I saved the best of the holiday posts for last.
Last Saturday night, Finn and his folks came over to play with Uncle Jeams. Well, Finn did. The rest of us just sort of lounged around and drank the evening away while the guy who would eventually get to go home to a nice, quiet house for a good night's sleep entertained our brood. And entertain them he did.
The boys were playing with flashlights and the light in the dining room was turned off for their benefit. Then, quite out of the blue, Finn pointed his light into the dining room and shouted "Monster in there!" Jamie said he would check it out. He slowly walked around the table and announced, "I don't see any monsters in here . . ." and then promptly fell down to the ground as if the monster had gotten him.
The boys squealed and shrieked, possibly in terror, but quickly recovered as James got up and a new game was born. A new game that would fill nearly the next two hours. Solid. Below is a somewhat long video taken during the adventure.
After some time, we asked the boys what the monster's name was. They said that his named was Fred Ghost. We thought this was an appropriately amusing name. Then we asked what he looked like. He was blue, small, and slimy. That was all the detail we could get out of them, though, and that had to come between squeals and running into and out of the dining room.
Long after we grew tired of the game, and had run out of other options for ending it, each set of parents explained Fred's departure by insisting that he had left to live under the other child's bed. Apparently the kids weren't old enough to understand this concept, however, as neither of them had fearful nights in their rooms in the evenings that followed. This is a good thing. Fun though the game had been, all of its charm would have been instantly lost if our kids had suddenly been convinced that everywhere dark was inhabited by monsters. I expect this will eventually happen anyway, but hopefully not until the kids are old enough to understand the evidence we present to the contrary.
Anyway, enjoy the video.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Despite the Evidence You Are Presented with, Daddy Does NOT Have Boo Boobs (And More Christmas)
For some reason, this morning, Gabe has been obsessed with boobs. I mean, I can't blame him, really. Despite my advancing years, I find that thinking about boobs still fills a respectable portion of my day. But I sort of pegged him as a little young to be spending so much time on them.
We were sitting in the living room, sorting crayons (he got a box of 96, and the box all but disintegrated in the first ten minutes, so the crayons are living in compartments on the little plastic drawing table my folks got him for Christmas), because organization is FUN. He crawled up on my lap and started poking my chest.
"Boo boobs," he said.
I won't go into great detail here, but this is the sophisticated terminology that Gabe and Libby came up with for funbags. One of Gabe's favorite games when he's having his diaper changed is to kick Libby in the rack and say, "Kick boo boobs!" Libby has tried to discourage this game, for obvious reasons, but he persists nonetheless.
Anyway. "No," I said. "Girls have boo boobs. Boys don't." He poked me again. "Boo boobs," he added, matter of factly. I had to continue to argue the fact based purely on technical differences in the biological makeup of males and females, despite the fact that the evidence pointed pretty clearly to his observation being spot on.
It wasn't OVERWHELMING evidence, mind you. Until we got Gabe, I did a pretty good job of staying in shape. I rode my bike with fair regularity and walked about five hours a week. After we got Gabe, the bike rides went out the window (not because I couldn't do it--I could have bought one of those baby carriage ride behind things--but I had a pretty terrible track record of accidents and near accidents and didn't want to take the chance of crashing with a baby in tow), but I still walked four or five hours a week. With Norah's addition, however, I've had to all but give up on the walking. Partly because hauling two kids in a stroller isn't much fun but mostly because her addition coincided with Gabe's realization that the parks we had to walk by were FAR more interesting than riding in a stroller for an hour. Since then, exercise of any organized sort has been pretty much impossible. And it hasn't been TOO detrimental to my girlish figure. Yet. But I have to admit that I am probably sporting a solid A cup at the moment.
Nonetheless, Gabe persisted, despite my protests, and has continued to say, throughout the morning, "Momma has boo boobs" while looking at my chest, as if he's reminding himself of the simple facts of life at the expense of my dignity. It's a good thing that I didn't have much dignity to begin with, I suppose.
And here's some more Christmas pictures and a short video. These are from our visits out to my folks' house. Most of the pictures come from our small family gathering--my folks, my grandma, us, and my brother Jon's family. But I'm going to include some pictures and the short video I took from our big family gathering as well.
Butts in her new bib. People really should send these holiday clothes to kids well before the holiday happens. How appropriate will it be for me to use a "My First Christmas Bib" now that it's not the Christmas season anymore? I WILL use it, mind you, because I don't much care if I'm appropriate or not. But some people worry about such things.
Little Red Riding Butts. Or should that be Little Red Butts Hood? No, Red Riding Hood was actually the kids name in the story, wasn't it. Poor kid. Named after clothing that she is then forced to wear. In that respect, Butts isn't such a bad name.
Gabe, doing double duty with the suckers. I swear, the kid hasn't had more than two solid meals since Christmas thanks to all the sugary crap we have around the house. I could throw it away, of course, but I have a problem with wasting food of any sort. The suckers and most of the Pez are gone now, at least (Mom always gives us Pez for Christmas, and Gabe decided that he simply loves the stuff).
This will take a bit of explaining. Pictured here are the great-grandkids. The ones that were still there or who showed up, that is. I think we're missing at least a half dozen or so, possibly as many as ten. Personally, I don't know the names of more than five or six of them. Our family is HUGE. Dad has six brothers and sisters. With three kids, we have the smallest family. Two of the families have six kids or more (if I'm remembering correctly). The grandkids range in age from about 40 down to something like 10 years old. I am the fourth oldest. Now, most of the grandkids in their early 20s are starting to have babies--and most of the grandkids are in their early 20s. In the next five years, there could be as many as 100 grandkids and great-grandkids. Heck, we might have that many already, I don't know. Our family is populated with EPIC breeders. Of course, there isn't much to do out on the farm but have sex and get drunk. I had hoped that, with the addition of satellite television, breeding habits might change, but so far that hasn't really happened.
We were sitting in the living room, sorting crayons (he got a box of 96, and the box all but disintegrated in the first ten minutes, so the crayons are living in compartments on the little plastic drawing table my folks got him for Christmas), because organization is FUN. He crawled up on my lap and started poking my chest.
"Boo boobs," he said.
I won't go into great detail here, but this is the sophisticated terminology that Gabe and Libby came up with for funbags. One of Gabe's favorite games when he's having his diaper changed is to kick Libby in the rack and say, "Kick boo boobs!" Libby has tried to discourage this game, for obvious reasons, but he persists nonetheless.
Anyway. "No," I said. "Girls have boo boobs. Boys don't." He poked me again. "Boo boobs," he added, matter of factly. I had to continue to argue the fact based purely on technical differences in the biological makeup of males and females, despite the fact that the evidence pointed pretty clearly to his observation being spot on.
It wasn't OVERWHELMING evidence, mind you. Until we got Gabe, I did a pretty good job of staying in shape. I rode my bike with fair regularity and walked about five hours a week. After we got Gabe, the bike rides went out the window (not because I couldn't do it--I could have bought one of those baby carriage ride behind things--but I had a pretty terrible track record of accidents and near accidents and didn't want to take the chance of crashing with a baby in tow), but I still walked four or five hours a week. With Norah's addition, however, I've had to all but give up on the walking. Partly because hauling two kids in a stroller isn't much fun but mostly because her addition coincided with Gabe's realization that the parks we had to walk by were FAR more interesting than riding in a stroller for an hour. Since then, exercise of any organized sort has been pretty much impossible. And it hasn't been TOO detrimental to my girlish figure. Yet. But I have to admit that I am probably sporting a solid A cup at the moment.
Nonetheless, Gabe persisted, despite my protests, and has continued to say, throughout the morning, "Momma has boo boobs" while looking at my chest, as if he's reminding himself of the simple facts of life at the expense of my dignity. It's a good thing that I didn't have much dignity to begin with, I suppose.
And here's some more Christmas pictures and a short video. These are from our visits out to my folks' house. Most of the pictures come from our small family gathering--my folks, my grandma, us, and my brother Jon's family. But I'm going to include some pictures and the short video I took from our big family gathering as well.
Butts in her new bib. People really should send these holiday clothes to kids well before the holiday happens. How appropriate will it be for me to use a "My First Christmas Bib" now that it's not the Christmas season anymore? I WILL use it, mind you, because I don't much care if I'm appropriate or not. But some people worry about such things.
Little Red Riding Butts. Or should that be Little Red Butts Hood? No, Red Riding Hood was actually the kids name in the story, wasn't it. Poor kid. Named after clothing that she is then forced to wear. In that respect, Butts isn't such a bad name.
