Bulletin<\/em>\u201d, dad said to her.<\/p>\n\u201cI do odd jobs\u201d, she said, \u201cRun errands. They\u2019re even letting me do some proofreading.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cReally good\u201d, dad said, \u201cYou\u2019ll be writing pieces in no time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her eyes sparkled like she wanted that. \u201cI\u2019d love that!\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI could talk to Bill and put in a good word for you\u201d, dad said, \u201cIf he even remembers me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWow Eric\u201d, she said, \u201cThat would be nice. Thank you!\u201d<\/p>\n
They continued to talk about Aunt Pat\u2019s work and the writing work dad used to do, plus that \u201cdissertation\u201d thing he was doing now but never finishing.<\/p>\n
A red light went on at the bottom of the silver coffee thing. It wasn\u2019t coughing any more.<\/p>\n
\u201cPercolator\u2019s percolated\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou want a fresh cup for your coffee?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
She wrinkled her nose. \u201cNah! I\u2019m just going to put a bunch of milk and sugar in it, so basically hot chocolate without the chocolate.\u201d<\/p>\n
She handed him her cup and he put it under the part sticking out of the bottom of the coffee \u201cpercolator\u201d thing. He pressed it and dark brown shiny liquid came out. He handed it back to her. She took a spoon and scooped sugar out of a little white bowl, poured it in her coffee then mixed it. Then she poured in milk from a little white pitcher.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou ever drink it with milk?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n
Dad wrinkled his nose and shook his head really fast as he poured himself a cup of coffee. \u201cNever!\u201d His eyes opened up wide.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre there any donuts left?\u201d he asked, opening the refrigerator door. \u201cI wish Liz wouldn\u2019t put them in the fridge, it changes their consistency!\u201d<\/p>\n
He pulled out the orange and white striped box and set it on the table between us. There were just three left.<\/p>\n
\u201cHmmm\u201d, dad said, frowning, and looking up at the ceiling like he was trying to figure something out.<\/p>\n
I remembered again how mom told me about dividing things in half or quarters. If you divided three things in half that would make six things, though they would be smaller. That would be enough for everyone.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe could cut them in half\u201d, I said, wanting to show them that I could do some of the thinking and figuring stuff out.<\/p>\n
They both looked at me in kind of a strange way, then looked at each other and smiled.<\/p>\n
\u201cWow Coop\u201d, Aunt Pat said, \u201cThat\u2019s pretty smart. Where did you learn that?\u201d<\/p>\n
I never liked it when adults asked me questions. She wasn\u2019t an adult, but dad was standing right there listening. I decided to answer anyway.<\/p>\n
\u201cMom showed me\u201d, I said.<\/p>\n
Dad looked at Aunt Pat and said, \u201cYour sister\u2019s a whiz at math.\u201d<\/p>\n
She rolled her eyes and said, \u201cAmong other things!\u201d<\/p>\n
Dad took the box of donuts, found a knife, and cut them in the middle, giving a half part to me and to her. I took mine with my fingers and bit into it, the feeling of cold on my teeth added to the sting of the sugar on my tongue, the white powder staying on my fingers and falling down on the table. Aunt Pat had already pulled a napkin out of its little holder thing on the table to take her donut part from Dad with one hand. With her other hand she reached back to grab another napkin and put it on the table under my hand holding the donut.<\/p>\n
As they continued to talk I heard someone else coming down the stairs from upstairs. I heard grandma\u2019s big voice say, \u201cHo ho ho, merry Christmas!\u201d She appeared at the door from the dining room wearing a red bathrobe and one of those long red pointed hats like Santa Claus wore and looked at all of us in the kitchen.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo you think they\u2019d let me play Santa for the kids at Fowlers?\u201d She had a big smile on her round face that looked like mom\u2019s. Now lowering her voice she said, \u201cMerry Christmas one and all!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMOTHER!\u201d said Aunt Pat, rolling her eyes, and then in a quieter but still fierce voice, \u201cOopercays erehay! Ixnay the etendpray antasay!\u201d<\/p>\n
I had no idea what those words were, and Grandma looked confused for a moment too, but then I could see her figure something out.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh dear\u201d, she said, then, \u201cBoy that coffee sure smells good!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat you take in it, Carrie?\u201d asked dad.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust the teeniest splash of milk to take the edge off but not cool it down too much!\u201d she said. Then she wagged a finger up in the air, \u201cWhich reminds me that Jane said she needs you to warm a bottle of milk for David and bring it up to her.<\/p>\n
