Christmas

Jack woke up at 5:40. Too early. Despite his protests, I put him back to bed.

We woke up around 7, and he was still asleep. Made coffee, checked the email, finally said, well, guess I'll start making noise. Eventually he woke up. Probably the last Christmas morning he'll sleep past 7, so I should have enjoyed it while I could.

I gave Mommy the heads up to get the video camera rolling and we headed downstairs. Went into the living room, where presents in special Santa Claus wrapping paper were displayed. Also his stocking, overflowing with a Santa toy and a Rudolph toy sticking out the top. "Santa came!" we said excitedly. Jack: "Yeah!" But it wasn't quite an exclamation point. It was more of a, well, yeah, OF COURSE Santa came, Daddy.

I'd have to check the video tape, but I'm assuming he went for the stocking first. Maybe he went for one of the wrapped Santa gifts. Tough to say. He pulled out the stuffed toys, and there was much happiness. He pulled out the Harold the Helicopter toy from "Thomas the Tank Engine." It was in a little cardboard box with with Harold's picture on it. "What's that, Jack?" We asked. "What did you get?" He looked at it, then literally tossed it over his shoulder with disdain. "This is just a box," he said. And we said, "No! Look inside it!" He goes over to it and gives it another look. "Oh, it's Harold!" He's about to move on to another present when we say, no, it's not just a picture! He finally opens it, with help. "OH, it's Harold the Helicopter!"

He opened a book. Might have been "Chicka Chicka 1 2 3." Takes a look at it. Then: "Read it, Mommy." The next 5 minutes are spent with Emily reading the book to him. Opens another book. "Read it to me, Mommy." Emily reads the book to him.

As Emily noted, the cool thing about this Christmas was it was the first one where he was actually fully into opening his own presents, enjoying each thing, moving on to another one ("I want to open another present now"), and enjoying it.

We opened his Lincoln Logs from Nana and Baba. Spent a while building a house. "This is Santa's house," he said when it was done, putting the little Santa figure I'd put in his stocking by it. Then he put the toy digger truck we'd given him by it. "Santa's digger," he explained.

It's a few days later now, and stuff fades. I know it was all pretty great.

A favorite memory of mine involves the entire history of this big blue dinosaur, by Imaginext. He mentioned wanting it about a week before Christmas ("I want my big blue dinosaur"), and we had no idea what he was talking about. Turns out he'd seen it while out with Grandpa, so we called him up, and he said, yes, I know what it is. So, he shows up one day before Christmas with the dinosaur. I sort of assumed something the size of, I dunno, a loaf of bread at most. The thing was half the size of Jack. And when you pushed a button on its tail, its eyes lit up, head turned around, it make a roaring noise, its whole neck twisted. It wasn't even in an actual box, just kind of half on a cardboard platform.

So I wrapped this enormous thing in a huge box, and toward the end on Christmas, I gave it to Jack. He got the paper off, but was left with the box. I told him to have Grandpa help him. They got the box open, and Jack's eyes get wide, "Ohhhhhhhhh" (he kind of draws in his breath in a big way, I don't know if "Oh" is really appropriate, but it's the best approximation) "My blue dinosaur!"

After that I got distracted, but I looked over 5 or 10 minutes later and Grandpa was still trying to get the dinosaur off his cardboard platform. They make these toys basically impossible to get free of the packaging, I guess so parents get to incur hand injuries while opening them, or maybe damage the toys so they'll have to buy more. Anyway, they finally got it out, and I saw Jack and Lyndsay playing with it. They were kneeling there, and the dinosaur was standing between it. Jack pressed its tail, and its eyes lit up, its head reared around, and it sort of glared at Jack. He was smiling and laughing, but also backing away so quickly it looked like he was slipping on ice. Grandpa was laughing. The dinosaur? Still roaring.

It was great.

Christmas Eve

Jack's almost 3 now, so Christmas was much different than a year ago. First, he was really into it, all about Santa and Frosty and Rudolph and so forth. He's a little unclear on the details -- to him, they're all good friends and stuff, and he knows the Abominable Snow Monster is tied up in there somehow, though he's not too sure about him. But he's seen the specials, read the books, and talked a lot about them. (Plus they're all on his Christmas list -- "I want a Santa toy and a Rudolph toy and...." I hate to say it but I think he even HAD an Abominable Snow Monster toy, or would have, had I not given it away to Goodwill recently, figuring at the time he either wouldn't be into it or would be afraid of it.)