Gabe, doing double duty with the suckers. I swear, the kid hasn't had more than two solid meals since Christmas thanks to all the sugary crap we have around the house. I could throw it away, of course, but I have a problem with wasting food of any sort. The suckers and most of the Pez are gone now, at least (Mom always gives us Pez for Christmas, and Gabe decided that he simply loves the stuff).
This will take a bit of explaining. Pictured here are the great-grandkids. The ones that were still there or who showed up, that is. I think we're missing at least a half dozen or so, possibly as many as ten. Personally, I don't know the names of more than five or six of them. Our family is HUGE. Dad has six brothers and sisters. With three kids, we have the smallest family. Two of the families have six kids or more (if I'm remembering correctly). The grandkids range in age from about 40 down to something like 10 years old. I am the fourth oldest. Now, most of the grandkids in their early 20s are starting to have babies--and most of the grandkids are in their early 20s. In the next five years, there could be as many as 100 grandkids and great-grandkids. Heck, we might have that many already, I don't know. Our family is populated with EPIC breeders. Of course, there isn't much to do out on the farm but have sex and get drunk. I had hoped that, with the addition of satellite television, breeding habits might change, but so far that hasn't really happened.And, finally, a video to give an idea of just how huge my family is. We have to rent out an old school so we can have Christmas in the gymnasium. By this point in the day, several people have already left. I have no idea how many, for sure, but I am guessing we're short at least six grandkids and however many great-grandkids that would mean. Ponder on this the next time you're thinking about breeding. This could be your future.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
A White and Brown (But Mostly White) Christmas
Bing Crosby was an asshole. There, I said it. And I know that it is probably unfair to lump all of my judgmentalism onto the shoulders of one famous crooner for idealizing particular weather conditions for the "proper" setting of the holiday atmosphere. After all, many people had a hand in it. The screen writer of "White Christmas" came up with the story that necessitated the song. The song writer came up with the song. Various musicians were responsible for playing the score. Even the director could have put his foot down at some point. But I choose to blame Bing. He could have turned down the role, thus forcing the studio's hand to replace him with a lesser singer, which surely would have minimized the movies popularity. Mostly, though, I blame Bing because I don't like his ears.
But the truth of the matter is that snow on Christmas is just one of those things that people always hope for now. Personally, I couldn't remember a time in my life when we actually got snow on Christmas Eve, thus guaranteeing a blanket of the stuff on Christmas morning. I remember a few times when we still had remnants of earlier snows that still existed--just last year I think we still had a few dirty smudges left in some shady places--but never a proper Christmas snow.
But this year we had one. Sort of. We only got about four inches of snow, but the wind was blowing around 40 mph for the better part of two days, so what little we had kept recirculating, so it looked like it was snowing for a much longer time than it actually was. And it never really covered everything (thus the brown reference in the title) because, as soon as it did, it would blow away again only to drift several yards further away.
Nonetheless, it did a bang up job of setting the tone for the holiday. And I wouldn't wish it on anyone who needed to travel even five miles. And THAT is the problem with a white Christmas. People need to drive around on Christmas to see the family that is hither and yon, and blowing snow is decidedly not something people should be driving in. It's much better than ice, of course, but the crap we drove through on Christmas Eve was, quite possibly, the worst winter weather that I've ever experienced from behind the wheel of a vehicle. We couldn't see thirty feet in front of us, the wind was whipping us all over the place, and there were surprise drifts that spanned the entire highway in spots where the wind was partially blocked. It was a nightmare.
And I blame Bing Crosby for that, too. In fact, I blame him for everything bad ever. Weird eared prick that he was.
Anyway, enough of that.
We had a great holiday this year! Uncle Jeams' (he's graduated to something more resembling his name thanks to a few days of constant practice) visit was great. He went above and beyond in his attempts to entertain Gabe, and we really appreciated his being here. It's really too bad that Gabe probably isn't old enough to remember this Christmas forever, because it should go down as one of the best in his books. He had everything. Loads of presents, a near constant stream of activities and places to see and play, and, I think, a pretty ideal array of all of the nebulous this-and-that that supposedly makes a perfect Christmas experience.
Now, sadly, I have to listen to the periodic laments of my barely comprehensible, but still inconsolable, child coming from the other room. "Uncle Jeams . . . Uncle Jeams . . . Uncle Jeams." And then I have to explain to him that Uncle James had to go home and we'll see him another time. I'm sort of dreading when we put the Christmas decorations away and all of his Christmas candy is gone. It was the same way when Halloween passed, but at least then we had Christmas to look forward to. Now what does he have? Martin Luther King Day? Arbor Day? Sure there's Valentine's Day and Easter coming between now and summer, but, except for the candy, neither one of them is really that great.
Fortunately, we got lots of pictures and movies to help remind him of just how good he had it.
I hope to sort through all of these pictures and movies over the next few days, and I'll post the best ones on here. Some of the movies are priceless. At least to my way of thinking.
Here are a few pictures to get things rolling:
Gabe and Uncle Pedo. After looking at this picture, Jamie requested we take another one because he looks like a pedophile. We took some other, probably better, pictures, but I like this one best, still.
Cowboy Butts. Keep in mind, this is a hat that Gabe was fitting into about as well at 18 months. I'm starting to worry that she has a giant, Easter Island head that she won't be able to support.
Button's new diet plan. We're thinking of putting her on a strict diet of tissue paper. I'll let everyone know how that goes.
King Gabe. James brought both of the kids cloth crowns. I THOUGHT we had a picture of Button in hers, but I guess not. This was the only one we could snap of Gabe, too, before he snatched it off. He's not much for wearing hats still for some reason. It was all we could do to pull it down on his head and take a quick picture as he pulled it off.
Adorable. She's also wearing a new outfit--we changed her three or four times on Christmas Eve as we opened her presents.
But the truth of the matter is that snow on Christmas is just one of those things that people always hope for now. Personally, I couldn't remember a time in my life when we actually got snow on Christmas Eve, thus guaranteeing a blanket of the stuff on Christmas morning. I remember a few times when we still had remnants of earlier snows that still existed--just last year I think we still had a few dirty smudges left in some shady places--but never a proper Christmas snow.
But this year we had one. Sort of. We only got about four inches of snow, but the wind was blowing around 40 mph for the better part of two days, so what little we had kept recirculating, so it looked like it was snowing for a much longer time than it actually was. And it never really covered everything (thus the brown reference in the title) because, as soon as it did, it would blow away again only to drift several yards further away.
Nonetheless, it did a bang up job of setting the tone for the holiday. And I wouldn't wish it on anyone who needed to travel even five miles. And THAT is the problem with a white Christmas. People need to drive around on Christmas to see the family that is hither and yon, and blowing snow is decidedly not something people should be driving in. It's much better than ice, of course, but the crap we drove through on Christmas Eve was, quite possibly, the worst winter weather that I've ever experienced from behind the wheel of a vehicle. We couldn't see thirty feet in front of us, the wind was whipping us all over the place, and there were surprise drifts that spanned the entire highway in spots where the wind was partially blocked. It was a nightmare.
And I blame Bing Crosby for that, too. In fact, I blame him for everything bad ever. Weird eared prick that he was.
Anyway, enough of that.
We had a great holiday this year! Uncle Jeams' (he's graduated to something more resembling his name thanks to a few days of constant practice) visit was great. He went above and beyond in his attempts to entertain Gabe, and we really appreciated his being here. It's really too bad that Gabe probably isn't old enough to remember this Christmas forever, because it should go down as one of the best in his books. He had everything. Loads of presents, a near constant stream of activities and places to see and play, and, I think, a pretty ideal array of all of the nebulous this-and-that that supposedly makes a perfect Christmas experience.
Now, sadly, I have to listen to the periodic laments of my barely comprehensible, but still inconsolable, child coming from the other room. "Uncle Jeams . . . Uncle Jeams . . . Uncle Jeams." And then I have to explain to him that Uncle James had to go home and we'll see him another time. I'm sort of dreading when we put the Christmas decorations away and all of his Christmas candy is gone. It was the same way when Halloween passed, but at least then we had Christmas to look forward to. Now what does he have? Martin Luther King Day? Arbor Day? Sure there's Valentine's Day and Easter coming between now and summer, but, except for the candy, neither one of them is really that great.
Fortunately, we got lots of pictures and movies to help remind him of just how good he had it.
I hope to sort through all of these pictures and movies over the next few days, and I'll post the best ones on here. Some of the movies are priceless. At least to my way of thinking.
Here are a few pictures to get things rolling:
Gabe and Uncle Pedo. After looking at this picture, Jamie requested we take another one because he looks like a pedophile. We took some other, probably better, pictures, but I like this one best, still.