\u201cComin\u2019 up on both counts\u201d, dad said. He poured a cup of coffee for her from the \u201cpercolator\u201d thing, a funny name I thought. Then I watched how he poured just a small amount of milk from the tiny white pitcher into the cup and how the white swirled and disappeared but turned the dark brown shiny liquid a less shiny lighter brown. The milk was gone but the coffee was changed, the two things together had created something new. Dad then went to work getting one of David\u2019s bottles of milk from the refrigerator, filling one of those silver pots with water and putting it on the stove and then putting the bottle in it.<\/p>\n
Grandma moved toward me in my seat and looked in my eyes. \u201cScooch over young man and make room for your loose cannon of a granny!\u201d<\/p>\n
Aunt Pat chuckled at that, but I couldn\u2019t figure out what was funny. I certainly knew what a \u201ccannon\u201d was, but had no idea what a loose one might be, but I moved myself over so there was room for her to sit next to me.<\/p>\n
I could feel grandma\u2019s energy as she grunted a little and plopped down next to me, her body now touching mine. I could see wrinkles on her face and her hands, the only parts of her body not inside her bathrobe. I could see how she was kind of like mom because she would always say something when she entered a room that made you look at her and know she was there. Could she really be mom\u2019s mother? I still couldn\u2019t imagine that could be possible!<\/p>\n
\u201cIs daddy coming down soon?\u201d Aunt Pat asked grandma.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019ll be down\u201d, grandma said, \u201cHe\u2019s got to put his teeth in.\u201d<\/p>\n
What did that mean? Your teeth were always in your mouth. I looked at her and she must have figured out that I was confused.<\/p>\n
She wagged her finger at me. \u201cBrush your teeth young man. Take care of those pearly whites or you\u2019ll lose \u2018em!\u201d She chuckled and rubbed my head.<\/p>\n
Why did grownups do that to kids? They did not do it to each other. Kids never did it to each other. Not that I would mind if Molly wanted to rub mine.<\/p>\n
Dad headed upstairs with the bottle of milk for mom and David and I could hear lots of noises of steps on the stairs and dad\u2019s voice saying \u201cMerry Christmas, George\u201d and grandpa saying \u201cMerry Christmas\u201d back. Soon grandpa appeared in the doorway from the dining room.<\/p>\n
I knew everybody was supposed to say \u201cMerry Christmas\u201d to each other, but something about grandma sitting next to me made me want to say it first, maybe surprise her.<\/p>\n
\u201cMerry Christmas, grandpa!\u201d I said loudly.<\/p>\n
He got a big smile on his face and his eyes twinkled. \u201cListen to our young man\u201d, he said, then looking me carefully in the eyes, \u201cMerry Christmas Cooper!\u201d He then said it to Aunt Pat and grandma and they said it back to them like you were supposed to.<\/p>\n
He looked around the kitchen. \u201cCoffee smells good\u201d, he said. Whenever there was coffee around grownups not only wanted to drink it, but they wanted to talk about it too. He filled a cup and sipped it. \u201cStrong, like I like it.\u201d<\/p>\n
I guess he liked it \u201cblack\u201d like dad. I wondered if that was because they had both been in wars and they didn\u2019t have refrigerators to keep the milk cold. Yesterday grandpa and dad were telling stories to each other about that. That John Junior kid had told me his dad and my dad had been in that one called \u201cWorld War Two\u201d, and grandpa was in a different one called \u201cWorld War One\u201d. I thought it was interesting that they were counting the wars, and I wondered if there had been \u201cWorld War Three\u201d yet, and if not yet, whether I would somehow be in that one. Dad had been a \u201csoldier\u201d which meant he was in the war on the land part, but grandpa had been a \u201csailor\u201d because he had been on the sea part. And the boat he was on went under the water, a \u201csubmarine\u201d, like Tom Swift\u2019s \u201cjetmarine\u201d, which was really interesting for me, trying to imagine what that would be like. Unlike Tom Swift, the stories grandpa had told to dad made it seem like he was always worried when they were under the water, where dad\u2019s stories sounded like he wasn\u2019t so much worried on the land except for when the Germans shot that \u201cEighty-eight\u201d cannon at him.<\/p>\n
Grandpa came to the table and Aunt Pat scooched over so he could sit next to her. He sipped his coffee and said \u201cah\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cMother, daddy\u201d, Aunt Pat said, \u201cThere\u2019s a donut and a half left if you want it in the fridge.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThanks Pat I\u2019ll pass\u201d, he said, \u201cThough if someone rustled up some breakfast I\u2019d eat it!\u201d<\/p>\n
Grandma chuckled. \u201cAh well you were the big chef last night with your basted ham for all at the party. I cook day in day out and that\u2019s just my job. Gets a body to thinkin\u2019!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHell Carrie, I cook sometimes!\u201d Grandpa said, sounding a bit fierce.<\/p>\n
