Dear Santa...

Please don't bring me any smallish gifts anymore. They get lost, and I get sad.

Remember back a few years when the girls got a pink DS, and I got that brainy game to play on it? And then while they were playing and I was doing the Christmas morning clean-up, I realized that that little game (which had been removed from its case somehow) had disappeared. I was kind of sad, and very irritated. Even though it was only a matter of twenty bucks, I never replaced that game cartridge. And I still hold a little grudge about that.

This year for Christmas, you gave me an iPod. I still have the earbuds that came with it, in my dresser drawer, untouched, because I don't like to put those things in my tender little ears. But I sure did enjoy dancing around the kitchen (where I kept my iPod docked) with Olivia, while I was doing the dishes.

Well, Santa, you can guess what I'm writing about. My iPod is missing. Vanished. The last anyone remembers ("anyone"=my children), Lauren was playing with it in her room. She says I gave her permission to show it to her friend that day, but I don't recall anything about that. All I know is that a couple of days later when I was itching to dance in my kitchen, my iPod was gone, and it's no longer on Lauren's window sill where she claims to have left it. Nor is it in any other obvious place that I've searched during the past week.

So, Santa, I'm giving you notice right now that, in order to avoid this type of frustration in the future, I would like to receive big, heavy gifts that cannot be easily lost. Let this notice remain in effect until my children are old enough...whenever that is.