Mack turned nine this month, and was therefore already a bit on the old side for “believing.” (The average age where kids find out is eight.) But he was very tied to the Santa myth, didn’t question it much, and accepted my answers to any questions he did ask me about the jolly old elf.

In fact, Mack seemed far less skeptical than his six-year-old brother, Aidan. Last summer, I said something about Santa and Aidan scoffed and said, “There is no Santa. It’s the parents.” While my jaw dropped in shock, Mack’s head whipped around and he fixed me with a stare, “Is that true?!” Somehow I got out of that one without much comment, but I’ve always had the feeling that Mack would believe for as long as he possibly could, while Aidan probably figured it out in preschool and just humors us.

This year I had considered telling Mack the truth, but I had decided to try to reach for one more year with the magic intact. However, logic intervened. The boys were downstairs playing video games, while Byron and I were upstairs. Suddenly, we hear the basement door slam open, and all the kids come running up into our room. Aidan was holding a big, empty box. It was the box his skateboard had come in. The skateboard that Santa gave him. Crap.

I had asked Byron to hold onto the box, just until we made sure there was nothing wrong with the skateboard and it didn’t have to go back to the store. He put it under a blanket in our back storage area. Apparently, Aidan went back there to get some batteries, got curious, and found the box.

So the three of them are standing in my room, Aidan brandishing the box, and Mack yells, “If Santa is real why do we have this box?” Aidan says, “Because it is Mommy and Daddy.” Reid is just watching and listening.

I replied, “Santa must have left it. He does that sometimes.” Aidan, “Then why was it in the basement under a blanket?” “Your Dad put it down there after Christmas morning.” Aidan cocks his head, and looks at me. I can see that he is deciding whether to accept this and move on, or whether to make this a really tough morning. Suddenly Mack exclaims, “Then why is there a price tag from Dick’s on there? If Santa made it, why does it say Dick’s?” Crap.

I said, “Mack, come here. Little boys, go downstairs.” They did as I said. I pulled Mack into my arms and – I will always remember this – he looked right in my eyes and softly said, “Is it you?” It was like he knew, but he didn’t really want to know. So I told him the truth. I am still not sure it was the right thing to do. But here’s the thing. I have a three year old in the house, who should get several more years of believing. If I don’t tell Mack now (I decided) he’s going to continue to unravel the mystery out loud, and therefore ruin it for his brothers. If he knows the truth, he’ll shut his mouth and his brothers can believe without interference.

At least that’s what I have to believe – that there was a positive reason I had to do this. Because it was hard to tell him.

Mack took the news well. I suppose by the time you are nine, a part of you already knows the truth. (Although the NORAD Santa Tracker goes a long way towards convincing even third graders.) We told him how now he is in on the secret, and has a responsibility to help the younger kids believe for as long as they can. He promised not to say a word to his brothers or cousins. I hugged him and told him I was so sorry to have to tell him, but that it meant he was growing up and I was proud of him.

Even though he took it so well, I questioned my decision all day. I can’t imagine how hard it would be if you had a kid who really struggled with finding out the truth.

Although Mack is ostensibly a “gifted” child, it took him almost seven hours to approach me, as I was folding laundry, and ask, “The Easter Bunny…?” I had to say, “Yeah, buddy, that’s me and Daddy too.” Two hours later, at dinner, he pulled me aside and said, “What about the Tooth Fairy?” I just pressed my lips together and nodded my head sadly. He sighed and said, “So magic isn’t real.”

But sometimes I really wish I had a husband who didn’t go out of town so much. Last night, for example, I really needed him for a two-person job, and all I could do was call him (in California) and get hysterical over the phone.

Here’s what happened. A little after 10:00pm, I came downstairs to unplug my outdoor Christmas lights for the night. My kids were all asleep, and I was thinking maybe I would eat some ice cream, watch some 30 Rock, and get to sleep early. I opened the door, unplugged the lights, and was coming back through the door when I heard a woosh and felt something fly over my head. It only took me a moment to realize that a bird had flown – dive bombed really – into my house.

I spent the next hour and a half locked in a battle of wills with that bird. I wish I could say it was a wacky, sitcom-style romp. But it was awful. I was all alone, chasing this bird around the house with a broom in one hand and a mop in the other. I have two-story ceilings in several rooms, and the upstairs hallway is open to my family room. So he would fly upstairs and bump around in the upstairs hallway, while I threw stuffed Christmas toys at him from the family room. Then I would finally give up, and charge up the stairs, at which point he would dive directly down into my Christmas tree. I would shake the tree to get him out, and he would come screeching out past my head, on his way back upstairs.

Meanwhile, I had the front door, back door, garage door and several windows wide open, as the temperature dropped into the twenties.

