anniversary surprise

matt and i don't usually buy each other anniversary (or any) presents.  we write each other an iou for something we will get or do after our house is paid off (aka "when we are debt free").  an iou i wrote matt a few years ago was to see the david crowder band (one of his favorites), but the band broke up (just stopped touring) in the past year.  oh well.

imagine my surprise and delight to discover that david crowder was doing a solo tour!  not only that, but he was going to be here close to our anniversary.  and to make it even better, i have been working a lot of extra hours at work so the expense wouldn't really matter.  yes!!  i could not resist.  now for childcare. 

i was able to convince a neighbor to swap babysitting with me.  this was the same neighbor who watched the kids yesterday so i felt sort of bad asking again for her to watch the kids - all four this time - and was very thankful when she said that she would.  now i just had to figure out how to surprise matt...

i always struggle with giving matt gifts because as happy as he is for the gift, he always seems a little sad that i spent the money.  (this is not to imply that we are struggling or anything - so fear not loved ones - we are just very cheap in general.)  since i knew that he would try to talk me out of going to dinner too, i bought him a gift card to his favorite - chipotle.

so after lunch i gave an "early anniversary" card with our normal iou card in it.  but this time i wrote "nothing!  the babysitter will be here at 5 and we are going to see david crowder tonight!" and included the gift card for dinner.  let's just say, matt was shocked.  and seemed to be genuinely happy that i had made the arrangements.

it was so great (and a little weird) to go out for the evening.  not that we were out late, i think we were back before 9.  it was just nice to focus on us.  i even tried very hard to keep the conversation on anything but our children which can be all consuming when we are at home.  it was also nice to celebrate early since our actual anniversary is on maddux' birthday (or, really, visa versa).

i was so happy to give to my husband who gives so much to us.  love.

here's manning

miniatures

this was the first saturday in a very long time where we didn't have anything we had to do.  since the kids and i have been inside most of the week and the rain/clouds just won't stop, i suggested we go to the museum to see the new miniatures exhibit.  matt wasn't super excited, but it was free and better than staying home.

we went after breakfast and pretty much had the whole place to ourselves.  i thought the kids would like seeing all of the miniatures and doll houses, but they LOVED it!  they were all so excited and couldn't tell us about it or see it all fast enough!  they were darting in three different directions and would call us over but take off for the next thing that caught their eye before we could get to them.  it was actually pretty funny.

i loved miniatures when i was young and had a pretty decent collection (shadow boxes, anyone?).  and they weren't just doll houses, there were several displays of miniatures and various like-item collections (i.e. miniature pianos).  there was even a haunted halloween themed house.  madelyn liked the lemonade set up outside the largest house so i took her picture with it (not that you can see it because she kept moving in front of it, but you can see how large the house was in comparison).

the miniature collection is a happy change from the political cartoons - at least for the kids.  love.

first 'real' report card

madelyn's first report card came home today.  i guess they told the kids it was a "really important note" for their parents.  in fact, when i told matt she got her report card, she asked, "what's a report card?"  i love that her school doesn't focus on 'status' for reading levels or grades in kindergarten - it is so refreshing.

now, mommy needs to work very hard to suppress her need for excellence.  i expect all of our kids to do their very best, but i have to work on not expecting them to be the very best - at everything, all the time.  it is my hope to not pass on the pressure of perfectionism to my children - it just isn't healthy.

anyway, madelyn got all "m"s, one "p" and one "29".  so she is great.  her teacher wrote, "Super, Madelyn!"  they don't evaluate many skills at all in the first quarter.  it appears that they will add quite a few skills to the second quarter and won't get a 'full' report card until the fourth quarter.

the best thing is that she loves school and her favorite subjects include math.  we couldn't be happier with her experience and the low pressure environment.  (have i mentioned that they don't have any homework for kindergarten either?)  and before you start thinking, 'yea, but that sounds like a lousy education', this is one of the top districts in the nation.  our high school is nationally ranked in academics.

looks like she is off to a great start.  love.

santa

matt and i have had some discussion lately about santa and decided to talk with the kids (well, at least madelyn) about him not being real and moving away from that part of christmas celebrations.  there were many, many factors in making this decision for our family, here are just a few:

1. we want to focus on Jesus' birth.
2. we ask our kids to believe in God/Jesus/Holy Spirit which they cannot see but are very real and feel that it gets muddied with other things we ask them to believe in which are not real (and they cannot see).
3. why should santa get credit for all the good presents when matt (and i) work hard to provide them.
4. it is just easier not having to lie.
5. mason was trying to remind us of something last year and when he said the "Christmas guy" i asked if he meant santa.  nope.  he meant Jesus.  (head hanging in shame.)  he was talking about a "night in bethlehem" event we went to last year were there was a tax collector who "took our money".  he talks about Jesus pretty much daily so it felt a little bit like God giving me a nudge that mason would have this random lapse in memory.