Cowboy Butts. Keep in mind, this is a hat that Gabe was fitting into about as well at 18 months. I'm starting to worry that she has a giant, Easter Island head that she won't be able to support.
Button's new diet plan. We're thinking of putting her on a strict diet of tissue paper. I'll let everyone know how that goes.
King Gabe. James brought both of the kids cloth crowns. I THOUGHT we had a picture of Button in hers, but I guess not. This was the only one we could snap of Gabe, too, before he snatched it off. He's not much for wearing hats still for some reason. It was all we could do to pull it down on his head and take a quick picture as he pulled it off.
Adorable. She's also wearing a new outfit--we changed her three or four times on Christmas Eve as we opened her presents.And that's it for now. I'll try to sort through some more later today or tomorrow.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Dammit, Dammit, Dammit
So, I was sitting in here a little while ago, checking email, and heard, from the dining room, Gabe saying, "Dammit, dammit, dammit" while he pushed his dump truck around the room. At least I THINK that's what he was saying. He had his binky in, so I can't be sure that he wasn't saying something completely different.
I blame Libby. I'm pretty good about limiting my curses to under-my-breath utterances whenever I'm around him. Libby, however, is like a salty sailor of yore after having his pecker slammed in a brothel door by a hooker. She lacks the creative flare that my dad had when we were growing up ("son of a whore's ass!" he yelled once as something or other went wrong on the project he was working on in our shop--still my favorite curse of all time), but she makes up for it with the sheer volume of vitriolic words that she spews forth in one breath. She's all "eff this" and "that's ess" and everyone's a "bee" or an "aye" or a "see sucking mother effing ess stained see faced rusty tromboning eff face." I swear, it's a good thing I'm the one staying home with Gabe or he might as well be growing up in a Quentin Tarantino movie.
But I couldn't scold him for saying it because I couldn't be SURE that was what he said. I asked him to take out his binky and say it again. He took out his plug then spouted off some gibberish, so I can't even be sure he was saying actual words to begin with--either that, or he knew he'd be in trouble and was covering it up, he's been doing quite a bit of experimenting with lying the past few weeks. So I had to let it slide. For now.
Gabe has also discovered that his voice sounds funny when his ears are covered up. For some reason, enjoying this new discovery is almost always coupled with a complete spaz out. Last night, he put his fingers in his ear and then rand around the living room and dining room shouting whatever came to mind. I grabbed the camera eventually, but what I got wasn't nearly as entertaining as what he was doing before I started filming--as usual.
I actually took two videos. I can't decide which is better, so I'll post them both.
And, no, that's not a giant opossum running out of the room. That's our twenty-pound cat, Tsunami.
I blame Libby. I'm pretty good about limiting my curses to under-my-breath utterances whenever I'm around him. Libby, however, is like a salty sailor of yore after having his pecker slammed in a brothel door by a hooker. She lacks the creative flare that my dad had when we were growing up ("son of a whore's ass!" he yelled once as something or other went wrong on the project he was working on in our shop--still my favorite curse of all time), but she makes up for it with the sheer volume of vitriolic words that she spews forth in one breath. She's all "eff this" and "that's ess" and everyone's a "bee" or an "aye" or a "see sucking mother effing ess stained see faced rusty tromboning eff face." I swear, it's a good thing I'm the one staying home with Gabe or he might as well be growing up in a Quentin Tarantino movie.
But I couldn't scold him for saying it because I couldn't be SURE that was what he said. I asked him to take out his binky and say it again. He took out his plug then spouted off some gibberish, so I can't even be sure he was saying actual words to begin with--either that, or he knew he'd be in trouble and was covering it up, he's been doing quite a bit of experimenting with lying the past few weeks. So I had to let it slide. For now.
Gabe has also discovered that his voice sounds funny when his ears are covered up. For some reason, enjoying this new discovery is almost always coupled with a complete spaz out. Last night, he put his fingers in his ear and then rand around the living room and dining room shouting whatever came to mind. I grabbed the camera eventually, but what I got wasn't nearly as entertaining as what he was doing before I started filming--as usual.
I actually took two videos. I can't decide which is better, so I'll post them both.
And, no, that's not a giant opossum running out of the room. That's our twenty-pound cat, Tsunami.
After this first video, I tried a little coaching to see if we could get a better result out of him. Specifically, I recommended that he have a "big finish," which he then began his routine with, and which I missed most of.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Idle Threats
So, for the last month, we've been employing a passive threat system to coax Gabe into doing things that he's otherwise disinclined to do. It started when we found out his uncle James--or Uncle Jeebes, as Gabe called him--would be joining us for Christmas (which he's still planning on doing, provided we don't get nailed with the ice and snow that they're predicting to hit us right about the time he's supposed to be traveling here).
Not surprisingly, James was Gabe's favorite visitor last Christmas. Obviously, I wasn't around to see James grow up since he's just slightly younger than Libby, but from what I've been told, Gabe is a carbon copy of James as a toddler. I'm reasonably sure that Gabe doesn't actually remember any of last Christmas, but he's still be very excited at the prospect of James visiting.
When we first informed him that James would be visiting in about a month, he said, "Uncle Jeebes, two minutes!"
As I'm sure I've mentioned before, "two minutes" is Gabe's negotiating strategy for just about everything--and has been for a month or two now. "Gabe, it's time for dinner." "Two minutes!" "Gabe, we need to clean up your cars." "Two minutes!" "Gabe, we need to get up on the couch and read some books because it will be bed time in fifteen minutes." "Two minutes!" Obviously, his concept of proper negotiating procedures is shaky at best.
Whether he meant that Uncle Jeebes should be arriving in "two minutes" instead of a month or if he was only willing to extend the offer of our house to James for that limited amount of time, we're not sure. I guess we'll find out in a few days.
For the next two weeks, everything Gabe did that required subtle redirection involved a threat involving James. "Uncle James would go to bed when he's supposed to." "Uncle James would eat his oatmeal." "Uncle James wouldn't throw his cars at the television." We knew we were treading on thin ice since, from what I'd been told and Libby vaguely remembered of James growing up, NONE of our statements actually held true. But we did it anyway, and it met with moderate success.
Since then, however, Gabe has discovered Santa Claus thanks to the absolute innundation of the image and likeness of the fatherly Christmas philanthropist just about everywhere that Gabe looks. So we took the opportunity to link the possibilities of Christmas goodies with "being good" and Santa's omnipresent judgementalism. Now we have replaced Uncle James with Santa in all of our threats.
But not just in the threats. Whenever Gabe does something really nice and helpful, we tell him that Santa appreciates his efforts and Libby has taken to picking up the telephone and pretending to call Santa to let him know that Gabe has been a good boy. This, of course, is a bit troubling to me because it sets up a fundamental incosistency in Santa's character. Santa just knows when Gabe is being bad, but we have to call him whenever Gabe is good. This paints Santa out to be a bit of a dick, if you ask me. And his omniscience only applies to naughty acts. Still, I suppose that is all the more reason for kids to act "good" instead, since Santa is guaranteed to see when they are bad, but they have to be conspicuously good--so good that someone calls Santa and lets him know. I suppose we'll see how it plays out over the next few years.
All of these threats are quite toothless, though. Uncle James wouldn't have NOT come down if Gabe hadn't stopped throwing the cars at the television (though, I wonder what kind of mental scars it will create if the weather prevents James' trip and we explain it away to Gabe as a consequence of him being bad--we wouldn't do that, obviously, but I have to wonder all the same). And Santa won't NOT give him give gifts if he's a bit naughty (god knows--Gabe is making out like a friggin Rockefeller this year thanks to the fact that both Libby and I were picking things up for him here and there). I just hope he doesn't figure that out for a good long time.
Not surprisingly, James was Gabe's favorite visitor last Christmas. Obviously, I wasn't around to see James grow up since he's just slightly younger than Libby, but from what I've been told, Gabe is a carbon copy of James as a toddler. I'm reasonably sure that Gabe doesn't actually remember any of last Christmas, but he's still be very excited at the prospect of James visiting.
When we first informed him that James would be visiting in about a month, he said, "Uncle Jeebes, two minutes!"
As I'm sure I've mentioned before, "two minutes" is Gabe's negotiating strategy for just about everything--and has been for a month or two now. "Gabe, it's time for dinner." "Two minutes!" "Gabe, we need to clean up your cars." "Two minutes!" "Gabe, we need to get up on the couch and read some books because it will be bed time in fifteen minutes." "Two minutes!" Obviously, his concept of proper negotiating procedures is shaky at best.
Whether he meant that Uncle Jeebes should be arriving in "two minutes" instead of a month or if he was only willing to extend the offer of our house to James for that limited amount of time, we're not sure. I guess we'll find out in a few days.
