I Believe in Santa

This year John Bob and I were so happy to spend a lot of time with our grandsons for Christmas.  Aiden is four and it was as if this were his first Christmas.  He wanted to hear all about Santa and how he brought gifts and was a little less interested in the good versus naughty part.


He didn't know that Paps and I had asked a red-cheeked friend to dress as Jolly old St Nick and come by our house on Christmas Eve.  His cousin Luke and Aiden were dressed up in Christmas sweaters when the knock on the door sounded.  All Aiden could do was giggle and smile.  Luke was scared to death of the chubby old elf, but couldn't keep his eyes of him. 


After climbing in his lap and confiding a few suggestions on what he wanted Santa to bring him later that night, Aiden allowed Santa to leave with the promise that he'd return down the chimney during the night.  The boys went on to open an inordinate number of gifts including a Buzz Lightyear flashlight from his Daddy for Aiden.  What a great gift.  All little boys love flashlights.


The gift opening on Christmas Eve as well as the stocking reveal the next morning was interesting. Both boys loved tearing off the wrappings.  They were also often more interested in what the other boy received than in their own stuff.  Watching them together was most interesting: they both were torn between insane jealousy and joy in togetherness.


Luke and family left for home along with our other kids and Aiden's dad on Sunday afternoon.  Aiden was staying with Gram and Paps for another two weeks.  He went to the Medicine Shoppe with me on Monday and played on his new Nintendo DS while I did the bookkeeping.  We hung around Shiloh Farm for the next couple of days and, despite Aiden's protests, took down most of the Christmas decorations.  Thursday was beautiful and we went to the Tyler zoo.  


Since Gram loves the zoo and always took her children as a Hurrah! School's Out treat every summer, I love the fact that Aiden loves to go to the zoo every time he visits.  Sometimes we go to the small zoo nearby in Lufkin and ride the train.  Sometimes we go to Tyler for the great zoo there.  Gram always buys a small animal for a treat at the end.  I wanted to get a bongo or kudu because Aiden and I had enjoyed learning to differentiate and recognize these formerly generic 'deer-like-animals.'  Aiden chose some little plastic finger puppets.  


John Caleb, Aiden's Dad, was able to return on Thursday afternoon, and we spent a lovely New Years with him.  Now, all of us were just about over the Christmas joy and thinking about the things ahead in the new year.  John Caleb had helped us carry out the huge tree and John Bob was cleaning out and repairing a problem in the fireplace.  Aiden tagged along right behind Paps whom he loves to assist.  Paps used a live circuit electric gimmick and tested all the fireplace's electric lines.  Aiden's nose was not far behind.  Paps used a flashlight to look all over to find the problem in the blower.  


Suddenly, Aiden ran off to return with his new flashlight.  He leaned over and looked all around the firebox, paused and checked to see if anyone was watching, and then leaned over peering up the chimney with his flashlight.  "Santa, are you up there?" he asked.  Where does Santa go after Christmas?

An Answered Prayer: Our Zach

Once there was a happy little family of a mommy and a daddy and two little girls and a boy.  The daddy worked as a pharmacist and the mommy worked part time teaching science to junior high kids at a private school.  She also went to school twice a week studying for a master’s degree. 

It worried her how much both these occupations ate into the time she had to spend with her little ones.  But the big city in which they lived also scared her and her husband when they considered that their elder daughter would be old enough to go to kindergarten the next year.  They really didn’t want to send her to public schools and the only way they could pay tuition was for mommy to teach.

So, they started looking around in the eastern part of their state, which was closer to both sets of grandparents, for a nice little town in which they could raise their children.  It didn’t take long for them to find just such a town with a college where Mommy could finish the degree she’d started and their daughter could attend a public kindergarten.

No sooner did they land in a nice home in this smaller town than Mommy discovered she was pregnant, again!  Their baby girl was only a year old.  This did not seem the answer to a prayer, though it must be admitted that Mommy and Daddy had picked out four names for children when they’d started this adventure of parenting!

