Jingling Bells and Crippled Reindeer

It's time! The turkey is gone, the waistlines are expanding, and people are getting stabbed over toys. That can only mean one thing: the Christmas season has begun! Huzzah! Now, think back to your childhood Christmases....was there a particular decoration you remember loving? Well, I have made it my personal mission to ensure Aidan has, like, 40 of them. You see, I have an affliction. Deep breath, deeeeeeep breath. It's go-time.

My name is Dad, and I'm addicted to hideous Christmas decorations.

Really, it's just my white trash showing. I can't help it-- I am a SUCKER for absurd representations/bastardizations of Christmas themes. The only things sacred to me are the tree (it must be green with white lights and single colored tinsel is optional) and the stockings (I'm serious, there had BETTER be a something to hang those bad boys in my house on or we're gonna have words). Everything else? Well, the more insane the better. Of course, this drives my wife absolutely batshit. Which, in turn, makes me gigggle and go back to scouring eBay for the Mamma Mia Commemorative Nativity set, complete with baby Abba-sus (like an aba-CUS, but with extra soul-saving action and Swedish fishing action).

And I know Aidan will remember it. In fact, I'm counting on it. Because the only way I'm going to get my beloved half-lit crippled wire reindeer out in the yard this year is by playing the nostalgia card. In addition to the aforementioned deer, I have:

• An 8 ft. blow-up snowglobe thingy.


• A Santa Clause figure that dances and plays the sax.


• A ceramic house, circa 1983, with little lights and cellophane windows (handmade, of course)


• Santa Clause in bed sleeping-- and get this-- he SNORES! Rock!


• Tiny little wooden ornaments that have most of their limbs broken off.


• A Winnie the Pooh Christmas train for the mantle.


• Camel and wiseman (only one, I pretend the other two are lost)


• Lots of stacking boxes to scatter about


• Metal decorations that are supposed to be door hangers (for the walls)


• A metric crapload of Ornaments That Should Not Be (some truly odd stuff in there)


• A beautiful brown, green, and yellow "wooden" sled and reindeer for the front bay window; all made from flat panels that slide together, so the whole thing looks like a mental patient's idea of a sleigh team.
  

Now tell me there isn't some serious Christmas spirit in there. I like my house looking like Father Christmas had decoration diarrhea all over the place, and anyone who disagrees is just a mean ol' Scrooge. Now if you'll excuse me, I hear the local hardware store is having a sale on inflatable popcorn ball yard floats.

It's ok, I promise not to get more than a dozen or so.

Uhhhh....what?

Well, we survived another birthday/holiday. Barely. I think Aidan's logged enough highway miles now to qualify for an upgrade in Dad's Limo Service; each set of grandparents is 2.5 hours away (in opposite directions, of course) so we've been going a lot lately. And the whole time had been full of presents for the little guy; he got one from daycare first, then we gave him half of our presents on his birthday (the though was to give him the other half at Grandma and Pappy's house but of course, we forgot to bring them....more on that in a minute), then he got presents from one half of the family, then we came home and gave him the other half of his presents, then he got presents from the OTHER side of the family. Pretty soon, it seemed like his presents were giving him presents.

This does not bode well for Christmas.

Of course, during all this travel he was suffering from some unknown cold/sinus thing with really nebulous symptoms......which meant that he was a bit touchier than normal, and far more snot-filled. Add that to the fact that someone must have told him he was two and should be a demon now, and you get one interesting week. Vacation my ass, this was like a combination Deathrace 2000, marathon, and bomb squad exercise.

Anyway, now that he's two he's definitely starting to make his opinions known, and his displeasure known louder. In between the two are some pretty hilarious things coming out of his mouth. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you a short list of Aidan's Most Memorable Quotes.

"Hot Tamale!" (Pappy told him that to keep him away from the stove)

(sticks one finger in the air) "Hold on, I be right back"

"Fart" (Thanks to the wife. Of course, this one is niiiiice and clear.)

"Yo Baby!" (Thanks to my Dad.....I assume at some point this will get me slapped.)

"Ley Moley" (He's trying to mimic me saying 'Holy Moley'... I still have yet to teach him 'great googily-moogily', a personal fave)

"Daddy! Cheesedick!" (He actually says cheese stick but enunciation is not really his strong point yet).

Ah, toddlerhood. Gotta love it.

Finding Nemo (and his flashlight)

Yesterday both myself and my lovely bride had the day off for Veteran's Day. So, in order to fittingly honor our vets, we decided to make a patriotic journey to....the Adventure Aquarium. Of course, we did this to benefit our little captain Nemo... he had been there before, but last time he was too young to walk, so we figured that he'd be much more into it this time.

Well, he was into something, alright-- the lights. Yeah, you read that right. He was much more interested in the colored lighting all around than the actual undersea cornucopia in front of him 90% of the time we were there. For example:

"Ohhh, look Aidan! See the big fishy?"
"A light!"
*sigh*
"Yup."
"A BLUE light!"
"Yup. Hey, look at the eel! It's like a snake underwater!"
"Snake has a light?"
*sigh*
"Yup. Snake has a light."

I will say, however, he got a kick out of splashing around in the water in the Please Touch area....which, by the way, has a friggin' JELLYFISH tank in. what kind of a sick bastard lets kids touch jellyfish? I mean, yeah, they probably weren't the stinging kind, but...you never know. I've learned not to put ANYTHING past those gooey little freaks. But I digress. Aidan almost touched a lobster, and he almost touched a ray....really, the tanks were too deep for his little arms to get to the bottom of.

He also seemed to enjoy the hippos... he was pretty tired by the time we got to them, but he giggled and kicked his legs. Which, according to my Toddler to English dictionary (3rd ed.) means "Hey, neat! Can we get one?" Other things he enjoyed were: turning the crank on the penny flattening machine, itching his butt, watching Spongebob on TV in the gift shop, crawling into an alcove, and running away from us. Overall, it was a fun day for all involved-- although apparently we should have just taken him to the home lighting section at Lowes and saved $40.

One more thing-- the little girl went to her first football game Saturday as the Nittany Lions annihilated Temple like eleventy-billion to negative 4. Early reports are that she enjoyed it, as she was kicking quite a bit during the game itself.