Scott's First Christmas

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In the town of Normal, Pennsylvania, there’s a little church at the corner of Wilson and Elm.  Carrie Winslow and her husband Carlos Lopez moved in with Carrie’s parents, church members Del and Karen Winslow, a year and a half ago when the company they worked for went under.  In that time, Carrie gave birth to her first child, Scott. 

In early December, Carrie and Carlos sat Del and Karen down to deliver some big news.  They were planning to go to Carlos’s parents’ house in Cincinnati for Scott’s first Christmas.  The other set of grandparents was eager to get a little time with the lad. 

Karen went pale at this announcement.  It would be the first time Carrie had not spent Christmas with her parents since she was born.  Taking Scott away as well just added salt to the wound.  Carlos…well, Karen liked Carlos but he wasn’t quite in the same league as her daughter and grandson.  Karen put on a brave smile, but the tear that ran down her cheek gave her away.

Carrie saw her mom’s face and quickly assured her they would all partake in every Christmas activity Normal had to offer until time for the young family to depart.  And she was true to her word.  She posted a special holiday calendar on the fridge to keep track of all the once-in-a-lifetime family Christmas events.  

The truth was Carrie’s plan to fill the month with holiday activities was not just for Karen’s benefit.  Carrie wanted Scott’s first Christmas to be perfect.  She had some deep-seated fear that somehow he would miss out on a defining holiday experience that would haunt him for life. However, at ten months old, Scott did not always grasp what all the fuss was about.

So Del and Karen went along when Carrie and Carlos took Scott to the mall to sit on Santa’s lap.  Scott cried the entire time.

And Del and Karen went along when Carrie and Carlos took Scott to a local farm that was offering Christmas hayrides.  Scott spent the ride trying to eat the hay.

Del and Karen also went along when Carrie and Carlos took Scott on a drive to see Christmas decorations.  Scott never looked out the window, absorbed as he was by a talking teddy bear.

Then Carrie and Carlos purchased a seven-foot tall Christmas tree that they decorated with Del and Karen in the living room on a Saturday afternoon.  Scott slept through the whole activity.

Karen dutifully recorded each of these events with her digital camera.  Among the thousand or so pictures she took, she managed to find a dozen where it appeared that Scott was actually in the Christmas spirit.  Those were printed and added to his baby book.

Carrie, Carlos and Scott were scheduled to leave three days before Christmas.  Two days before their departure, Karen set a couple of presents under the tree for Scott.  She sighed and looked at Carrie.  “I guess we won’t get to see him open these.  Take pictures for us.”

“I have an idea,” Carrie said.  “Why don’t we have our Christmas morning right before we leave.  Scott can open his presents from you and Dad then so you won’t miss out.  He can open some of ours, too…we bought him over a dozen things.  There’ll still be plenty of gifts for him to open in Cincinnati.”

So bright and early on December 22nd Del and Karen and Carrie and Carlos and Scott gathered around the Christmas tree to open presents.  For Karen and Carrie it was a bittersweet experience.  Del mostly struggled to stay awake.  The intense schedule of activities had worn him out.  Scott seemed to have a good time opening the gifts, though he was more interested in the wrapping paper than the contents.  And then Carrie and Carlos and Scott left for Cincinnati.

On Christmas Day Del and Karen woke up a bit after nine.  “It’s been a long time since we got to sleep in this late,” Del noted.

“Not since Scott was born,” Karen said with a sigh.

They ate breakfast and opened their gifts to each other.  About that time, Carrie and Carlos called from Cincinnati.  Karen did an admirable job of feigning cheerfulness.

Del may not have been the most sensitive guy in the world but he’d been married to Karen a long time and knew how she was really feeling.  When they hung up he offered to go make her some hot chocolate.  It seemed to help.

About midmorning Karen went into the kitchen to make their traditional Christmas feast of standing rib roast and rhubarb pie.  It was more than the two of them really needed, but both felt the custom especially important this year.  When it was ready she asked Del to set the table.

“Use the good china,” she said.

“Huh,” Del said.  “Another thing we haven’t done since Scott was born.  While we’re at it, maybe we should open a bottle of red wine.”

That elicited the first real smile from Karen all day.

