Meet Basil.

On Tuesday, I left work with a mysterious package.  My client, Nina, had placed a gift-wrapped box in my hands with instructions for me to open it later, in her absence.

As the rest of the evening unraveled, Brian and I picked Bennett up from his first full day at day care, fed him and promptly headed right back out for a Bible study.  Both Bennett and I were deliriously tired and longed for bedtime.  I don’t know about you guys, but I am no different than a child when I’m tired.  All sense of humor is lost on me as the crabbiest mood takes over.

Passing out around 9:30pm, the mysterious gift sat on the ledge of our bay window until morning, right by my resting head.

With the rising of the sun came a much more pleasant mood.  The house was still and quiet except for the sounds of the snowfall outside; Bennett had only gotten up once for a short feeding and was quite contented to still be sleeping in his crib.  Per Nina’s orders, I reached for the gift and opened the card first.

Dear Suzanna and Brian –

I hope that you enjoy the little fellow that you are about to meet and that he becomes an integral part of your family.

Me, thinking, That’s odd.  Maybe she meant to give us this gift before Bennett was born…  But she already gave us a baby gift…  And she reads the blog, so she KNOWS that we’re utterly smitten with Bennett anyway…

I’m sure that my face read confusion.

“…fellow that you are about to meet…?”

Her note continued, Stuffed animals and puppets have a very special place at our house.  Each has a name, and the puppets each have personalities.  The puppets have the added “feature” of being able to talk.  It’s amazing to discover that a child will reply to a request from a puppet friend that that same child spurned upon a parent’s identical request.  Puppets are great singing partners and wonderful confidants.  We have one dinosaur puppet who roused unresponsive children out of bed when the school bell called by singing [reveille?] in their ears loudly!  (Sorry, Nina, I couldn’t make out that one word!)  It worked much better than a nagging parent’s pleas.  Quite magical.

Enjoy your new family member.  I can already tell that Bennett is having so much fun.  This little fellow can’t wait to join in.

A puppet!  There’s a puppet in there!

So there I sat, propped by my pillows, utterly mesmerized by this brilliant advice.  Slowly, I opened the box, eyeing the packaging and carefully peeling away the tissue paper.  There he was, the newest member of our family.  I cannot tell you what a lovely feeling it was to wake up this way, feeling enchanted by an unknown personality and excited to implement such savvy strategy!

Naturally I had to wake Brian up, read him the note and show him the puppet.  We both went back and forth trying to come up with the perfect name.  Billy?…  Hugo?… Chippy?… Falci?… Bradley?… Rudy?… And, of course, I had to test out our new puppet on Brian, using my best puppet voice.  He played along.  *smile*

So what do you guys think?  Is this familiar to you?  I know that growing up, I personally LOVED the show Lamb Chops, with that delightful sock puppet.

Without further ado, meet Basil Marceaux Dot-Com:

He’s a simple fellow, a gentle soul with a slow, southern drawl.  His personality might or might not have been inspired by this guy:

But I’ll never tell.