For the next two weeks, everything Gabe did that required subtle redirection involved a threat involving James. "Uncle James would go to bed when he's supposed to." "Uncle James would eat his oatmeal." "Uncle James wouldn't throw his cars at the television." We knew we were treading on thin ice since, from what I'd been told and Libby vaguely remembered of James growing up, NONE of our statements actually held true. But we did it anyway, and it met with moderate success.
Since then, however, Gabe has discovered Santa Claus thanks to the absolute innundation of the image and likeness of the fatherly Christmas philanthropist just about everywhere that Gabe looks. So we took the opportunity to link the possibilities of Christmas goodies with "being good" and Santa's omnipresent judgementalism. Now we have replaced Uncle James with Santa in all of our threats.
But not just in the threats. Whenever Gabe does something really nice and helpful, we tell him that Santa appreciates his efforts and Libby has taken to picking up the telephone and pretending to call Santa to let him know that Gabe has been a good boy. This, of course, is a bit troubling to me because it sets up a fundamental incosistency in Santa's character. Santa just knows when Gabe is being bad, but we have to call him whenever Gabe is good. This paints Santa out to be a bit of a dick, if you ask me. And his omniscience only applies to naughty acts. Still, I suppose that is all the more reason for kids to act "good" instead, since Santa is guaranteed to see when they are bad, but they have to be conspicuously good--so good that someone calls Santa and lets him know. I suppose we'll see how it plays out over the next few years.
All of these threats are quite toothless, though. Uncle James wouldn't have NOT come down if Gabe hadn't stopped throwing the cars at the television (though, I wonder what kind of mental scars it will create if the weather prevents James' trip and we explain it away to Gabe as a consequence of him being bad--we wouldn't do that, obviously, but I have to wonder all the same). And Santa won't NOT give him give gifts if he's a bit naughty (god knows--Gabe is making out like a friggin Rockefeller this year thanks to the fact that both Libby and I were picking things up for him here and there). I just hope he doesn't figure that out for a good long time.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Butts Passes Out
We stick to a pretty strict nap schedule around here. For one, I think it's good for kids to sleep as much as possible. Apparently, they do much of their growing when they're sleeping (I'm sure I read that somewhere or other--or at least imagine that I read it somewhere), but it also, I hope, gets their bodies accustomed to normal sleeping. If I can't accomplish anything else while raising these kids, I want to pass on to them the kinds of healthy sleep habits that have eluded me my entire life. But another reason that I encourage them to sleep as much as possible is because, well, it's the only time that I get to myself. And I loves some "me time."
As such, it isn't often that they fall asleep just anywhere. Presumably, as soon as they're tired, they're in bed, so there isn't a lot of opportunity for them to doze off here and there. Add to this the fact that Gabe WON'T sleep just anywhere (rarely in the car, even, which can make for some long car rides, and I posted the first, and so far only, time that he fell asleep on the couch), so there aren't many opportunities for cute pictures of them sleeping in unusual places.
But, yesterday, Button supplied me with a cute picture of her in what had to be a terribly uncomfortable position.
The old activity saucer we had--the one Gabe used--was shaped like a car and had a steering wheel and everything. Not having that one anymore denied me the opportunity to colorfully, if unimaginatively, name this post "Asleep at the Wheel." Nonetheless, I did consider "Asleep at the Button," but figured that really wasn't accurate since, you know, she IS Button, so it would be difficult for her to be asleep "at" herself.
As such, it isn't often that they fall asleep just anywhere. Presumably, as soon as they're tired, they're in bed, so there isn't a lot of opportunity for them to doze off here and there. Add to this the fact that Gabe WON'T sleep just anywhere (rarely in the car, even, which can make for some long car rides, and I posted the first, and so far only, time that he fell asleep on the couch), so there aren't many opportunities for cute pictures of them sleeping in unusual places.
But, yesterday, Button supplied me with a cute picture of her in what had to be a terribly uncomfortable position.
The old activity saucer we had--the one Gabe used--was shaped like a car and had a steering wheel and everything. Not having that one anymore denied me the opportunity to colorfully, if unimaginatively, name this post "Asleep at the Wheel." Nonetheless, I did consider "Asleep at the Button," but figured that really wasn't accurate since, you know, she IS Button, so it would be difficult for her to be asleep "at" herself.There really wasn't any good reason for her to fall asleep when and where she did. She has been fighting considerable congestion and icky feelingness for the last week thanks to the four damn teeth that won't just get it over with, and for the last few days she's been getting to sleep a little later at night and waking up a little earlier in the morning, which is throwing off her schedule, but this happened less than an hour after she woke up from a decent nap ("decent" because she slept for a little more than an hour, and getting more than an hour out of her at a time is about all I can expect).
Plus, she gave me almost no hint that she was tired. She wasn't getting fussy, she wasn't wailing, and she wasn't rubbing her eyes--all of which she's likely to do when it's coming up on nap time. She WAS, however, unusually quiet. As I've said before, she's a talker. Noise of some sort is almost always coming out of her mouth, but for about ten minutes before she nodded off, she was just sitting there, quiet and happy, in her saucer. So I guess I'll have to add "unusually quiet" to the list of possible clues that she's getting sleepy now.
One minute, I turned to look at her, and she smiled over at me. Not two minutes later, I looked over again, and this was what I saw, her slumped over a pile of toys. So I snapped a quick picture then took her up to bed. Ahhhhh. Adorable.
Plus, she gave me almost no hint that she was tired. She wasn't getting fussy, she wasn't wailing, and she wasn't rubbing her eyes--all of which she's likely to do when it's coming up on nap time. She WAS, however, unusually quiet. As I've said before, she's a talker. Noise of some sort is almost always coming out of her mouth, but for about ten minutes before she nodded off, she was just sitting there, quiet and happy, in her saucer. So I guess I'll have to add "unusually quiet" to the list of possible clues that she's getting sleepy now.
One minute, I turned to look at her, and she smiled over at me. Not two minutes later, I looked over again, and this was what I saw, her slumped over a pile of toys. So I snapped a quick picture then took her up to bed. Ahhhhh. Adorable.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Being Sick Is Stupid
If I ever meet the person who invented kids being sick in a dark alley, I will proceed to kick him or her in the fork. I swear it. With malice aforethought.
For what seems like an eternity, our kids have been sick. The progression of said sickness has been like the tides through this time (and it's dating back to around Thanksgiving now). It will start to taper off for one of them, then the other, then, without warning, a flood of snot and sneezed spit will wash over all of us again and both of them will be worse off than they were before. And we've been completely unable to decide what is causing it.
Towards the end of last week, Gabe started running nighttime fevers. He was miserable and complaining, in his own incomplete and often incomprehensible way, of a sore back and neck. Fever plus sore muscles, we thought, equals flu. Since he had a flu shot a few months back, we began to fear H1N1. But his fever never got that bad and, really, besides some consistent congestion he's not been all that bad off since those first few days of terrible sleep at night. I'm still hopeful that it WAS swine flu, just because that would mean we've all been exposed and, hopefully, won't have any more trouble with it, but that's probably just wishful thinking.
But then he started chewing on just about anything he could put in his mouth, so now we're thinking that he's getting one of his last molars in. And since he's always had a bit of fever and other cold-like symptoms when he's gotten teeth, we wonder if that wasn't the problem.
And then we noticed that Button has some white spots starting to break in on her top row--FOUR of them! All at the same time. I swear I've seen these spots come and go over the past month, though, so who knows if she'll actually get them in. I hope so because she's been so stuffed up that she sounds like a little snorting pig when she's lying in her bed, and I'd hate for her to have to go through all of this again in a few weeks when the teeth actually decide to push through.
And of course they are both irritable and cranky because of the broken nights of sleep and poor naps interrupted by coughs and big balls of phlegm snaking down their throats and out their noses. So that's fun.
Despite his crankiness this morning, Gabe invented a new game with my office chair.
For what seems like an eternity, our kids have been sick. The progression of said sickness has been like the tides through this time (and it's dating back to around Thanksgiving now). It will start to taper off for one of them, then the other, then, without warning, a flood of snot and sneezed spit will wash over all of us again and both of them will be worse off than they were before. And we've been completely unable to decide what is causing it.
Towards the end of last week, Gabe started running nighttime fevers. He was miserable and complaining, in his own incomplete and often incomprehensible way, of a sore back and neck. Fever plus sore muscles, we thought, equals flu. Since he had a flu shot a few months back, we began to fear H1N1. But his fever never got that bad and, really, besides some consistent congestion he's not been all that bad off since those first few days of terrible sleep at night. I'm still hopeful that it WAS swine flu, just because that would mean we've all been exposed and, hopefully, won't have any more trouble with it, but that's probably just wishful thinking.
