Is Lou on Santa's Naughty List?

In the interest of time, both mine and yours, let’s just cut to the chase here. 

On Saturday morning, Lou ate 23 of the 24 pieces of chocolate in his Trader Joe’s advent calendar. Which is to say that he ate all of it, since he’d had his first piece the day before, on the first day of December.

Twenty-three pieces of chocolate.

Which was definitely not his intent when he woke up that morning. He was actually pretty proud of his advent calendar and he fully understood the systematic procedure of only ingesting one piece per day, in grateful, holy anticipation of the birth of the Messiah. Makes perfect sense to me, a 40 year-old, so of course it makes sense to 4 year-old Lou.

When I came down that morning, Lou, full of pride, reported to me, “Mom! I already ate my piece of chocolate for today!”

“Wait,” Sam had said, interjecting himself into Lou’s very spiritual and sugar-fied awaiting of Christ. “Where is Lou’s advent calendar?”

The other kids, per tradition, always prop their calendars on the buffet in the dining room. Lou does what he wants, so he stored his in his room, on his bookshelf. I was thrilled about it, fearing mice and ants, but whatever, who has the energy to argue with him?

“It’s in his room,” I replied. I hadn’t had my coffee yet, so my brain couldn’t predict what was about to happen.

“In his room?” Nate questioned. As the oldest, he knows the “no food upstairs” policy pretty well.

“I want to see it!” Sam called out, and immediately, all four kids went scrambling up the steps to Lou’s room to see the $1.99 advent calendar that, at that moment, housed 22 pieces of chocolate.

This sent Lou into a panic. As the youngest child, he knows well enough to protect his valuables. If the roles were reversed, he would absolutely be raiding the older kids’ advent calendars. Any time something goes missing in our house, whether it’s Sam’s prized Lego build, the good scissors, or a part to the brand-new vacuum cleaner, Lou is almost always the culprit.

He tried to surge ahead of them, beating them to his treasure. 

“I just want to see it!” I heard Sam yell.

“NO!” There was shrieking and scuffling and banging and profanity, and a few minutes later, they all returned downstairs.

“Lou just ate all his chocolate,” Sam shrugged, smirking a little at the calamity he had caused.

“All 23 pieces?!!” I was incredulous. “It’s all gone?”

“Yep!”

And the chocolate smeared around Lou’s lips pretty much confirmed it. 

Nate brought down the shredded cardboard pieces to the advent calendar. “Mom! He really ate all of it!”

He was practically doubled over laughing. 

I was not.

I should mention here that Tighe is away for three days for his annual silent retreat. Which is just what it sounds like. Three days in near luxurious accommodations—he says it’s nicer than a hotel—where he doesn’t have to talk to anyone, is never bothered by anyone. He can think and listen and read and go for walks and stare at a wall all day long.

We were about to leave for Tess’s basketball game, then right to Sam’s game, and then we were going to shop for the adopt-a-family Christmas gifts we had signed up for. So we had a few hours out of the house ahead of us, and I knew that that much chocolate inside a 4 year-old body would need to come out somehow. And in the process, there would surely be cramping and stomach aches and a sugar high and a sugar crash. Which probably meant whining, discomfort, hyperactivity, misbehavior, and more whining before it all exited his system, either through one end of his body or the other, if you know what I mean.

And all of that happened, just as I predicted. He wrestled with Nate on the floor at Tess’s game, cried about things that wouldn’t normally bother him at Sam’s game, spent about 10 minutes pooping in a public restroom, and when we got home a few hours later, he crashed on a beanbag chair in the basement watching a show with Sam. 

Remember that Tighe was away, so as the single mom in the situation, it was grueling. But I knew we just needed to get through it; it would pass. And throughout, I offered an excessive number of mini lectures about why too much candy first thing in the morning—or any time really—is bad.

But that’s not even the whole story. Nor the best part. By which I obviously mean, the WORST part.

At 4pm, we went to mass. Like good pseudo-Catholics.

I had been coordinating the first grade stewardship project, which entailed wrangling a group of first graders after weekend masses to have them hand out flyers about a winter coat drive. 

So, in other words, we HAD to go to mass. 

And apparently the chocolate was still working its way through Lou. It was, hands down, the worst mass behavior I’d ever seen from him. Which is saying a lot. 

I’ll skip all the gory details, but at one point he was repeatedly zipping and unzipping my sweatshirt so that I was practically flashing the other parishioners. Nate was altar serving, so he was sitting on the far side of the altar, next to the priest. Sam and Tess, meanwhile, were trying to “help” corral Lou, but they were only making it worse. Even the rationalizations and threats that usually reign him in were not working. I tried “Santa’s watching” as a last resort, and it didn’t faze him.

Finally, just before communion, I couldn’t take it anymore, so I grabbed our jackets and shoved Tess, Lou, and Sam, out of the sanctuary. It was almost time to position ourselves to pass out the flyers anyway, and I can’t imagine that anyone seated near us was sad to see us go.

So, we went out into the lobby, where there's always a small group of parents and babies who’ve removed themselves from the quiet sanctuary. I sent Lou to the corner by the fireplace where there’s a basket of children’s books while I organized the small group of kids who were helping to pass out flyers. As I dispatched them to their posts by the front doors, I lost track of Lou.

I knew he’d sulk for a while. 

Then I saw him hiding under the giant table in the very center of the narthex. There was a small toddler, probably about a year old, crawling under the table with him, supervised by his dad. Sure that the first graders had their mission under control, I kept my eye on him for a split second longer than I normally would have.

Which is when I saw him flip off the baby. 

As in, he gave the middle finger.

Flipped the bird.

The MIDDLE FINGER. 

To a BABY.

I didn’t even know how to begin to discipline that move. I wasn’t sure if the baby’s dad saw the obscene gesture or not, but I definitely did.

I hooked my hand around his elbow and dragged his body along the tile floor out from under the table.

“Did you just flip off a baby?” I said, propping him up on the fireplace hearth.

“He was tryin’ to follow me!” he said, as if the injustice of it all was so obvious and egregious.

“Sit there and don’t move.”

And he didn’t. 

I spent the remainder of the night trying to make him feel shame and remorse, then wondering aloud if he was on Santa’s naughty or nice list. It was very theatrical.

And then, around 1am, he awoke crying that his ear hurt. When he awoke a second time, less than an hour later, I was convinced that the pain must be legitimate, so I gave him some ibuprofen and sent him back to bed. 

The next morning, a trip to urgent care confirmed: ear infection. 

In the car on the way home, I asked him, “Lou, when did your ear start hurting? Was it in the middle of the night? Or was it at mass?”

Perhaps he could hear the hopefulness in my voice or perhaps he just saw where I was leading him with my questions, but he went with it. 

“Ohhhhh, now I remember!” he concluded with that classic Lou confidence. “It was hurtin’ during mass and so I was mad and that’s why I flipped off the baby!”

“Yes, I think so, too.”

At least I hoped so. Please dear God in Heaven, let there be a “valid” reason that Lou flipped off a baby at church other than that I’m a bad parent and Lou’s a terrible sociopath. 

Happy Advent indeed.