During the meal they found themselves talking about literature and current events.  By the time they finished their pie, Del could tell Karen was actually beginning to appreciate a day with just the two of them, even if it was Christmas.

Then a jazzy song came on the radio.  “Would you like to dance?” Del asked.

“Really?” Karen said.

“There’s nobody to stop us.”  Del stood and extended his hand.  Karen took it and they danced, Del spinning and dipping her through three songs.  She laughed so hard she cried.

“Enough,” she finally gasped.  “I’m not as young as I used to be.”

“You look plenty young to me,” Del said with a lascivious wink.  “Why don’t you rest up while I clear the table.”

Del was loading the dishwasher when Karen called to him from the family room where the computer was.  “Carrie emailed photos of Scott opening his presents this morning.”

Del peeked in and saw Karen’s wet eyes as she clicked through the pictures.

“Someone needs to teach Carlos’s parents how to use a camera,” she muttered.   “These are terrible.”

Oh well, Del thought.  Grown up Christmas was good while it lasted.

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The Runaway

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In the town of Normal, Pennsylvania, there’s a little church at the corner of Wilson and Elm.  Eight months ago church members Carlos and Carrie Lopez had their first child, a beautiful boy named Scott.  Recently, Scott learned to crawl.  This elicited a variety of emotions in the young parents.

Both were of course delighted to see their child reach this milestone.  But in Carrie this delight was mixed with dread over all the new dangers her precious baby would now be exposed to.  Carlos and Carrie were living with Carrie’s parents, Del and Karen Winslow.  Minutes after Scott first pulled himself three feet forward to reach a favored toy, Carrie raced to the store to acquire two large bags of baby-proofing devices.

Del was quite amused watching Carrie spend the next few days ensuring that every corner, door, drawer and liquid was covered or locked down.  He followed her around telling stories about the trouble she got into when she first started crawling back in the days before all those fancy safety gadgets.  His intention was to reassure her that everything would inevitably turn out okay, but the tales of Carrie’s young brushes with injury had the opposite effect on his daughter.

Carlos’s delight was not tinged with anxiety so much as exhaustion.  His job while Carrie was baby-proofing was to wrangle Scott manually away from any danger.  Once Scott realized that he was now able to move about the house unassisted he took maximum advantage of the skill.  And Scott turned out to be a natural speedster.  It was all Carlos could do to keep up with him.

That Sunday the Winslow’s trooped off to church.  Del was in the choir and Karen taught Sunday school.  Carlos, Carrie and Scott took their usual place in the back pew, which had extra room to accommodate strollers.

Now that he could crawl Scott’s patience for being strapped into a stroller or car seat was extremely limited.  Once the little family was settled and the service started, he began to get fidgety.  Carlos took Scott out of the stroller and held him on his lap, hoping that would calm the little guy.  It did not.

As the offertory began Carlos allowed Scott to crawl up and down the pew.  Scott was pleased with this solution but Carrie was not.  She elbowed Carlos and hissed, “What are you doing?  He could fall off.”

So Carlos set Scott down on the floor.  It seemed a reasonable idea in the moment, but one he would quickly regret.

From little Scott’s perspective, the carpet stretched out in a broad plain populated by people’s legs and roofed by the pews.  It looked like a fascinating place to explore.  And so that’s what he did.

From Carrie and Carlos’s perspective, their baby had just vanished under the pew in front of them.

Carrie immediately dropped to her hands and knees.  But she was too slow – Scott was already three rows away.  Carrie wriggled after him, but while little Scott could easily crawl under the pews Carrie had to follow on her belly.  Even so, she banged her head several times.

Carlos meanwhile scrambled out to the side aisle to pursue his child.  He got there just as head usher Ralph Billings was coming by with the offering plate.  They nearly collided, then did a little dance to maneuver around each other.  Though the delay was only a few seconds, it allowed Scott to extend his lead by several more rows.

Carrie almost caught Scott when he stopped to investigate Missy Moore’s purse, which was sitting on the floor.  He pulled the purse over, spilling out the contents.  Missy looked down in time to see Scott crawl after a silver pen that was rolling toward the front of the sanctuary.  A moment later Carrie lunged out from under the pew, her fingers missing Scott’s heels by an inch.