At first Mommy didn’t let herself think about having another child—but then as this new baby started growing big, she started doing what women in her family had been doing for many years.  She started making the best of God’s will for her life.  She helped a little at the kindergarten and took her two younger kids to Mother’s Day Out. 

Zach being welcomed by his sisters and brother

She and Daddy thought and thought about what they’d name the new child.  (Those first four names they’d picked out only turned out to be ‘right’ for their first and second babies.)  They looked and looked in baby name books.  Finally, on a trip to their old home town, at the end of a book, they found the perfect name for a boy: Zachary.

On the day after Easter, March 31, 1986, a skinny boy child was born.  Mommy hadn’t been able to eat for the last two weeks of her pregnancy and all she saw was a cute little boy with a huge nose!  She and Daddy laughed with joy because Daddy’s family was known for good, strong noses. 

Suddenly they both knew that this little boy was the answer to a prayer they hadn’t even known they were praying.  

Mommy never finished grad school and never regretted it.  Soon she helped start a Mother’s Day Out program at the church their family was a part of.  She cried when the day came that she had to go back to full-time teaching because little Zach was only four and she hated to miss his last year before kindergarten.

Caroline, Jess, and Zach

Zach was an unusual child.  From a very early age he made friends.  When other two-year-olds were playing alongside their peers, Zach was playing with them.  When Mommy went back to work, Zach stayed with one of his best friends, Jess.  Quite often Mommy would come to pick up Zach after work and his friend would be in time out while Zach was free to play because he usually didn’t mess with J’s mom.  One day, though, he and Jess ‘washed’ their car with mud.  Both little boys were in deep disgrace.

Zach also had several other friends through childhood including his twin, Lindsay, who was born the same day in the same hospital and attended the same church through teen years.  They often shared birthday parties culminating with sharing their baptismal Sunday when they were preteens. 

Zach, in blue, with Lindsey beside him in yellow
for birthday party in the park

Family Celebration for Zach's birth into Christ

Zach had warned us that he wanted to be baptized one spring Sunday morning.  We invited his grandparents and other special family to join us for this special church service.  When it was time for him to head to the front of the church to meet the minister, he didn't go...  Of course he was surrounded by family, and I think he just choked!

However, he managed to step into the aisle and march forward only to discover that his "twin", Lindsey was planning the same important event on this same Sunday.  Lindsey's grandfather lovingly immersed her while Zach's daddy proudly dunked him as they stood together in the baptistry for their second birthday.

On the Sunday he was baptized, Zach wanted his friend Sam (whose Mom had kept him in the afternoons after kindergarten) to join the family party.  Both Sam and Lindsay stayed friends with Zach till they all headed in different directions for college.

Zach , with Sam behind him, and Lindsey for another
shared birthday celebration at Lindsey's house

As a teenager, Zach went with his 'big' brother John Caleb to guitar lessons.  He really loved it and began working on his own to learn to play.  After a hard day at work, his Mom would stretch out on the bed with a book to read.  Then she'd look up to see her son coming in to play her a song on the guitar and sing to her.  Since she never listened to the radio, later she surprised the rest of her kids by being able to sing along with a pop tune that she preferred when Zach sung it.

Zach singing with his Dad at school.

Zach as president of the band with Mom and Dad

Zach playing a trombone in the band

Mommy is retired now and she still prays for her children.  She tries to let God decide how to bless their lives since she knows He definitely knew what he was doing when he sent her Zach.

Zach loved to run, so he loved playing soccer

Zach's last year of soccer

Zach winning a prize for racing his
wooden car at the Blueberry Festival

Zach still making us laugh

Zach with PopPop planting peach stones.

Mothers Need to Know

Growing up in a family with seven children can make one different from other kids who are the center of their family’s universe.  I was the fifth of the seven.  When I was an infant my mother had to get a job to help keep food on the table.  You heard right—not so that we could have cool clothes or lots of stuff but to put food on the table.

