Cowgrit found a great Christmas gift for Calfgrit4: a set of eight PlayMobil rescue vehicles. We knew he’d love it, and it would be a great gift from Santa Clause because we can open the package and have all the vehicles spread out over the floor. Rather than one present, he’d see it as a bunch of stuff. We bought the set and have stored it in the trunk of my car for about two weeks.

Last night, after Cowgrit came back home from the grocery store, Calfgrit7 went outside to “help” her. He’s never shown any interest in helping bring in groceries before, and he just slipped out the door without saying anything to me (inside) or to Cowgrit (outside).

He essentially sneaked up on Cowgrit at the back of the car, where she was getting the groceries out of the trunk. Before she even realized he was standing there, he saw the big PlayMobil box in the trunk. Kids have a way of seeing the one thing you don’t want them to see — they can see through fog, blinding snow, and thin sheets of lead to see a hidden toy, but they can’t find their socks on the floor six inches behind them.

“Wow, what’s that?” he exclaimed.

Cowgrit sighed and went ahead and told him it was a present. She had to explain it was for Calfgrit4, and that upset CG7 — CG4 had just gotten a bunch of presents for his birthday.

When we were alone for a minute, Cowgrit told me what had happened. “Damn,” we both said. Although we can still give the present to CG4 for Christmas, it’ll have to be from us instead of Santa Claus. That was a perfect gift for Santa to leave, but now we have to find something else for that purpose.

It’s amazing how it can take a lot of looking to find a perfect present like that, and a lot of clever consideration to hide it, but it only takes a child two seconds to accidentally spot it and ruin the surprise.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

The family went to the Farmers’ Market Sunday to pick out pumpkins. In years past, we went to big pumpkin farms set up as little “theme parks.” But this year we’ve been more busy than normal, plus the whole family has been battling illness this week.

We picked out four pumpkins: one for carving into a jack o’ lantern, one to send to Calfgri7’s school, and two small ones that Calfgrit4 wants to decorate.

At the kitchen table, I set about carving the biggest pumpkin, and CG4 worked his stickers and markers magic on the small two. CG7 directed my artistry — he wanted something scary for the trick-or-treaters to see on Halloween.

It’s usually a lot of fun to carve a jack o’ lantern, but doing it only one time a year means my skills never really improve much. I use a marker to draw out a design on the pumpkin, but my knife work never exactly stays on the lines. I’ve never been able to do the fancy designs that I see win awards, but my boys have always loved the jack o’ lanterns we’ve put on our front porch.

This year’s looks very similar to ones I’ve done before. The stitches across the forehead is new — CG7’s idea. He calls it our “Franken lantern.”

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

Calfgrit4’s bowling birthday party was a hit with all the kids. His guests were five girls between the ages of 4 and 7. At his current age, with his experience regularly playing with girls, this arrangement wasn’t anything to note from his point of view. He was more interested in the bowling balls than the friends, anyway.

After each bowl, he’d run back to the ball return and look down into the conveyor tube. He didn’t care how many pins he knocked down, or if he had another bowl or not, he just wanted to see the ball come back up. His ball was the only dark one — the others were pink.

In 10 or 12 more years, it will be his fantasy to have a birthday party with nothing but girls (his age or older). I bet then he’d be more attentive to his guests. That might actually be a cool “gift” to get him — instead of a car — for his 16th birthday.

“Hey, son, guess who’s coming to help you celebrate your big day. Monica, Sandra, Brandi, Catherine, and Janet.”

I can just picture the look of excitement and terror.

* * *

Other guests to yesterday’s party were all the grandparents, of course. Brogrit surprised me by coming with Momgrit — and he brought Michelle. Michelle is a regular commenter on this site, but I had never met her before this. Heck, I never knew of her before her comments here. Howdy y’all. Thanks for coming.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

There’s a lot of “Get out the vote” type ads on TV and radio and the Web. The concept is a great public service thing: remind people to go out and do their one major civic duty as citizens of this country. But on actually giving the concept some thought, I disagree with the commercials.

Much of the news over the past year has been concerning the nearing election day. As we’ve gotten closer to the day, the news has focused even more on the election and the candidates. The airwaves are full of candidate commercials. Everyone should know the election is near and what the choices are.

If you need to have celebrities telling/reminding you to vote, I’d rather you just not vote. I don’t trust that you have a clue what’s going on or which candidate stands for what enough to make an intelligent decision for the president of the country, the governor of the state, the mayor of the city, or the dog catcher for the pound.

If you need to have someone come to your home and goad you into registering and voting, you don’t deserve to vote. If when someone asks you if you’re going to vote, you don’t say, “Yes,” or “I want to,” then I don’t want anyone helping you out.

If you’re just “Meh, I’m thinking about maybe voting,” then you just don’t worry about it. Let people who actually give a damn and maybe have given it some actual thought do the voting. And if some random stranger knocking on your door or calling on your phone can talk you into voting when you weren’t going to bother, you’re a sucker who will vote for whoever they suggest.

I’m not saying you should have already made your decision on who to vote for. I can appreciate that that’s not a decision to make lightly. But you should have already made the decision to vote.

I’d much rather know that a candidate won or lost the election because people who actually care and pay attention voted, rather than think that the tally came up as it did because a big chunk of lazy, apathetic, idiots were prodded into the voting booth.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com