Sorry Santa!

Dear Santa,

Oh no!  It seems that I placed you in a very precarious predicament this year...  I suppose I should explain.

You see, my son likes to talk A LOT!  He's especially a little chatterbox first thing in the morning, but this energy can carry over to the afternoon, late evening, and even in between gulping down his dinner.

With my "working mom" schedule in the mornings, I don't have much time to make us breakfast, get ourselves dressed, pack our lunches, and take Lewie to preschool before I get to work.  I'll be the first one to admit that I am not good at multi-tasking.  It's the running joke in my family that I don't "hear" a lot of things that are said to me if I'm in the middle of doing something.  My brain just doesn't work that way.  I either need to give you my full, undivided attention, or else my brain is somewhere else...

I like to give Lewie my full, undivided attention, but in the mornings, I just can't.  (Answering his questions often puts me behind schedule because I do things like stop making breakfast or packing our lunch.  Even worse, I find myself forgetting things as we leave in a hurry out the door--like Lewie's lunches, his winter boots, my jump drive, or important paperwork needed for my job--all because I was too involved in a conversation with him before we left.  I've been an hour late for work or more just because I arrived at his daycare only to realize his lunch is at home sitting on the counter!) 

So...in trying to find a solution to my lack of being able to concentrate on more than one thing at a time, I introduced Lewie to the world of Google Images.  He LOVES looking at train pictures, and this seems to be the one activity that keeps him silent for hours on end.  There's no, "Mommy watch me do this," or "Mommy, come in here and watch this with me."  Instead, there is pure, unwavering silence as my son carefully opens up each picture, which seems to take him to some fun, far-off magical world.  I swear this boy goes into a trance!

Viola!  I get ready for work on time, and Lewie's tickled pink that he got to see some cool train pictures in the morning before going to school.  It's a beautiful thing...

...until recently...

Santa, I'm sorry for my long explanation, but I really did need to explain myself to you.  You see, we've googled "trains," "Santa Express trains," "The Polar Express," and "Trains to the North Pole," and as a result, Google Images has provided lots of great pictures.  The only problem is that some of those pictures are of real trains, and some of them are of toy trains.  Once he found the toy trains, all bets were off.  We've created a monster, I'm afraid.  He now wants this toy train and that toy train.  I told him that he can't expect you to bring them all.  Still, he's decided that he wants to print out the pictures, so you can see them...

So....that's my story.  I'm sorry we're sending you a thick letter full of train pictures.  We don't expect you to bring all of them.  In fact, we don't even know which ones still exist...  We saw some Polar Express Brio train sets on eBay, but they're awfully expensive.  The Polar Express Lionel Train Set on Amazon is pretty pricey too.  We're sorry.  Please know that this little boy is not purposefully trying to pick out expensive presents....he just loves trains.

We thank you as always for bringing joy and excitement to our home every year.  We're eternally grateful for your big heart.

Sincerely yours,

Annette (a.k.a. Lewie's Mommy)