A Christmas Morning

....what is that?......that noise....sleeeeeeeeep....so slowly i woke. To morning breath...bleh. I opened my eyes to find the expanse of my visual plane filled with the face of my 9 year old. Incidentally my 9 year old, Andrew, was born with downs syndrome. He doesn't talk, he gets as close to your face as possible, stares at you as if he's calculating something of utter importance, and grinds his teeth endlessly.

Not at all unnerving. Sounds like someone chewing on a chalkboard. In my state of semi lethargy, I manage to utter..."Andrew, you needa' thhprinnk?" In response he flaps his hands like a little bird and flies into the kitchen. I slide out of bed and stumble in the general direction of the....water. I fill a glass and hand it to the parched flapping child. He takes a sip, dumps the rest in the sink, drops the cup, and runs away still batting at the air like some strange winged creature while squaking much like I would guess a terradatle must have sounded like.

I squint intently for a moment at the microwave. 7:08am.....This little voice in my head informs me that I am currently running on roughly 4 hours of sleep. Sounds from the living room indicate the presence of yet more children. As I approach I hear the unmistakably quirky taunt of the veggie tales theme. Great, three of them out of bed. I tell them to go to bed till 8. My 11 year old David quickly recognized the level of stasis I'm in and promptly takes full advantage of it. "Ok, Whatever, just stay away from the dishes...tree!..I mean."

I stumble off to bed. I wake myself after approximately 14 minutes by yelling shut up. Yes, I was coaching in my sleep. There was a rumble in the jungle....uuu...living room. "Shut up!" I yell again. There's a bang and a crash and screaming and I'm mobile. I come to a sliding stop on the wood floor and grab my face in amazement. David is propping up the tree while my two youngest are pulling on the one leg that he doesn't have touching the floor.

The two toddlers of darkness are squealing bloody murder, David's yelling at the top of his lungs, and the curtains are wide open just like the mouths and eyes of the neighbors looking in. Boxers! I think to myself and I suck my gut in before shutting the curtains with a smile and turning to the potential disaster at hand. I grab the tree and the three amature wrestlers crash to the floor. An hour later the gifts are opened and Mom's in the kitchen cookin' breakfast.

Katelynn's playing with her new bike, the two young brats are destroying a train set, the fifteen year old has disappeared with a model 4 cylinder, the 11 year old is upstairs with hand full of candy canes and a rock tumbler....Andrew is spinning around on the wood floor at mach 4 with a dirty sock screeching well into the decibel range shared by most supersonic jets. I'm on the couch lacing up the pair of canvas Allstar Converse i asked for.

After putting my nasty feet into them i decided that they may be a size too big. I wear a size 13 and converse...well, they look like skis on me. I could have stomped out half a frign' forest fire by simply jogging through it. I get up to take the shoes for a test drive. In my attempt to make it through the labyrinth of toys I managed to anger the three year old by messing up the leaning tower of linkin' logs. He screams at me what sounds like "Faggot!" and then becomes a human linkin log dispenser. Faggot? I ask myself as I reach out to grab the little juvenile militant. As soon I grab him he smiles and says "sorry dad!"

I hadn't noticed my 4 year old who had begun wrapping a loooong string around my feet. Without thinking I try to step backward. This sends me crashing down onto the ottoman with Joseph tucked under one arm....CRUNCH! "Daddy's butt broke the oman!!" Elijah, my four year old, hollers. Oh gawd I hope my butt's ok. I put the baby down and struggle to get out of the bucket I had made of the ottoman when I'm struck across the brow by a hula hoop. So now I'm getting a lil' angry.

I rose up out of the pile of toys and busted furniture like the Crackon. The two once brave little men slowly look up at me with mouths and eyes open wide then promptly drop their toys and run stumbling over one another. A few hours later, or so it seems, it's dinner time. Turkey, Ham, olives, ham rolls, devilled eggs, pumpkin roll, chocolate cake, potatoes and gravy......and Joseph screaming in a voice that can only be described as evil..."Daddy I don't want the chicken!, I want cake!"

Andrew is laughing like a madman slapping himself in the head with a giant spoon....My two oldest are spelling cuss words......my little girl is laughing at some demented Christmas carol by Cheech and Chong.....and I'm seriously thinking about adding a little something to my eggnog. I was trying to remember...somewhere way up in the cupboards was half a bottle of Captain Morgan...I think. I'm wrenched from my contemplation by the loud clanging of bronze silverware against china.

"Thaaat's aaaanuuuuuffff!!!" Everyone of them stopped but the youngest....little spoiled.....brat. He continues banging, fork in one hand and spoon in the other...the word drum solo crept into my mind and I couldn't help but pick up some repetition in the clammer.