A laugh kind of burst out of her and then she said, \u201cIndeed. Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, barbecues in the backyard, all putting on a show for company. All our friends probably think I don\u2019t know my way around the kitchen!\u201d<\/p>\n
Aunt Pat looked at me, made a silly face and rolled her eyes. \u201cOkay you two\u201d, she said, \u201cStop. It\u2019s Christmas. How about I show off my culinary skills and rustle up some scrambled eggs, bacon and toast?\u201d Then looking at me again, \u201cCoop, you want to be my assistant?\u201d<\/p>\n
I got shy again, given someone asked me a question and adults were looking at me. All I could manage to do was nod. Grandma swung her feet to the side and put one hand on the table and the other on the back part and I could hear her body creak as she lifted herself up with another grunt. Grandpa had a little easier time getting up to let Aunt Pat out.<\/p>\n
So Aunt Pat and I made breakfast. My job was to make the toast. I took two pieces out of the bag and she showed me how to put them in the open top parts of the toaster, then push the \u201clever\u201d down. I could barely reach high enough to do it. I liked the way it clicked at the bottom when you pushed it hard enough, and how it ticked like a clock until it made a boing noise and the bread popped up all toasted. I piled the pieces on a plate and put two more in until I had eight pieces, which Aunt Pat said was enough. She had two pans on the stove and put eggs in one and long pieces of bacon in the other, which made cooking noises.<\/p>\n
I heard someone coming down the stairs, and then mom and dad were there at the doorway to the dining room. Dad was holding David against his shoulder and patting the back of his body.<\/p>\n
\u201cTry rubbing instead\u201d, mom said.<\/p>\n
I could tell he didn\u2019t like her telling him what to do. \u201cYeah I know Liz!\u201d he said fiercely. He started rubbing David\u2019s back instead of patting on it and David burped. Dad scrunched up his mouth looking kind of mad.<\/p>\n
\u201cSee. There you go!\u201d she said, starting to smile.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah. I had it under control Liz!\u201d he said, still fiercely.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know\u201d, she said nodding and putting her hand on his other shoulder.<\/p>\n
Then she turned to all of us and made her biggest smile and said, \u201cMerry Christmas everyone!\u201d<\/p>\n
Grandma, grandpa, Aunt Pat and I all said, \u201cMerry Christmas\u201d, all almost at the same time. Finally dad nodded and smiled and also said, \u201cMerry Christmas\u201d.<\/p>\n
Grandpa moved over, looked at mom, and patted the sitting place next to him. She sat, put an arm around his shoulder and kissed him on the cheek. \u201cLove you daddy\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n
Grandma looked at dad and patted the space next to her. \u201cWell I\u2019ll take the handsome man anytime, actually two for the price of one.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dad sat next to her, but didn\u2019t say anything, David now seated in his lap, looking up at grandma who was making faces at him and touching him with her finger. Aunt Pat put food on each plate and carefully gave it to me to take to the table. I walked slowly so I didn\u2019t spill anything and set each one on the table. We all ate our food. Aunt Pat and I were standing up. She cut up my eggs so it was easier for me to use my fork. It all tasted good. Particularly the bacon, and the toast with butter and jelly on it.<\/p>\n
When we were done we all moved into the living room. Grandma and grandpa sat on the big chairs. Mom opened up that blue blanket with the big yellow \u201cM\u201d letter in the middle of it. I knew that \u201cM\u201d was for \u201cMichigan\u201d. She took David from Dad\u2019s arms and put him sitting up in the middle of the blanket. She put some of his toys around him. David looked at all of us, then kind of fell over but started crawling around.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow about a fire!\u201d grandpa said. \u201cJane, do you remember how to make knots?\u201d<\/p>\n
Mom blew air out of her mouth, shook her head and then smiled. \u201cDaddy you always ask me that and I always remember.\u201d<\/p>\n
She took those big pieces of paper with the words and pictures on it, unfolded them and then rolled them up with her hands and then bent and tied them into those \u201cknot\u201d things. As she finished one, she tossed it with a flick of her wrist in front of the place where you made a fire, which they called a \u201cfireplace\u201d, which made sense to me. Finally when there were a lot of knots, she crawled over to the fireplace and piled them up on this thing with black bars. Then she took some \u201clogs\u201d, which were parts of trees I think, and piled those on top of the knots.<\/p>\n