But then he started chewing on just about anything he could put in his mouth, so now we're thinking that he's getting one of his last molars in. And since he's always had a bit of fever and other cold-like symptoms when he's gotten teeth, we wonder if that wasn't the problem.
And then we noticed that Button has some white spots starting to break in on her top row--FOUR of them! All at the same time. I swear I've seen these spots come and go over the past month, though, so who knows if she'll actually get them in. I hope so because she's been so stuffed up that she sounds like a little snorting pig when she's lying in her bed, and I'd hate for her to have to go through all of this again in a few weeks when the teeth actually decide to push through.
And of course they are both irritable and cranky because of the broken nights of sleep and poor naps interrupted by coughs and big balls of phlegm snaking down their throats and out their noses. So that's fun.
Despite his crankiness this morning, Gabe invented a new game with my office chair.
Typically, the best goes he had were before we got the camera running. But he had a grand old time getting the chair spinning then putting his head in the way of it so the back or the arms would bonk him. I'm not sure whether I should be worried or not about the way he abuses his head--and his body in general, really. Somehow I suspect that I'm raising the next Super Dave Osborne.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Alternate Reality Theory and Baking Cookies
Despite my questionable conjunction usage above, my two topics today are unrelated. At least as far as this post goes. Perhaps, in the future, the two can finally be together as nature intended, but not today.
Anyone with even an inkling of interest in science fiction is undoubtedly familiar with the notion of alternate realities as it is a fiction device used with some regularity, especially in television programs. If you follow any science fiction program, there is almost zero chance that they WON'T utilize the concept of alternate realities at least once--and sometimes you can count on it being used a time or two per season. This practice dates back--at least as far as I'm concerned--to the "evil Spock" episode of the original Star Trek series. From that point on, television writers have positively gnawed at the bit for an opportunity to flex their creative muscles in a reality where pretty much anything can happen and the stringent restraints of popular storylines and characters can be thrown to the wind.
The theory is that, for any decision that is made, two realities are created--one that we inhabit and another where the OTHER option was taken. Terry Pratchett like to refer to this concept as the Trousers of Time. This is a colorful metaphor, if a bit imperfect since the action of placing one leg into pants before the other does not really constitute much of a decision. But it is the metaphor that always comes to my mind when I think about alternate realities, imperfect or not. Considering the numerous decisions that are made every day and the billions of people on the planet, there must be a nearly infinite number of alternate realities.
This is NOT the type of alternate reality I'm thinking of.
No, I'm thinking more of pocket dimensions--an idea that also crops up from time to time in science fiction and fantasy. Specifically, I'm thinking of the concept as it pertains to Dungeons and Dragons, a game I much loved to play in my earlier years (and probably still would if I ever had time to sit down with enough friends for a long enough period of time to actually play it--because I'm just that type of nerd). In D&D, one could, quite easily, find or purchase a magic item known as a Bag of Holding (or one of its numerous variations). A Bag of Holding looked like a normal bag, ranging in size from something like a coin purse to something like a burlap sack. The idea was that things put into the bag were effectively reduced in size and weight--or, more specifically, that the area inside the bag was much larger than the area outside the bag would suggest (like the T.A.R.D.I.S.), and the laws of weight didn't really apply normally either. In this fashion, a gamer could store all sorts of crap that he or she didn't want to get rid of without being too overburdened by the weight of said objects.
But these dimensions weren't necessarily limited to these magic bags. Creative dungeon masters could put them just about anywhere using any number of flimsy excuses or faulty logic.
I believe, somewhere along the line, that Gabe has discovered just such a pocket dimension.
I don't know how he found it or where it is in the house, but there is no other explanation for how things can completely disappear one minute and then reappear, quite out of nowhere, some time later. It has happened too many times in our house to be coincidence--on nearly a daily basis.
Take yesterday for instance. Gabe was lying on the couch "snuzzling," (what he calls snuggling, which is something he likes to do for five or ten minutes on the couch as a sort of warm-up to going to bed). He had his binky and his blankie. I went into the kitchen to finish putting away the lunch stuff and came back not three minutes later to find him looking all over for his binky. It was NOWHERE. We turned the living room upside down but couldn't find it. But I'll bet you a dollar it will show up again in a few days when Gabe reaches into his pocket dimension for something else and discovers it there.
Then, while he was napping, I went about the chore of putting away all of the art supplies that he'd had out earlier that morning. And I couldn't, for the life of me, find four of the caps to his markers. Again, I looked everywhere. EVERYWHERE. But found nothing. When he got up, I asked him if he knew where they were and he acted as if he had no idea what I was talking about. After a minute or so of badgering him to see if maybe something would click, I gave up. He went about his business and I stopped watching him closely for just a short time. Then, Gabe walked up to me and handed me the four caps, as if I were an idiot for not knowing where they were.
Twice in one day! Pocket dimensions, I tells ya!
In other news, a night or two ago, Libby decided to make some cookies, and she enlisted Gabe's assistance. Gabe likes to cook. He's got scads of play food and pots and cups and all sorts of stuff and he pretends to cook stuff up all the time. So I feel a little guilty that I really don't let him help me in the kitchen, but I also REALLY don't like a messy kitchen, and messy kitchens are pretty much a guarantee when Gabe is involved. So I guess it's good that Libby doesn't mind.
Anyway, he got to help and he also got to clean off his first spatula. Libby was able to catch much of it on video.
Anyone with even an inkling of interest in science fiction is undoubtedly familiar with the notion of alternate realities as it is a fiction device used with some regularity, especially in television programs. If you follow any science fiction program, there is almost zero chance that they WON'T utilize the concept of alternate realities at least once--and sometimes you can count on it being used a time or two per season. This practice dates back--at least as far as I'm concerned--to the "evil Spock" episode of the original Star Trek series. From that point on, television writers have positively gnawed at the bit for an opportunity to flex their creative muscles in a reality where pretty much anything can happen and the stringent restraints of popular storylines and characters can be thrown to the wind.
The theory is that, for any decision that is made, two realities are created--one that we inhabit and another where the OTHER option was taken. Terry Pratchett like to refer to this concept as the Trousers of Time. This is a colorful metaphor, if a bit imperfect since the action of placing one leg into pants before the other does not really constitute much of a decision. But it is the metaphor that always comes to my mind when I think about alternate realities, imperfect or not. Considering the numerous decisions that are made every day and the billions of people on the planet, there must be a nearly infinite number of alternate realities.
This is NOT the type of alternate reality I'm thinking of.
No, I'm thinking more of pocket dimensions--an idea that also crops up from time to time in science fiction and fantasy. Specifically, I'm thinking of the concept as it pertains to Dungeons and Dragons, a game I much loved to play in my earlier years (and probably still would if I ever had time to sit down with enough friends for a long enough period of time to actually play it--because I'm just that type of nerd). In D&D, one could, quite easily, find or purchase a magic item known as a Bag of Holding (or one of its numerous variations). A Bag of Holding looked like a normal bag, ranging in size from something like a coin purse to something like a burlap sack. The idea was that things put into the bag were effectively reduced in size and weight--or, more specifically, that the area inside the bag was much larger than the area outside the bag would suggest (like the T.A.R.D.I.S.), and the laws of weight didn't really apply normally either. In this fashion, a gamer could store all sorts of crap that he or she didn't want to get rid of without being too overburdened by the weight of said objects.
But these dimensions weren't necessarily limited to these magic bags. Creative dungeon masters could put them just about anywhere using any number of flimsy excuses or faulty logic.
I believe, somewhere along the line, that Gabe has discovered just such a pocket dimension.
I don't know how he found it or where it is in the house, but there is no other explanation for how things can completely disappear one minute and then reappear, quite out of nowhere, some time later. It has happened too many times in our house to be coincidence--on nearly a daily basis.
Take yesterday for instance. Gabe was lying on the couch "snuzzling," (what he calls snuggling, which is something he likes to do for five or ten minutes on the couch as a sort of warm-up to going to bed). He had his binky and his blankie. I went into the kitchen to finish putting away the lunch stuff and came back not three minutes later to find him looking all over for his binky. It was NOWHERE. We turned the living room upside down but couldn't find it. But I'll bet you a dollar it will show up again in a few days when Gabe reaches into his pocket dimension for something else and discovers it there.
Then, while he was napping, I went about the chore of putting away all of the art supplies that he'd had out earlier that morning. And I couldn't, for the life of me, find four of the caps to his markers. Again, I looked everywhere. EVERYWHERE. But found nothing. When he got up, I asked him if he knew where they were and he acted as if he had no idea what I was talking about. After a minute or so of badgering him to see if maybe something would click, I gave up. He went about his business and I stopped watching him closely for just a short time. Then, Gabe walked up to me and handed me the four caps, as if I were an idiot for not knowing where they were.
