Christmas is Almost Here

Christmas is here once again. My boys and wife love Christmas. I can’t complain. I like the festive nature around the city which starts after Thanksgiving. People string up lights and decorate their houses. Most of the displays are timid yet enjoyable. A few saps however, desperate to be showered with attention of some form, put on extravagant displays in an obsequious show of the power of Mammon. Some of them are really quite fantastic and clearly demonstrate that a great deal of thought and effort went into them. Of course with all the lamppost signs declaring, “Will put up Christmas lights” it may be the third world help making many of these look so good.

Now don’t get me wrong I like Christmas lights. They are pretty and festive and add some much needed color to the dreary monotonous repetitive visual urbanity that is Southern California. It is one of two times a year that the streets look like something other than rainbow iced cookie cutter tract housing interspersed with a few McMansion cookie cutter tracts.

So you add to this muti-colored lights and it brightens things up. I especially like the icicle lights. There is a white version which is quite tasteful and there is a deep blue version which is really pretty. The deep dark lights are symbolic, I think, of the harsh cold nights that symbolize Christmas time throughout most of the country. While many of our countrymen are blanketed in snow and biting wind we get maybe three storms throughout December.

Then you have the inflatable lawn displays which I don’t care for but my kids like. There are Santas, Bears, Santa Bears, Penguins and Santa Penguins. One of the houses in our area has a large Santa Spongebob which he displays on the second floor balcony facing the street. A nearby house similarly displays a giant Frosty the Snowman. One guy has a Santa riding a Harley which seems rather bizarre to me yet the boys like it. All of this entertainment is great. One house has a small train display in the yard. The lights on the wheels flutter giving the impression that it is moving.

The best part is that, whatever ego or cry for attention urged people to put up displays, these clowns are footing the bill for the entertainment of myself and others to cheap to put up displays. Even more humorous is that in the land of annual rolling blackouts (albeit generally in summer) people are burning electricity like it was free and infinite.

People behave strangely around the holidays. I guess after Halloween in October and Thanksgiving in November the thought of the expensive Holiday in December just pushes some people over the edge. People, always in a rush here to begin with, start acting recklessly. We went to my parents house the other day and were cut off three times in ten minutes by people rushing. In each case their sole accomplishment was to reach the stopped intersection a few seconds earlier than us. The holidays put stress on people and in Southern California, with its car culture, the response is to drive faster, more dangerously, and generally antagonize fellow motorists. It is a simple exacerbation of our already hectic lifestyle. Californians are in a perpetual race towards a red light.

This may all sound a little pessimistic but Christmas is a mixed bag. Tomorrow we’ll talk about why I do like the holiday and then on Saturday we’ll talk about how it actually went.

The Peanut Crisis

So Peanut went to the doctor Wednesday. He gave her a prescription. It turned out to be funny pink goo. But when she got home I immediately gave her some.

Thursday was an unhappy day for her. Much like Wednesday she was sad. She cried a lot, had terrible sniffles, and couldn’t sleep much. But by early evening the medicine seemed to be having some effect. She was able to sleep much better last night than the previous two nights.

When we got up today she was in better spirits. She isn’t rubbing her ear. She’s still got awful sniffles. It must of been terrible for her. Even now on the mend she is not her usual happy playful self. We’ve gone almost three days now without mischief.

I know kids get sick and that she was bound to become ill at some point. But this was her first time and she really got knocked around by it. Luckily her daddy was here to hold her. She had trouble sleeping. Her normal two hour naps were about thirty minutes on Wednesday and about an hour on Thursday.

Right now she’s been asleep about an hour and a half. I’m glad she’s finally getting the rest she needs. Her eyes were terribly red and puffy yesterday. The Tylenol didn’t seem to help much with the fever. It was awful and I was worried for a while.

To make things worse she is getting a new tooth. I noticed yesterday after feeding her. Her top right tooth has just cut the gum. So she is sick and her mouth hurts.

But she’s feeling better now and this morning we even played. She has a new annoying game she likes to play with me. Like all babies she has learned how to throw things on the ground. So today she tossed her toys away and looked at me to let me know I needed to get them for her. Then, naturally, she tossed them again.

All that matters is that she is doing better. We’ll all sleep easier tonight (and not just because Peanut isn’t up crying the whole time). Next week she’ll be better and I’ll tell you all about her comic mischief and adventures.

My Little Girl is Sick

When I put Peanut to bed last night she was sad. She had the sniffles. Her stuffed up nose was making it hard for her to breathe. She spent the whole night tossing and turning.

I suppose this was inevitable. Buddy, my youngest son, has been ill and was home sick from school Monday. Of course he was going to spread his awful contagion to the rest of us. I just hoped Peanut would be magically immune.

This morning, after a terrible nights sleep, she woke up boiling like a furnace working overtime (Really she’s just 100° F.). She was coughing and sneezing. Her sniffles produced this horrible goo running down her lips.

I fell terrible for her. All she wants to do is sit with her daddy. Oh, and she wants me to play with her toys. She is actually in good spirits. She ate, had her formula, and is sleeping restfully right now.

Babies get sick. I do understand this. We had a wonderful run of luck though. She hadn’t been sick yet. Both of my sons had been sick by six months. Peanut made it to eight months.

She’s in for a long run of nasty bugs. My boys both went through it as they grew into and through toddlerhood . As she is exposed to other children they pass on their nasty little germs. When she starts school the flu will run through her class.

She and my boys are lucky. They won’t get chicken pox. The vaccine has kept both of my sons from getting it. I assume it will be as effective with her. When I was little we all got it. A select few kids slipped through to adulthood without getting it. They face a precarious situation if they do contract it.

I got it in third grade. At first it seemed great. You get to stay home from school for at least three days. In actuality it was distinctly unpleasant. It was several long days of feeling itchy, itching, and getting scolded for itching.

I would have preferred she not get sick though. Its miserable enough to sick when your fully grown and understand what is wrong. When your little you have no idea what is wrong. All you know is that you don’t feel well.

Peanut certainly doesn’t feel well. I’m not worried. She’ll be better and up to mischief again in no time.