She then found a tiny little box, and I watched carefully as she pushed one side and the other side came open. Then she took out of it an even tinier stick with red on the end. I remembered those tiny sticks from our house, another thing they told me I shouldn\u2019t use until I was older. You scraped them against the side of the box and they would make a hissing noise and a little fire would start so you could then make a bigger fire on the stove or in the oven.<\/p>\n
Once the stick was on fire she held it under a paper knot and it became on fire too. Still on her hands and knees, with her head now down low to the floor, she blew on the knot with the fire. It crackled and the flame disappeared but parts of the knot where the flame had been got bright yellow and orange and crackled. And once she stopped blowing, the flame jumped up again even bigger than before. She then did the same thing with another knot on the other side of the fire. I watched the knots next to burning knots catch fire and soon the flames got taller and wrapped around the logs with lots more hissing and crackling. I looked around and everybody was looking at the fire, even David. It was hard not to look at it!<\/p>\n
There was no fireplace in our house or Molly\u2019s, so the whole thing about making a fire was really new and interesting for me. I did kind of remember someone making a fire the last time I was at grandma and grandpa\u2019s house, and at a couple other houses after that.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, we\u2019re all here and we have a roaring fire, shall we open presents?\u201d It was Aunt Pat, who hadn\u2019t talked since we were in the kitchen.<\/p>\n
Mom chuckled. \u201cMy little sister is still a kid at heart! Can\u2019t wait to see what Santa brought for her!\u201d<\/p>\n
Aunt Pat made a funny face like she didn\u2019t like that, and her voice was fiere and she sounded like a grownup. \u201cListen Sis, I am perfectly happy to wait until whenever, I\u2019m just thinking about Coop, he\u2019s probably excited to find out what Santa brought him!\u201d<\/p>\n
Mom made her own funny face and nodded and looked at Aunt Pat and smiled. Her face softened and she nodded. When people said things in a fiere way to mom she listened and mostly liked. Dad never liked it when people said fierce things to him.<\/p>\n
I could feel my whole body start to shiver again with excitement. Was I going to get to open all seven of those presents? Then I was thinking, why do grownups always get to tell kids what we can do when they\u2019re around. That\u2019s why I liked playing and doing things when they weren\u2019t watching, so I could decide. But then I was thinking if it were just me and Molly and some other kids with no grownups, we\u2019d still have to decide when it was okay to open stuff, though we would be okay if someone just couldn\u2019t wait.<\/p>\n
I looked at mom, both excited but not sure. She looked back at me and her round eyes got bigger and she made a big smile, nodded and said, \u201cSee what Santa got you!\u201d Again, she was deciding, but at least what she decided was what I wanted.<\/p>\n
I looked at the tree and the presents underneath. I just knew I would get toys that would help me make all sorts of new stories I could play. I was already thinking about how when I took off the paper part and saw what it was my mind would fill with all those new ideas and it would be so exciting. I liked the way the presents sparkled under the tree and that thinking about opening them was maybe even more fun than actually opening them. Because if I opened something and it didn\u2019t give me ideas for playing, then that would not be much fun, but before I actually opened them, I always imagined it would be something really good.<\/p>\n
I got down on my hands and knees and moved toward the tree. I noticed David on his blanket behind me doing the same thing, but mom grabbed him and he said something loud like he was trying to talk words and reached his hand out towards the tree and then looked at mom. She put him on her lap and scooched over by the tree so he was closer to it and reached under the branches to grab a shiny green box with a white ribbon around it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis one\u2019s for you David\u201d, she said, and put it on her lap in front of him. His hands banged against it as he continued to watch me.<\/p>\n
I looked over all the presents and tried to scan the tags to see what came after the \u201cTo\u201d part. One by one I found my presents. I took each one in my hands in turn and felt the shiny smooth paper on my fingertips, how much it weighed and how it shifted or not when I moved the box a little bit. The heavier boxes were extra exciting but I wasn\u2019t sure why. The one that was long with the circles on each end made a rattling noise when I picked it up. I then put each of them next to each other by the side of the tree, until I counted seven of them. I went back on my hands and knees looking under the tree.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that\u2019s all of yours Cooly!\u201d<\/p>\n
It was mom\u2019s voice. She and dad still liked calling me different names than even my regular nickname, like \u201cClubius\u201d and \u201cCooly\u201d. I had forgotten that the grownups were there and that they were watching me. I usually didn\u2019t like it when they watched me, but this was different because I was opening presents so I didn\u2019t care. I turned back to look at all my presents, all by themselves now.<\/p>\n