Twice in one day! Pocket dimensions, I tells ya!
In other news, a night or two ago, Libby decided to make some cookies, and she enlisted Gabe's assistance. Gabe likes to cook. He's got scads of play food and pots and cups and all sorts of stuff and he pretends to cook stuff up all the time. So I feel a little guilty that I really don't let him help me in the kitchen, but I also REALLY don't like a messy kitchen, and messy kitchens are pretty much a guarantee when Gabe is involved. So I guess it's good that Libby doesn't mind.
Anyway, he got to help and he also got to clean off his first spatula. Libby was able to catch much of it on video.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Christmas Memories
In an attempt to get myself more into the Christmas Spirit, I've decided to take a little trip down memory lane and reminisce, fondly or otherwise, about the specific memories I have of Christmas. This probably isn't ALL of my memories of Christmas, but they are the ones that jump to mind first, so it's reasonable to argue that they are the ones that form the foundation for my feelings towards the season (note: these are just the pre-middle school memories, I have more of them from my later years, but they weren't really as interesting).
Memory 1--Waking Up for Santa
I'm a terrible sleeper, and I always have been. Under the best of circumstances--namely, when I don't have anything on my mind and there are no distractions going on around me--I'll wake up two or three times in the middle of the night. Under poor circumstances--like when Santa is coming and there will be fresh loot for me when I wake up in the morning--I might wake up a half dozen times or more in the middle of the night. This was one of those circumstances, and it is the first Christmas memory that I can come up with.
I was, probably, four or five years old. I woke up at about 1:00 in the morning and desperately wanted to see if Santa had visited yet, so I got up and went out to the living room. It didn't take me long to see that Santa hadn't come yet, and the reason--though I wouldn't put those pieces together for a few more years--was that Dad was awake and rocking Ben, who would have been 1 or 2 years old at the time.
Because Dad's chair wasn't facing my room, he didn't see me until I was right next to him, and I might have startled him a little. Or maybe he was just crabby because he wanted to get Santa's job done and get some sleep since, without a doubt, I would be up before 6:00 and waking them up for Christmas. Whatever the reason, Dad was in a foul mood.
"Get the fuck back in bed!" I don't really remember him yelling at me. But he did say something in similar fashion, I do remember that.
Of course I couldn't tell him that I was up to see if Santa had come, so I said, "But I had a nightmare."
Not surprisingly, he didn't buy it and sent me back to bed with more harsh words. Probably I cried a little, but I knew I couldn't really argue. I had been busted getting up to check on Santa, and I knew that went against the rules, so I went back to bed and tossed and turned for a few more hours until I eventually woke up and checked on the status of my presents.
Memory 2a--The Mini-Motorcycle
This is a two part memory--at least I THINK it's a two part memory. It's possible that these two memories happened in separate years, but I can't be sure. I want to associate the two closely, so I'm going to pretend that they happened the same year.
I would have been somewhere between six and eight years old. I want to say that I knew there was no Santa by the time I was eight, but I can't be sure. Let's say seven.
That year, Ben and I made up Christmas lists based on the toys available in the Sears catalog (the Christmas Sears catalog would, in fact, be the major source for our Christmas dreams until I was at least twelve--and probably continued for much longer for Ben and Jon since we had few other ways of knowing what toys were available. To this day, I associate the smell of "fresh catalog" with Christmas--just like I associate the smell of a newly opened action figure [a smell that is probably toxic] with happiness). Ben asked for a riding tractor--one of those sturdy, metal John Deere ones. I asked for a mini-motorcycle that, as the product description boasted, could do up to 7 mph. I was seriously excited about the prospects. I could tool around our driveway at faster than walking speeds! It was the thing that I wanted most of all in the world and I put ALL of my hopes and dreams on getting it for Christmas that year. I wrote letters to Santa and was an extra good boy for as long as I could manage it. It's fair to say that EVERYTHING I was, the entirety of my successful existence as a six-eight year old boy, rested on my discovering this mini-motorcycle in the living room on Christmas morning.
And I didn't get it.
I don't even remember what I got, but I know I was as crestfallen and heartbroken as I have ever been in my life. Worse still, Ben got his goddamn tractor. Needless to say, my mind was in turmoil. Santa obviously liked Ben enough to get him exactly what HE wanted, but I didn't get anything like what I asked for. Probably I got underwear, now that I think back on it and choose to remember things only bitterly.
I KNEW the motorcycle was ridiculously expensive--Mom had, in fact, pointed that out several times in what I can identify now as a warning not to get my hopes up because she knew there was no way we could ever afford it. But, I reasoned, price didn't matter to Santa. He was friggin magic, for Christ's sake. He could damn well give me whatever he wanted to, and cost was no matter. So, when he DIDN'T give it to me, after I got over the initial heartbreak and questioning of my value to Santa vs. Ben's value, I began to put two and two together. But it wouldn't be for a few more days until I had the next piece of the puzzle to fully formulate my Santa-non-existence theory.
Memory 2b--Clues (and a TREASURE) in the Trash
This is awesome. My memory makes me out to be some kind of Encyclopedia Brown. That's wonderful.
So a day or two after Christmas, for reasons unknown to me, I decided to go digging through the trash outside. Because we lived on the farm, we didn't have any kind of formal trash pickup. We had a giant barrel that we dumped our trash into and then burned every couple of weeks. When the ash built up too much, we used the scoop tractor to haul it to a hole in one of our pastures and then, eventually, we covered it with dirt. Environmentally friendly? Almost certainly not. But, then, we're talking about a culture that STILL runs the sewage from their houses out a pipe to dump, without so much as a cesspool, into a nearby field (don't even get Libby started on that--she started to cry when I told her that was how they did things, and this was just a few months back. And she verified with my folks that this is still the primary waste disposal method).
Anyway, there in the trash, right on top, was the apple that I had left out for Santa on Christmas Eve. I recognized it immediately because it was huge, and I had purposely picked out the biggest, most scrumptious looking apple for the man (probably in the hopes that he'd see my healthy gift as a wonderful alternative to the sugary crap everyone else was leaving him and be even more likely to leave me the motorcycle). And there it was. In the trash.
I also found a Playboy. Dad didn't usually have such reading materials in the house, so it was a real treasure, indeed. This wasn't the first Playboy I'd seen (an uncle had a stash of them in his bathroom cabinet, and I'd looked through them several times before), but it was the first one that I ever called "mine." I pulled it from the trash and found some tall brush behind one of the cattle pens--a place nobody ever went for any reason whatsoever--and buried it beneath one of the pine trees in the nearby shelter belt. I visited that shelter belt many times over the next few months until, eventually, the magazine was unreadable thanks to the numerous rains and snows (one of which buried it completely and I had to dig it out). I can't remember much about the magazine except there was a woman on the beach. She was covered in sand. Having been to the beach at least once before by this point, I wondered at how she could stand having sand in all of her nooks and crannies. I knew from experience that this was a very unpleasant experience. But I can't say as my shared displeasure stopped me from very closely examining said nooks and crannies.
Anyway, I presented mom with my apple evidence. The apple had been gone on Christmas morning, presumably Santa had taken it with him for a later snack or to feed one of the reindeer (oh, wait, maybe THAT was what the apple was for, Rudolph. Maybe there were cookies for Santa and an apple for Rudolph--and to hell with the other, lesser reindeer, they wouldn't let Rudolph play their games, so Rudolph could play the eating-the-apple game right up in their grills. Yeah, so, amend what I said earlier. I wasn't concerned with Santa's health. The fat bastard could get Type II Diabetes for all I apparently cared back then).
At first she denied it, but, after another day or so of my constant harassing--and because I was also trying to convince Ben there was no Santa so we could form a united front against our truth-covering parents--Dad eventually took me aside and confessed. He then convinced me to tell Ben that I'd learned the truth and that Santa DID exist, Rudolph just didn't like apples, so Santa had tossed it in the trash in the hopes that we wouldn't see it. From that day on, I became a co-conspirator.
Memory 3 and maybe 4--Sleeping under the Stairs and the Millennium Falcon
These two probably happened on different Christmases, somewhere between the ages of 10 and 12 (because, by 12, I was into Transformers and Star Wars was pretty much a thing of the past), but I can't be sure, so I'm going to lump them together.
