Part 280🎄🎅 ~ The Adventures of King Ben & Zeus the Big Dumb Dog

If you missed the start of this series, you can find it here. A lot of things will be the same or very similar.

There were some hiccups during our Christmas Eve… Ben was overtired from getting up at 3:45am, and over excited cuz Santa. Daughter was tired and emotional and broadcasting her feelings of discontent. I wound up going to three different stores around 4pm looking for a new box of chalk. I needed to go by the grocery store anyway, so that’s the first place I checked.

It was super crowded. We are supposed to be under lockdown… Stay Home, no mixing, essential shopping or appointments. There were tons of cars on the streets and the grocery store was packed. I got my few items, was bummed the chalk I’d seen a few days ago was gone, and checked out.

Onward to Rite Aid… same strip mall as Vons so it was a very short trip. There were lots of people in Rite Aid too, browsing the Christmas stuff. I went to see if they had chalk. They did not, so I went back to my car. I connected the Bluetooth, called Daughter and started carefully making my way out of the parking lot. I told her I’d struck out at two stores and was headed to CVS. She suggested any small thing, even a “Nutcracker” if I struck out at CVS. She said he had calmed down and was doing okay.

I got to CVS, which was also crowded, looked for chalk and found two boxes of eight pieces. I still had Daughter on the phone, so she heaved a huge sigh with me. I couldn’t decide whether to get both boxes or just one. I got both. I still feel kinda bad about it, but Ben NEEDS chalk.

I got home over an hour after I’d left, presented the chalk and put the food away. The rest of the evening went okay. Ben had steak for dinner, took a bath and put the cookies on the special Santa plate. When he went to bed we reminded him that Santa wouldn’t come until he was asleep. I added that Santa comes in the dark time, so he should sleep until daytime. I was hoping to avoid another wee hours bounce.

After we were sure he was asleep and not getting up, we started the Wrap Party. Daughter brought the boxes of stuff from her room and I got everything from my closet. I found a dag-nabbit box of forty-eight pieces of chalk buried under the Christmas loot. SIGH! We sorted through the mountain of pajamas bottoms (three sets for each… Older, Younger, Partner, Ben and me), and the matching full PJ sets, all Ben’s stuff and the stuff sent by my unofficially adopted son. (A friend of Older’s who lived with us a while. Tough circumstances, drug addict mother, living with Aunt and Uncle, the police officer, who were bigots. MAGA hatters from way back. He was afraid to “come out” to anyone but us. I call him Mildred because he’s more like a “crazy old cat lady” than a young gay man.) and a few miscellaneous “stash” items I forgot were even in there.

We finally finished wrapping everything, got the stockings filled and everything was set around 10:30pm. It took way longer because Daughter’s brain was fried by then and she asked the same questions several times, couldn’t find things she was holding in her hand… that kind of tired. We each went to our rooms. She brought my new camera to me, she’d forgotten to bring it to the Wrap Party. I didnt even open it, my brain was fried too.

I sent an email to a friend and did some WP stuff, and konked between writing a comment and sending it… about five minutes after taking my meds. They dont work that fast, but other than dozing, I had been awake since 3:45. Looooong day!

Ben got up around 6:30… not bad! He was very excited and already ripping paper before Daughter or I could get out to the living room. We got him to slow down and the madness and chaos was a little more controlled. The only real problem we had was making him stop when the only gifts left were for Auntie and Partner.

Ben was happy to play with his toys for an hour or so but then he started doing what a LOT of kids do… getting into stuff they’re not supposed to, acting out their over-excited emotions. The problems were exacerbated by Daughter being hormonal, tired and generally intolerant of Ben acting out. She had zero patience and was making things worse. Telling Ben she was going to throw his new toys in the trash wasn’t helpful. I tried to gently intervene, but she was snappy at me too. It was also 10:00am and his meds were due within a half hour. Bad timing.

Meds were given at 10:30am and I promised to make Fried Taters for Ben after I got the Cheesey Taters going in the crock pot. The meds, the calmness I was projecting as hard as I could, and the Fried Taters eased the situation.

Things were Casa Cuckoo “normal” until the movie Ben and Daughter were watching (Dances With Wolves) on her laptop ended. He wanted to watch something else, she wanted to watch her choice instead of his. It was 2:45pm and meds were past due, even though I’d hollered out the alarm. Anyway, Daughter went to get the charger for the laptop and Ben started messing with it. She told him not to mess with it, so of course he had to. She got angry and snatched it up, he ran outside to mess with the gate. Jiminey Cricket On A Motorscooter! I told her to take a break, she said she planned on it, she couldn’t handle him anymore right then. I went out and talked to him, got him to relax and come back in, and I settled into Couch Sittin Duty. Oh, Daughter brought his meds out to him at the gate.

Younger called at 3:15pm. She’d just gotten off work and was on her way over. Partner was coming from their place and would probably be here sooner. I told Younger that was fine. Then found the text from Partner (stupid phone not giving me notifications again) and let them know to come on in on arrival.

Younger arrived, presents were opened and everyone changed into their matching Nightmare Before Christmas pajamas for timer’d family photos. Older was cooking the Green Bean Casserole, everything else was done.

Happy Merry! May you find some Joy and Peace … and Love!

Thanks for sharing our Cuckoo Christmas. Tomorrow we return to normal Casa Cuckoo Adventures… complete with Driving Miss Daisy tomorrow night. If you’re celebrating tomorrow, enjoy! If you’re not, then hang out with us… we’ll be in our PJs all day, hopefully being lazy. ¡Hasta mañana!

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HUGS!

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