Carrie felt several sharp pricks in her hands and arms.  She lifted them to discover she’d been skewered by thumbtacks that had spilled from Missy’s purse.  She looked up at Missy and asked, “Who carries thumbtacks in their purse?”  Missy sputtered, still trying to comprehend exactly what was happening down there under the pews.  Carrie didn’t wait for an answer.  She scrambled after Scott, ignoring the pain.

Quite a few other members of the congregation were startled when a baby crawled past their legs, followed soon after by a slithering young woman.  Some inadvertently stepped on Carrie’s fingers, though miraculously none impeded Scott’s progress in any way.

Once the offering was collected, the congregation stood and sang the Doxology as the ushers brought the plates up the center aisle to the altar.  Out in the side aisle Carlos had gotten parallel to Scott and could see him crawling relentlessly forward in the middle of the pews.

Carlos jogged ahead to intercept the baby.  He selected a pew to make his move just as the congregation was sitting back down.  With no time for elaborate explanations he climbed over eighty-six-year-old Donald East.  But he tripped on Donald’s cane and fell face first into Seventy-year-old Henrietta Miggins’s lap.

“While I never!” Henrietta hissed.

Carlos mumbled an incoherent explanation as Scott cruised past between Henrietta’s legs.  Carlos made a belated grab for the child, but missed.  He scrambled back out to the side aisle ignoring Henrietta’s indignant glare.

Normally the ushers left the offertory plates on the altar, but today was a communion Sunday and the altar held the bread cubes and thimble size glasses of grape juice for the ceremony later in the service.  So they took the offering plates with them as they returned to the back of the church.

Next up on the program was special music.  As it happened this Sunday’s special music was a solo performed by Del, accompanied by organist Walter Tibble.  Del came out of the choir area and stood at the front of the chancel.  At his nod, Walter began to play.  Del closed his eyes and sang, unaware that Scott had just crawled out from the front of the pews. 

Little Scott looked up and saw grandpa singing.  Scott liked grandpa.  So he headed that way.

Scott struggled up the two steps to the chancel.  Of course by this point the entire congregation could see the runaway baby.  But nobody quite knew how to respond to the situation.

As Scott clambered up the final step to the chancel he became distracted by the shiny gold trays holding the communion sacraments.  His attention span was pretty short at this stage of his mental development.  Scott crawled to the altar, grasped the crisp white cloth covering it, and pulled himself up to standing.  Standing unassisted was a skill he had not yet mastered.

Scott didn’t weigh much, but he weighed enough that when he tugged on the cloth it started to slide.  And as the cloth slid it brought the communion trays to the edge of the altar.  The congregation gasped in unison at the impending disaster.

Del heard the gasps and opened his eyes.  He knew he was a good vocalist but couldn’t see any reason why he should elicit such a reaction mid-song.  When he discovered everyone’s gaze was fixed on a point behind him, he turned around.

The communion trays tipped precariously above Scott as he wobbled, clinging to the altar cloth.  Without missing a note, Del stepped back and scooped the baby into his arms.  Then he calmly stepped forward again and launched into the next verse as Scott squirmed and gurgled and tugged at the collar of Del’s choir robe.

When the song was over Del handed the infant to Carlos and Carrie who were waiting anxiously at the edge of the chancel.  Carrie hugged Scott tightly, a tear trickling down her face.

Del chuckled to himself as he returned to his seat.  “New parents,” he thought.  “They panic so easily.”

Breakfast in Bed

Note to my readers: If you follow this blog regularly you may notice that I am not scheduled to publish a story this week. This is a special "bonus" story in honor of Mother's Day. And it is dedicated, of course, to my mother. Love you, Mom!

Hear the story read by the author

In the town of Normal, Pennsylvania, there’s a little church at the corner of Wilson and Elm. Karen Winslow has taught Sunday school there for many years. And every year on Mother’s Day Karen’s daughter Carrie provides breakfast in bed for her mother before they go to church.

The tradition started when Carrie was three years old. The first breakfast was cold cereal and orange juice that little Carrie prepared with the help of her father, Del. As Carrie grew older she tried to make more complex breakfasts. However Carrie seemed to have inherited Del’s ineptitude in the kitchen instead of her mother’s expertise. After enduring rubbery, slightly greenish eggs when Carrie was eight, blackened French toast that tasted strangely of garlic when Carrie was ten, and pancakes that required a steak knife to cut when Carrie was thirteen, Karen remembered the days of cold cereal with longing.