Long before Harry Potter made it fashionable, we had a big closet under our staircase that we used to sleep in--or "camp" as we called it, since we NEVER did any real camping of any sort (I was in college before I slept in a sleeping bag outside for the first time). And Christmas night was our favorite night to sleep in there. The problem was, this closet was only one room away from our living room, which was where "Santa" (by then both Ben and I knew, and it was just the two of us who were sleeping in the closet) left our gifts. I'm sure our folks hated it, since it meant they had to sneak around even more than usual or run the risk of waking us up and having to do Christmas in the middle of the night.
All I remember from that mostly miserable night of sleep was the constant bonging of our grandfather clock, which was about six feet away from the closet door. Eventually I would grow used to it, but it didn't happen that night.
That morning (or some other Christmas morning within a year or so), I received my favorite Santa present of all time--the Millennium Falcon. It was in terrible shape, and I hardly ever played with it (honestly, who ever thought that a toy that measures a solid 18 inches long, is awkward, and heavy would ever be all that much fun to play with?), but I loved it anyway. Mom had undoubtedly found it at a garage sale (by that point, I doubt itwas available new in stores anymore, but, even if it had been, we wouldn't have been able to afford a new one). The big bottom door was glued shut, pieces were missing, and there were other pretty obvious near-breaks and problems with it. Nonetheless, it was my favorite toy for quite awhile and is still the toy I remember most fondly (with Optimus Prime being a close second). That Christmas morning still ranks among my happiest ever.
And I suppose I should leave it at that. I have some other vague memories, too--of Christmas songs being sung, of midnight masses, of watching the Christmas specials on TV, of eagerly waiting to see the local Santa Claus (and Toy Boy) in his daily thirty minute airing, of staying up late, all by myself, to sit in the living room and stare at the flickering Christmas lights on the tree while everyone else slept, and the like--but they're all too vague or boring to share. So I guess I'll just ruminate on them the next time I find myself awake in the middle of the night for no good reason.
Memory 1--Waking Up for Santa
I'm a terrible sleeper, and I always have been. Under the best of circumstances--namely, when I don't have anything on my mind and there are no distractions going on around me--I'll wake up two or three times in the middle of the night. Under poor circumstances--like when Santa is coming and there will be fresh loot for me when I wake up in the morning--I might wake up a half dozen times or more in the middle of the night. This was one of those circumstances, and it is the first Christmas memory that I can come up with.
I was, probably, four or five years old. I woke up at about 1:00 in the morning and desperately wanted to see if Santa had visited yet, so I got up and went out to the living room. It didn't take me long to see that Santa hadn't come yet, and the reason--though I wouldn't put those pieces together for a few more years--was that Dad was awake and rocking Ben, who would have been 1 or 2 years old at the time.
Because Dad's chair wasn't facing my room, he didn't see me until I was right next to him, and I might have startled him a little. Or maybe he was just crabby because he wanted to get Santa's job done and get some sleep since, without a doubt, I would be up before 6:00 and waking them up for Christmas. Whatever the reason, Dad was in a foul mood.
"Get the fuck back in bed!" I don't really remember him yelling at me. But he did say something in similar fashion, I do remember that.
Of course I couldn't tell him that I was up to see if Santa had come, so I said, "But I had a nightmare."
Not surprisingly, he didn't buy it and sent me back to bed with more harsh words. Probably I cried a little, but I knew I couldn't really argue. I had been busted getting up to check on Santa, and I knew that went against the rules, so I went back to bed and tossed and turned for a few more hours until I eventually woke up and checked on the status of my presents.
Memory 2a--The Mini-Motorcycle
This is a two part memory--at least I THINK it's a two part memory. It's possible that these two memories happened in separate years, but I can't be sure. I want to associate the two closely, so I'm going to pretend that they happened the same year.
I would have been somewhere between six and eight years old. I want to say that I knew there was no Santa by the time I was eight, but I can't be sure. Let's say seven.
That year, Ben and I made up Christmas lists based on the toys available in the Sears catalog (the Christmas Sears catalog would, in fact, be the major source for our Christmas dreams until I was at least twelve--and probably continued for much longer for Ben and Jon since we had few other ways of knowing what toys were available. To this day, I associate the smell of "fresh catalog" with Christmas--just like I associate the smell of a newly opened action figure [a smell that is probably toxic] with happiness). Ben asked for a riding tractor--one of those sturdy, metal John Deere ones. I asked for a mini-motorcycle that, as the product description boasted, could do up to 7 mph. I was seriously excited about the prospects. I could tool around our driveway at faster than walking speeds! It was the thing that I wanted most of all in the world and I put ALL of my hopes and dreams on getting it for Christmas that year. I wrote letters to Santa and was an extra good boy for as long as I could manage it. It's fair to say that EVERYTHING I was, the entirety of my successful existence as a six-eight year old boy, rested on my discovering this mini-motorcycle in the living room on Christmas morning.
And I didn't get it.
I don't even remember what I got, but I know I was as crestfallen and heartbroken as I have ever been in my life. Worse still, Ben got his goddamn tractor. Needless to say, my mind was in turmoil. Santa obviously liked Ben enough to get him exactly what HE wanted, but I didn't get anything like what I asked for. Probably I got underwear, now that I think back on it and choose to remember things only bitterly.
I KNEW the motorcycle was ridiculously expensive--Mom had, in fact, pointed that out several times in what I can identify now as a warning not to get my hopes up because she knew there was no way we could ever afford it. But, I reasoned, price didn't matter to Santa. He was friggin magic, for Christ's sake. He could damn well give me whatever he wanted to, and cost was no matter. So, when he DIDN'T give it to me, after I got over the initial heartbreak and questioning of my value to Santa vs. Ben's value, I began to put two and two together. But it wouldn't be for a few more days until I had the next piece of the puzzle to fully formulate my Santa-non-existence theory.
Memory 2b--Clues (and a TREASURE) in the Trash
This is awesome. My memory makes me out to be some kind of Encyclopedia Brown. That's wonderful.
So a day or two after Christmas, for reasons unknown to me, I decided to go digging through the trash outside. Because we lived on the farm, we didn't have any kind of formal trash pickup. We had a giant barrel that we dumped our trash into and then burned every couple of weeks. When the ash built up too much, we used the scoop tractor to haul it to a hole in one of our pastures and then, eventually, we covered it with dirt. Environmentally friendly? Almost certainly not. But, then, we're talking about a culture that STILL runs the sewage from their houses out a pipe to dump, without so much as a cesspool, into a nearby field (don't even get Libby started on that--she started to cry when I told her that was how they did things, and this was just a few months back. And she verified with my folks that this is still the primary waste disposal method).
Anyway, there in the trash, right on top, was the apple that I had left out for Santa on Christmas Eve. I recognized it immediately because it was huge, and I had purposely picked out the biggest, most scrumptious looking apple for the man (probably in the hopes that he'd see my healthy gift as a wonderful alternative to the sugary crap everyone else was leaving him and be even more likely to leave me the motorcycle). And there it was. In the trash.
I also found a Playboy. Dad didn't usually have such reading materials in the house, so it was a real treasure, indeed. This wasn't the first Playboy I'd seen (an uncle had a stash of them in his bathroom cabinet, and I'd looked through them several times before), but it was the first one that I ever called "mine." I pulled it from the trash and found some tall brush behind one of the cattle pens--a place nobody ever went for any reason whatsoever--and buried it beneath one of the pine trees in the nearby shelter belt. I visited that shelter belt many times over the next few months until, eventually, the magazine was unreadable thanks to the numerous rains and snows (one of which buried it completely and I had to dig it out). I can't remember much about the magazine except there was a woman on the beach. She was covered in sand. Having been to the beach at least once before by this point, I wondered at how she could stand having sand in all of her nooks and crannies. I knew from experience that this was a very unpleasant experience. But I can't say as my shared displeasure stopped me from very closely examining said nooks and crannies.
Anyway, I presented mom with my apple evidence. The apple had been gone on Christmas morning, presumably Santa had taken it with him for a later snack or to feed one of the reindeer (oh, wait, maybe THAT was what the apple was for, Rudolph. Maybe there were cookies for Santa and an apple for Rudolph--and to hell with the other, lesser reindeer, they wouldn't let Rudolph play their games, so Rudolph could play the eating-the-apple game right up in their grills. Yeah, so, amend what I said earlier. I wasn't concerned with Santa's health. The fat bastard could get Type II Diabetes for all I apparently cared back then).
At first she denied it, but, after another day or so of my constant harassing--and because I was also trying to convince Ben there was no Santa so we could form a united front against our truth-covering parents--Dad eventually took me aside and confessed. He then convinced me to tell Ben that I'd learned the truth and that Santa DID exist, Rudolph just didn't like apples, so Santa had tossed it in the trash in the hopes that we wouldn't see it. From that day on, I became a co-conspirator.
