Ah, Christmas. EVERYONE loves Christmas, right?
Well, except for Osama bin Laden. I’m pretty sure he hates Christmas.
But aside from him and a few million other people that don’t really give a crap about the little baby Jesus’ birthday EVERYONE loves Christmas, right?
And if you work in my lab, how can you not?
I mean that literally.
We are 18 people (give or take a few work-study students) and we’ve had no less than THREE Christmas celebrations this month with the promise of another one in January (when people aren’t so busy, y’know?) We have had the department-wide Christmas party, a Christmas luncheon for our smaller group and, of course, the obligatory “Secret Santa” pot luck.
Ah, Secret Santa. EVERYBODY loves the Secret Santa, right?
All the worry about who’s name you’re going to draw and what if you get Lousy McJerk-face? What will you do then? You can’t stand that guy. OH GOD WHAT IF YOU GET MAVIS THE CAT LADY? You fret about and when you do draw a name you are secretly chanting “please let me get [insert your best friend at work here]” over and over again while you’ve got your fingers crossed but in the end you draw that guy from accounting that you barely knew even existed except for the fact that he once wore that Star Trek t-shirt you thought was funny.
Yeah, no.
This year, when asked if I wanted to draw a name for the gift exchange I said “No. I want Marty’s name.” At first that did not go over very well. Or rather, she did not understand me. I repeated myself. “Please dig through the names and give me Marty’s, I already have a present picked out for him.” To her credit, she barely argued.
So that went well for me.
When the day of the gift exchange loomed nigh, I dutifully lugged my present to the bus and eventually down to Seattle. I tossed it in with the other gifts and hoped in a fit of selfishness that I would not be forced to relive the gift exchange from last year but secretly knew there was a high probability.
As I had expected, the gift I gave Marty (pizza making supplies) went down a treat. You see, we have been talking pizza for some months and I knew he needed a few things which was the reason I wanted his name at the start. To my astonishment I did not receive a $25 gift certificate to ANY restaurants. Nope.
I got a Ms Sassy Cat Pillow Pet which is hilarious in a completely WTF-made-you-think-of-ME-when-you-bought-this? sort of way. It was later explained to me that yes, it was a ridiculous gift but who else would appreciate a stuffed animal that, with the judicious application of velcro, can turn into a pillow?
Why, ME of course!
It turns out they were right.
For some reason I cannot fully explain, I LOVE that thing. Here is a link for you to see what it looks like all Velcroed-up. It really is super-soft. And strangely, when it’s in Cat mode it almost looks like a real cat with a goofy face.
Aaaaaaaaand, that’s where the problem started.
In case you weren’t aware of it, I already have two goofy-faced cats (no Velcro needed) one of which looks suspiciously like Ms Sassy Cat. His name is Katzu.
Team Illiterate
He is not pleased with the Ms Sassy Cat Pillow Pet.
The first night I brought it home, I put it in the spot he usually sleeps (you know, for a laugh.) Not only did he hiss a little bit but after he realized it might not be a real cat but instead someone’s idea of a bad joke, he was so upset that he ignored me for the next two days.
Let me just re-iterate that we are talking about a cat that can be found waiting at the door for me everyday when I get home. Rarely does he let me out of his sight even to go pee. And now, thanks to Ms Sassy Cat Pillow Pet, he was no longer speaking to me. He sat on the end of the bed, pointedly turned away from me. Not purring, not moving. Nothing.
But alas, he is just a cat and the first really cold night after the arrival of MSCPP Katzu decided to be friends again. I am pretty sure this had something to do with my super-fuzzy blanket but I am big enough not to mention it. He still does not like the Pillow Pet though and I have to keep it slightly hidden or he will stalk off and go to sleep in the linen closet.
Catching up with today, it is my Birthday! Yay hooray!
Not really. It is Christmas Eve. Who wants to celebrate someone’s birthday on the day before CHRISTMAS ferchrist’s sake. (Um…that sentence seems a little wrong. Sorry baby Jesus) But that’s okay because my husband is very kind and giving and this year he and the kids gave me an iPod for listening to audiobooks on my morning commute. It is green and awesome.
You know how sometimes you get a little gift for someone but think it might be over-kill to give them a BIG gift and then tack on that little gift too? No? Well, okay, just bear with me then. When that happens in my family, those smaller gifts are always from the cats – complete with cards.