\u201cLooks like quite a haul!\u201d<\/p>\n
It was grandma\u2019s voice, like my mom\u2019s but different. I still wasn\u2019t sure what a \u201chaul\u201d was, but like when Aunt Pat said it, must be something good.<\/p>\n
Now I had to decide which one to open first. Should I open the one that looked and felt the most interesting or the least interesting. I wanted to like them all so I figured I would open the least interesting one first, because even tearing off the paper was fun. That was the smallest and thinnest one, so it did not look like or feel like a box, so maybe not a toy. After the \u201cFrom\u201d on the tag was the \u201cMom\u201d word and the \u201cDad\u201d word that I had learned to read even though I didn\u2019t know how to really read yet.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s from your dad and I!\u201d<\/p>\n
It was mom\u2019s voice. I remembered again they were watching me though mom was also opening the present for David. My fingers dug in the corners to get under the shiny paper that covered the thing, finally getting the paper to tear open and rip. I liked the ripping noise because it happened at the same time that I was seeing and figuring out what I had got. It was a book with a picture of circle things that were different colors in front of a black part full of tiny white dots. Remembering all the pictures in my Tom Swift books I figured it was outer space.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s a book on the solar system that goes with one of your other presents.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was mom\u2019s voice again but I did not look back at her. I just stared at the picture and then opened it to see all the words and pictures on the pages inside. Words on the left page and then a picture on the right, the first one showing all these different sized circles in a row, with words next to each. The next pages had a picture of this big yellow circle thing in front of the black outer space part. Because I knew the grownups were watching me I wasn\u2019t sure how long I should look at the book before I opened my next present, but then I really wanted to see what else I got.<\/p>\n
So next I took the other present that had a shape like the one I just opened, so probably not a toy. It also turned out to be a book with a picture of a clock on the front.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s also from your dad and I! Again it goes with one of your other presents.\u201d<\/p>\n
I heard her words as I opened the book. Like the other book there were words on one page and pictures on the other, though these pictures weren\u2019t like camera pictures in the Solar System book. Pictures showed the numbers on the clock and the big hand and little hand that mom had told me about, pictures like mom might draw. Other pictures showed circles with edges that looked like little triangles. Still others were of different clocks, and there was one of a big clock like the one grandma and grandpa had. When I finally closed the book and put it down on top of the Solar System book, the shiny outside part of one book squeaked against the other.<\/p>\n
I could feel my body shivering with excitement. The books looked interesting but the next present could be a toy. Books could tell you stories or tell you how to make your own stories that were like the one in the book, but mom or dad would have to read it to me so I would know. Toys could be part of many stories I could think up myself.<\/p>\n
I decided to open the long one with the round ends first that made a rattling noise. As I ripped off the paper and heard that exciting tearing sound, I saw a picture of maybe a rocket ship thing and a spinning thing and a pretend boy made with sticks that were green, blue, red, yellow and purple.<\/p>\n
\u201cWow\u201d, said mom, \u201cSanta really knows what you like!\u201d<\/p>\n
I remembered that I had played with these at Danny\u2019s houses. You stuck them together with those round things with the holes and made stuff, like guns and swords and rockets. I pulled off the top circle part like I remember Danny doing it, and I could smell that certain smell like when you opened up and put your nose in a new book. I looked in and saw all the colored sticks, short and long, along with those circle things that stuck things together. I wanted to try to make something but I did not want the grownups watching me while I did. Instead I went to open the next present.<\/p>\n
I picked it up and it didn\u2019t rattle like those \u201cTinker Toys\u201d but it did kind of thud back and forth in what felt like a box.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat one\u2019s from your Uncle John and Aunt Ruth\u201d, said grandpa.<\/p>\n
Again the ripping sound and finding out what it was. There was a picture of a shiny car on the box, one of those with no top part over where you sat in the seats. My fingers tried but couldn\u2019t open the box.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet me help you with that!\u201d<\/p>\n
