Calvin & Hobbes

So, I know that most of you know who I am referring to when I talk about the comic Calvin and Hobbes. Calvin is this mischievous little boy who has an insane imagination and causes an incredible amount of trouble. His stuffed Tiger is Hobbes and is often the sane voice in Calvin’s head.

Every Christmas eve as a child Karen and I would go to bed and start to dream of Santa while my parents stayed up late trying to put together the toys that promised ‘easy assembly’ but never delivered. Then painfully early (I can say that with full understanding now that I am a parent myself) I would wake up in excitement and want to get the show on the road so to speak. I woke Karen, and when I had convinced her that is was a good idea I would get her to come wake up my parents.

My Dad (who like me prefers to sleep in in the morning) got wise after a few such Christmas’s and he set a rule regarding Christmas morning that still remains a family ‘tradition’. We could wake up at whatever time we liked, but we couldn’t leave our room until eight AM. The first time he told me that I was crushed, when you are waking up at four and five in the morning to welcome Christmas morning the concept of waiting until eight o’clock just seemed cruel somehow.

Christmas morning arrived that first year of the ‘eight o’clock rule’ and as I began to wake from sleep and come into conciseness I noticed that Santa had been in my room!! He had left a gift for me beside my bed!! I was so excited that I forgot all about the rule and raced into Karen’s room to tell her! Thus a tradition began. Every year, Santa left a BEANO book by Karen’s bedside and a Calvin & Hobbes beside mine and every year I would sneak into Karen’s bed at some disgusting hour to wake her and read our books together.

I loved Calvin, I loved his imagination and his sense of adventure. I used to say ‘I would love to have a little boy like Calvin one day. He is so cool!

On January 31st 2008 that wish came true, Joshers was born and guess what? He is more like Calvin everyday. It’s amazing! The only thing different other than his name, his parents, and the fact that he isn’t real and Josh isn’t a cartoon is that Josh doesn’t have a toy Tiger, nope. There is no Hobbes. Josh has a bunny and monkey (yet to be named because he isn’t talking yet). Two little toys that I question their motives? Are they like Hobbes and speaking words of sanity to him? Somehow I am doubting that.

The benefit of knowing and loving Calvin is that I could see where his imagination was taking him, when his mother or teachers or Suzie all thought he was just a naughty gross boy I knew that he was actually trying to save the world in his cool new spaceman spiff spaceship or that he was wearing his invisible suit, or that he was a dinosaur ravaging the village of snowmen in the front yard.