Life With A Pet Reindeer

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@toulouseNtonic #dearsanta

Last year, I took Asher to Macy’s so he could put his carefully crafted (by me) Dear Santa letter directly into Santa’s very own mailbox.  I made him stand on tippy toes and pretend to put the letter in the box for 10 minutes while I took photo after photo.

It was the kind of big deal a parent of an only child makes of something, especially one who’s pregnant and feeling guilty about the kid’s imminent loss of status.

This season, in contrast, I just happened to be dragging Asher with me on an errand at the mall and at the last minute, remembered the mailbox.  We had a few minutes to kill so off we went.

As Asher eased his little booty cheeks up on the folding chair provided, I queried him about what he wanted to ask Santa for.  Legs dangling above the floor, he put the pen to his lips and tapping it, went “Hmmmmm,” for a minute, looking off into outer space.

Then he got really excited.  “I know, I know.  I want a pet reindeer.”

“Okaaaay,” I said, the pragmatic side of me about to launch into all the reasons that he couldn’t ask Santa for a pet reindeer.  Then I remembered that reindeer is only one word and since it takes Asher about ten minutes to write 8 letters, rethought my response.

“A pet reindeer is a great idea,” I said, sliding a blank piece of Dear Santa paper in front of him.

I spelled out the words as he painstakingly wrote and then scribbled out letters while the line of other kids who wanted his seat began to curl anxiously into the ladies accessories department, parental sighs starting to eclipse the softly playing elevator version of “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” being piped into the store.

@toulouseNtonic #dearsanta

Finally, he finished, quickly dropped the letter into Santa’s mailbox and off we flew like the down of a thistle.

Whatever that means.

Later that night, as I was looking at the photo of his adorable little Dear Santa letter and starting to feel all mushy inside, it suddenly hit me that I’d allowed my son to put that letter into Santa’s very own actual mailbox.

Shit.

That’s what I get for being lazy about helping my kid write his letters.

Now, as if 2 kids and 2 dogs isn’t enough, we’re getting the gift that keeps on giving.  A new pet.

Here are just a few of the things I expect to contend with after our pet reindeer arrives on December 25.

• I’ll have to get one of those extra large pet beds that cost $400 because I’m totally that person who starts off saying the pets will live outside but then can’t stand their pitiful faces looking at me through the back door.
• I’ll have to buy the roomba that’s made specifically for pet hair even though I still question the live chat representative who told me it works on both reindeer’s dense woolly overcoat and hollow, air-filled undercoat.
• The pantry will have to be rearranged to make room for antler polish and hoof trimmers next to the unused dog toothbrushes and toothpaste.
• All the hipsters in my neighborhood will stare at me in disgust when I’m out walking them because having 2 pets is okay but 3 pets is just crossing a line.
  

  @toulouseNtonic

• I’ll constantly be breaking up fights between the reindeer and the funny-eared dog over which one gets to climb into my big chair with me after the kids go to bed.  Eventually I’ll make a chart to go on the refrigerator but the reindeer will eat it in a jealous fit one night when the dog tries to take his turn.
• He’ll ask me every day if we can get another reindeer because the dogs just don’t understand him.
• Every year during the holiday season, he’ll get depressed after watching Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer even though I tell him over and over again that it’s fiction.  While I’m sleeping, he’ll pour an entire bottle of Canadian Mist into a quart of eggnog and wake us up singing “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” and crying in front of the Christmas tree.
• I’ll have to find a new vet because mine’s not accepting new pets.
• Our pet food budget will grow larger than our grocery budget as I special order reindeer moss from Nova Scotia off the internet.
• After a big rain, he’ll eat a mushroom in the back yard and trash the entire house while hiding from alien mountain gnomes who he sees RIGHT OVER THERE DON’T YOU SEE THEM RIGHT THERE!!!  I’ll have to wrap him in a blanket and avert my face while he constantly pokes me with his antlers trying to catch the gnomes sneaking up on him.
• I’ll have to join matchreindeer.com every September during mating season and help him troll for reindeer ladies with a good upper set of points on their antlers and exceptional turbinate bones who produce a medium-sized clicking when they walk — not too loud, not too soft.  If she can see ultraviolet light, all the better, but it’s not a requirement.  He’ll ask me to put on his profile that the way to his heart is through his 4 stomachs and then insist I write that he doesn’t still live at home even though he totally does.
• A baby pool will no longer work for us in the summer and when we get an above-ground pool so the reindeer can stay cool in a climate at least 80 degrees higher than he’s used to, the neighbors will start to call us trashy and let their dogs poop in our front yard without bothering to pick it up.
• He will freak out and ask us to remove “Brown Bear, Brown Bear” from the house because his cousin lost a leg to a black bear and he can’t stand the constant reminders.  When I complain that it’s the baby’s favorite book, he’ll pout and say I love him the least.
• We’ll have to give up our membership to the zoo after he sulks because the caribou there act so uppity.
• Every time my husband and I decide to go to bed, he’ll raise his eyebrows and ask us if we’ve heard what they say about reindeer-antler powder.
• Whenever I can’t locate him in the house, I’ll find him standing outside in front of my car with his harness in his mouth.
• I’ll have to hire a reindeer therapist to help him with the transition from his former foster family, the Clauses, to our family, after I find him cutting off the heads of the photos of Santa and Mrs. Claus in our copy of Twas the Night Before Christmas.

And this is sure to be only the beginning of a long and complicated relationship with yet another life that’s dependent on me for nurturing.

Sigh.  Does anyone know what the lifespan of a reindeer is?

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