Before we left for the beach, Toddler Alien was able to meet two of my mother's siblings, his grand aunt A and his great uncle B. A and B came bearing small gifts from a nearby outlet mall, which gave the affair a strange magi-visiting-the-Christ-child kind of air.
Toddler Alien was mostly charming and his few moments of un-charming were caused by my bad decision. I'm not sure what part of my brain thought that putting brownies in front of an 19 month old was a good idea. Once the brownies had been whisked away, he settled down.
B presented Toddler Alien with a pair of running shorts and a matching t-shirt. B was a long distance runner until his knees gave out several years ago. The shorts and t-shirt were several sizes too large and apparently intended for girls instead of boys, even though there was nothing that would have marked the outfit as more feminine than masculine.
Knowing my uncle as I do, I also know that these clothes were chosen with zero consciousness about gender.
A gave Toddler Alien a plush dog. A Ty, Bo “The First Dog” Portuguese Water dog. Complete with red, white and blue Bo tag. A owns this breed of dog, a sweet, well trained girl with a ton of personality.
Unfortunately, we could not take Bo with us, as J's family contains several members who are conservative with a capital “C”. While a part of me would throughly enjoy provoking fireworks amongst the oppressed elite in my husbands family, the other part of me wanted no part of accusations of indoctrination and why liberals are the root of all evil in the Marvel Universe.
So Bo stayed behind, to be picked up on our way back home. This morning Toddler Alien wandered around and about the upstairs with the dog in his arms, leaving a small trail of fake Bo hair behind him. When it was time to go downstairs, he gravely handed Bo to me to return to his crib.
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