1982: my brother was almost 18 months old. Mimi and Gogo came down from Vermont for Christmas. I received a cool box from Ellen with drawers that contained a set of tiny animals made from pipe cleaners. It was freakishly warm that year. I sweated in my whale-printed turtleneck (that went with my whale-printed belt, watchband, and socks as well as my silver humpback whale necklace [my prized possession]). (I do like me a nice whale.)

One of Brother’s presents was an inflatable car: it was bright red, with a steering wheel that turned and a horn that beeped. We put him on it and he happily bounced and bounced.

Then we discovered that Brother could not pull himself OFF the car. We also noted that he didn’t realize that he couldn’t get himself off the car, so we could stick him on it to bounce and go do whatever we wanted without worrying that he would pull the fire tools onto his head or pitch himself down the stairs. It made babysitting **awesome**: my parents would leave, we’d stick Brother on the car to bounce, and Sissa and I could hunker down with our books and still get paid. We loved that car. It was like Santa had given an extra present to us.

Round about March, Brother’s wee baby mind figured this out, and he refused to ever get on the car again. So sad.