All that changed when Carrie got her driver’s license. Unable to face her arch nemesis, the stove, one more time, Carrie instead woke up at five in the morning to drive to a bakery in the town of Tenor Falls thirty miles away. There she purchased a bag of hot, fresh cinnamon rolls.

These were no ordinary cinnamon rolls. They were buttery, flaky, melt-in-your-mouth cinnamon delights. They were the one commercially purchased baked good that Karen acknowledged as superior to what she produced in her own kitchen. Upon tasting them for the first time during a family road trip, Karen half seriously suggested they move to Tenor Falls just to be able to enjoy the treats on a more regular basis.

Needless to say the cinnamon rolls were the best Mother’s Day breakfast Karen had ever had. So the following year Carrie did it again. And thus a tradition was born. With her father’s help, Carrie managed to keep the tradition up even after moving to Cincinnati for college and after marrying a handsome young man named Carlos Lopez.

This year Carrie was back in Normal. Carrie and Carlos had moved in with Del and Karen after the company they worked for in Cincinnati went bankrupt. And this Mother’s Day would be different for the Winslow family due to an even more significant event:

Carrie had recently become a mom herself.

A few months earlier She had given birth to little Scott Lopez. Scott was too young yet to grasp the significance of the holiday, of course, but Carlos was not about to let Carrie’s first Mother’s Day as a mother go by without an extravagant celebration. When Carlos learned of Carrie’s plan to wake up before dawn and drive forty minutes each way to buy cinnamon rolls he had to intervene.

“You should sleep in,” Carlos insisted. “I’ll make breakfast for both you and your mother.”

Now Carlos was an excellent cook, but to Carrie the best part of his proposal was the sleeping in. At this stage in his brief life, Scott rarely slept more than four hours in a row. Carrie could no longer remember a time when she wasn’t exhausted.

So the next morning after feeding Scott at 5 am, Carrie went back to sleep while Carlos took Scott and went down to the kitchen to whip up a spinach quiche.

Carlos sat Scott in his infant chair on the counter while he worked. He made a crust, mixed the filling, scrubbed the floor after Scott knocked the mixing bowl off the counter, mixed more filling, poured the filling into the crust, slid it into the oven and set the timer for fifty minutes. Then he took Scott out to the living room and lay down on the couch. As a good modern husband Carlos shared equally in the childcare duties, which meant he was just as exhausted as Carrie. So whenever he had a few minutes he grabbed a quick nap.

He was awakened not by the oven timer but by Scott’s crying. Carlos leapt off the couch and scooped Scott out of his infant chair. “Shh,” he cooed to the baby. “Don’t wake Mommy up. We’re letting her sleep in for Mother’s Day.”

The cause of Scott’s unhappiness resided just where Carlos suspected it would – in his diaper. Carlos glanced at the oven timer. He still had ten minutes. He whisked Scott into Del’s den, which had been temporarily converted into a nursery.

Carlos unfastened the sticky tabs on the dirty diaper, disposed of it in a magical contraption whose inventor Carlos would have recommended for a Nobel Prize, and cleaned Scott off with a baby wipe. He was just placing a fresh diaper under Scott’s bottom when the boy decided he hadn’t quite finished what he’d started in the last diaper. Carlos sighed. This was not an unprecedented event.

And that’s when he heard the oven timer go off in the kitchen.

Carlos shifted into high gear. He quickly stripped off the newly soiled diaper. But in his haste one of the sticky tabs brush against Scott’s onesie where the adhesive grabbed onto the cotton and pulled it toward the danger zone. Carlos yanked the dirty diaper free but it was too late – the onesie was now soiled.

Carlos peeled the onesie off, disposed of the second diaper and reached for more baby wipes.

The container was empty.

Now Carlos was beginning to panic. He found a fresh container of wipes in the cupboard but when he returned to his son he discovered that for a person who hadn’t yet learned to roll over, Scott had somehow spread the mess across his entire lower body.

