Another year, another Christmas. Man, they are really flying by, aren't they? It seems like just yesterday I was sucking on Lifesavers with my siblings, flipping through the Sport Magazine that came in my stocking waiting impatiently for my parents to wake up so we could get to the "really" gifts. But that was, what, 25 years ago? Closer to 30. I still have all my Sport Magazines in a box in my basement and the earliest one is 1986. It has Walter Payton on the cover. He died over 15 years ago. Crazy.
[Some cool old footage of Walter Payton playing quarterback (!)]
But this Christmas has special meaning because it's the first one in which Lil' S1 really gets it. Last year he was still a bit too young to fully comprehend what was going on, but this year he's all about it. And he's still very much in the "me" stage of his life (only about 22 more years to go on that one), so he's a little monster right now -- an adorable little monster, but a little monster nonetheless. He thinks every gift is his and gets pouty when we tell him it's for somebody else. He also has no appreciation for or perspective on anything. The first gift he opened was this cool play set with spinning blocks from his Ava and Thatha (it was actually for his baby brother, but like I said, he's convinced everything is his), and he got all mopey upon seeing it and said, "I wanted an Octonauts present." At school they teach the kids a saying, "You get what you get and don't get upset," so I repeated that line to him, and he started crying and said, "Don't say that to me!"
But the flip-side of that coin is when he finally did open the Octonauts present he erupted in ecstasy that would have warmed the cockles of even the coldest heart: "Oh!!!! Octonauts!!! See! I told you so! I told you it was an Octonauts present! Oh!!! Captain Barnacles! Peso! Look at all my Octonauts!" And then he went to sleep last night (we exchanged most our gifts on Christmas Eve) with two pieces of track from a snap-together Octonauts set. Out of all his gifts those are the ones he wanted to sleep with -- not action figures, not cars, but two long plastic pieces of track. I tried to talk him into something else because I didn't want to lose those pieces, but that's what he wanted, so ... whatever. He was in bed and happy -- that's a win pretty much anyway you slice it. Taking care of a three-year-old is a bit like hanging out with somebody who is manic depressive. They go from bouncing off the walls with joy to lying prostrate on the floor bawling in distress to bouncing off the walls again in the time it takes you to put something on Netflix just so you can have a moment of peace.
[I have a theory that Captain Barnacles from "Octonauts" and the doctor from "Downton Abbey" are the same creature. It's even better when you hear them both speak.]
Christmas for me, personally, is going pretty well so far. Both in-laws are in town, which is nice, but it means I have to sleep on our lumpy futon in the basement. (Actually, tiered is a better descriptor for our futon than lumpy. There are two halves, separated where it folds, and one is several inches higher than the other. So you have to pick a level, or if you, like me, are too big to fit on any one side, you just have to sleep straddling the tiers in a very unsatisfying position.) We are one bed short, and we can't get Lil' S1 to sleep on a mat or on the carpet yet. Well, we can, but halfway through the night, he invariably climbs into bed with us, and since all three of us don't fit anymore, one has to go, and that usually means me. So I generally skip the 3:00 a.m. round of musical beds and just go to the basement straightaway.
Tonight we are going to our friends for dinner and then tomorrow S and I are going to see Star Wars with some other friends. We saw The Martian over Thanksgiving, and seeing two movies in the theater in a span of less than a month is a holiday miracle. For one thing, it's very difficult to conjure up the time and energy to see a movie; for another thing, it's difficult for S and I to see something that we both might like that she hasn't already seen. Yesterday she wanted to rent a movie, and we had the following conversation:
Me: Okay, what about Nightcrawler? It's got Jake Gyllenhaal in it. It's supposed to be good.
Her: I've seen it already.
Me: Alright, American Hustle?
Her: I've seen it already.
Me: Alright, American Hustle?
Her: I've seen that one too.
Me: How about The Intimidation Game?
Her: The one about Stephen Hawking? I've seen that one too.
Me: No, you're thinking about the other one. The Intimidation Game is about the English mathematician Alan Turning. He helped cracked the Nazi's code during World War II.
Her: Oh, right. I've seen that one too.
Me: [Shake my head and walk away]
I actually was legitimately annoyed. It's admittedly a petty reason to be annoyed, but she's always talking about how we should watch more things together instead of zoning out into our own computers at night like we usually do, but then she watches everything I might have a slight interest in by herself. She does the same thing with TV shows. Now, in her defense, she had a lot of down time on maternity leave and often just wanted to watch something while she rocked the baby to sleep (also she went on a work trip to Africa earlier this year and she watched like ten movies on the flights), but still -- just set aside two or three things we can watch together. That's all I ask.
Alright, I should go now. I can hear Lil' S1 upstairs arising from his nap. It's only a matter of time before he comes downstairs, sees me on my computer and starts bothering me: I wanna press the buttons... I wanna see the crossword puzzle game... Hey Daddy, how 'bout we print something? How 'bout that?
Have a Merry Christmas! Or if you, like me, are a nonbeliever, just enjoy another day on this world. They come in limited supply.
Until next time ...
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