'Tis the Season

to be jolly...unless you are a kid who CANNOT wait to open all those gifts that are waiting for you under the tree.  It seems the waiting makes us all a little more grinch than jolly.  And, add onto that scrooge like behavior a child who is trying to stretch his wings and you have a recipe for some tough times.

Zachary is not having a good couple of months.  Last month he was diagnosed with migraine headaches, which also show themselves as horrible stomachaches.  This month he failed his hearing test at school for the second time and has to visit an ENT.  On top of that, he also failed his vision screening. He has developed bloody noses, which recently kept us up in the middle of the night.  For a middle child who is squeezed on a normal day, all of this extra stuff makes him feel down right squashed!  To top it off, he doesn't believe in Santa. But he is holding out hope that if there is a real Santa then he will get  a real, live puppy that will only love him for Christmas.  When Santa doesn't deliver one, it will confirm that Santa isn't real and he will become a real grinch!

Sometimes it sucks to be a parent.  There just isn't anything you can do to help them through those tough periods.  I can't fix his ears or his eyes (except with hearing aids and glasses which he REALLY doesn't want).  I can't make his headaches go away.  It is my genetics that gave him all this trouble.  I can't make Santa real.  I can't give him a puppy and make it love only him.  I feel at a loss just as much as he does...and I am the adult!

So, I do what I can.  I read with him every night in a special time, just him and me.  We started reading The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson last week.  It made us both laugh so hard and I have to say it is one of the best Christmas books we have ever read...maybe just after the Grinch Who Stole Christmas.  He waits for our time together each night and he snuggles in while I read to him.  Last night we read Robinson Crusoe, a shortened version for kids of the classic story.  He loved every minute of it and I have to say, so did I.  I might not be able to fix everything that is wrong, but I can give him 30 minutes of my time.  And what greater gift is there?