Raya has been on a food strike for the past three days, following an (insane, in retrospect) attempt to feed her yogurt two days in a row, which set in motion an avalanche of hiccuping, reflux, and tantrums at the table. Between that and the otherwise sweet exhaustion of a Christmas day filled with the spectacle of a four-year old giddy with the excitement of presents, these Slivers come a day late.
And I am thinking that, instead of launching into a long philosophical discourse on why we have chosen to feed our son's fantasy that a jolly old man comes down the chimney once a year and leaves presents for good boys and girls, but he would not do it if not for milk and cookies (and a carrot, according to Sava's request, "because it's healthy"!) which we leave for him on a plate painted by the good boy himself--
--instead of talking about all that, and being all apologetic about it, I think I'll just say that he enjoyed the heck out of it, thanks largely to the fact that he is now old enough to believe fully. And believe he did, complete with squeals at the sight of the tree surrounded with presents, and complete with wonder at each present he opened, alongside breathless anticipation of the end of the fifteen minutes which we had decreed mandatory between the opening of packages. He resisted at first the idea of being forced to wait fifteen minutes as he opened each present before he could open the next, but once he got into the rhythm, the breaks between presents got longer of his own volition, and by the time it was time for bed, he still had three things that he had not opened. So, we had a lovely Day After Christmas, too.
We start thinking about gifts about three months before Christmas, and we try very hard to strike a balance between giving things to bestow joy but not giving stuff that will be discarded after an hour of play or that does not nurture imagination and creativity. We also try to respect his wishes, even when they go against our instincts, so this year Santa obliged with a yellow Dodge Viper, which Sava had spotted at Costco in late summer, and kept talking about and talking about and talking about....it was one of the three things he had requested from Santa, along with a microscope and a set of construction tools, both of which he got, thanks to grandma and Bob the Builder.
The Dodge was totally worth it, even though another vehicle is the last thing we would have picked for him. But he was so excited to get it, and played with it with such abandon, that we had to swallow our snobbery and just accept it. In return, we had asked him the day before to pick three big toys to donate to other less fortunate children, and we were pleased to see him choose a huge cherry-picker truck, which had been his favorite Christmas present two years ago. They do grow up.
He got a couple of cool construction sets, both involving wheels--
--as well as a big boy puzzle with 100 pieces, which he put together today with a little help from dad--
But I think I can safely say that his favorite gift by far is the
flik flak watch featured on photo above, whose unpacking was met with such squeals of delight and screeches of joy that I have spent the last forty-eight hours regretting not having the camera ready to record it. It was the sort of genuinely extravagant reaction to a gift that only a child can have, and I fear that it may have been a once-in-a-lifetime moment. He proceeded to spend the rest of the day telling us the time, oh, about every fifteen minutes, and now sleeps and bathes and does everything with it.
My personal favorite gift is a kid-size desk which we fit under his window to finally provide him with some sit-down space for art in his own room, which he didn't have before; and, it offers Raya her favorite new perch for spying on the neighbors--
Oh, and Raya got a doll, not because we think she needs a doll because she is a girl, but because she gravitates like a magnet towards dolls everywhere we go, and we couldn't think of anything else to give her; she likes her new "bebe" but is not crazy about it, which is perfectly alright with me. Her stocking was filled with some old blocks of Sava's, and she knew not the difference.
*****
We spent the rest of the week trying to fill the void created by Sava's school being out on vacation with various activities such as creating crowns--
--visiting Christmas in the Park in San Jose where, for the first time in his life, Sava dared sit on a moving reindeer on the carousel (the two times he has ventured on the carousel before, I had to sit with him in a stationery chariot) and, more shockingly, requested another ride, all by himself, on a little car spinning in circles, which almost had me passing out with disbelief.
We also baked and decorated "gingerboy" cookies with friends--
--and we finally took Raya for her first visit ever to the Children's Museum in San Jose, where she had a blast exploring the Wonder Cabinet, while Sava hung out in the ambulance and then played with water--
Most importantly, we used a lovely sunny day in order to finally plant our winter harvest, about two months late, but better late than never; I find myself checking about three times each day to see whether our beets, or carrots, or salad, or parsley have sprouted, which of course they haven't; Sava has been asking that we plant flowers, and one of these days I will have to learn how to do it and oblige; the boy
loves flowers, and he begs that we buy bouquets each time we go to Trader Joe's; I love him for that--
The real Christmas story I had will have to wait for another week.
Merry Christmas or Whatever you happen to celebrate.
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