So he's into Christmas now, and the other way things were different is that he can do so much more. We thought taking him to church, which I knew would make both his Mommy and his Mommy's Mommy happy, was reasonable, because we could tell him to keep his voice quiet and he'd understand, as opposed to last year. And he could open his own presents, and write a letter to Santa, and all that stuff. And so we did.

The letter was funny. "I love you Santa. I have a baby sister. I want a Santa toy. And a reindeer and Frosty toy. And (at this point we prodded him by mentioning things we knew he'd like, and he, reminded of them, agreed) ....... And a candy cane. So I can eat." (Jack, incidentally, did not like the one candy cane he had. Too tart, I think.)

On Christmas Eve, we went to church. Initially, Jack wanted no part of it. But I told him his cousins would be there, and that we'd see Christmas lights afterward, so he came around. We all got dressed up, me in a shirt with a collar and Jack in his red Christmas sweater, and Kate in a dress with leggings that looked like a Santa suit -- just beautiful. We headed off to church with Kate, as she often does in the car, wailing somewhat. Jack soothed her by saying "SHHHHH!!!!! Stop, Kate!" and singing "Baby Kate, Baby Kate..."

We sat in the back and hoped he wouldn't be too loud or disruptive. And miraculously, he wasn't. (If he had been, he'd have been drowned out by the kids behind us anyway.) Kate was slightly more disruptive, but easily soothed by her Mommy as only a Mommy can, and Jack primarily spent the time saying things like "Why aren't they singing now?" and "They're not singing anymore," and so forth. He liked the singing. And the pictures in the books Emily brought from the back, featuring Noah loading a bunch of animals onto his ark. ("Why is he doing that?""So they won't get wet.") He had a chance to go up for the Children's Communion, or whatever it was called, but was afraid. Instead we all went up for Communion, Jack in my arms and Kate in Emily's, all of us looking beautiful of course and Kate drunkenly sleeping on Emily's shoulder. Jack hugged my shoulder as he was blessed, and we edged past the people offering wine. At the end, they sang Hark the Herald Angels Sing, which we called Jack's attention to; he recognized it as the Charlie Brown song.

We drove home -- very low on gas, I admit I spent some time thinking about running out of gas at 9 p.m. on Christmas Eve -- by way of various neighborhood side streets, admiring the lights and decorations. This was cut short for three reasons. One was that we were low on gas. Two was that it was already an hour or two past Jack's bedtime. And three was that Kate woke up and wailed louder and more violently than we'd ever heard her before; so much that she became hoarse and it was just a scratchy, rattling gurgle of woe in her throat. I'm saying, "Look, Jack, it's Rudolph!" over the din while Emily is saying, "Er, can we drive a little faster?"

We got home, and left a note for Santa Claus. As with the list, Jack didn't quite get it. OK, Jack, 'Dear Santa:' Now what do you want to say? Jack: "Cookies for you Santa. I love you Santa." And what else? Jack: "I love you again." And? "Hi Rudolph! And Frosty too. And Bondable Snow Monster." Then we drew pictures on the note, Jack drawing a series of broad scribbles ("That's a picture of Santa's cookie") and me drawing, at Jack's request, Santa, Rudolph, and the Abominable Snow Monster. And then we each had a cookie, went up and read some stories, and I put Jack to sleep.

He was upset that he wasn't going to get to see Santa. I explained how Santa came when boys and girls go to sleep. This didn't really soothe him. There was some crying. I explained how when he woke up, Santa would have left presents for him, and eaten the cookies we left, and replied to his note. (And so he did.)

I don't know if that made Jack feel better, but he slept until morning. Which I'll write about soon.

Rudolph Book

"Where's the adomible snow monster?"
"Is THAT the adbomibled snow monster?"
"Why is he not waking up?"
"I don't LIKE the adbombidle snow monster!"
"Why is the abdomible snow monster out there?"
"Where is the abdominable snow monster?"
"Why did they drop a big rock on him?"
"Because they didn't want him to wake Rudolph up?"

"Where is the adbodmible snow monster?"

"Mommy, let me show you the abdomible snow monster...."

"Why is he up there? Is he going to fall down?"

"Where is the abomidable snow monster?"

Frosty

Jack likes Christmas songs, but Grammy, when she puts him down for naps, tends to sing religious songs. She sang one, and Jack said, I don't think that's a Christmas song. And Grammy said, it is if you go to church.