A couple of times, I got the bird cornered in the area where our kitchen connects to our sun room. The sun room door was wide open. I would drive the bird into the sun room, waving my broom, and he would go over and sit on the open door. But he refused to fly out. Every time I would come closer to try to knock him out, he would fly back into the kitchen. This went on for about 20 minutes at one point.

Finally I woke Mack and got him out of bed, even though it was after 11:00. I explained that there was a bird loose in the house, and I needed him to stand in a doorway and wave a mop at it, while I stood in another doorway with the broom. He “helped” for about two minutes, then went to the closet and hung the mop back on his hook, and walked straight back up to bed. I think he thought it was the weirdest dream ever.

This bird just did not want to leave. More than once I caught him sitting in the wreath on my (open) front door. But when I waved the broom at him, he flew in, not out. I just didn’t know what to do. I was starting to think about how we always wanted an extra bedroom and maybe it was just time to look for a new house.

Several times I tried turning out all the lights, hoping that he would be attracted by the outdoor lights and fly out. But he wasn’t going for that old trick. Eventually, though, he must have gotten as disoriented and panicked as I was. I had all the lights out and I crept up the stairs, knowing he was sitting on the banister at the top. I drew the broom back and – wham – knocked him silly. Which has to be one of the most shocking moments of my life. I am often mocked because I can never kill flies with the fly swatter – I always hesitate that fraction of a second too long. I don’t have the killer instinct.

The injured bird managed to get downstairs one more time, and camped atop a family room window. I ran down and trapped him under my broom. Then I climbed on a table, opened the window with one hand, ripped down the curtain rod, kicked out the screen with my bare foot and…stopped. What now? I’ve got the bird trapped above the window, but I have to get him over the window ledge and out the window. While standing on a table. Without letting him fly away. And it is still pitch black in the house.

The phone started ringing. Obviously, I couldn’t move to go answer it. So the machine picked up, and it was Byron, leaving a message, but a short one because it was “really loud in this restaurant.”

My utter resentment gave me renewed strength. I managed to reach a blanket rack with my left foot, and grabbed a blanket with my toes. I used it to make a kind of chute from the broom to the open window, held the side down, and went for it. There was some movement and my enemy went out the window. I think. I’m only about 98% sure (it was dark, and there was a blanket in my face and I don’t know whether he could still fly). I’m still jumping at every noise. I didn’t sleep very well last night either, out of anxiety and guilt.

We all came down for breakfast this morning and the room was just how I left it: curtains and rod pooled on the floor, screen lying in the backyard, blankets and toys strewn around the carpet. Small feathers were scattered about. The boys asked what happened and I told them about my adventure the night before. I didn’t want them to worry about it happening again, so I stressed how I had run upstairs and shut their doors right away, to save them from the deranged bird. I thought maybe they would thank me.

But no, six-year-old Aidan starts telling a whole story about how that bird probably just turned 18. And he “wanted to go out on a trip by himself, but his parents didn’t want him to go. He said, ‘I’m 18. I will be fine.’ So they let him go. And then he never came back.” They all agree how sad it was that mean Mommy hurt the bird and how much the bird’s parents will miss him.

Nobody thought it was sad that Mommy had to chase a crazy bird around for 90 minutes, by herself in the freezing cold, in her nightgown. Oh no.

I say the bird was asking for it.

But I did already go to Target this morning and buy a remote-controlled outlet, so from now on I can turn my Christmas lights off without opening the door. Best $6.98 I ever spent.

So you can imagine my complete shock and awe this morning when Cat, 7, required only three wake-up calls. She then completely dressed herself, brushed her teeth, fed her fish and without being asked, fed the dogs and prepared breakfast for herself and her sister. I was dumbfounded.

“Cat, thank you so much for everything you did this morning,” I said. “You showed tremendous responsibility and thoughtfulness. Mommy really appreciates it.”

Cat beamed at the compliment and then said, “No problem Mom. You will probably be seeing more of this. I just realized Christmas is coming soon so I need to start acting more responsible.”

Ah. That explains it. The girls know that I email Santa every Friday with a weekly status report. Cat wants to be sure that the reports leading up to Christmas are glowing. I am both pleased with her strategy and slightly disappointed in the ulterior motive. But I will take easy mornings any way I can get them, so I decided to see if Tate was on board with this new plan.

“So what do you think Tate? Are you going to start to do lots of good and responsible things so I can include them in my weekly report to Santa?” I asked.

Tate scowled and shook her head. “No Mom. Duh! If he has read any of your reports this year, we all know I am getting coal so I am not going to worry about the rest of the year. I’ll just play with all of the stuff Cat gets.”