Realms of the Raven

We usually spend the holidays with C's family and the tradition is the family presents get opened on Christmas Eve and then once all the kids are in bed, the Santa presents get set up and stockings filled before the parents collapse until the way-too-early the next morning when the kids all wake up and race down to pillage their stockings and to find out whatever Santa left for them.

This year I had found a great item for M for xmas - a RoboRaptor. Now, being the ignorant mom that I am, I didn't realize that there was more than one model of robotic dinosaur and was under some delusion that the RoboRaptor was the smaller RoboReptile. Silly me. The RoboRaptor is about 1/3 again larger than the RoboReptile. When it arrived, I was floored by the size of the box it came in. Oh my word!

The first challenge was how to get the thing into the car and all the way to Grandma & Grandpa's house without it being spotted by the sharp-eyed M. That was accomplished by C swathing the box in a black plastic garbage bag and hiding it in the car the night before we left after M went to bed.

With the car packed to the gills, we went off to C's parents' house and successfully negotiated the mountain pass which had quite a bit of snow banked up and the road itself was only really bad at the top of the pass. Not too bad though C did get our adrenaline going when he slid off to one side and glanced off a snow bank. He said he forgot he was in a front-wheel drive car. LOL

After arriving at G&G's, M immediately discovered his favorite cousin (about a year and a half older than him) was there and took off to play in the foot or more of snow they had. C successfully managed to hide the large black plastic encased Raptor in the garage.

Much fun was had during the day with great family company and many presents and love. M got a ton of stuff and had a BLAST. The snow was coming down again and after presents most folks went out to walk in the snow and play around. Eventually it was bed time and once M slowed down, he crashed. The kids were absolutely exhausted.

After the kids were safely asleep, the parents got busy trying to get the Santa tasks done and I packed M's stocking while C was responsible for getting the RoboRaptor out of his box and batteries put in. Apparently one the batteries were put it, the Raptor was set to "on" and came alive.

Now several of the kids were upstairs in the loft while we were downstairs where sound travels. The Raptor let out a "roar" and I almost fell over when C got this look of panic on his face and grabbed the Raptor by the head and hissed "Shhhhhhhhhhhh" at it. When it seemed to stop, he let go of its head and it again thrashed and started to make roaring sounds. C grabbed it again and struggled with it while he tried to pry a battery out so he could shut it up.

In the meantime I'm laughing so hard I had to be turning red and falling off the hearth. My 16 year old niece and I are just dying as we watch this. Finally he succeeds and the raptor stops. Then C actually reads the instructions and locates the on/off switch for the Rapter (a Raptor BUTT switch???) and we get everything posed and finally get to bed.

This morning I wake up to hear the kids in the living room playing with toys and everyone else is up. I make C get up and we toss on some clothes to find that kids are having a great time and the Raptor has caused yet another stir and scared the heck out of the dog by heading toward it.

So C begins to play with the RoboRaptor and I think in some ways he was having as much fun as M was (especially since M was involved in playing with his garbage and recycle trucks at the time). It really is hilarious!

We'll see what happens when we get the RoboRaptor home and the cats get to experience the fun of being chased by it.