Boppy and I took The Precious to look at the Christmas lights downtown tonight.  He had to visit with us while his mommy and daddy attended an alumni dinner at their University.  At first he was a little concerned about them leaving (he always is…it’s because we beat him), however once we convinced him that we could by Starbucks and get a hot chocolate it was every man for himself.

Have you ever tried to drive-thru Starbucks on a Saturday less than two weeks before Christmas with a 2 year old?  Too say it is slow gives slow a new meaning.  We raced ahead like a herd of turtles.  We commented on the purple car in front of us.  Yes it was purple.  Yes their was a guy in it.  Yes he was getting Starbucks…and so on.  After the first thirty minutes or so he began to get bored and started to contemplate the clothing at Chico’s.  I tried to convince him that he wouldn’t like it.  There weren’t any toys in there, and probably not any other little boys either.  This started a whole new conversation.  “I wike cwothes.” “No you don’t. You would much prefer to be nakey all the time.” “I wike nakey time!!” “I know you do, but we can only get nakey at your house or Emmy’s house.” “I wanna go to Emmy’s house.”  Well, you can pretty much take it from there.  Until he got his hot (lukewarm) chocolate.  “I wike it chocowate.  What is it?”  “Hot chocolate.” “Hot chocowate?”  “Yes, it’s hot chocolate.” “I wike it hot chocowate.  What is it?”  Don’t you just love the mind of a two year old?  He can remember a game we played 6 months ago, but can’t remember he is drinking hot chocolate for 2 seconds.  Rather than take him home for some nakey time, we decided to take him to see the Christmas lights.  We started in the neighborhood, and the one just across the road.  By this time he is begging Boppy for more.  So we headed downtown to the square.  Our square is lovely.  It is not Kansas City Plaza lovely, but it does have a quaint charm.  The entire square is covered in lights.  There are street vendors, and the usual horse drawn carriages…but our Santa brings in all eight of his reindeer.  Rudolph stays home with a cold in his nose.  There is also a small pavilion with Shetland ponies for the kids to ride.  I wouldn’t let any child I love ride a Shetland pony, but I don’t have to worry about that with The Precious.  He started screaming for a pony ride as soon as he saw the big umbrella they were housed under.  “I wanna wide the horsey!”  Now my darling ones, let me remind you…I have known this kid for some 2+ years and before I put his cute little hiney on a pony I made sure they had a refund policy.  Because I knew that as soon as he was asked to put a foot over the back of the horse all hell was going to break loose.  When they told me they didn’t I told him the horses were going to have some food and we would come back.

The Precious was in heaven!  There were camels…white and bwown…I mean brown.  He couldn’t look at everything enough.  We spent probably thirty minutes walking down one side of the square.  He wanted to touch everything.  He wanted to sit on every bench, but when the big truck pulled up and the reindeer started being unloaded I thought he might explode.  He wanted to see them.  “See the horns Emmy?”  “Yes I see the horns.”  “Wet’s touch ‘em.”  “We can’t touch them.  They might get mad.”  “Get mad?”  “Yes, but we can go inside the barn down there and look at them.”  “We can wook at them?”  “Yes.  Do you want to do that?” “Yeth.”  And so it came to pass that one wise man and one wise woman took a toddler to a barn.  We watched the reindeer through the windows as we waited in line.  He couldn’t get enough, but when we actually entered the barn and Santa was sitting in his sleigh all bets were off.   “I don’t want it Santa”, he repeated like some mantra.  Of course we took the demented little Dali Lama out of the tent and went to see what else they had.

After we finally left the square, we drove through some neighborhoods that we know generally have great displays at Christmas.  All the little bugger wanted to see was more Santas.  This same child who threw a raging hissy fit (and that’s one of the worst), just wanted to see the yards with Santa.  We saw Santa playing golf, and Santa on a motorcycle, Santa on a Ferris wheel, and Santa in a snow globe but with each Santa we saw came a cry of “more Santa, Boppy!”  And Boppy, always eager to please, kept looking for Santas.  We finally pulled the plug on the Santa search and came back to Boppy and Emmy’s house for a bath and a little Polar Express.  We hadn’t even made it out of the bath tub when the parents returned.  They almost always spoil our fun.  It worked to our advantage that daddy needed to do something else, and mommy asked if I would take them home later.  Of course (although much harder to push over than Boppy) I complied, and he stayed for a while longer.

We played golf (dolph in Precious).  We got our clubs and had a fight (bite in Precious).  He and Boppy flew through the house (flew in Precious…what did you think, he couldn’t pronounce anything?” and we had some chicken.  Finally mommy (not The Precious) decided it was time to go home.  Let me just say he wasn’t for it.  Until I told him that Boppy and I would go to and see his Christmas tree (which by the way, has a princess on top).  Seeing his Christmas tree turned into seeing his stockings, and his Mickey Mouse club house, and his room and anything else he could con us into seeing so we didn’t leave.  Finally I told him I would read him one book, but then I needed to go home and go “night-night”  He agreed, and true to his word after one book he said “you go home.”  So we did.

This kid is some special kind of piece of work.  He’s so bossy you can’t help but laugh at him, and then he’s so bossy he gets mad at you for laughing.  He doesn’t forget anything, except what you told him two seconds ago.  He’s ridiculously cute, and I’m not just saying that because I’m his Emmy.  His Boppy and his aunt and uncle think so too.  So even though I didn’t come right home and go “night-night” I stayed up just long enough to let you know that the spirit of Christmas is alive and well in Fayetteville, Arkansas…and I’ll challenge any of you Grinches to keep that scowl on your faces when you are with a two year old discovering the joys of Christmas for the first time he can remember!