Soon after moving to Fort Worth when I was nearly six, my mother discovered she was pregnant again.  She had a lovely job teaching school at Eagle Mountain Lake with perhaps her favorite principal of all time, the father of my sister’s fiancé: Mr. Gililland.  Since I was so young at the time, I only recently learned Mom cried when she found out she was expecting.  My Dad was always glad to have another child, and we kids thought a baby would be great.  Of course I didn’t realize that in the fifties Mom wouldn’t be allowed to teach if her pregnancy was not hidden.  I think she managed to wear loose dresses and work until Christmas before my little brother was born in early February. 

Food was plainer and supplemented by the few things my parents would allow Mamaw and Papa Stem to give us from their black dirt and rock-laden farm.  But we survived, and I learned without being told that we would all have to help manage when Mom returned to her teaching the next fall.  That meant helping take care of our darling baby brother, which we all were happy to do.  I changed diapers and did chores as we all did.

My Bluebird Troop (I'm the sad one sitting on the far right)

I belonged to Blue Birds which later ‘flew up’ to become Camp Fire Girls.  My mother never was a leader or even sent snacks.  I was thankful that we could come up with the weekly dime for dues.  At one meeting a campfire and ceremony was planned for our troop.  It was a big deal, but I felt Mom and Dad would be too tired and had too many responsibilities to be able to attend.  So I just asked another girl for a ride to the park and told Mom that I needed them to pick me up after it was over.

I don’t even remember what the occasion for the ceremony was, and I don’t think it bothered me a whit that I had no parents to watch.  After dark when the evening was done I ran out to the car among the many cars of the other girls’ parents.  Mother was crying when I hopped in.  “Tahna, why didn’t you tell me we were supposed to be here?  We could have come!” Mom sniffled.  I was perplexed.  I knew she had so much on her plate to deal with.  I didn’t mind her not being there.  I knew my parents loved me and were proud of me.  It was a way I could help out.

The Box Sisters holding baby sister, Camille

Years later, in college when I broke up with my best friend who was also my boyfriend, I didn’t call my mom to tell her.  I just moped and struggled on my own in Austin trying to handle my grief alone.  To my surprise, one afternoon my mom showed up in Austin to take me to dinner.  She’d had a meeting somewhere nearby and had stopped to see me.  My parents didn’t come to visit me at UT.  They still had my younger brother and sister at home in high school, and that just wasn’t something they did. Soon the light dawned, and I realized she’d somehow found out about the difficult place I was in.  We didn’t talk much about it but she made it clear that she was there to comfort and encourage me.  Wow, that was great!

Now I see that being mindful of my parent’s needs and being a helping part of our family was some of the best part of my childhood.  Unfortunately, it also tends to make a child very independent.  It means that though a mom really wants to know when her children are needy and wants to watch their triumphs, sometimes she doesn’t get told.

My boyfriend and I at a church retreat

My husband and I had four lovely children, which was a large family to most of our friends.  We struggled to make ends meet when John Bob bought the Medicine Shoppe.  I went back to teaching when my baby boy was only four.  I’m sure each of them has a memory or two of something they gave up to help me manage to work during their young years.

Our precious four (and husband, best friend) before I went back to teaching

I used to think that after they grew up and went off to make a home that I wouldn’t spend as much time praying for my precious four and striving to keep from worrying… Not so!  I find myself daily praying for each of them and getting those ‘Mother’s sixth sense’ about them when I think they’re going through a rough patch.  I hope that though I raised them as independent people, they’ll also let me in on their struggles.

My Mama is almost ninety-two, but I still visit her and tell her about my needs and the needs of my children because I realize better now at sixty that Moms need to know about the things their children are experiencing.  We may be busy with working or helping at church or serving those among whom we live, but we always desire to be a part of our children’s lives even when it hurts.  Because it hurts more not to know.

My mother clowning with her daughters at family reunion