Greasy Center Mom

I volunteered in my daughter's Kindergarten class today. Those kids are a crack-up. When I got there they were about to say the Pledge of Allegiance. The "Pledge Leader" takes his (a boy was this week's pledge leader) job very seriously and you can tell all the other kids do too as they give him his proper respect as he begins.

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Last night as we were driving home I told my husband I needed to shower so I wouldn't have to do it in the morning. Our daughter says, "Yeah, you don't want to be a greasy 'Center Mom'." True dat! So I took my non-greasy self to her school this morning to help out and hang out with the kiddies.

One little girl tells me that she is going to go to Disneyland once her mom graduates from college. Then quickly says, "But that'll never happen. She has HUNDREDS of days left." Another kid was trying to say "I know who your daughter is" but kept tripping up on her words so she finally said, "I know who your sweetheart is."

A little boy had to hold my hand the entire time I read to him and then patted my hand when I was finished. Like I'd done an adequate job for him. :)

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I'm trying to get in the classroom once a week. It's hard with an infant who is breastfed because I can't be gone for too long and having someone to care for her is inconsistent. But I am glad I got to go today and the look on my daughter's face and the million hugs and kisses I got when I arrived and left was sooooo worth it.

In Which I Make the Tooth Fairy a Pimp

Our daughter lost her first tooth a couple of days ago. She put it in a special container on her dresser and the next morning woke up to find a whopping $1.75 which she promptly spent on a bag of Starburst at the Dollar Store.

In September during her routine dental visit the dentist noticed that her two bottom permanent teeth were growing in behind her "baby" teeth. He wanted to give them around 3-4 months to fall out on their own; if they didn't, he'd have to pull them. Well, it's been three months and the one tooth isn't even loose and her permanent tooth is almost completely in.

Anyway, I was telling her today that we may have to have it pulled. The conversation that ensued left me feeling total unqualified. Also, my daughter is going to figure out pretty soon that I'm full of it.

Daughter: "Mom, where does the tooth fairy get all money?"

Me: "Um, I guess she just has it."

Daughter: "Mom, she can't just have it. It has to come from somewhere." (man, she's been paying too close attention to my conversations with my husband).

Me: "Well, I guess she gets it from her boss." (at this point I can tell the conversation is not going to just drop off with simple answers).

Daughter: "Okay, so what does she do with all the teeth she takes?"

Me: "I suppose she keeps them."

Daughter: "That doesn't make sense. Why would she want teeth?"
Me: (beginning to panic a little bit now....racking my brain trying to think of something, anything to say) "Actually she sells them to a man who collects teeth and then he gives her money."

Daughter: "Then she gives us the money?"
Me: "Exactly!"

Yeah, I'm going to hell for lying. It's all fun and games until she goes to school and tells her friends that the tooth fairy sold her teeth to the man who collects them and then she got paid. It's like the tooth fairy has become some sort of pimp.

2011

2010 has come to an end. It's bittersweet. In many regards 2010 was a fantastic year (the birth of our third child comes to mind) and in others it has been incredibly difficult and disappointing. Overall, I am glad to be "starting fresh" in a sense. New Years Eve was my birthday. I turned thirty, ahem, THREE! Yikes. I pretty much quit celebrating my birthday once I passed 30. It just got depressing to keep recognizing the fact that I was getting OLD. So, we stayed around the house, went out for frozen yogurt and called it a night. I barely made it to midnight and really only did so because I was up with the baby. Yeah me!

So, how was your New Years? What did you do?

Family Day in the Snow

Tucson has turned beautifully cold these past few days with highs in the 40's. It is rather uncharacteristic and so we have taken many opportunities to go outside and freeze our butts off. I guess when "cold" is a novelty it is more appreciated than when it is a regular part of life. I may not think it to be so awesome if I were living in it constantly.