It was dad sounding kind of worried as he jumped up from sitting on the floor next to mom and helping her with David. He quickly came over and sat down next to me. He took hold of the box and I let go. His fingertips pushed and pulled things until the end of the box opened up and he pulled out the shiny dark red car.<\/p>\n
\u201cWow, look at that!\u201d he said, holding the car and showing it to all the others, before handing it to me.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat looks like a Buick Roadmaster convertible\u201d grandpa said in a happy voice. \u201cMaybe late forties. Never too early for a young man to appreciate a well made automobile.\u201d<\/p>\n
Grandma and Aunt Pat chuckled. Aunt Pat said, \u201cYour grandpa and Uncle John are nuts for cars, especially Buicks!\u201d Grandma made a funny snorting noise.<\/p>\n
I looked at the car closely. It looked like a real car only smaller. I couldn\u2019t figure out how it could be part of my stories, since the other cars I had were much smaller. Danny would probably like it when he came over because he liked cars a lot. I moved it around on the floor and then put it next to my books.<\/p>\n
I picked up the next present, which rattled but just a little bit. I tore open the paper and there was a yellow box with red letters and pictures of shiny green trucks.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s from your grandma and me\u201d, grandpa said, \u201cYour dad said you loved to play with your army men so we figured they needed some vehicles to get them around!\u201d<\/p>\n
Dad was still sitting next to me and looking carefully at the pictures on the box. His big finger touched the box. \u201cThere\u2019s a halftrack like the ones in my platoon that I told you about\u201d, he said, his voice was excited. I looked up at him. He seemed more like a kid than an adult right then. But then his shoulders kind of went lower and he looked like he was going back to being an adult.<\/p>\n
My fingers could open this box and all the little shiny dark green trucks were there, including that \u201chalftrack\u201d one he had pointed to plus one of those \u201carmored cars\u201d and a \u201ctank\u201d that he had shown me pictures of in his red war books. I put the box, still open, down by my other opened presents.<\/p>\n
I picked up the second to last box, which was bigger than all the others.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know\u201d, mom said, \u201cThat one is also from Santa. He usually doesn\u2019t bring his presents until Christmas Eve, but this year he somehow came early.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dad was nodding his head and pushing his mouth up towards his nose like when he did something wrong. \u201cYeah Coop. There are so many children in the world now he sometimes needs to get a head start delivering all those presents. So a few kids get theirs delivered early. We\u2019ll see how he does next year.\u201d<\/p>\n
I wondered what was going on but I didn\u2019t want to stop opening and looking at my toys. I tore the paper off the box. There was a picture of a rocket ship on it and a big red \u201c3\u201d. Dad helped me open the box and there was a rocket ship divided into the bottom, middle and top parts.<\/p>\n
Dad said, \u201cYou can put the parts together, they call them \u2018stages\u2019, to make one big rocket ship to explore the solar system\u201d, his fingers tapping on my Solar System book. I really wanted to take the thing out and play with it but dad was right there and all the rest of them were watching.<\/p>\n
So I took my last present.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd last of all from me\u201d, Aunt Pat said, \u201cHope you like it.\u201d<\/p>\n
I tore off the paper and there was a box with a picture of a clock. It was strange looking because the front part with the numbers and the hands you could look through and see all these circle things with the triangle edges. I had never seen a clock like that.<\/p>\n
Dad helped me take it out of the box.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh wow\u201d, he said looking at it carefully, \u201cYou can see all the gears inside. Does it really work?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s supposed to\u201d, said Aunt Pat, \u201cAre there instructions?\u201d<\/p>\n
I had heard that \u201cinstructions\u201d word a lot when we got new things that did stuff. You read something on a piece of paper and it told you what to do. There was a paper thing in the box that the clock had been in. It looked like a tiny book with pages but no cover part. Dad gave the clock to me and took the \u201cinstructions\u201d out and looked at it to read the words. I knew I had to figure out what all the different words were so I could read for myself, and not have to wait until my parents could read it for me. I could read some words, but not all of them yet.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere should be a key on the back to wind it up\u201d, dad said. I turned the thing over in my hands and there it was, a green thing sticking out of the back of it shaped kind of like a \u201cT\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet Coop try it himself\u201d, mom said, she had put David back on his blanket and he was now playing with, or at least touching and looking at, his new toy present.<\/p>\n
