Another New Year’s Conversation

This is a candid interview with my daughter, Eva.

1. What is your favorite part of Christmas? Opening presents and also being with my family and enjoying the story of Jesus when he was born.

2. What was your favorite present this Christmas? I don’t even know! I pretty much liked all of them. My dollhouse and my sparkly headband.

3. Why do we celebrate Christmas? Jesus was born and was our savior.

4. What was your favorite part of last year? I would say my birthday and also swimming lessons.

5. What is something you’re looking forward to next year? My American Girl birthday party.

6. What would you like to do to celebrate New Year’s? I would like to have fun with my family.

7. What’s something that makes you happy? Being with my family and my friends.

8. What’s something that you’d like to do more often next year? I want to just spend more time with my family and a lot of people thinking of me.

9. What’s something that you’d like to do less next year? Listening to grown-ups talking boring stuff.

A New Year’s Conversation

Here’s a little year-end interview with my son, Eli.

What is your favorite part of Christmas?

My toolbench.

What was your favorite present this Christmas?

A Buzz Lightyear costume. My toolbench.

Why do we celebrate Christmas?

Cause we love Christmas.

What was your favorite part of last year?

Opening presents.

What is something you’re looking forward to next year?

My Bob the Builder party. I’m going to have a birthday next year.

What would you like to do to celebrate New Year’s?

1. I don’t know. I’m just thinking ’bout New Year’s.

What’s something that makes you happy?

Eva.

What’s something that you’d like to do more often next year?

Write notes.

What’s something that you’d like to do less next year?

I don’t know what makes me sad.

 

Halls: Decked

Each year I think “I’m never going to climb up the ladder again… it’s so high… it’s so cold… blah blah… bah humbug, etc.”  But then we get it all done and I’m always so darn tickled by how it looks.  This year, we even have the addition of Snoopy Santa that we got on clearance after Christmas last year.

 

How about you?  Christmas decorations up yet?  Inside? Outside? Both?

Eli is his own Kryptonite

This will be the last in my “Eli Can’t Let Halloween Go” series.

He wasn’t Superman for Halloween. He was a football player. But that doesn’t mean that he couldn’t have a Superman costume, too.  He has an indulgent Nonni and the Superman costumes were marked down at Target.

So, Superman began to make appearances at our house.  At lunch, Superman enjoys eating Lunchables and peanut butter sandwiches.  Superman really likes watching Go, Diego, Go.  While he has super endurance and super strenght, Superman still likes to take a nap around 1:00 in the afternoon.  Then Superman builds with blocks, climbs on the furniture, jumps off said furniture, and plays with cars.

All of this takes its toll on the super suit.

This doesn’t slow Superman down, though. A little tear in the armpit area? Barely noticeable.  A tear in the shoulder? Doesn’t phase the Man of Steel.

He goes on protecting Truth, Justice, and the Preschooler Way.

Also, here are a couple little known facts about Superman:

1.  He has a killer smile.

2.  Under the red cape?  We find that the super suit is actually more of a super hospital gown.

Wonder what Willy Wonka would do with him?

I mentioned yesterday that Eli is a proponent of candy.  That reminds me of a bit of philosophy that he shared with me after the Veteran’s Day parade we attended.  He’d snatched up some of that parade-thrown candy, and isn’t that stuff always the best?  It must bring out some old hunter-gatherer instinct in us or something, but to me that candy always tasted better. On our way home, he said:

“Can my have my candy now? Candy good for you.  Candy good for boys. My like candy. (Sees someone carrying a Christmas tree into their business.) What they doing? It not Christmas. It not Christmas time yet. HALLOWEEN!”

As I said, he’s having a little trouble letting go.

Is it beautiful where you are?

I believe that we are reaching the absolute height of autumnal beauty here in our area.  Brooke was nice enough to snap this photo while out on a walk with Eli a couple of days ago.  And until the last couple of days when we’ve had some dreary rainy days, the weather was just perfect.

We’ve been doing what we can to try to soak up these last few days of weather that’s play “outside-able.” On Saturday I took the kids to the park, but it turns out that the breeze was a bit too cool for us to stay very long.

