The Gremlin loves his family. So much so that he literally hates the work week. If I tell him I am going to work, he starts crying immediately.
“I don’t want daddy to go to work! I want daddy stay home RIGHT NOW!” (As rude and demanding as the phrase is, his ‘w-wight now!’s are some of the most adorable demands I’ve ever heard.)
As I leave for the day, I will give my wife a kiss, and my son will open the front door. He will give me a hug out on the landing, and then go to the window. As I leave the building and walk to the L, the Gremlin will stand at the window and wave to me.
In the summers we had the windows closed, and in the winter we have the windows closed too. So I didn’t know until the Mother of the Gremlin told me that aside of the frantic arm waving, he also would yell various things to me like “Daddy, I want you stay home!” and “I love you! Don’t leave!”
Well, as he realized his pleadings wouldn’t work, he began going to direct action. He first struck as the weather turned cold. He noticed that daddy always made sure to have his special hat – one given to him by the MOTG for our first Christmas in our first house.
So one morning, after searching for his hat for 15 minutes, daddy ended up going to work anyway, just with a different hat. After daddy was down the block, the Gremlin left the window and went into his room. He emerged with daddy’s lucky hat (above), and confessed to his mother that he didn’t want daddy to go to work and took the hat to try to get him to stay. Yes, I really do like that hat that much.
His next try was more subtle. He realized that I had duplicates of all the winter garments I needed to be ready to brave the Chicago winter and decided to go for the other part of my morning – my lunch.
Being a young, fist-time home buyer with new car, new wife, and new child, I bring my lunch to work just about every day of the week. Most days I pack it, and the MOTG steps up to the plate when I’m unable to. Okay, that’s a lie – my wife packs my lunch, and when she doesn’t, I buy it. But anyway, I walked into the kitchen and the Gremlin was sitting on the counter pitching a fit.
“What’s wrong?” The MOTG looked up as I asked her.
“I don’t know. All day yesterday he was eating granola bars and mini-applesauces, and he just had two this morning. He freaked out when he saw me put them in your lunch.” The Gremlin looked up as tears streamed down his cheeks.
In so many words, we found out that he was consuming these things so that I wouldn’t have a lunch, and therefore wouldn’t be able to go to work.
adjthegremlin 