Carlos disposed of another half container of wipes frantically scrubbing his son clean. But Scott demonstrated his emotional bond with his father by feeding off Carlos’s frenzy. As Carlos tried to affix a new diaper, the baby pinwheeled his little legs like he was riding a bicycle. This made the task considerably more difficult. Carlos had to redo the diaper three times before it was secured properly.

By the time he ran back into the kitchen and deposited Scott in the bouncy chair there was a distinct acrid smell in the air. He opened the oven door and his shoulders slumped as he saw the blackened top of the quiche.

Del wandered into the kitchen and looked over Carlos’s shoulder. “That doesn’t look right,” Del said.

“I burnt it,” Carlos moaned.

“Maybe you can scrape the burned stuff off,” Del said. He was used to having to do such surgery on the rare occasions when he tried to make food himself.

“No, no,” Carlos replied, pulling himself together. “It’s no good. I’ll make French toast instead.”

Del shrugged and got himself a cup of coffee as Carlos started his new culinary project. Del retrieved the newspaper from the front step and retreated to the garage, which had replaced the den as his personal refuge since Scott’s arrival.

This time Carlos had finished the breakfast and had it all set out on two trays, one for Karen and one for Carrie, before Scott started crying. He checked Scott’s diaper but it was empty. This was just one of those mysterious bouts of unhappiness that babies seemed to have regularly.

Carlos covered the trays to keep them warm and took Scott back into the den. He sat in the rocking chair and rocked his son gently. Scott stopped crying after a few moments and drifted off to sleep. By that time Carlos had also fallen asleep.

That’s where Carrie found them when she came downstairs an hour later wondering what had become of her breakfast in bed. Carlos was snoring lightly with Scott on his chest. Carrie’s heart welled with love as she observed the tender tableau.

Karen came up behind her and smiled. “Happy Mother’s Day,” Karen said.

“You too, Mom,” Carrie replied and squeezed Karen’s hand.

The two women went into the kitchen and discovered the French toast, now cold and unappealing.

“Guess we’re having cereal,” Carrie said with a smile.

“Not necessarily,” Del said from behind them. They turned to see him standing in the door holding a bag of cinnamon rolls. “The kid looked like he might need a back up plan.” Del dropped the bag on the table and headed out of the room, calling back over his shoulder, “remember this on Father’s Day.”

The two mothers sat down together at the kitchen table and enjoyed their cinnamon rolls while they discussed the joys and tribulations of raising kids.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Baby Music

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In the town of Normal, Pennsylvania, there’s a little church at the corner of Wilson and Elm. Church member Carrie Winslow recently gave birth to a baby boy named Scott. Last Sunday she and her husband Carlos brought Scott to church for the first time.

Carrie was not known for her punctuality, but this Sunday morning she made sure to leave extra early. Having a newborn meant every trip took roughly three times as long as it had before and she didn’t want to disrupt the service by entering in the middle.

Thanks to her foresight, she wheeled the stroller bearing her bundle of joy into the sanctuary seven whole minutes before service was scheduled to start. Carlos staggered behind, loaded down with close to a dozen bags of baby accoutrements that together weighed half as much as a small automobile.

Young Scott Winslow was greeted like a rock star by several of the women of the church. Associate Pastor Michelle Tellum was the first to run up, squealing in delight.

Michelle was twenty-eight and loved kids. Every time she saw one her biological clock started spinning like a merry-go-round. She crouched down in front of the stroller and began making nonsensical cooing sounds.

Missy Moore, a bubbly forty-four year-old single woman, soon joined her. Jill Boyer crowded in next to them. Jill had two daughters of her own. After each was born she swore she would never have another child. But the sight of an infant dispelled all recollection of those vows and she started dreaming about how nice it would be to have another baby of her own.

Seventy year-old Henrietta Miggins passed by the crowd. She paused only briefly to note the cause of the commotion before moving on to her seat. Henrietta was not the kind of person to get caught up in the sort of rock star fervor Scott had engendered.

Carrie watched the chorus of cooing women for a few minutes. Finally she cleared her throat and said, “Well, I better get seated. Service is going to start soon.”

That reminded Pastor Michelle that she was actually leading service that morning. She rushed up the aisle toward the pulpit. However Henrietta intercepted her ten yards from the chancel. “May I have a word, pastor?” Henrietta said.

