THE GIFT OF GLITTER

I was sitting at the dining room table writing out my Christmas cards when my son Alex walked by.

“Glitter!” he cried. “Are you kidding me?”

I looked next to the envelope that I'd been addressing. The card had a picture of Santa getting ready to go down the chimney, slung over his shoulder was his toy sack filled with wrapped gifts. The entire edge of the card was covered with gold glitter.

I smiled as I went back to addressing the envelope. “Isn't glitter fun!”

“No.” Alex shook his head. “It's not.”

My husband Steven walked in the room. Alex looked over at him. “Didn't we talk about this last year?” he asked.

Steven looked confused. Alex pointed to the cards on the table.

“Oh, yeah. I thought we said no glitter this year.” Steven said.

“Exactly!” Alex added.

I stopped writing for a second and looked at both of them. “I never agreed to that. When I get the mail this season I'm hoping it's filled with sparkly pretty cards.” I rubbed my nose with the back of my hand.

“See that's exactly my point!” Alex cried as he pointed to my nose. “Your face is covered in glitter now!”

I rubbed my nose again.

“Nope.” Alex shook his head. “You just put more glitter on.”

“It's fine.” I said as I blew some glitter off the table.

Alex looked at the chair that was in the direction of where I'd blown the glitter. It happened to be where he usually sat at dinner. “Great. My butt's going to be covered in glitter for another year.” he sighed.

“Oh, come on!” I got up and went over to his chair. Sure enough there was glitter on it. “Okay, fine.” I brushed it off. “Is that better?”

Alex shook his head. “You know we're going to be finding glitter on us until Easter.”

“Now you're just exaggerating.” I said as I went back to addressing my envelopes.

Steven sat down at the table and looked at the address book I was working from. “Remember a few years ago when everyone thought it would be fun to add confetti to an invitation?”

“Oh my gosh! I forgot about those!” I looked up from my writing and looked over at Alex. “You'd open the envelope and along with an invitation to the birthday party a handful of confetti would spill out!” I had to laugh. “'Please come to my party and now go vacuum your living room to remember me!'” I looked over at Steven. “Those invitations didn't last long.”

“No, they didn't.” He looked down at my Christmas cards. “That's exactly how we feel about glitter.”

“Wait! Glitter is timeless!”

“Not to us it isn't.”

Alex sat down next to him. I was beginning to feel like I was in the middle of a glitter intervention.

“Maybe you walking around with a few specks of glitter on you might seem cute but guys aren't thrilled with looking sparkly.” Alex explained.

I looked over at him and was afraid to tell him he already had a few specks on him. “You're right. Next year no glitter.” I promised.

“Good I'm glad we had this talk.” Steven said as he got up along with Alex to go into the living room.

I couldn't help but smile as I watched them both walk away with little gold specks of glitter shimmering on the back of their jeans.

WINDY WORK

I was sitting in a rocker on our front porch, my face tilted up to the sun when my son Alex came outside.

“Aren't you cold?” he asked as he sat in the rocker next to me.

I pulled the zipper of my sweatshirt up closer to my neck. “It's not so bad in the sun.” I answered as a gust of wind blew my hair in front of my face. “I want to be able to spend every second in the sun before it gets too cold outside and I'm stuck sitting in the house wishing for spring.” I reached up ready to pull my hair back in a ponytail when I realized by doing that my ears and neck would get too cold. So I reached back and grabbed the hood of my sweatshirt, tucked my hair inside and pulled the strings tight so that no hair could escape. “There. That's better.” I said as I leaned back in the rocker.

Just then an even bigger gust of wind came up and we watched hundreds of leaves begin twirling and tumbling down the street. I pointed to the leaves in the street. “I've just spent the last few seconds trying to think of the right words to describe the sound they're making right now.” I looked over at Alex. “What would you say? Is it scratching against the pavement or maybe the word rustling is a better fit.” I shook my head. “But rustling is more of a muffled sound.” I looked over at Alex. “What do you think?”

Alex laughed. “You know what I think? I've got the perfect word to describe it. Work!”

I tucked a stray hair back into my hood. “Work?”

