Day Three

I must confess that it is a fear of mine that I will get part way through this and get stuck, and run out of clever stories to tell. So far I am doing ok, but what if I wake up tomorrow with nothing to say? I wonder if Hemmingway ever felt this way?

My youngest son Matthew was born 9/2001 and had his first Christmas 3 months later. That year Big Brother Paul got it in his head that it was his job to be sure that Matthew’s first Christmas was a good one. Paul’s requirements included a tree decorated with cookies and marshmallows, Christmas caroling, a white Christmas, Christmas lights on the house, a snow man and special presents from Paul himself.

Of course more cookies went in Paul than on the tree, and have you ever tried to string marshmallows? I can’t recall just what Paul chose for Matthew’s special gift, but I do remember that it was more suited for a three year old to play with than a newborn. The night of our Christmas party about halfway through the party Paul herded all the children, most of them older than he, out on the front porch and had them sing Christmas carols to Matthew and the rest of our guests. As it turned out the only song that Paul knew the words to was “we wish you a merry Christmas” and that was about all the words of that song he knew, but he gamely sang it over and over.

I was pretty sure he was going to be disappointed in the weather, but that worked out too. As usual we had Elisa Gail for a few days after our party before we had to take her home Christmas Eve, and it started snowing on our way back from Henrietta. When we got home there was enough snow on the ground for Paul to make a tiny snowman. After it was competed he wanted to bring it in the house and put it in Matthew’s room to keep him company. I recall that he was not pleased to find out that there was a rule about bringing snow men in the house.

As a parent I want to believe that I am my child’s favorite in the whole wide world, but I tell you honestly that when Matthew was a baby I was always somewhere right behind Paul.