Dear Roger: Monkey In A Box, Duct Tape and Rabbits

It was a pretty decent Christmas. Having started early getting things for the kids as well as carefully planning for what to get them, allowed me to make sure that each of them had a nice stack of presents to make up for the paltry amount of last year. I didn't get what I want, hes still around and they were sold out of the small sized hoodies, but then maybe I have been a very bad girl? Its irrelevant, my kids were happy and that is all that matters. Of course there had to be some fun had by the boys torturing my poor daughter. The largest box under the tree was for her. It actually was a pretty damn big box that contained a keyboard complete with stand and adapter as well as some books and such, but when she spotted it, my eldest son walked over to it with her and kind of shoved it towards the back of the pile and said,"Damn mom! You forgot the air holes!" Leading the poor child to suspect we had been up to some nefarious behavior. I dont know what was worse, the fact that she is aware of such goings on in the world, the fact she looked at me like she suspected I might be capable, or that the rest of the family would conspire along with me. She dove at the box in an ill fated rescue attempt and had to be restrained. I threatened her brother with bodily harm if he didn't clear up her misconception, but I know he kept leaving that shadow of a doubt in her mind, especially later when I saw him show her my empty duct tape roll. I ended up sleeping on the couch because I had to guard the tree and presents from her and sure enough, at 4:30 in the morning she was up and out and trying to effect a rescue.For a brilliant kid she is alarmingly single-minded. I made sure her rotten brother was woken up equally early.
She was, of course, delighted with the keyboard, but I also think she may have been a little disappointed that her favorite boy was not, in fact, duct taped in the box. Who knows? She is an odd child. She started practicing on her keyboard and kept at it for well over 3 hours straight. She is already writing down finger placements and trying to figure out how to read music.She is fascinated with all the different sounds the board makes and loves to play it at the same time her older brother is playing his electric guitar.
Yes, I voluntarily purchased my children musical instruments for Christmas. Yes, I am insane. I have listened to the eldest torture to death every song from my youth with the guitar over the past couple of days, and now he has started on the songs that daughter holds dear. She got a hoodie with an ipod connection and was walking around with my ipod listening to "Sinners Dream" and singing along. Son decided he wanted to play it on his guitar. A heated debate occurred over whether or not it was fair that he "torture" her with playing bits and pieces of every single song she loves over and over again until we all cringe. I gave him headphones, but he claims its not the same as hearing it through the amp. We all suspect hes just an exhibitionist.He played the song on the guitar, she sang, I guess it was a fair compromise. Im sure my neighbors are about ready to kill us all, and if they weren't musicians, I would think they would have already been over, but so far no complaints.
My daughter came to me yesterday with an interesting proposal for our New Years tradition. She said that since she had been the first to say,'Rabbit Rabbit" last year on January 1st,our luck had been pretty exceptional. I had gotten a job, her brothers had come home, she had gotten to see her favorite boy again and gotten to hug him and talk to him(the highlight of her whole year), and things had just gotten better for us all around. She said, "I think I am lucky, so maybe you should just sleep late that day and let me have it again." I think she is right. It has been a good year with the one exception, and if we could figure a way to deal with that, then this next year will surely be even more awesome.
We know we want to keep moving forward and upward and there is no way that the dead weight I have hanging around my neck in the form of the albatross is going to prevent that from happening.