Week One Day 2: I am already sick of all my son's toys

My son has lots of stuffed animals, but stuffed animals, at this point in his life, are just big, hairy things to smother himself to death with. My dad has a particular obsession with buying stuffed animals and now that he has a grandson he has what he perceives as an appropriate place to channel it. Right now as I type this there is a giant gorilla the size of a morbidly obese toddler staring down at me from on top of the living room entertainment center (although "entertainment center" really is overshooting what's actually contained inside. Our TV is all tube, no plasma. We don't have cable and our DVD player hooks into our TV manually with audio/visual cables in the front of the TV. We also still have a VCR, though I always forget how to plug it in and since I haven't actually used it in longer than year, will probably never recall that information. We should probably get rid of it, but my wife likes to watch old, terrible French and Spanish movies that no one will ever bother putting on DVD. Then again, we have a child now. No one's watching any movies).

The gorilla was a Christmas gift from my dad for Gavin. When he brought it over he told me to get the camera because there was something he needed to get out of his car. Gavin was already past nap time, but I'd kept him up to see Grandpa Mike. When my dad came in with it Gavin stared, mouth agape. It wasn't a reaction so much as a semi-comatose state brought on by sleep deprivation. Dad was really excited about the gorilla and shoved its hulking form toward my son. The thing was so big Gavin couldn't even see it as anything more than a great black mass.

"Look Gavin, it's a buddy for you," Dad shouted. He then proceeded to tell me that the night before, he'd placed the gorilla in my little sister's bed. She is in college and still lives at home. When she returned late at night after hanging out with some friends, she, according to my father, was spooked and burst into my dad's room, hurling the gorilla into his bed and shouting something about having the shit scared out of her. "She thought there was a big black man in her bed," Dad said. "Now she's having rape dreams or something." So that's Grandpa.

I dutifully took a picture of Gavin next to the gorilla and then we said goodbye to Grandpa Mike so Gavin could take his nap. About 45 minutes later Gavin was ooooh oooohing to let me know he was awake. When I unswaddled him it looked like he was covered in cat hair. "What the fuck?" I thought. Now, we do have a cat, so it wasn't impossible that Jasper had festooned Gavin with his fur. But as I looked closer it was obvious that these little black tufts weren't real hair. It was the gorilla's. So not only is the gorilla too big to play with, he also has mange.

Full disclosure, the majority of Gavin's stuffed animals are/were mine. I have a collection of stuffed monkeys and other primates I've collected over the years. They are on a shelf in his nursery. He's never had physical contact with them, but they're his more or less (I'm obviously a little torn). But he also has a big tub of more stuffed animals of various species in his closet. There are several bears, an elephant, a wolverine, a pastel green frog with a rattle in his head, a stuffed dog that looks like our miniature poodle Henri, a small seal about the size of a cat toy, a mouse from some children's book I've never read, and a big brown dog with squeakers in his paws that is actually a dog toy. Another gift from my dad. But as I've said, Gavin isn't really into stuffed animals unless he can fit part of them in his mouth and soak it with spit.

Next to his tub of animals is a tub of toys that aren't stuffed. These are the toys he actually plays with. A lot of rattles and animals that are semi-stuffed. He's got a little picnic set that I like more than he does. And he's got a set of really annoying bongo drums that neither of us cares about much. They're not quite his level. I think he'll grow into them and drive me insane. In any case, I am already sick of these toys. Probably more than he is.