Christmas with the Emperor

Over Christmas break…

• The emperor pillaged Christmas celebrations in three different states.
• His royal bed chamber had to be restructured to fit all his plunder.
• On the plus side, gift-givers honored my request for non-electronic Little People (not midgets from the TLC series, but toys) that force the use of that one thing kids use to have.
• What’s it called again?  Imagination?
• NOTE: You WOULDN’T think these toys would require batteries, but some–like the honking, flashing school bus–do.
• (I play along with the battery-operated school bus. I can’t have hoards of unschooled, illiterate Little People roaming around the house.)
• In case you were wondering, said school bus only requires two batteries (which are included) not ELEVEN like some Toys R’ Us cashier convinced my mother in law it needed when she bought it.
• Which resulted in a purchase of 20 AA batteries (Thank you, Susan) and a 20 cent commission for some employee wearing a blue vest with a giraffe on it.
• Did I mention the two batteries it needed were included?
• The hoards of Little People resulted in at least one conflict, now known as the infamous Battle of the Living Room.
• The casualties included Noah, three cheetahs (one from the zoo and two from the Ark), a farmer, a mechanic, several wisemen and a couple human beings (injured by barefoot encounters with various plastic pieces).
• In other news, the Emperor Justus learned to count to two. This is far more bearable than his previous counting, which involved setting out dozens of items–one at a time–while repeatedly announcing “one…one…one….one.”
• (I claim to be a good parent, but trust me, it was getting hard to keep smiling affirmingly.)
• Welcome, Number Two. We’ve been waiting for you.
• Justus got a portable DVD player just before two back to back four hour road trips. There is a God.
• He watched the Bee Movie, with voiceovers from Jerry Seinfeld, until he was a very funny infant-vegetable.
• (Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned the infant vegetable part a mere three bulletpoints after asserting I’m a good parent?)
• Justus began saying “Ow” and “Uck”–the latter of which he first verbalized immediately before puking all over the carpet.
• We consider any puking that does not land on me a mild miracle. This was mild miracle #1. Did I mention there is a God?
• He received a new Toy Story themed pop-up playhouse. This makes his second hideout to escape to after scooping armfuls of my shirts out of my dresser drawers and fleeing into the night. (The other one is the closet.)
• He doesn’t save all his plundering for Christmas, people.
• He also got the new Toy Story movie, though the entertainment we’re getting ready to push is the ever-so-Spanish Handy Manny, who inspired the workbench, action figure and DVDs we bought for Justus.
• We occasionally like to pick shows for him and then we tell everyone HE loves them.
• He’s obsessed.
• Cannot get enough of that Handy Manny.
• He’s also boycotting Yo Gabba Gabba and Sponge Bob because I think they were created to make children dumber.
• He can’t stand them.
• They make him feel “Uck.”
• All in all, Justus has been surgically attached to me the entire Christmas break, which means tomorrow morning’s return to teaching school (and his drop to the baby-sitter) may require more than 11 batteries and a flashing, honking toy school bus to pull off. Say a prayer for me?