Heart Man

In retrospect I guess you could say it was a mistake. I don't know what came over me in February and again in April. It's probably my allegiance, as a child, to Santa Claus and, now, to Jesus that made me do it. I just feel like I only have so much credibility with my kids. Personally I don't want to waste it on maintaining fake lore like The Easter Bunny or Jack Frost. My credit is leveraged 100% with Jesus and Joseph Smith. (And Santa is just too much fun not to buy into.)

As a kid I utterly believed in (and loved) Santa Claus until 4th grade when I found a pair of fake leather boots with zippers on the sides, Calabash jeans, and a maroon corduroy blazer stashed in a Babes to Boogies bag in my mom's closet shortly before Christmas. Whoa. That's when I came of age and began an apprenticeship with my older sister about unwrapping and re-wrapping--with surgical precision--every gift under the tree. This we did in order to kill time until Christmas morning when we would finally receive the Santa-Claus-stuff that we had already found [and tried on] in my mom's closet. It was wonderful! I love Christmas so much. Because I had so much invested in Christmas I never ever believed in the Easter Bunny. It just wasn't plausible. He would have to be human-sized to carry the Easter baskets. A regular bunny couldn't maneuver those things. Would he stand erect? Walking upright on two legs? It didn't add up.

I assumed my kids didn't buy it either. So on Easter morning I was just being funny and I said,"Guys, there's something I have to tell you. I am the Easter Bunny." They were shocked! They stopped talking and stared at me. Sam, my oldest, looked at me like, "How could you do that to the children? How could you!" The others were disappointed and surprised at how cavalier I was. It was almost as though the hours I [and not the Easter Bunny] had spent the night before sorting and counting candy, hiding Easter baskets and creating a separate webby yarn trail for each of them that led to their basket was all for naught.

I was just being funny on Valentine's Day, too. Since there is no real mascot for Valentine's Day I started singing this song I made up about Heart Man while the kids unloaded their Valentines. It's kind of a scary song--all minor chords--and I make my voice sort of evil when I sing it. You know, just some light-hearted holiday fun: "Heart Man, he comes in the night. Heart Man, you'll put up a fight." [And then you say "slice!" with accompanying hand actions.] They were asking me all about Heart Man and I was thinking that it really is fun to be with your kids and just talk and be creative. But uh, as it turns out-as I would find out at bedtime--they were actually quite frightened by my charming incarnation.

So there are some parenting mistakes for you to learn from. Free of charge! (Unless you click on my link to the LDS church, become a member, and start paying tithing--but who's counting!)