Memory 3 and maybe 4--Sleeping under the Stairs and the Millennium Falcon
These two probably happened on different Christmases, somewhere between the ages of 10 and 12 (because, by 12, I was into Transformers and Star Wars was pretty much a thing of the past), but I can't be sure, so I'm going to lump them together.
Long before Harry Potter made it fashionable, we had a big closet under our staircase that we used to sleep in--or "camp" as we called it, since we NEVER did any real camping of any sort (I was in college before I slept in a sleeping bag outside for the first time). And Christmas night was our favorite night to sleep in there. The problem was, this closet was only one room away from our living room, which was where "Santa" (by then both Ben and I knew, and it was just the two of us who were sleeping in the closet) left our gifts. I'm sure our folks hated it, since it meant they had to sneak around even more than usual or run the risk of waking us up and having to do Christmas in the middle of the night.
All I remember from that mostly miserable night of sleep was the constant bonging of our grandfather clock, which was about six feet away from the closet door. Eventually I would grow used to it, but it didn't happen that night.
That morning (or some other Christmas morning within a year or so), I received my favorite Santa present of all time--the Millennium Falcon. It was in terrible shape, and I hardly ever played with it (honestly, who ever thought that a toy that measures a solid 18 inches long, is awkward, and heavy would ever be all that much fun to play with?), but I loved it anyway. Mom had undoubtedly found it at a garage sale (by that point, I doubt itwas available new in stores anymore, but, even if it had been, we wouldn't have been able to afford a new one). The big bottom door was glued shut, pieces were missing, and there were other pretty obvious near-breaks and problems with it. Nonetheless, it was my favorite toy for quite awhile and is still the toy I remember most fondly (with Optimus Prime being a close second). That Christmas morning still ranks among my happiest ever.
And I suppose I should leave it at that. I have some other vague memories, too--of Christmas songs being sung, of midnight masses, of watching the Christmas specials on TV, of eagerly waiting to see the local Santa Claus (and Toy Boy) in his daily thirty minute airing, of staying up late, all by myself, to sit in the living room and stare at the flickering Christmas lights on the tree while everyone else slept, and the like--but they're all too vague or boring to share. So I guess I'll just ruminate on them the next time I find myself awake in the middle of the night for no good reason.
Friday, December 4, 2009
The Magic of Christmas
Libby walked Gabe downtown last night to meet up with Jessica and Finn for the town's Parade of Lights--a Christmas parade hosted by the area's Lion's Club. She bundled Gabe up in Randy from "Christmas Story" style for the affair.
They PROBABLY could have stood back up under their own power if they'd fallen down, but it's tough to say for sure.
Button and I stayed home because it was FAR too cold to get her out and about just to see some floats and watch the fire department rescue Santa from the roof of the Fox Theater (which left an impression on Gabe, he's been talking about it over and over again ever since). Not surprisingly, Gabe loved it. He liked the floats and he especially enjoyed it when the float riders tossed candy his way. Unfortunately, most of the candy they tossed was candy canes, which are notoriously fragile, so he ended up coming home with a pile of candy cane crumbs--but he'll be joyously snacking on them for the next week or so nonetheless.
This morning, Libby mentioned to me that this holiday, because of Gabe, was shaping up differently than any of the seasons we've shared together in the past. She said for the first time in a VERY long time, she was beginning to feel the magic of Christmas again, and she pulled up a photo of Gabe and Finn that she took last night to illustrate it:
Standing in front of the thrift store's window, looking in wonder at a display of "antique" toys (some of which Libby remembered having when growing up).
They PROBABLY could have stood back up under their own power if they'd fallen down, but it's tough to say for sure.This morning, Libby mentioned to me that this holiday, because of Gabe, was shaping up differently than any of the seasons we've shared together in the past. She said for the first time in a VERY long time, she was beginning to feel the magic of Christmas again, and she pulled up a photo of Gabe and Finn that she took last night to illustrate it:
Standing in front of the thrift store's window, looking in wonder at a display of "antique" toys (some of which Libby remembered having when growing up).This was, she noted, something that we haven't had in our Christmas seasons yet--a REASON to have a Christmas season. Until this year, Christmas has been more of a chore that we've gone through the motions of because we felt we SHOULD go through the motions, not because we really wanted to. And, as the years have passed, we've gone through fewer and fewer of the motions--we've stepped down from a real tree to a fake tree to another fake tree that stands only four feet tall, we've put up fewer and fewer decorations, we've all but stopped decorating the inside AND the outside of the house. Soon, however, we might have a reason to want to put some real effort into our decorating again.
Not just yet, but soon.
For my part, I haven't quite come around yet. Growing up, I always enjoyed Christmas, but I've never been anywhere near fanatical about it. Then, for five years, I worked in a camera store in a mall, and that pretty much destroyed every positive feeling that I had for the season. If you want to hate Christmas, work in a mall (or, I imagine, one of the "big box" stores).
Christmas starts November 1 in the malls. It starts slow. Some of the shops start breaking out the decorations, which usually takes a week or two to get set up. And, while they are getting set up, the mall itself starts its gradual transformation. Crews start putting up the gaudy decorations and the music begins to shift.
Oh, the music. That more than anything killed the Christmas spirit in me.
At first (this is the day after Halloween, mind you), they started to "casually" slip in a song or two during the loop of music they normally ran--one song every five or six normal songs. Then, as the days passed in November, they phased out the normal music until, eventually, they had a loop of about two hours of music that they ran endlessly. And they only had ONE loop. And they never played any GOOD Christmas music. They focused almost entirely on the schlocky or the hackneyed or the "popular" music of the time--playing abominations like "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" or "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" or an old standard that has been atrociously modernized by some currently over-saturated pop moron. And then, for some reason, they snuck in ONE song that I still sort of like "Do They Know It's Christmas," the hopelessly depressing--but supposedly motivational--Band Aid charity song from the 80s. But even that song I got a little disgusted with because, despite its message, it was STILL being used to shill the spirit of the season.
Five years of hearing the same songs droning on, over and over again, darkened my soul towards the season. I think that's pretty understandable. NOTHING is good when you get too much of it. Everything has to be enjoyed in moderation or it eventually becomes either a habit or distasteful.
But that was some years back, now, and I'm beginning to move on. I'm still not there, but having children in the house who will genuinely enjoy the old Rankin/Bass specials or Charlie Brown's Christmas, or who might stare in wonder at the silently glowing lights of a decorated tree, or who can be subtly impressed by the rescue of a low-budget Santa from the top of a local historical theater might just help to de-Scrooge-ify me.
Staying out of the malls will help, too.
Not just yet, but soon.
For my part, I haven't quite come around yet. Growing up, I always enjoyed Christmas, but I've never been anywhere near fanatical about it. Then, for five years, I worked in a camera store in a mall, and that pretty much destroyed every positive feeling that I had for the season. If you want to hate Christmas, work in a mall (or, I imagine, one of the "big box" stores).
Christmas starts November 1 in the malls. It starts slow. Some of the shops start breaking out the decorations, which usually takes a week or two to get set up. And, while they are getting set up, the mall itself starts its gradual transformation. Crews start putting up the gaudy decorations and the music begins to shift.
Oh, the music. That more than anything killed the Christmas spirit in me.
At first (this is the day after Halloween, mind you), they started to "casually" slip in a song or two during the loop of music they normally ran--one song every five or six normal songs. Then, as the days passed in November, they phased out the normal music until, eventually, they had a loop of about two hours of music that they ran endlessly. And they only had ONE loop. And they never played any GOOD Christmas music. They focused almost entirely on the schlocky or the hackneyed or the "popular" music of the time--playing abominations like "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" or "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" or an old standard that has been atrociously modernized by some currently over-saturated pop moron. And then, for some reason, they snuck in ONE song that I still sort of like "Do They Know It's Christmas," the hopelessly depressing--but supposedly motivational--Band Aid charity song from the 80s. But even that song I got a little disgusted with because, despite its message, it was STILL being used to shill the spirit of the season.
Five years of hearing the same songs droning on, over and over again, darkened my soul towards the season. I think that's pretty understandable. NOTHING is good when you get too much of it. Everything has to be enjoyed in moderation or it eventually becomes either a habit or distasteful.
But that was some years back, now, and I'm beginning to move on. I'm still not there, but having children in the house who will genuinely enjoy the old Rankin/Bass specials or Charlie Brown's Christmas, or who might stare in wonder at the silently glowing lights of a decorated tree, or who can be subtly impressed by the rescue of a low-budget Santa from the top of a local historical theater might just help to de-Scrooge-ify me.
Staying out of the malls will help, too.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)