A lot has happened, including Gavin's new school picture, which actually was taken at JC Penney's and not at his school. But since he had his school photo taken when he was in daycare, it was very important to me for there to be no gap in the chronology now that he's in preschool. And because I fucking love school pictures now that I have my own kid (my own school pictures? Not so much). I chose JC Penney because of their embrace of gay and lesbian families. But also, and this is probably not going to sound flattering but I mean it in the best possible way, because I didn't want the photo to look too, well, professional. I wanted it to look like a school photo, not a Glamour Shot. I am very happy with the result. I don't even mind that you can see his fading black eye (he tripped and fell on the playground while he was wearing sunglasses which dug into his face. This happened a day after tripping and falling and busting his lip (which we just noticed has caused one of his front teeth to start turning grey). So he looked pretty rough for awhile. Cue the child abuse jokes, which I know I am not supposed to take personally but I can't help it, I do to an extent. Because I can't really think of anything I'd hate myself more for than intentionally hurting my child. And knowing how so many fucked up people hurt kids in so many ways. In any case, Project 2012 School Photo has been completed and I could look at this picture all day.Gavin also took week-long trip to Florida by himself. Well, he flew down there with his Granny Marilyn and stayed at her house and Stacy flew down there to get him a week later. So it's not like we dropped him off at the airport with a note that said, "Please help me get to Florida." While Gavin was gone he got a terrible ear infection and spent a good amount of time there feeling crummy, but was a very sweet, and very cuddly, boy. But he also had a good deal of fun (Gavin and Granny took a golf car ride to Wal-Mart and came back with a new bike and helmet, for example). Before he left for Florida I gave him a hug and told him I was going to miss him and he looked into my eyes with one hand on my shoulder and said, "You'll be okay, Mama D. You'll be here with Mommy. Have some fun."
Also while he was gone the beyond horrible shooting happened in Newtown, CT and all I wanted to do was hug my son and never let him leave the house again, but since he was far away I had to settle for pacing the house and fighting back tears. My heart goes out to those families who lost those little kids. I still have moments every day where I look at Gavin and have this flush of fear and sadness at the thought of him being taken from me like that.
But he is home. And he is safe. And when I picked Stacy and Gavin up from the airport he ran to me with the biggest smile on his face and gave me the biggest hug. I told him I missed him and he said he'd missed me, too. "I didn't miss you on the airplane, though," he said. When I asked him why not he said, "Because I knew you were going to be right here." He is a very smart boy. He also seemed two inches taller and had grown out of his shoes. And he came home with a penchant for "spectacular" holiday light displays.
Gavin is very excited for Christmas. This is the first year where he believes the whole Santa thing, which I at first felt weird about, because lying, but I've accepted it. In fact, I even thought to myself the other day that if it snows I could use the roof rake to make a sleigh track. And then I knew I was a lost cause.
Gavin's Christmas song of choice is "Jingle Bells." Last week he was on the toilet singing it but he didn't know all of the words so he was making them up: "Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way. Oh what fun it is to... one, two, (inaudible) HEY!" and repeat." He's gotten better with the lyrics (instead of "(inaudible) HEY" he now sings "sleigh" as two syllables with a big accent on the second syllable so that it sounds like "slay-EH"). But that's because he has a lot of practice. He sings it a lot. Especially when he plays Santa, a game that involves him sitting in the chair in the living room with the ottoman pushed up against it (his sleigh) with a couple of rocking horse ornaments he likes to take off the tree (his reindeer) set down in front, and all of the presents under the tree stacked on the ottoman. It is my job to pretend to be asleep on the couch (I am good at this) while Santa arrives and delivers the gifts under the tree. Then when Santa is done I am to wake up and pretend to look out the window at Santa as he flies off. I can tell when he's coming and going because he sings "Jingle Bells" en route.
There are five wrapped presents under our Christmas tree right now, all for Stacy. Gavin helped me wrap them. He has been surprisingly good at keeping what's in them a secret. Although he did spill the beans about one of the gifts. While Stacy was buckling him into his car seat he noticed that the tip of one finger of her glove is torn up and he told her that we got her new gloves that she can wear while talking on the phone (Stacy and I got new phones, which means her olden days flip phone has been officially retired). Which is true. But she'll still have to wait until Christmas.
Yesterday Stacy and Gavin went shopping to buy me a present (Gavin blabbed the plan) and I went out to do some shopping myself. When I got home they were eating dinner and Gavin ran to me saying, "I'm not going to tell you anything!" It is not easy a kid his age (or, any age really) to keep secrets, so I've been impressed with his resolve. Though I also know it would be really easy to make him crack. Not that I want to. I have no desire to know what my present is ahead of time. Nor do I want to exploit the top secret intelligence capabilities of a three and a half year old. Honestly, a hug and a kiss from both Gavin and Stacy would be plenty for me.
By the way, it's totally fucking weird to have a tree in your house that you decorate for a month out of the year. Especially a plastic tree, like ours. I told Stacy I wanted a real one this year because the idea of storing a fake plastic tree in our tiny house year round is a dumb one, but then Stacy started talking about some Christmas tree farm near her dad's house that's a couple of hours away and how we'd have to chop it down ourselves and I'm all, "I thought it'd be more like going to the tree lot on Woodward" and the fake tree in our basement started to look pretty damn good. I really can't complain because Stacy took care of all the holiday decorating stuff while I graded essays. Gavin helped her decorate the tree a little bit, though he was much more interested in playing with the ornaments than he was in putting them on the tree. Now that the tree is up, he's a big fan of taking the ornaments off the tree and playing with them. There have been some casualties. But it is the War on Christmas, after all.
