell hope so. I've lived on this, thrived on this, denied this, banked on this, run away as far as I could on this, bet ponies on this....It's all I know. Am I brainwashed? Blissfully indulgent? Afraid of that huge hand coming down from the clouds to bitch-slap me or smote me.

Do I know God exists? I don't, I guess I really don't. What I do know, what I know deep in my heart, and I know that throbbing organ pretty well by now; I know I wish I were a better person. I WANT to be a better person, I'm just lazy. I want to do better in the world, to make a better world. I'm just lazy. I want to be loved and to love. I want to not judge. I could care less if someone judges me. At the end of the day I know oh so little. Yet, I plunder on, walking the walk, talking the talk, smoke and mirrors and all that gussied up stuff that makes me feel better.

Once in a while, just a small glimmer, a nugget of truth embeds itself in my brain. I look at my two children. There HAS TO BE A REASON for them, a tangible reason they free fell into my lap. I look at my husband, so complex and so readable at the same time, surely this person was meant for me, and just me. I look at nature, such a gift, the people around me, who love me, truly love me. This I know is all true and tangible. All bets are on. This I am taking to the track.