So then she sang Frosty the Snowman, and came to the line about him dancing around, and Jack said, but Frosty doesn't have any feet. And she said, you're right, how do you think he dances?

And Jack said, "He dances right on his butt."

Went on the train with Mommy and Daddy

Since we live in the New York City area now, we felt compelled to do those things that New York City area people do, which is to go into Rockefeller Center at Christmas time and see the big tree and the lights and stuff. And we figured, hey, it'll be great for Jack: He'll get to ride a train for the first time, and see the biggest tree ever, and see some lights and stuff.

So we lined up a babysitter for Kate, talked up the trip to the City all week, and when Saturday morning rolled around, off we went. First came dressing really warm, which Jack is typically reluctant about -- I think he doesn't quite get that just because it's not cold INSIDE the house, it will be cold outside. But we put on heavy jackets and hats and gloves; well, most of us did. I forgot my hat, which is ironic since I have the least hair. Anyway, that wasn't the worst of the things I forgot.

We left the house fully expecting to miss the train, seeing as it came every half hour, we had about 10 minutes to get there, for the next one, and we had to stop for cash. We were still on the way for cash when we realized that I'd forgot to bring the umbrella stroller. Which meant I'd be carrying Jack a lot in the city. If we got there. Fortunately, we made the train, and stood on the platform to see a whole lot of trains zoom by -- one of which was finally ours. This was one day after I'd got Batman for Jack (see below blog entry) so he was carrying Batman, who I naturally knew had only about a 50-50 shot of not being left on the train, dropped between the train and the platform, etc.

Jack was properly appreciative of the train. I think he was quiet as it got started, but since it started up slow, he was like, "Why is it stopping?" And then it picked up, fast, and he was like, "Ohhhhhhhhhhhh." At some point he was on his knees at the window. At another point he was standing Batman up on the windowsill to look out. Toward the end of the trip, which was probably half an hour or so, he was already starting to fade. We'd got a late start and it was kind of close to when his nap would be, plus he often falls asleep around midday in the car anyway, so why would it be any different with the train.

We got off the train and walked through Grand Central Station. "Daddy, carry me! Carry!" Hands reaching up to me. He was heavier with the bulky jacket, I think. I'd been to Grand Central once before, maybe, but it was still pretty insane on a Saturday. There was Christmas music playing and a light display flashing on the ceiling above us. That was kind of nice. Jack was interested. Not enough to walk much, but interested.

We walked to Rockefeller Center. I think I thought Emily would know where she was going a little better than she did. We referenced the map a lot, with my mind racing, yes, this is how people get robbed in The Big City: by looking like they don't belong and don't know what the hell they're doing.

And it was cold. Really cold. Unseasonably cold, actually, in the 30s. And windy. Walking between buildings on our way there, it was like we were in a wind tunnel, or maybe Alaska, and I was carrying my sled dog in my arms. Or Jack, whichever. Who wasn't named after Jack London, although that's kind of a cool name. Jack London Richardson. Anyway.

We finally got near, got swept across the street in a sea of people. Jack had been talking about going home for a little while. He was cold. But we were going to see this huge tree first. Got there. Saw it, took some pictures, said, Jack, isn't that a big tree? Jack: "Yeah, that's a REALLY BIG TREE!" I think he was into it. When he wasn't feeling really cold. We stood up on a bench to get a picture, like everyone else, and got reprimanded by some security type. "Can't do that," he said. Er, everyone else is. But OK.

At the ice rink underneath the tree I saw Santa on ice skates. I did! I told Jack, and that piqued his interest quite a bit, but we didn't see him again and I suspect Emily thinks I was lying. Oh well. I saw him.

Somebody offered to take a picture of us, and we have two -- Emily and I are smiling in both, while Jack has his head buried in my shoulder. Tried to get him to look up and smile; no luck. Forgot to bribe him. Oh well.

Jack: "Want to go home!"

And so we did. We rode the train on an hour-plus round trip in order to spend about 30 minutes in the city (20 minutes on the disoriented round-trip walk from Grand Central to Rockefeller Center, 10 minutes there, which by the way I now recognize when I see it on the Today show and stuff - hey, I was there! I'd never been).

Monday afternoon when I picked Jack up at school, I checked the board outside his class where they say what every child said they did over the weekend. Next to Jack's name, where it often reads "Played with Mommy and Daddy" or something, no matter what we do, it read,

"Went on the train with Mommy and Daddy."