I inadvertently killed Santa Claus

Most kids love Christmas and talk about what presents they hope to receive as the holidays grow closer. My kid talks about Christmas all year long. He rarely gets toys or presents unless its A) his birthday B) Christmas or C) Kama is within a five mile radius. So that means that we have a "list" that gets added onto every time we visit Target. It's one way we keep him from freaking out after we say no repeatedly to unnecessary crap. At this point, I would guess that it's actually harder to find something that's NOT on his list than is.

So it's not strange that the topic of Christmas and what he was wishing for came up in the car ride to school the other day. For some reason, Santa was mentioned. I can't remember if he straight up asked me if Santa was real or if it came out somehow, but I basically told him that Santa was pretend. It happened so fast and I was so nonchalant about it. We don't really play up the whole Santa thing and to tell you the truth I am not all that into them believing he is real. But it isn't like Chris and I had decided we were going to tell him that he was fake either. He just asked and I just answered. I was taken aback by how confused he was. It went something like this...

Liam: "Wait, he's not real? He is just pretend?"
Me: "That's right he's just pretend."
Liam: "Well then who bought me my shark boat?"
Me: "Mommy and Daddy bought you your shark boat."
Liam: "No you didn't"
Me: "Umm, we most certainly did. We worked very hard and bought you all of those presents for Christmas. But please don't go telling all your friends Santa isn't real because some people believe he is real."
Liam: "Real is a bad word?"
Me: "Ugh, no Liam. I am just saying not to talk about Santa being pretend at school, ok?"

Yea, I am sure that cleared it all up. Whatever, now he knows. It'll be interesting how this all plays out during Christmas. Sorry, Santa.

Girl Power

I noticed some feelings I have for my daughter today when we went to Target.

Things that I adore about my daughter:
- How she can dance to anything with a rhythm 
- How excited she gets when she sees a computer!
- How she uses the word "her" in place of "she". As in, "Her has a baby."

Things that scare the s#%@ out of me about my daughter:
- Her natural gravitation to the barbies (even when I am shoving the American Girl dolls in her face)
- Her wanting a toy vacuum cleaner for her birthday
- How she keeps asking to go to the "girl toys" even though I know she likes Legos as much as the next guy.

This is stupid, right? I mean, she is still going to grow up to be the next President in spite of these things, yes?

Awesome Things Liam Says

Liam: Mom, is there cracks in the clouds?
Me: Cracks? Why?
Liam: Cause it's raining...
* Please stay four forever *

Stir Crazy

It's been years since we've had a good hurricane come through these parts. I really thought Isaac would be the first in a long while, but thankfully he breezed passed us. But not without dumping loads of rain and wind on us and forcing Broward County to close schools today. So what exactly does a family do to keep busy without veering far from home? For one thing, we watched a lot of movies.  But other than that...

For starters, we went to Monkey Joe's with the boys on Saturday morning. It was gloomy out, but not too crazy. I am so glad we took the kids here for some good, ole exercise. There wouldn't be any more outings for the next couple of days so this was much needed. We did some arts and crafts, made ice cream in a ziplock bag, baked homemade pizza and almost busted a toddler's head open. It was fun while it lasted, but I am SO ready to go back to work tomorrow.

A Livi Update

This little girl. I can't even... well, I'm gonna try. Her personality is bigger than big. She is as sweet as she is tough, as gentle as she is harsh and as dependent as she is independent. She has named her only Barbie "Jessi" which gives me conflicting feelings, but mostly I am flattered. She got it in a gift exchange last year and has decided that "Barbie is my favorite". When I tell her I don't think it is (trying to use Jedi mind tricks), she assures me that "I love Barbie A LOT Mommy. I need a Daddy." Don't be alarmed, she is referring to a man for her Jessi doll- not an actual daddy.

She informs me daily that her favorite color is pink. She loves to wear her Dora bracelet and her beads around her neck. She is obsessed with babies. I have lost count how many babies she has and each of them have the same name... say it with me... "baby". I know, creative, right?

She will sing and dance around the house with fervor. She has this one song she sings about how she can do anything and she raises her hands in the air and throws back her head on the long notes. Diva potential I tell you. But don't mistake any of this for being a pushover. She is independent and fierce. She will try something 20 times if she has to, but she will do it and on her own. "Stop it. I do it myself!" is heard often.

Liam loves to watch her and laughs and laughs. He thinks she is a bit nuts and he may have a point.

First Day

This boys hair...

First day of the new school and I have to say it went pretty well. On the way in, Livi asked where we were going and when I told her we were going to her new school she got a big grin and asked, "We going to see Ms Isaida?".  It broke my heart to have to tell her that no, we weren't going to see Ms. Isaida. She would have a new teacher at a new school with new friends. She started to cry. Although I have been trying to prepare her, there is only so much you can prepare a 2 year old before reality hits her. She got over it though and only cried a little when we left her in her classroom.

Liam was shy as always, but thankfully his friend Cameron was there along with a big pile of toys. He kissed me goodbye about 10 times before another little boy came up and put his arm around him and led him back to the toys. So cute.

At pickup, Livi's teacher told Chris that she was so sweet and smart and that she stopped crying right after we left. Liam's teacher was less forthcoming with details, but she also had a full classroom and I know pickup is not the best time to ask how the day went. But he seemed to like it. He did have a bit of a meltdown at dinner for an unrelated reason, but I can't help but think it was caused by all the newness. Sometimes kids let things out around the people they trust the most. But he is eager to get back and that makes me happy.

"Take a picture of tiger, Mommy"

Wait, why are you saluting? Put your hands down!

I give up.

BFF's!

School

Fair warning to anyone reading this. I am about to sound really pretentious about how smart my kid is. Yea, I am THAT mom. So if that bothers you, feel free to leave and surf the interwebs elsewhere. Let us continue. I blogged a couple months ago about my dilemma with Liam and Kindergarten and Montessori. We discussed the topic thoroughly and went back and forth several times before concluding that we would stick with VPK. Reasons include: we thought it would be good for his confidence, we didn't want to push him into an older group of kids (emotionally/developmentally) and it's cheaper. I will admit that the last reason was the main reason. After we made this decision we came to find out that starting this year, Woodlands would no longer have VPK at their school. crap.

The search began and it didn't take very long. My best friend lives down the street from me and her boys go to Oxford Academy which is incredibly close to us. She loves it there and once I found out that they picked up after schoolers from the public school that Liam will be attending for Kindergarten, I signed up. Ok, here comes the pretentious part. My kid is really smart. He has recently learned how to add double digits, subtract, how fractions work and basic reading and phonics. He loves to learn. He craves it. It's something that I know he was born with, but Montessori nurtured that craving. VPK is a government program originally started to get kids who had never been introduced to any kind of education prepared for kindergarten. It makes sense that they have to go the pace of the slowest child in the room which, according to the teacher, could be recognizing letters. I knew this, but somehow hearing it made me cringe.

Let me be clear about something. I don't think my child is better than the kid that has to learn how to recognize his letters. I don't care that Liam further his mind into astrophysics or what have you. I care about LEARNING to learn. From what I have read preschool years are the most important when it comes to that. So it's less about what they are learning and more about Liam being bored and not using those muscles in his brain to learn something new. So I can do what I can at home to foster the learning, but it remains to be seen whether he will be challenged during the day. If he starts to act up because of it, we will take the plunge and put him back into Montessori. But for now, saving $300 a month seems like something that just needs to be done. Luckily, Oxford seems like a caring place and the director is fantastic so I predict it will all be fine.