Watching: The Muppet Christmas Carol with the boys. We all especially love the opening song about Scrooge: "There goes Mr. Humbug, there goes Mr. Grim / If they gave a prize for bein' mean, the winner would be him / Old Scrooge, he loves his money 'cause he thinks it gives him power / If he became a flavor, you can bet he would be sour!"

Listening: Handel's Messiah.

Nature or Nurture?

Do you believe that we are born with our personalities or that our personalities are products of our environment? As much as I'd like to think that parents can shape their children's characters, more and more I am realizing that certain personality traits are inherited and impervious to parental influences.

The difference between Matthew and Stephen provides a good case for nature over nurture. After all, they were born at the same time into the same family situation, but their reactions can be as different as night and day. Matthew has always been the crankiest one of our boys. Even from his earliest days, he cried more often than Stephen and was harder to comfort. Stephen, by way of contrast, was an easygoing baby from the start. He began sleeping through the night at the age of eleven weeks, and he would wake in the morning smiling instead of screaming.

Matthew remains a, shall we say, challenging child. His frequent temper tantrums try my limited patience. Lately, he has been acting even more than usually high-strung. I was hoping it was not due to another ear infection. At the recommendation of our pediatrician, Matthew started a two-month maintenance regimen of amoxicillin twice a day to prevent more ear infections; however, our pediatrician warned that, given Matthew's history, he still might contract an ear infection despite the antibiotic. Also, Matthew has been complaining that his throat hurt.

So I took him to the doctor's office this afternoon. The waiting room was crowded, and I was resigned to another long wait. I gave Matthew and Stephen crayons, paper, and stickers to play with, and for awhile all was well. Then Matthew accused Stephen of stealing his crayons, which Stephen denied. Matthew started yelling, and then cried bitterly (and loudly) on my lap. I tried to comfort him, but he would not be quieted.

"I want to color!" he sobbed, his face buried in my shoulder.

"OK, go ahead," I encouraged him.

"No! Everyone will be looking at me!" he cried.

He was right about that: all the people in the waiting room were looking at us.

Just then the nurse announced Matthew's name. As I tried to gather up our stuff, I dropped the bag, scattering paper and crayons all over the floor. Sigh.

As it turns out, Matthew had fluid in his ears but no infection, so the amoxicillin seems to be doing its job. The pediatrician said it just seems to be a cold virus and that we should continue treating the symptoms with over-the-counter cold remedies.

If I could ask for one gift for myself this Christmas, it would be the gift of patience. I find Matthew so very hard to deal with, sometimes, and it is even worse when he is feeling sick.

One of Daniel's top front teeth has been loose for the past few weeks, and it finally fell out today. Unfortunately, it happened when he bit into a corn muffin, and he promptly swallowed the tooth along with the muffin. That makes the second time he has swallowed one of his teeth; only once has he had an actual tooth to put under his pillow for the tooth fairy.

Daniel has been asking a lot of questions about the tooth fairy recently.

"Is the tooth fairy an actual person?"

"Umm, I don't know for sure, Dans. I've never actually seen her."

"Did God create the tooth fairy?"

"Well, God created the universe and everything in it, and that includes the tooth fairy."

"What does she do with all those teeth?"

I guess every kid wonders about that. My niece Emily once wrote a note to the tooth fairy asking the same question. Her father, my brother-in-law Kevin, retrieved the paper from under Emmy's pillow and wrote on it in reply, "I use the teeth to make jewelry."

When my sister Susannah saw the note, she exclaimed, "You can't write that! I told Emmy the tooth fairy is building a castle with the teeth. "

Kevin picked up the paper and added: "P.S. I finished my castle."

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