January first I’m going to start posting photos again. The backlog is driving me crazy. And one of these days I’m going to scan and post my various silly little cartoons. Yay, cartoons. I also want to figure out how to put some little videos online. Wouldn’t that be fun? That’s the problem with this being a hobby though – kids and Kevin come first, paying work comes next, Internet comes third. Bummer, I know.
That’s not what I’m here to write about though. I’m here to write about my kid and Christmas, and my other kid, and my husband and why I love him.
The other day Kevin and I left our kids at home with my inlaws so we could sneak off to Target and buy a few things to put under the tree Christmas morning. Except we kind of freaked out. Nicolaus is just at this perfect age for Christmas, and he’s so damned cool and sweet and appreciative of things. Once we were there, faced with all the things that we knew he would love, we could not stop.
His gifts include:
Two 24-piece puzzles, one Sesame Street outer space, and one with all the different Care Bears on it
A huge block of modelling clay
A play-doh fun factory
A little lego set
A set that includes a 4′x5′ tent, a sleeping bag, a flashlight, a folding chair, and a compass. All with rocket ships on them.
A big stuffed horse
A little stuffed elephant
A little stuffed tiger
2 Richard Scarry DVDs
We spent close to a hundred dollars on the little goof. Meanwhile Graham got a beautiful stuffed rabbit with velvet ears, and a cute teether. If money spent is what matters, it appears that we love Nicolaus roughly five times as much as we love Graham. Although that’s not really a fair way to look at it. A more meaningful way to look at it is by weight. Nicolaus weighs 29 pounds, and so per pound we spent $3.45. Graham weighs 13 pounds, so we spent $1.54 per pound of Graham. So really we only love Nicolaus a little more than twice as much as his brother. Way better than five times.
Or! We could look at the amount spent per month on this planet. Nicolaus has been here 34 months, so we spent $2.94 per month of time we’ve had to grow to know and love Nicolaus.
Graham has been here less than three months. So we spent $7.27 for each month that we’ve known this person, indicating that we love Graham more.
Really we’re going to need to chart this over several years to get some better numbers on this. If this journal is still around in a few years, I promise you there will be graphs. I’ve heard of kids growing up and bickering as adults over who was the most loved when they were children. I think that it a tragic waste of energy, and the parents are certainly to blame. If they had simply taken the time to document things like Christmas spending over the years, or to even scrawl in a journal now and then helpful musings like, “You know, I really like Alfonso best.” a lot of arguing and unspoken bitterness could be avoided.
But that’s really not what I’m trying to write about. Christmas is about much more than buying gifts for your children. It’s about finding joy and excitement in things that make a gloomy season bright and gay. Or in some instances, super gay.
Yesterday we were sitting in the car outside my parents’ shop, discussing the logistics of meeting up with my mother for dinner and did we want to, or did we want to run errands, or what. I was a little frazzled and overwhelmed by the options, and Kevin was saying, “I don’t know, it’s really up to you what we –” when suddenly he looked up into the rearview mirror and gasped loudly. “Oh my God! Nicolaus!”
I would have panicked except his voice was full – and I mean fill it to the rim with Brim FULL – of glee.
“Nicolaus!” He was undoing his seatbelt as quickly as possible, “It’s THE WIENERMOBILE.” I turned around to see Nicolaus’ face, which pretty much said, What the fuck is the wienermobile?. I shrugged and looked past him to see that yes, yes there was a giant car shaped like a hot dog coming towards us. It parked in the parking lot and the driver started blowing a shrill whistle.
I looked at the driver’s seat. Kevin was gone. A second later, the door next to Nicolaus slid open and Kevin quickly unbuckled him while gasping, “The WIENERMOBILE! THE WIENERMOBILE. NICOLAUS. It’s the WIENERMOBILE.”
Graham and I sat in the car while Kevin and Nicolaus ran over to check out the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile. I watched them from a distance, and maybe this makes me a pervert but I don’t think Kevin has ever looked so sexy and adorable as he did at that moment. He’s just really cute and an awesome dad, and watching him show something so fucking random to his kid with such insane excitement – I can’t explain it. Very attractive, and no, it had nothing to do with the fact that he was standing next to a 27 foot long wiener. I swear. Real mature, by the way.
It was 30 degrees outside, cold enough that after a three minutes of standing in awe before the giant hot dog-shaped vehicle, Nicolaus told him he wanted to go inside. A few minutes later it drove away, and Kevin watched sadly and said, “And just like that, the Wienermobile was gone.”
And that, my friends, is the true meaning of Christmas.