Paul's Heart

Growing Up Too Fast

I can still remember the days when both Madison and Emmalie were placed in our arms.  I have memories of every milestone, birthday, and every religious event (baptism, first communion, first bible).

In a grown up world, it is so easy to forget the most basic of needs, friendship.  Yes when we grow up, our priorities change, and for many of us, we allow friendships to drop clear off the roster.  We are able to manage small talk when we run into long lost friends of days long ago.  I have one friend from high school that I have kept in touch with all the years that we have known each other.  Thanks to social web sites like Facebook, I reunited with one of the first friends I made in a new high school that I moved to, and several other class mates.  There are several friends that I have been reunited with from my childhood.  It is unbelievable to think in decades as to the last time I saw many of my old friends.

As a parent, I know the day will come that I have to say “you’ll make lots of other friends” or “there will be other boys”.  But watching my two daughters and the friendships they have, without Facebook or I-phones, it is hard to believe that there will be others.  I have met couples who were high school sweet hearts.  Wedding receptions are popular places to hear speeches from Best Men and Maids Of Honor who pay tribute to their sandbox buddy or playground pal.

My daughters are social butterflies, popular among many ages in school.  They adapt well to change whether it be a new class with a new school year, or new students in their karate class.  Both girls value the most important trait of a friend, loyalty, almost to a fault.  It took Madison a little bit of time in the beginning to realize that she could have more than one friend at a time.  Emmalie does not want to offend any of her friends by inviting only one friend over for play time.  But they love their friends.  They want to share toys with their friends.  Give them news that a friend may be sleeping over, or we are making a group trip, they will go without sleep or food until the day arrives.

A long way from dating, both girls still know the word “marriage”.and what it means.  Both are friends with a set of fraternal twins and have been unbelievable for five years already.  Though initially it came as a shock to even hear the words marriage and husband from Madison, I have grown accustome to its harmlessness and even at her young age, often find myself wondering, “what if”.

And so it goes that a little over four years ago, I learned that Madison was married to one half of her twin friends.  It was during a karate birthday party when the Sensei was leading the group of then 6 year olds in some simple self defense moves, when he decided to use one of the guests of honor.  Out of the blue, Madison runs out of nowhere and starts attacking the man with the second degree blackbelt and screaming at the Sensei “LEAVE MY HUSBAND ALONE!!!”  Immediately, a hush fell over the entire studio, so I know that I was not the only one who knew what he heard.  I walked over to Wendy in a reluctant stride as I had not even been aware that Madison had any kind of liking of a particular friend, let alone a life-time commitment.  There have been plenty of moments when Madison has defended her commitment and reminded the boy of his.

There are so many memories of the twins and my daughters over the years.  Just yesterday, they attended a “Breakfast With Santa” together in what might just possibly be Madison’s last “believing” experience.  It has become somewhat of a ritual to poke fun at the two of them over this “relationship”, but they are truly best friends.  There is never a time that I can imagine them not being involved in each others life in some form or another.  They now attend different elementary schools, and will attend different middle schools, but if they stay in touch with each other, which will happen for the unseeable future, they will attend high school with each other.  And if their friendships are able to survive their college years, who knows what can happen?  But just in case…

  I will make sure that this is the first Christmas card they send out.

      But this is what genuine and innocent friendship looks like.

There are so many stories about these two children.  So many to share with them in their future.  Emmalie is no different with her friends though I hope it is a long while before she mentions any big words like marriage, even in play.

  They grow up so fast that it is scary.

Santa’s Last Christmas

While I am kind of known as a “scrooge” type individual around the holidays, contrary to this belief, one of the great joys that I get, is watching the expressions on my daughter’s faces when it comes to the fat man in red.  From the anticipation of the season, to the race home from relatives on the night before Christmas, culminating in the ability to focus on what will be their favorite gift, the excitement is genuine.

I have countless memories of the last eight Christmas’s in particular.  During a visit with Santa, a newpaper reporter had taken a photograph of Emmalie stopping and staring at a white glove whose finger was pointed at her making sure that she was being a good girl.

Then there were the shrieks that came from the girls’ bedroom as they spotted Santa Claus jumping up and down on our diving board of our pool.

The girls were never disappointed to come downstairs and see that Santa had enjoyed the cookies and milk (although for some reason, some beer had gone missing from my refrigerator as well – it appears he like Molson Ice), and of course, the reindeer gobbled up all the baby carrots.

For the first several years, as a way to “prove” there was a Santa, Wendy had videotaped and took photos of the big man in the house.  The girls have never figured out how Santa never spotted Mommy.  The first Christmas was just Madison.  And the tradition of Santa visiting our house had begun.  Close to 2am when I knew Madison was truly asleep (fortunately she loves her sleep and is good at it), I put on the suit.  Upstairs I went with a gift in hand to put under her tree in her bedroom.  I gave her a small kiss on the forehead and headed back downstairs and played with our golden retriever for the camera.  Then I dug into the goodies.  Everything was caught on film.

So the next morning, Madison woke up all excited as Santa had left her a present under her little Christmas tree in her room.  She recalled him even giving her a kiss on her head.  We then went downstair and she screamed in delight when she saw all the snacks demolished with a thank you note from Santa and a footprint signature of Rudolph.  I then suggested to Madison that we check the cameras to see what might have been captured.

We are going through the photos and Madison cannot believe her eyes.  There he is.  Santa was in her house.  Then we hooked up the video camera to the TV.  Her mouth wide open, the camera showed Santa walking in all the areas of the house and even showed Pollo and he having a great time.  They were best pals, amazingly so.

For some reason, the camera zoomed out and now Santa’s full figure was in plain view.  Immediately something caught Madison’s eyes.  “Hey Daddy!  Ho Ho is wearing your sneakers!”  It seems that my carelessness that evening, feeling that at 2am that I did not need to worry about footware, which the costume definitely came with, was exposed.  Forget Santa.  Forget everything special that occurred that night.  Little Madison Marcos noticed that Santa had the same size shoe as me, and was wearing my sneakers.

“Well maybe Madison, Santa’s boots were too dirty from the chimney, and he took them off, and saw my sneakers by the fireplace and put them on to deliver your presents.”  Unsure of why she should believe me, she took my story and accepted it.

Santa has existed for eight years in our house.  This is probably going to be the last year because of a couple of jerks in her class who have decided to convince Madison that Santa is not real.

Of course, next year will be taught just exactly “what” Santa Clause really is and that he will exist forever in her heart because she is just like him.