Feliz Navidad from the Maxfields

Lara has been freaking out that I haven't written this letter yet. This has less to do with the letter itself and more to do with the fact that it is on her eight page task list and she can't cross it off until I finish it. Which is exactly the same reason I have put it off -- because it drives her crazy.

We are repeatedly asked if we are having more kids. More than five kids? Look, let’s be clear about this. We have completely stopped worrying whether our kids will become productive members of society – now we're shooting for "Alive and not in jail by age 21." Anyway, for those of you out there wondering how many kids we are going to have, the answer was two.

At this point, it's a coin toss whether Sydney (5) grows up to be an angel or a devil. Her year can best be summed up by the following random statements she shared with me:
• I want piggytails when I play soccer so I can whack the boys with my hair.
• Theo is in my school and he's slobbering, and he's not even a dog.
• When I was 4, that was soooooo long ago.
• (While praying): Please help the good people to destroy the bad people.
• EMMA, I AM GOING TO KILL YOU!
We are uncertain whether those last two statements are related.

Maren (11) decided to join the school band, so Lara turned over her old flute. Maren was very excited. Lara felt bad that she didn't have more time to provide proper flute instruction. Later, Lara dutifully attended the school band concert, only to find out Maren had completely faked her way through by pretending to play, wiggling her head around and hammering away on the notes. She had spent several months trying, and failing, to make actual sound come out of it. If she'll fake band concert, what else will she fake? We took Maren, Stew, and Emma to Costa Rica in January. And the most memorable event for Maren did not involve a volcano, the beach, or beans and rice. It was some kind of crazy Latin American tick stuck on the top of her head under her bandana. (The picture shows a green frog – tick wasn’t that big.) Once she realized it was a tick, and that neither Lara nor I could get it out, she saw her very short life pass before her eyes. She must have thought it was going to bore into her brain like on Star Trek II - Wrath of Kahn. We eventually found a doctor late at night who removed it (privately referred to as the “Miracle of the Tick”), but for a while there Maren wondered if she'd ever see her next birthday.

Emma (9) had an eventful 2009 calendar. First plane ride ever; trip to Costa Rica; working the lunch crowd at the school cafeteria; getting baptized; and about 10 other exciting events. But the absolute best part of the year for her? Getting a swine flu shot. When Lara told the kids they were going in for shots, Emma did a couple of fist pumps and shouted "YES!" as if she'd just won the lottery. Our resident hypochondriac had been so worried about getting H1N1 that she enforced stringent hygiene measures at home, swore off all pork products, and considered swapping her early morning Spanish class for French -- just in case her teacher from Mexico might surreptitiously introduce H1N1 like a weapon of mass destruction. (And after Maren’s tick episode, Emma refused to wear any headbands until she verified that winter would have killed off any such bugs.)

Stewart (13) recently declared himself as having hit puberty. We have our doubts. His feet are smaller than his sister's and we've yet to see armpit hair. He has spent a good part of the year earning money, particularly through babysitting. But we are rethinking the babysitting. We came home to discover he was considering using hemorrhoid cream (not mine by the way) as an antibacterial medicine on his sister. He stated: "The tag said 'cool and soothing' but I couldn't figure out why it had such a long nozzle." Earlier this year, just as Citibank was reeling on the edge of bankruptcy, Stewart stepped in to become a lender of last resort at the junior high lunchroom. And in case it isn't clear, he's more loan shark than "community activist" when it comes to his loan terms. He made short term loans and then demanded repayment within 24 hours with 100% interest. He threw around terms like "compound interest," although he admitted privately he wasn't sure exactly what that meant. He even used the earned interest to make more loans. One kid who dared to renege on repayment lost his textbook for the day -- once Stewart heard the kid balk on repayment, he grabbed the kid's book and ran down the hall. He reported to Lara, "I just needed some collateral because that kid became a credit risk." With or without armpit hair, I suggest none of you borrow money from him.

Charlie (2) is now speaking. Last Christmas, Lara was worried he would not ever speak a word. Six months later, he started talking, but he was really only focused (ok, obsessed) with one word: "truck." And this was great. Hey, the kid was talking. But he couldn't pronounce "truck." He dropped the "tr" and replaced it with "F." And he said it a lot. Like 400 times a day. Let me be clear -- with me being a notable exception, nobody in this house had heard that word (probably including Lara) until Charlie started using it like it was his lucky word. And then he started experimenting with it. Trucking. Trucky. Truck! TRUCK! GO TRUCK!!! And then his aunt sent him a big yellow Tonka dumptruck. And he couldn't quite say "dump," so he said "dumb." And then he repeated, over and over and over, "dumptruck" "dumptruck" "DUMPTRUCK!!!" Only no TR. I am pretty sure he even shouted this at his sisters. Sydney, a kindergarten pronunciation guru, realized he was saying it wrong, so she started trying to correct him: "Charlie, it's not _______, it's TRUCK!" Before long, the entire clan was innocently dropping F bombs left and right. Charlie also introduced into the family lexicon the phrases "Holy Crap" (unfortunately learned from Stewart) and "Big Butt Catherine" (a reference to the next door neighbor who introduced him to the "Big Butt" insult). He also tore off his clothes, ran to the balcony, showed off his “physique,” yelled "I'M PEEING" and proceeded to do just that, between the wood slats and down to the floor below. Lara thinks he learned all this stuff from me.

As for Lara and me, we spent the summer trying to eliminate one task off Lara's eight page list: "Grass in Backyard." Lara gave me this "chore" one Saturday, as if it were the equivalent to taking out the garbage. And then, without my prior assent, she signed me up for a free "learn how to install sprinklers" class and handed me her hand-drawn, to scale, topographical map of the backyard. (For those of you who know Lara, you know exactly what I’m talking about.) I then spent the rest of the summer deconstructing complicated sprinkler diagrams, digging holes, trying to figure out which end was up on sprinkler parts, cutting pipe, gluing pipe, cursing because I had glued the wrong things together, and then repeating it all another 500 times. Every once in a while, Lara would open the backdoor, and me, expecting a nice cool lemonade, would look up at her, only to hear: "Are you sure that pipe is in the right place? I don't think that's where it's supposed to go. Were you paying attention in your sprinkler class? Have you been measuring? My grass better not die!" In the end it all worked and thanks to family, I got the sod down, but I still have a bunch of extra sprinkler doo-dads and I have no idea where they go.

One last item to show you how five kids have fried my mind. This is a transcript of an actual phone conversation between Lara and me. She had sent me to the dollar store to pick some things up. Keep in mind I'd never been to a dollar store and I was beyond aggravated when I got there.

Lara: Hey, what's up?
Me: You wouldn't believe this place. This STUPID store doesn't show ANY prices ANYWHERE! I HATE THIS PLACE!
Lara: Uh, Eric, it's a dollar store.

Awkward pause.

Lara: Eric. . . Everything costs one dollar. Everything.
Me: You're kidding.

And that’s why we can't have any more kids -- no more brain cells.

Merry Christmas from the Maxfields