Over the past few years the gifts have remained small, usually socks or gloves, but the cards have morphed into something else. I can honestly say that if they had thumbs, brains and a Bic these cats would say exactly what has been written in their cards year after year, without fail (although they would probably coerce Brian into writing them anyway.) There is no way to describe the cat cards other than
“yep. exactly.”
This year, for my birthday Katzuhiro and India gave me pirate socks, bird-on-a-wire socks and cherry blossom socks. My card has a picture of 5 dogs on the front. Here is the inscription:
I get the feeling that he's trying to tell me something...
I know it’s no excuse but still….I didn’t know that they were listening.
I went to pick the kids up from “school” yesterday (read: day care/Montessori.) It was pretty late in the day and most of the kids had already gone home. This is nothing new. By five o’clock most of the kids have left and it’s usually Catfish and two or three other boys plus the Admiral and the baby.
Yesterday was the usual crew:
Baby Eleven is the newest (note: Eleven is not her real name but Catfish can’t pronounce her real name so he calls her El-E-ven.) She is just now learning to stand on her own. When she’s happy she sticks her tongue out, which is awesome because Eleven’s baseline mood is happy so she sticks her tongue out a LOT. Also, my daughter thinks that Eleven is her own personal baby-doll and gets very excited when she sees her. I hear a lot of “BABY! BABY! BABY! BABY!” when Eleven is near.
John has strawberry blond hair, a determined attitude and a strong right hook. He also seems to be in love with my daughter and will valiantly defend her, at all costs to his personal freedom, from ….
…Christian. Tall, likes to build spaceships and refers to me as “Catfish’s Mom” unfortunately for Christian, he is also somewhat of a scapegoat for the kids at school. I know this because I have personally witnessed him blamed for a lot of petty crimes involving crayons, milk and broken toys on days when was absent from school, at parties he has not attended and once in my own living room, on a Saturday even though he has never been to my house. Poor Christian.
Last but not least we have Raj. Raj is the younger brother of an older girl that was at Montessori with Catfish up until this last school year when she started first grade. Without his sister around to harsh his mellow, Raj has become even more extroverted, talkative and generally just a fun-loving little guy.
I have come to know each of these kids over the past year or two and, in turn, they have come to know me. I tell you honestly when I say that they all hold a special place in my heart. They are so completely different from my own children and I truly enjoy their personalities: John and his brawling, Christian and his goofiness, Raj and his confident swagger, Eleven and her happy happy joy joy.
Every evening they are genuinely happy to see me. They delight in shouting “CATFISH YOUR MOM IS HERE!” even though he may be standing right in front of me. While we ready ourselves to leave, they tell me about buildings they have built, adventures they have recently had and the latest playground gossip including who hit whom at lunch and how long he was in time-out.
Also, they love to high-five like no body’s bidness.
(Eleven is working on it.)
Okay.
Getting back to the gist of my story, yesterday Brian wanted to stay late at work in order to attend his company Christmas Holiday Winter get-together (no spouses allowed this year.)
That’s fine. I can take a hit for the team. Plus, Brian needs to blow off some work-related steam after this last project. I girded my loins and steeled my nerves for an evening without the daddy.
I must confess that Brian is 100% better at dinner time that I am. This is because he is the cook of the family. When I make dinner it goes something like this:
“Hey, you guys want Macaroni and Cheese?”
Fortunately for me, they haven’t figured that out yet. Either that or they really REALLY love Macaroni and cheese.
Anyway, our usual Thursday routine involves me picking up the baby while Catfish stays at school waiting for his dad to pick him up and take him to his swimming lesson (he refuses to go in the girl’s changing room with me.) But yesterday was not a usual day. Brian had his work function and swimming lessons were over for the duration of the holidays.
I arrived at school a few minutes past five. John, Christian, Raj and the Admiral were all watching a Christmas movie and singing “Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel” (Montessori school brings ALL the holidays on the bus. They celebrate everything. It is awesome) Eleven’s tongue was sticking out. As soon as he spotted me, Catfish yelled out:
“MOM! Guess what? NOOOOOO SWIMMING TODAY!”