\u201cLiz\u201d, dad\u2019s voice sounded a little bit fierce, \u201cI was certainly intending to.\u201d<\/p>\n
He looked at me and I could see tiny versions of the colored tree lights in his glasses. \u201cTurn the key clockwise, it says. That\u2019s the same direction that the hands of the clock go.\u201d He took the thumb and finger of his right hand and pretended to wind something.<\/p>\n
I nodded because I had done \u201cwinding\u201d before with a toy car I had. I turned the key and it made a clicking noise and it got harder and harder to turn until it stopped turning at all. When I let go the clock started ticking.<\/p>\n
\u201cOkay\u201d, dad said, still reading the instructions, \u201cNow move the big hand in a clockwise direction in circles until the small hand and the big hand show the current time.\u201d Both the black big and little hands of the thing were pointing straight up. He looked at the tiny clock on his wrist that was called a \u201cwatch\u201d and said, \u201cIt\u2019s seven twenty-one.\u201d<\/p>\n
He showed how to move the big hand to the right. I tried it and as I moved it I saw the little hand move too, but much more slowly. By the time I had moved the big hand all the way around to the top again the little hand had gotten from the \u201c12\u201d to \u201c1\u201d. With each circle of the big hand the little hand moved to point at the next number, until it got to the \u201c7\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow move the big hand forward just a little bit more to the twenty-one spot\u201d, he said, \u201cJust a tiny bit past the four.\u201d<\/p>\n
My finger pushed the big hand down below the \u201c4\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cA bit too far\u201d, he said, putting his finger on the bottom of the big hand for just a second to push it up a little bit.<\/p>\n
And there the thing was, ticking in my lap. One of those bright colored \u201cgears\u201d kept moving, just a bit, stopping and then moving a bit more. Then every once in a while other gears would move just a bit and stop. I realized that the hands of a clock didn\u2019t just move on their own, they moved because other things were moving that you couldn\u2019t usually see in a regular clock. One thing leading to another in ways that I couldn\u2019t figure out yet, but would someday probably make more sense.<\/p>\n
Maybe everything else was like that too. Maybe even I was like that. Maybe there were things inside me doing things that led to other things that made my body move and even made me think. Maybe I wasn\u2019t just one thing but a bunch of things working together to be me. Just like the hands of the clock changing where they were, but you couldn\u2019t see them moving, I was changing but didn\u2019t know it until I was different.<\/p>\n
All those ideas going through my mind were exciting but scary. I put the clock on the floor and turned to figure out my new rocketship instead so I would be thinking about something I didn\u2019t have to worry about so much. But those different ideas that came from looking at the clock didn\u2019t go away. Everything felt completely different.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It was still dark in the house and out the window in grandma and grandpa\u2019s backyard. I so wanted it to finally be morning, Christmas morning, that I could hardly sleep all night. I just kept having things that I had to think about or just wanted to think about over and over. I knew […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[13,1773,515,1775],"class_list":["post-7051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventure","tag-ann-arbor","tag-childhood","tag-human-development","tag-memoir"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leftyparent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leftyparent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leftyparent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leftyparent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leftyparent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7051"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.leftyparent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7051\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7053,"href":"https:\/\/www.leftyparent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7051\/revisions\/7053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leftyparent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leftyparent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leftyparent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![](\"https:\/\/images.dailykos.com\/images\/917490\/large\/XmasPresentsUnderTree.jpg?1613331092\")
It was still dark in the house and out the window in grandma and grandpa\u2019s backyard. I so wanted it to finally be morning, Christmas morning, that I could hardly sleep all night. I just kept having things that I had to think about or just wanted to think about over and over. I knew I was going to get to open my presents. I had looked at them carefully and had ideas about what they might be, at least which ones were likely to be toys, the thing I wanted most.<\/p>\n