This past Christmas was monumental for a number of reasons.  The first being that Shirley bought Air Pods for pretty much everyone we know who doesn’t already have a pair.  This will likely result in a bankruptcy filing by the Jansma’s at some point in 2020 when combined with all of her other frivolous Holiday spending, but we need to spend a little more to get our moneys worth before we file.  The second reason it was monumental is that Aiden no longer believes in Santa Claus.  This is the first Christmas he didn’t buy into the bullshit that is Jolly Old Saint Nick.  However, for some reason his skepticism about the fat man wearing a red suit hasn’t rubbed off on his younger brother who still believes in Kris Kringle (I am now officially out of alternative names for Santa Claus).  So, Parker believed every single present that said it was from Santa Claus came from the North Pole.  I revealed to one of the guys I play basketball with that Aiden no longer bought into Santa and he said he was pretty happy his kid also stopped because at some point a sustained belief in Santa by your kid makes you question their level of intelligence.  My response was that God doesn’t make any sense either with the whole no beginning and no end as well as the fact that he is all powerful but let Satan screw everything up (If there is anyone who has the ability to use a mulligan on something it seems it would be God).  On top of that, he could, if you believe he is all powerful, come up with any plan he wanted to save man from his sins but decide to send his son (who is actually him if the holy trinity thing is accurate) to die on a cross when he could have come up with any other thing he wanted as a pass for us to gain salvation and eternal life  (that sound like a really long time). Oh well, that’s why you gotta have faith right?

Back to something that doesn’t make my head hurt if I think too long about it.  Yesterday I had basketball practice for Parker (I’m the head coach) and it runs from 4:15 to 5.  After that I had basketball practice for Aiden (I’m the assistance coach) from 5 to 6:30.  It’s the the longest and sometimes the worst 2 hours and fifteen minutes of my week.  It really depends on how my week is going and how the kids are behaving as to where it ranks on the enjoyability scale.  Yesterday we had two kids go down in Parker’s practice, one kid hurt his finger and one kid landed on his tailbone.  Surprisingly, it wasn’t Henry.  Henry up until yesterday, had a season long streak of getting “injured” and crying in every single practice and game.  Parker knows better than to cry during practice, he knows that if he did I would just tell him to quit being a pussy.  However, my role as his head coach has not kept him from acting like a complete spazz.  Fortunately for him, all first grade boys act like complete spazzes so he fits right in.  In Aidens practice there was a collision between an over aggressive child who had about 30lbs on the kid he ran into, it was akin to a 18 wheeler hitting a Prius.  Had there been anyone who actually cared about safety present the kid would have been placed in concussion protocol, but after 30 seconds of letting the Prius shake it off, we resumed practice.

After basketball practice we went to dinner and both kids were given our phones along with our air pods (surprisingly Shirley did not pick them up a pair of their own this Christmas even though she bought a pair for her favorite Amazon driver).  Normally I try to limit them to access by forcing them off our devices when our food arrives but I was so tired of kids at that point that I didn’t even bother.  At dinner, in a brief respite from my phone Parker asked me to check his tooth to see if it was ready to come out.  It had a lot of give and very little resistance when I tested it out.  When we got home he wanted me to pull it out.  I have pulled out all of Aiden’s teeth and was fairly confident Parker’s was ready to come out.  I grabbed a piece of floss and tried to get it behind his tooth and between his other two teeth.  However, Parker initially resisted.  After a bit of coaxing I was able to get it into place and flick the floss, immediately blood poured out and the tooth was still there.  I gave it another flick and more blood came pouring out but the tooth still remained rooted to his gum.  He didn’t cry at all even though this tooth abstraction was going way worse than any I had done with Aiden.  In fact, I’m pretty sure that I waited until Aiden’s teeth were about to fall out on their own before I yanked them due to the fact that he is a delicate flower (aka pansy, but Shirley doesn’t let me call him that to his face).  I decided to get rid of the floss, put my index and thumb around the tooth and was eventually able to yank it out.  He had so much blood around his mouth it looked like he drank a glass of strawberry Kool-Aid.

Going back to our dinner, Parker had mentioned that there was girl in his class who was always looking back at him during music class and that he told the teacher about it.  He was upset about the fact that the teacher didn’t do anything about it.  At this age having a girl pay attention to him and like him is quite annoying.  Shirley asked if she should send a photo of Parker without his tooth to the girls mom and Parker said “yes, maybe she won’t like me anymore.”  Honestly, he doesn’t look as cute missing one of his front teeth.  However, I think it’s because he looks older now and while I realize as a parent you can’t stop your kids from getting older the reality is from from talking to friends with teenagers that I only have a few good years left with my kids.  Granted, I am sure almost every parent thinks it won’t happen to them.  I’m super cool, my kids will always want to hang out with me and think I am the greatest.  Well, I am not that naive, and just like the newly married husband who thinks the sex is never going to stop, it does, and so does your son’s affection once he figures out how to jerk off and it’s double trouble if they somehow mange to become popular.  Between dirtying up pairs of sweat socks and hanging out with their friends, they have very little time for their parents.  (I’m fairly confident Aiden will still have ample time to hang out with us even though he will likely be messing up a lot of sweat socks)

The crazy thing is that even though Aiden has written off Santa I think he still believes in the Tooth Fairy.  Or, he realizes that if he wants compensation for the last remaining baby teeth in his head he needs to at the very least play along with the whole tooth fairy charade.  So, last night he made no mention to Parker of the imaginary nature of the Tooth Fairy.  However, I kind of wish he had because I came in to the kids room to put some money under Parker’s pillow and Shirley was still in there.  She shooed me away not wanting me to wake either of them up and claimed she had money to put under Parker’s pillow.  I put the money I had with me on my night stand, not intending to give it all to Parker.  This morning Parker came down with $15 and told me I needed to pay him the $7 I owe him.  (I took money out of his money bag, he keeps it in a zip lock bag, to pay for something that he probably was the direct beneficiary of in early December).  When Shirley made her way down stairs I said “I thought you had your own money to give Parker for his tooth.”  She responded that she didn’t and that Parker had told her he thought his tooth was worth $15, I found this to be somewhat ironic since it was the exact amount I left on the night stand.  I had anticipated giving Parker $5 for his tooth (still quite generous).  The ultimate question for me is do I tell him that $7 of what the tooth fairy left him was to pay off my debt?