Last night, young Gertrude wasn’t feeling well. It started during dinner, when in the midst of eating a yummy biscuit, she decided she needed to sit on my lap and stick her fingers in my potatoes. She whimpered and cried throughout the meal, switching parents frequently.
After dinner, we watched an episode of Jo Jo’s Circus which I had Tivoed for her. She seemed happy, but completely flat. She laid on my chest, limp and tired, periodically getting up to “drum on her tum”.
After her bath, she was almost inconsolable. She’d whimper, cry and moan. She didn’t want to sit, walk, stand, lay down or anything. So I wrapped her in a blanket and said we’d go watch the Wiggles Christmas special. “Okay,” she said.
With Gertrude on my lap and Matilda at my side, we watched the show for about a half hour. Gertrude started drifting, her eyes were drooping and she was no longer lucid . . . Mommy asked her if she wanted to go to bed.
“No,” she answered, “I sleep in Daddy’s arms.”
Wrap it, put a bow on it and get it under the tree, because I don’t need presents now. Damn if that didn’t make me feel good. That one simple sentence made my entire year.
Eventually, she relented to Mom and went off to rock in the rocking chair and go to bed.
Matilda and I were left there with a Wiggles Christmas special and fifteen minutes until bed time.
“Maybe we should turn it off,” I said.
“Why? I like the Wiggles.”
“We’ll get in trouble,” I said. “We’re too old to watch the Wiggles.”
“Who cares? We can make fun of the dancers.”
That’s my girl. So we decided to watch the end of the show. We knew all the words and we sang, sang, sang.
When mom came out of the baby’s room she shot us a dirty look. “Gertrude is upset.”
“Why,” we asked.
“She said, ‘what are Dad and Matilda doing? They still watching it!’”
“See,” I yelled. “I told you we’d get in trouble!”
Discuss My Christmas Present
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