For Real?
We went to bed last night like we do pretty much every night, only last night we let Gideon stay up a little later so that he could see the firetruck roll through our neighborhood. It’s a tradition around here on the Sunday after Thanksgiving to dress up a fat little bearded man in a red suit and put him on a firetruck for all the kids to see. They run the sirens and turn on the lights and it is in general a giant spectacle.
Last night was no exception, although they did change it up a bit. Instead of being on the fire truck they hitched up a float-like sleigh to a white pick up truck decorated with Christmas lights that drove behind the fire truck. For some reason there were also about four or five cars following the sleigh. I don’t know why…reindeer getting uppity? some kind of poorly orchestrated tailing by the police? angry home owners who are tired of the sirens? Hard to say.
It was cold last night and as usual, Gideon was sockless, so when the truck was headed down our street, I wrapped him up in the warmest blanket we own and stood on the cold pavement in my bare feet. He loved it. So did a gaggle of children at the end of the block who rushed the sleigh, causing the truck to stop for fear of running over the children. Disaster was avoided and the little parade rolled on behind our house. We watched from our deck until we couldn’t see them anymore. It’s a good way to end a holiday weekend.
So he got to bed a little later (and you know what happens then, right? They get up EARLIER. It’s some kind of horrible inverse reasoning that make me want to yank out handfuls of my own hair). I was anticipating six or maybe five thirty, but 4:45 saw a little boy walking out of his room, ready for the day, who could not be coaxed back to sleep. He is now, at 10:00 am nearing the hazy daze of exhaustion but I will keep this song and dance going until one in order to keep their naps synchronized (how else will I get some minutes to sweat off all that cream, butter and starchy goodness from Thursday and the resulting leftovers?). Act II begins in 5, 4, 3….
Monday Morning
I set up the Christmas tree on Saturday and thought so much about the first time I set it up when we were in Dallas. Seems like an eternity has passed since Jud was up in his office working on some paper and I was downstairs listening to our neighbors and watching super cheap cable tv. After dinner, there were too many dishes to put in the dishwasher so I did the last of them by hand and was again reminded of all those days in our tiny Dallas kitchen with my hands getting pruney and dry. Appropriate, I suppose, since we are going down for a visit later this week.
The Huskers beat Colorado so we can all focus on Texas now and that’s what we’re doing here too. Jud is planning to score some tickets for the game with Brandon and Jeremy. I am planning to watch it in Zanna’s living room while the kids sleep through the yelling. High hopes indeed.
Also in the hope category is the hope for well children this week and on the trip. Gid sees the ENT on Wednesday to plan for another round of tubes? to close the gaping hole in his ear drum? to attempt a miracle of healing? All of the above.
Read MoreA First of Many
Jud and Gideon are playing in the family room. Gideon has two of his three footballs. One of them is the hard one that is man sized. The other looks the same but is much smaller and made of fabric. It’s the inside football. The other inside football is the one that Jeremy & Rachel gave him with his name on it. It is upstairs in his bedroom. Although he knows he is only allowed to play football inside with the soft ones, he picks up the man sized football and gets ready to throw it.
Jud intervenes. He tells him not to throw the outside football inside.
Gideon asks, “Why?”
OpSec
When we lived in Germany in the mid 1990s, my family greatly enjoyed the info-mercials on Armed Forces Network television. Mostly we enjoyed making fun of them. In particular we always seemed to be able to easily poke fun at the ones about Operations Security. There would be some kind of ridiculous person walking around a German market with white sneakers, light blue jeans, a Dallas Cowboys t-shirt and an American flag hat, sticking out like a sore thumb while a cheesy voice-over man reminded us to always be aware of our surrounding and try to blend in. The caricature was just too often proven real. There were many times while we were in public that we played ‘spot the American’ and loved to try to make ourselves appear as European as possible (the license plates that were the wrong size and shape with the letters USA on it, were no help then, but I digress). The commercials reminded us to vary our route home, not to become too predictable and to keep ourselves alert to our surroundings. Mostly I just wished I could be watching a real commercial, but was still glad that it wasn’t one about fraud, waste and abuse. Those were officially the worst. Regardless, I don’t think we learned the lesson. Or at least it didn’t stick…
OpSec from JudandKim on Vimeo.
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