Christmas Kicks Off

You wanna talk about irony? I spent the entire weekend looking for Christmas presents for a child who spent the entire weekend giving me reasons not to buy them. We went to a birthday party this weekend at the Playseum where my daughter auditioned for a Ritalin commercial. I don't understand. We took out three of her batteries before we left the house, but she still had enough juice to go tazmanian on us. The other 10-15 kids sat and painted nice and quiet. Stripe-Gremlin thought we were trying to put her in a strait jacket when it came time to put on the smock. Eventually I got it on her and she sat down to paint for twelve seconds before I saw that look in her eyes. Rather than ruin it for the other kids, I just took her back to the room with all of the toys. A few minutes later they came in the room to do story time.

You know, "I appreciate you" gets thrown around so much these days. When my wife says it, I kinda believe it. When I watch her struggle to keep Dizzy Devil still on the floor during story time...I believe it wholeheartedly. She looked back at me like I was supposed to lend some advice...share a trade secret of how I get her to sit still when I take her to story time. Not a chance in hell. She gave me the Bernie Mac look: "Summa ma bitch! Imma bust yo head to the white meat." I just smiled. I make it look too easy sometimes and the only way you'll respect the magician is if you fail horribly at duplicating his trick.

So anyway, after all of that was over, I went shopping to get Christmas out of the way. She's two, so I'm not going all out. She won't remember this anyway. When she can be scarred by the memories, then I'll put some effort into it, but for now a wrapped up empty toilet paper roll will do just fine. "Look baby, it's a telescope...and a microphone...and a drumstick." I got her two Angry Bird plush toys ($10), some used Dr Seuss books (12 books at $3 each), and a Minnie Mouse folding table set ($30). That lady that I married wants to get her a toy kitchen. I say we get her a step ladder and put it in the real kitchen.

(Note to self: Take pictures with Santa this year...or do what you did last year: Take pictures of Santa, but conveniently position her in the shot so that it looks like she's standing next to him like people do with the Eiffel Tower.