Missing a swim lesson is is not always greeted with such enthusiasm but the closer we get to Christmas, the more excited we are for everything. I met his zeal and raised him an intense:
“Right on little Dude! Let’s go home and make a HUGE MESS!”
His reply was fast and furious:
“YEEEEEEEEAAAAHHHH!!!!!!!1!!eleventy!!!!!!”
Now, if you were coming from my position, which I have tried to accurately reconstruct here for you, it could be argued that I was only trying to start the impending Daddy-less evening on a high note. While we gathered our gear to go home Catfish and I had a great time making plans to:
A) Go Home
B) Have a snack
C) Go upstairs to the play room and play while making a
D) HUGE MESS
Which, after a round of high-fives, we promptly went home and put in to action.
This is perfectly acceptable because the upstairs room is, in fact, Catfish’s bedroom. It started out looking like the demilitarized zone from World War Hot Wheels and in order to make a huge-er mess we would have had to clean up a significant portion of the floor (room cleaning day wasn’t for another 48 hours.) So instead, Catfish raced a truck back and and forth incessantly while the Admiral made an elaborate meal out of fake succotash and a plastic wine goblet filled with Mardi Gras beads. She even used a fake napkin (I was so proud.)
On the other hand…
…It can also be argued that I am a complete idiot.
Because, while I was making the plans to go home and do no more damage than rearranging the chaos that already existed in our home, I completely failed to recognize the fact that there were three other sets of ears, attached to three independent brains, listening to our conversation about going home and “making a HUGE MESS” (Eleven was still sticking her tongue out and thus does not count in this respect.)
Fast forward to today. At lunchtime we had the annual Montessori Christmas party wherein all parents are invited to come and celebrate with the kids. Like any good parent that doesn’t work on Fridays but has tons of stuff to do because it’s the week before Christmas ferchristsake, I showed up late. I had no idea they were waiting for me – that Catfish was making everyone wait for me. But I got there as fast as I could and apparently, it was just in time for the caroling.
Oh the Caroling! We were up on the rooftop with Rudolph and Frosty had FIVE GOLDEN RINGS with a side order of Dreidels.
Afterward there was a vegetable tray and grapes and cheese pizza (Teacher is a vegetarian Hindu) and I was able to talk with a few of the parents that I really enjoy even though I always get the vague feeling that that they know I’m not a real parent because no real parent would act like such a child. This goes to show how sophisticated and urbane they are since they have not once said anything to me about it.
Then I opened my big, fat stupid mouth and told them about how I survived my daddy-free evening. When I got to the part where I suggested to the Catfish that we go home and make a HUGE MESS, I noticed all eyes widen all around me. It was then that I realized my mistake.
“So THAT’S where he got it!”
*eye daggers*
It seems that when I announced our plans for creating said havoc, I was not speaking solely to my own son. There were three other little boys in attendance, listening to every mouth-watering promise of carnage, devastation and the absolute joy that would ensue from such employments. They were convinced.
In my defense, it does not take and act of congress to persuade most boy children between the ages of two and (seventy) nine to destroy, pillage and plunder. It seems to come as naturally as peeing outside and shoving things up their noses. But alas, I did not intend to inflict three battle-ready boys upon their unsuspecting mothers.
Chagrined, I listened to “Raj’s Mom” tell me of how, after they got home the previous night, Raj proclaimed his intentions to
“Make a HUGE MESS!”
and immediately dumped a bucket of toys on the living room floor. He then decided to clean up his mess by tossing each toy into the next room, thus making an even larger mess as his aim is not all that great.
This was made all the more embarrassing because she (Raj’s mom) had just finished telling me of how she was only now starting to feel better after weeks of being ill.
And all I can think is: “OMG I’m such an ass.”
“Christian’s Mom” heard this conversation and wandered over to tell me how he had pulled a similar stunt within moments of getting home last night with the added benefit that he had no intention of cleaning up after himself.
And John’s mom?
I don’t know, they weren’t at the party.
So here I am, stating for the record that I am very sorry. I have learned my lesson. I know now that the public authorization of such wanton demolition was wrong. I should have realized that there were impressionable yoots within earshot. In short: I apologize.
In my defense, the Admiral DID use a fake napkin to eat her fake succotash and drink her fake Mardi Gras wine.
My point?
I’m pretty sure that the girls would have recognized I was kidding.
