Gnome

Originally uploaded by mattfoster

I have been going crazy trying to keep order around the house, and finally I had an idea. We’d get a gnome.

This brainstorm came out of a parenting class I went to so that I’d be more sweetness and light around the kids. A woman there said she had great success getting her son to eat vegetables when she told him that their gnome cooked them. (Why did they have a pretend gnome in the first place? I wasn’t totally clear, but I think it had something to do with a Norwegian background.)

This could work! I thought. We eat plenty of vegetables, but struggle not to be slobs. I needed a pretend gnome of my own to send cute gnomey notes to the kids about tidying up.

So, I told my kids, hey, I was on the Berkeley Parents Network, and I saw a message from a family saying they were moving and needed to find a new home for their gnome. His name is Nils, he’s an older gentleman gnome, and he’s looking for a house with children, do you think you’d be interested?

They were over the moon. Yes! They cried and immediately began to argue about where he would sleep. I burst in with a few caveats. We’d have to keep the living room clean, I said. Nils will take care of us, but he gets cranky if toys and things are scattered all over. I painted a rather grim picture of what life would be like with a cranky gnome running loose in the house. They thought about this and believed they were up to the challenge of placating a small gnome.

Okay, I said. If you really think you’d like to have him, I’ll write him a letter.

Then I went out and did not write the letter. I got another cold, and I started writing some new stuff, and we started swimming lessons twice a week, and it seemed like a lot of work to bring Nils to life, even though I still wanted to.

My husband was deep into writing descriptions for my son’s silent auction school fundraiser, and he was also picking up some extra freelance work in his off hours. So I couldn’t exactly sit on the couch and when he asked what I was up to say, I’m really busy writing a letter from Nils the gnome.

Still, I kept thinking about Nils. I imagined him as fairly old-school, yet with a streak of mischief. He could be our Mary Poppins! He could transform me into a genial, somewhat absentminded mother who planned adventures and left day-to-day details to the gnome. Nils could scold about the dirty socks on the floor, while I flitted about going “yes, darling?” to the kids.

Maybe the gnome could remind you to water the lawn, my husband said.

I really don’t think that’s an appropriate use for Nils, I told my husband. The living room and the dirty sock situation alone were already a lot to put on his plate. Reluctantly, I concluded there were just too many possibilities for gnome abuse in our household.

The kids still mention him every once in a while. We were reading Harry Potter Chamber of Secrets, and when Dobby shows up in Harry’s bedroom to warn him not to go back to Hogwarts, I tried to explain about house elves. My son lit up. He’s like the gnome! he exclaimed.

Yep. We’ll have one just like him someday.