She really should have been in bed. After spending the day throwing up in dramatic fashion – you know, like all over the car after getting picked up early from school – she should have been tucked under the covers. Resting. Trying to sleep.
“I threw up nine times today, dad,” she told me at one point. Whether it was a cry for sympathy or a badge of honor, I wasn’t quite sure.
But I did know she needed to be in bed, and I had told her this about 94 times that evening. In about 94 different ways, all escalating in seriousness and frustration and meanness. “GO … TO … BED, BLINGITY-BLANGIN’-BLANGIT!”
And on the 94th try, I thought I had done it. She trudged off to her room.
Only, you can’t keep a Thompson down. You can’t tell a Thompson what to do. What’s good for them. We won’t do it. Not to spite anyone, but because we lack common sense and the ability to think rationally.
“You’re watching ‘Christmas Vacation’ without me?!?” came a meek little voice from behind the sofa.
You know, “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation?” The movie? With the Griswolds and the squirrel in the tree and Cousin Eddie in his bath robe emptying the RV sewage line into the sewer drain. It’s a classic!
I had just come up to the scene when Clark finally gets his 18 million lights, all slapped haphazardly across his house, to spring to life. That’s when I heard her behind me. “I can’t believe you’re watching this without me,” she said, groggy. “You promised we would watch it together.”
And with her long, soon-to-be-14-year-old legs, she effortlessly slipped herself over the back of the sofa like a ballerina – or a snake! – and into a blanket like some kind of cocoon. A burrito of sickness.
I stared at the little bundle of misery – her glossy eyes, her pale cheeks. All very good reasons why she should … BE … IN … BED, BLANGIT! And I should have been telling her this. In no uncertain terms. This time sternly, and with molten steel in my voice. Maybe a double-BLANGIT!
Only, out of my mouth came these words: “OK, let me rewind this part. You can’t come in mid-scene and not get the run-up. It loses its dramatic impact.”
There was a smile on her face. Slightly crazed, and possibly feverish, but a smile.
I don’t know what it’s been about Christmas this year. It seems to have come so quickly. It’s because Thanksgiving was late, some people say. That lost us a week. Also, the weather is warm, so it doesn’t quite feel right. Plus, time just passes faster as you get older. As kids get older. As responsibilities and obligations mount up. As traditions change, or sometimes fade. Suddenly it seems like it’s over in a blink.
It doesn’t help that my daughter’s birthday is on Dec. 26. That makes the entire season all the more magical. But it also adds an element that I can’t quite put my finger on. Birthdays are a celebration of a beginning, but maybe it’s that they are also another notch on the wall. A mile marker on the passing of time. Add in a big holiday like Christmas and it can be disorienting. Disenchanting. Even sad. You seem to notice more how quickly it goes by.
So I have to remind myself: don’t miss a minute. Not a single minute.
She really should have been in bed. The part of me that feels the need to be a good, responsible parent knew this. That the minute my wife walked into the room and saw the state of things, I was in a heap of trouble. Like sleeping-in-the-car-at-a-gas-station trouble.
But another part of me – the one that lacks common sense and the ability to think rationally – said to let the moment ride. People always get well, but you only get so many of these opportunities. We don’t watch as many Christmas movies as we used to, and some of the old traditions are starting to fade.
Plus, I did promise. She could go to bed in a few minutes. Just a little more. Just to see the lights come on and Cousin Eddie show up and maybe dump the waste line in the sewer. I mean, it’s a classic. And there was such a smile beaming out from beneath that little burrito of sickness. Can’t let that go. Wouldn’t want to miss that. Not a minute of it, BLINGITY-BLANGIT!