During Elaine's first year of life, every couple weeks Brandon would remark, "I can't believe we're parents." I could believe it, but I knew what he meant. We're the kind of people who still snicker at the word "fart."
Since we never ever go out at night, we've found a few ways to amuse ourselves at home. Watching Jon Stewart online is one of them (Real Adults have good cable: that's not us); another one is watching YouTube videos like the
grape-stomp lady. Then came Percy.
Percy is a penguin. He stands about 5 inches high, and he has poly fill, and a bright red beak and yellow tufts over his eyes. He is traveling the globe. Percy is a student at large of my 7-year-old nephew's first grade class, and he gets mailed all over the globe, having pictures taken of him and sent (accompanied by letters) back to the class. He's on a strict schedule; he's supposed to spend about a week at each home before being mailed off to his next destination.
Sign of thwarted maturity #1: When Percy arrived at our house, he was immediately lost -- or rather, the unopened package that he had traveled in was. We didn't notice him for three weeks, by which time he was already pretty late as far as his itinerary goes.
Sensing urgency, Brandon and I immediately took a picture of Percy with a knife at his throat and crafted a very convincing email "Fwd:" of a ransom note that we claimed to have sent to the first grade class. (My nephew attends a private school, and mature people like us make a regular habit of draining our bank account. We thought there might be some possibilities.) Laughing diabolically and uncontrollably, we sent it to my sister. She wasn't fooled, but at least she was amused.
Then we quickly snapped a few pictures of Percy in the rain with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background, and sent him on his way.
He came back two weeks later. We don't know why.
I had had this other idea about what kinds of photos we could take of Percy. And here he was, back in my hands again. I just couldn't resist. While my visiting sister-in-law, Meredith, looked on in slight disbelief, I spent an entire evening running around the house, setting up various tableaux that included Percy. My loving husband commented at one point, "If there is a line, you can always count on Alison to get a running start and cross it." There was no point in acting huffy when he said this. For starters I was laughing too hard at myself. And as my masterpiece below will show (DO NOT VIEW if you're of a delicate constitution) -- there was no point.
I can't believe I'm a parent.
Percy in the Bay Area1.pdf (424.49 kb)
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