“It’s time to start the service,” Michelle protested.

“It’s actually one minute past time,” Henrietta replied. “However I think you ought to tell that Winslow girl that babies do not belong in church.”

“Oh, I disagree,” Michelle said. “Children need to feel welcome here or they won’t come back as adults.”

“Babies are a distraction,” Henrietta huffed. “When you’ve had a little more experience you’ll understand.”

Michelle felt her blood boil at the dig but had no time for an argument. “We’ll discuss this later,” she said, then dodged around Henrietta and up into the chancel.

Meanwhile, Carrie, Carlos and Scott had set up camp in the last pew on the left hand side of the sanctuary. They picked that location because that was where Carlos had collapsed under the weight of the baby gear.

The back left section of the church proved popular that morning. Jill and her husband Kevin secured seats at the right end of the pew just in front of the Winslows where Jill could peer into the stroller by leaning back slightly.

“Isn’t he cute?” Jill said to her husband.

“Sure,” Kevin replied. He actually thought the baby looked like some kind of overcooked turnip. It wasn’t Scott in particular – Kevin thought all babies resembled vegetables more than humans. But he had learned to keep that particular view to himself ever since a certain three-day argument he and Jill had shortly after the birth of their daughter Susie.

Michelle managed to get the service started only four minutes late. Scott slept through most of it, waking up just as Michelle launched into her sermon. About a minute later he began to fuss. The fussing was loud enough that Carrie thought she better take the baby outside.

Up in the pulpit Michelle saw Carrie getting up. Michelle glanced down at Henrietta who had a smug I-told-you-so smile on her face. The smile annoyed Michelle a lot more then the fussy baby.

“Carrie, you don’t have to leave,” Michelle said. Carrie looked up, startled. “Please, stay,” Michelle continued. “Babies’ cries are like the music of life. And let’s not forget that Jesus said, ‘let the little children come to me’ when He was teaching.”

Carrie sat back down and Michelle continued the sermon. Carrie tried rocking and bouncing Scott, but his cries just grew louder. Michelle increased her own volume to match. Meanwhile Henrietta’s smile grew more and more smug.

As appreciative as Carrie was for Michelle’s kind words, she thought even the music of life could grow tiresome at this volume. She started to get up again, but Michelle caught her eye and shook her head sharply. Carrie sat back down.

Scott continued to explore the power of his little lungs. Slowly the crowd around Carrie began to shift away from her, cramming into the far ends of the pews. Eighty-six year-old Donald East turned off his hearing aids. Henrietta simply enjoyed watching Michelle shout desperately into the microphone.

Michelle wrapped up her sermon early – not because of the baby, she told herself, but because they’d gotten a late start. As soon as Michelle announced the closing hymn, Carrie bolted for the door with Scott. The entire congregation breathed a sigh of relief.

By the time everyone adjourned to the Social Hall for coffee hour, Scott was happily dozing again and his entourage of admirers had returned.

Kevin collected his daughters Mary and Susie from Sunday school. They came up to the Social Hall to find Jill holding little Scott with a look of bliss Kevin had not seen from her in a long time. Susie ran up to her mother waving a piece of paper.

“Mommy, mommy,” Susie shouted, “look what I made!”

Jill felt Scott start to squirm in her arms and quickly shushed Susie. “I’ll look later. I’m holding Carrie’s baby right now.”

“Come on, Susie,” Kevin said. “Let’s go get some juice.” Susie shuffled off with him to the refreshment table, then found a spot on a couch next to Henrietta Miggins.

“Where’s your mother?” Henrietta asked sharply. She didn’t care for the company of toddlers any more than she did the company of infants.

“Holding the baby,” Susie replied. “I don’t like it.”

“The baby?” Henrietta asked.

“Yes,” Susie said.

“Me either,” Henrietta grunted.

“Want to see the picture I drewed?” Susie asked.

“Sure,” Henrietta said. Despite her aversion to toddlers this one didn’t seem too bad. Susie handed her the drawing and an unfamiliar warmth grew in Henrietta’s seventy-year-old heart.

Then Susie spilled her juice down the side of Henrietta’s leg.

The following Sunday Carrie took Scott directly to the nursery.