Anyway, this morning my son and I were running some errands when he could see the snow on the mountains. He asked if we could go and see the snow. I figured, why not? We went home, grabbed my husband, and two daughters and hit the road. About 40 minutes later we were in a good 6-8 inches of snow and about 30 degree weather. It was amazing. We got the kiddos bundled up and sent them off. (There's my hunky husband and daughter throwing snowballs onto the car so we could drive back into town with snow on our hood).Our 5.5 year old daughter LOVED it. She was out there forever, running, jumping, sliding, falling in the snow; making snowballs and throwing them all over the place. She was red faced, cold, and happy. She'd fare well in my master plan to relocate our family to Boston at some point. :)

Our 3.5 year old son lasted about 20 minutes before he realized he was getting wet and then freaked out. He started crying hysterically about how his pants and gloves were wet and needed to be changed immediately. He then took off for the car in search of dry clothes. Guess he wouldn't last long in Bean Town.
Our almost 4 month old daughter spent most of her time with me in the car but I did take her out for a few minutes to commemorate the occasion with a photo. She has on two layers of clothing, a jacket, a blanket, an Elmer Fudd hat, a fleece hood, and then a jacket hood. That was a lot of work for about 5 minutes outside.
We stayed for an hour or so and then headed back to town for frozen yogurt...oh, the irony.

Christmas in Pictures

This is what my living room looked like at 10 pm tonight. And these are just the presents from family members for our kids. The mess is killing me but I told myself, and the kids, that they could keep all toys out for 1 week. It's going to be the longest week of my life.Baby number 3 is 3.5 months old and started rolling over 3 days before Christmas. She rolled herself across the room to get to the presents. And then tried to EAT them.
Child number one opening her Disney Princess Deluxe Pack. Loves it.
Child number two discovering his Razor scooter.

We had a really wonderful Christmas and it is magical to see the joy of Christmas through the eyes of my children. They were so excited and thankful. Hope your Christmas was splendid.

Up and Down, All Around

I'm sure my son has the attention span of a typical 3 year old boy. But I'll be damned if it is not killing me these days. He goes from one activity to the next, usually demanding my immediate involvement in a matter of minutes. By the time I get settled into one he's moved on to the next. This would not be a problem if it were just the two of us at home. But I have a 3 month old baby constantly in my arms, which requires lugging her around as well as keeping her happy as we move about the house every three minutes and twenty-seven seconds.

Our days goes something like, "Mommy, come upstairs to my room and play superheroes with me." I go upstairs, sit down start playing superheroes, and the next thing I know he's done. "Mommy, can you turn on the click start game for me?" Get that turned on, sit down to play with the baby and he's done. "Mommy, can you turn on Batman for me. I want to watch Batman." Turn on Batman. Son watches four minutes of it. "Mommy, I want to ride my bike outside." It takes me fifteen minutes to put his shoes on, open the garage, get his bike, set up my chair in the driveway so I can watch him. Just as all this gets complete, he rides his bike for five minutes and he's done with that too. It takes me another fifteen to put everything away. We go back inside, "Mommy, can you get out the crayons and some paper. I'm going to make a picture." I get out the art supplies, he scribbles for thirty seconds, and then asks if we can go play trucks upstairs.

Are you seeing the pattern?

How I haven't lost more weight is beyond me.

Does this go on in your house too?

Neighborly

We bought our house when our neighborhood was being built. We were actually the third house up and saw the rest of the homes go up around us. Two years after moving in we had our first child and two more have followed since. Our oldest is now five and until a few months ago we could have sworn that no other kids lived in our neighborhood.

Then our daughter went off to school, our local public school. Each afternoon after school let out our streets and sidewalks became filled with kids riding bikes, scooters, playing catch, etc. Then, out for a walk one day, our daughter saw a classmate and they were beyond thrilled to learn they lived so close to each other. In the week since kids have come out of the woodwork. One of our daughter's best friends lives just down the road from us on our same street. Ironically, they have lived there almost as long as we have and yet we have never run into each other. Now, we are out almost everyday after school watching our children play as well as the weekends. It's actually really nice. It seems strange though that after 7 years we are finally starting to meet more of our neighbors, especially those with children.

Some of my best childhood memories are those that involve playing with the neighborhood children. We rode bikes, played ball in the street, went in and out of each other's homes as if they were our own. Today people are much more cautious and stand offish and I can understand much of that, but it sure would be nice to have a little bit more of that true neighborly and community feeling and we are starting to have some of that. It's nice.