Alex pointed down the street. “See all those nice big pile of leaves all our neighbors have put out to the curb?”

“Yeah.” I was confused.

“Wait for it.”

A big gust of wind came and began blowing the piles of leaves apart sending them tumbling down the street by the hundreds.

Alex pointed to our leaf covered front lawn. “That was completely clear two days ago.” he sighed. “Now look at it.”

I was beginning to understand his frustration.

That's when another gust of wind came, this time coming from a different direction and the leaves on our lawn picked themselves up and raced over to our neighbors lawn across the street.

I looked over at Alex and smiled. “See, it's all better now!”

I spoke too soon as another gust from down the street broke up more of the leaf piles and sent them scurrying to our front lawn again.

I got up from my rocker. “Okay, I'm going inside. I'll wait until the wind dies down to see who wins the most-leaves-from-the-neighbors-contest.”

Alex got up too. “That's a contest I'd be happy to lose.”

WOOLY WINTER

It was a brisk fall afternoon and my son Alex and I were walking through the park when I looked down on the pavement and saw a wooly caterpillar inching along in front of us. I stopped, putting my arm out before Alex accidentally stepped on him. “Did you know these guys can predict what kind of winter we're going to have?”

Alex looked down at the fuzzy black and brown caterpillar slowly making his way across the pavement. “No, but I'm sure you're going to tell me all about it.”

I grabbed my phone and began looking it up. “I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be rooting for?

Seeing more black on him or more brown.” I finally found the Google site I was looking for. “The longer the black bands, the longer, colder, snowier and more severe the winter will be.” I read. I looked over at Alex then bent down to get a closer look at the caterpillar. “I'm going to say the brown is wider so we're going to have a milder winter.” I announced before I stood back up, happy with my prediction.

Alex looked down at the caterpillar. “I hate to be the one to say this but, I'm pretty sure the black and brown bands are about the same.” He looked back at me.

I looked back on my phone. “It says if the tail end is dark, the end of winter will be cold.” We both looked back down at the caterpillar. “How do you know which end is its end?” I asked.

Alex started to laugh. “I'm pretty sure he's walking front first across the pavement.”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Hey, he could be working on his moon-walking skills, we have no idea what these little guys do for fun.”

Alex just shook his head.

I went back to looking on my phone. “It also says they have 13 segments to it's body which corresponds to the 13 weeks of winter!” I looked up and smiled “That's pretty interesting!”

We began walking again.

“You know, we really can't be letting one caterpillar decide what are winters going to be like.” I reasoned. “Let's see if we see another one.”

“Sure, why not.”

We both began scanning the walkway for any signs of another Wooly. It wasn't as easy as I expected it to be, with the fallen leaves tumbling around in front of us.

Finally Alex spotted another one. “Look at that one.” he said pointing to the completely brown caterpillar.

I actually felt my heart begin to race as I got down on one knee to take a closer look. “Oh my gosh! Do you know what this means?” I looked up at Alex.

Alex looked confused and shook his head. “No, what does it mean?”

I pointed to are little friend slowly making its way across the pavement. “Not a speck of black on him! It means we're going to have a really mild winter!” I got back up and couldn't help but smile. “Isn't that great news!”

Alex laughed again and we began walking again. “Do you really believe that?”

I wrapped my scarf tighter around my neck. “I really NEED to believe that.”

TIMES UP

My son Alex and I were getting in the car when I paused and couldn't help but feel a little sad. “Well, I guess it's time.” I said as I brushed off some sand that was on my seat before I climbed in and started the car.

“Time for what?” Alex buckled his seat belt.

I reached over to turn on the heat. “It's finally too cold to visit the beach anymore.”

Alex put his hood up from his jacket. “We can still park down there. I'm just not getting out and sitting on the sand anymore.”

“I know. That's what I mean.” I brushed some more sand from my seat. “I've put it off long enough. It's time to get the car cleaned out.” My car had a black interior so the sand on the seats and floor were pretty noticeable. “I just kept hoping local summer would pop up again and we could get one more time to just sit on the beach and listen to the waves.”

Alex reached over and turned up the heat. “I'm pretty sure the beach season is over.” He reached over and patted me on the shoulder. “But it's still nice out.”