With our trips to the apple orchard and pumpkin patch along with our leaf hunt, we’ve tried our best to celebrate and appreciate fall this year.  I’ll be sad to see those last leaves finally go.

Of course, that most fattening of fall rituals is still to come.  We asked the kids what they were looking forward to the most about Thanksgiving.

Eva:  “Mashed potatoes and gravy.”

Eli:  “CANDY!”

I think he’s still stuck in Halloween mode.

Goldilocks as a bear and The Giant

Tonight, my bathtub was full of characters.  For some reason, Eva decided that she was a bear.  While she bathed, she did this little National Geographic-style narration:

“Bears like to take baths in water that is nice and warm. They don’t like cold water.  They use these special bear toothbrushes and this toothpaste that is made only for bears. People can’t use this toothpaste or it will hurt them. They brush their teeth like this.”

When I would ask her a question, she would growl enthusiastically and then say, “That’s how bears say ‘yes.’”

Eli was doing his own thing, as usual:

“My not a bear! My a giant! My a giant giant! Fee fi fo fumby! Bumby bumby bumby!”

Some nights, a plain old bath just won’t do.  I love those two.

My favorite pencil

In the lobby of my daughter’s school, they have a machine that dispenses pencils or pencil topper erasers for a quarter.  On a few different occasions, she has asked me for quarters so that she can get one.  This seems like a pretty reasonable request for a kindergartner, so I’ve obliged. One morning last week when she asked for another quarter, I wanted to know what all she’d collected.

It turns out that she had them in her backpack.  As we drove to school, she started rummaging around in the back seat getting out her pencil and erasers.  “This pencil has little aliens on it,” she said.  “Plus, I’ve got two erasers. And guess what? One of them is your favorite color!”

Before I knew it, my sweet baby girl had topped her alien pencil with a purple eraser (complete with a smiley face on it) and was giving it to me.  As I pulled up to her school, she proudly handed me the gift. “You can use it at your school, Daddy!”

I have been happily grading speeches for a week now with my alien pencil with the purple smiley top.  It makes me smile every time I pick it up!  That’s the best 50 cents I’ve ever spent.

Sibling love

You don’t choose your family.

They are God’s gift to you,

as you are to them.

~Desmond Tutu

I’m loving my kids today and trying to look past the fact that they were pushing each other’s buttons tonight. They are both tired at the end of a big week.  As they screamed and fought over such little things, I had to smile knowing that in life they will each be the other’s biggest ally.   By the end of the night, they were back to being sweet to one another.  Each of them were cuddled up in my lap as we said goodnight.  They shared a cute hug and kiss… the calm before the storm when they’ll be back at it again tomorrow.

Sibling relationships - and 80 percent of Americans have at least one - outlast marriages, survive the death of parents, resurface after quarrels that would sink any friendship. They flourish in a thousand incarnations of closeness and distance, warmth, loyalty and distrust. ~Erica E. Goode, “The Secret World of Siblings,” U.S. News & World Report, 10 January 1994

 

Happy Birthday To Me

I just made a tiny little adjustment to my “About” page on this blog. It now informs you that the author of this blog is “a 33 year old.”

I asked my high school students today to tell me how old they’ll need to be before they consider themselves “old.” Their answered varied:

“22, because then partying won’t be a big deal any more.”

“40, because then you’re life is like…. half over.”

“50, because that’s like…. grandparent age.”

Ah, the wisdom of youth.

I prefer to take a bit of a Peter Pan attitude:

I won’t grow up,
I don’t want to wear a tie.
Or a serious expression
In the middle of July.
And if it means I must prepare
To shoulder burdens with a worried air,
I’ll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up
Not me.

Ok, so I wear ties. You caught me. But I want to stay youthful in my outlook on life. I am so grateful to be blessed with my children to help me achieve this goal. While having them is an awesome responsibility, it is not a burden. And while being a parent has made me more mature in my approach to life, I am able to see life through their perspective and share in their joy, wonder, and enthusiasm.

I am able to play with Play-Doh, color with crayons, experiment with watercolors, lay in the driveway and look up at the stars, swing in the playground, and dance to the music.

My answer to the question I posed to my students is this:

I will be old when I stop enjoying life. I don’t see that happening any time soon!