Maybe the Grinch Can Steal Our Christmas; It’s Not Like Zinashi Needs the Toys

Today was better than yesterday. No one asked Zinashi to share her toys, and in fact, some indulgent mother bought her four new toys at Target. Oh, calm down. They were in the dollar section, and they are cute and wooden, and they all go together as a little set. Sort of. There are three parts of a train that hook together and then an airplane, which she wanted to sleep with at naptime. And I know, I know, I know, Christmas is in two days, and she’ll be getting lots of toys from relatives, but…yeah. When it’s something so small and she gets so excited about it, I figure it’s not the end of the world. We are just figuring out her taste, and it turns out that the one thing I didn’t buy for her is in one of her top three toy categories. She has dolls to dress and undress and feed and pretend to bathe, and she has lots of books, and frankly, I had no idea she would love vehicles so much. So there they were, and they were a dollar each, and I was like, “You know what? YES. Which engine do you like better, the green or the red?” (Red.) She designated one train car to be a gift for Ababi, but it is unclear as of yet whether she meant to give the rest to him or just one car. I’m not pressing for clarification, especially when she pushes the whole thing around the house for half an hour without wanting my help. I will take the opportunity to do something all by myself, thank you very much.

I’ll spend the free time I earned with that purchase just sitting here, eating kettle corn and missing Ethiopia sorely. I don’t even know why or what for or anything at all except I feel an ache for it, and when I was looking at photos from our trip this evening, I very nearly started crying. So let’s all move there, okay? We can have really good macchiatos every morning and find that our pants fit better than ever despite a decided lack of fresh vegetables in our diets.

Or we can just stay here and have Christmas. I’m not sure which you’d pick, but my socks resemble those of the Grinch, so I’m sure you can guess which side of the fence I’m sitting on.

(The side that has no presents wrapped and has to figure out how to make cranberry sauce out of dried cranberries.)

(Bah humbug.)

(And goodnight.)