I backed the car out of the driveway. “Remember a few weeks ago when we saw that pod of dolphins?”

Alex laughed. “You mean the ones that were heading south?”

“Oh yeah.” Now I had to laugh. “Seems like they're brighter than we are.” The car hadn't warmed up yet and I couldn't help but shudder. “I wish we could be heading south right now.”

We were on our way to the grocery store but I decided to stop at the car wash first.

“You're really getting the car washed now?” Alex didn't look thrilled as I pulled in.

“We might as well get it over with.” I got on the line with about a dozen cars ahead of me.

Alex sighed. “This is going to take forever.”

“It'll go quick, I promise.” I began looking around the car picking up things that I wanted to throw away before we got to the front of the line. I looked in my center console. “Ahh, all our parking stubs from Point Pleasant, Manasquan and Asbury Park!” These were all shore towns we'd visited over the past few months. “I guess they're trash now.” I crumpled them up getting ready to toss them in the bin. I looked over at Alex. “I love the fall, I really do! But I have to tell you I've never been a fan of winter.”

Alex patted me on the shoulder again. “Don't worry. In a short six months we'll be back to our favorite time of year.”

I groaned. “How's that suppose to make me feel better!” I cried.

“Hey, it will fly by, you'll see.” he slumped down in his seat. “It'll go by about as quickly as this car wash line.” he grumbled.

ARE YOU SICK?

I was sitting in the living room watching television when all of a sudden, “Ah-Choo.” I hadn't even felt the sneeze coming but luckily I was able to catch it in the crook of my arm.

“Are you sick?” my son Alex came into the living room.

My husband Steven came in from our bedroom. “Who sneezed?” he asked.

“Mom.” Alex tipped his head in my direction.

“It was a sneeze!” I cried. “I'm not sick! It's probably allergies.” I couldn't help make a slight sniffling sound.

Alex sighed. “She's sick.”

Steven went into the kitchen and came back with a box of tissues and the pump bottle of hand sanitizer. “Here you go.” he placed them on the coffee table in front of me.

I grabbed a tissue. “Thanks, but I'm not sick.”

Alex went into the linen closet and came back with a can of Lysol.

“You two are being ridiculous!” I said as I took the can from him and began walking around the room spraying the television remote and the couch I'd been sitting on.

“Let's just be on the safe side.” Steven called as I went into the kitchen and began spraying all the door handles and drawer knobs. “It's not a good time for me to get sick right now.”

I came back into the room spraying light switches and anything else I could have possibly touched. “When's it ever a good time?” I asked.

Steven sighed. “You know what I mean.”

Alex went back into the kitchen and brought back a bottle of water he handed to me. “Here you go. When you're coming down with a cold you should really stay hydrated.”

I put the Lysol on the coffee table and took the bottle from Alex. “Thanks, but again, I'm not sick.”

Steven placed the back of his hand on my forehead. “You don't feel like you have a fever.”

I took a sip of water. “Seriously, you two. I just sneezed.” I sat back down on the couch and couldn't help but snuffle again.

Steven and Alex looked at one another. I could see the concern on both their faces.

“Fine.” I got up from the couch. “I'll take a Zicam. Will that make you both happy?” I went back to the linen closet and began rummaging though the box we kept the medicine in. “Found it!” I came back with the Zicam bottle. “Anyone else want to take one?” I popped one into my mouth before holding out the bottle to them.

“You're suppose to take one when you first get sick.” Alex reminded me. “And I'm not sick.”

“Neither am I, and I'm taking one!” I held the bottle out to Steven.

Steven held his hands up. “I'm good.”

I shook my head as I put the container down on the coffee table next to the tissues, hand sanitizer, and Lysol. “You guys are ridiculous.” I sat back down and picked up the television remote.

“Hey, don't get mad at us.” Steven said. “We just want to make sure we all stay healthy!”

“Not to change the subject.” Alex said. “But what's for dinner?”

I smiled as I looked up at both of them. “Well, if I am sick you don't want me touching your food do you?”

Steven looked over at Alex. “I guess we're ordering out.”

I raised my hand and smiled. “I vote for Italian!”