i was a little nervous about how to have this conversation with madelyn at bedtime (of course matt thought that i should explain things).  we had discussed only telling madelyn and just not doing santa with the boys (they would never know to believe).  part of telling madelyn that santa wasn't real (we did discuss saint nicholas who was real) was also explaining that the easter bunny and tooth fairy were also not real.  i explained that these were just fun pretend things and that daddy and i wanted to tell her the truth about them so that we could focus on things that were real.  i also explained that we should not ruin the fun for our friends and let their parents decide when it was best to tell them (i think it helps that we focus a lot on other families' rules being different than ours when we see other kids doing things we do not allow - it was an easy concept for her to grasp).

here is the funny part - she said, "yea, i was thinking that i was going to ask you if santa was real or not."  i asked if she had any questions about what i had told her - "so you and daddy fill all those eggs with candy and hide them?  how do you get the money under my pillow when i loose a tooth?!"  we were so worried about santa and she could care less (i think it had to do with still getting presents anyway - very little impact for her).  i told her that we would still do all the fun parts without imaginary 'people'.  she was really focused on the tooth fairy and i told her that daddy did the money switch for the tooth and she would have to ask him (he wasn't getting off scott-free).  i asked if she would still like us to put money under her pillow and she said that she would like to keep doing it that way even through it was just daddy.

of course, first thing saturday morning (we told her on friday night in the hopes of it not being new and exciting information when she got to school on monday) she had to explain about easter eggs and the tooth fairy to mason, and, oh yea, santa too.  neither of them cared one little bit.  if anything i think they are more excited!

i hope no one reading this feels poorly about santa, etc.  it was just the right choice for our family and i wanted to share the why for those who cared to know.  plus, i wanted to warn you not to ask too many questions about santa if there are other little kids around.  (madelyn has already tried to ask me questions about santa in a public place - she was trying to get attention from bystanders that she knew the truth - and i had to tell her that those were questions for private at home.)  much love to you all as the holidays approach!  love.

mystery reader

madelyn's teacher allows for parents to be a "mystery reader" on friday afternoons. it is next to impossible for matt to do this sort of thing without taking an entire day off, so i picked a day at random and hoped that i could come up with some child care (it is pretty hard in the afternoons - everyone i know has nappers or works). thankfully, one of the neighbors was able to come over and watch the boys for an hour and i brought her daughter home with us (she goes to the same school as madelyn).

i have never been so nervous in my life! i didn't want to embarrass madelyn in any way and i wanted her to be surprised (you are asked not to tell your child that you are the reader). i selected "the story of ferdinand" by murno leaf for my book. it has always been one of my favorites and i have read it to the kids a few times (i prefer classics to modern children's books).

the teacher gives the kids 'clues' about the "mystery reader" all day. here were my clues:
1. born in miami, florida
2. have visited several countries - canada, england, france, italy, venezuela and china
3. loves to read
4. has never been snow skiing
5. has caught a shark

when i got to the classroom, the kids were still at music class and the teacher gave them the last clue when she went to get them (she had told me that madelyn seemed to have no idea). the kids returned to the classroom with a lot of questions for me - did you really catch a shark, what did you use for bait, did it bite you? i guess that clue was a good one! madelyn was very surprised and kept saying, "i didn't know that you had really caught a shark!" the rest of the day.

she sat right next to me while i read the book to the class. i am happy to report that it seemed to go well and the kids seemed to like the book. and then i left when the story was over. it was only about 30 minutes until school ended, so i just hung out in the lobby and waited.

so thankful to our neighbor for watching the boys and allowing me to do something in madelyn's classroom! manning will probably see more of me in his classroom someday than he would like, but for now, i will take what i can get to be involved.

 

meeting mason all over again

sometimes i think about what i am going to post for so long that i can't remember if i ever actually posted about the topic or not, so if this is repetitive, i apologize.  at least part of the story is new...

one of the neat things about madelyn being in school so much of the day is that i have really gotten a chance to know mason more.  mason and i generally don't spend a lot of time alone together and have very rarely been together without madelyn - and she talks a lot!  mason does his own non-stop talking too, but i rarely get to observe him without madelyn's, let's say, "influence".

i have learned that mason is extremely confident socially!  i don't know why this surprises me so much because he is a very confident kid overall, but i always think of him as shy because he is fairly sensitive.  i lovingly call him our "gentle giant".  but he is very outgoing.

mason will talk to anyone and makes very fast friends.  and not just playmates, but he finds out their name, how old they are, if they have siblings, etc.  madelyn could never be bothered to find out names, she is just interested in playing.  and kids like mason - older, younger, it doesn't seem to matter.  i think it is the confidence.  he is straightforward without being mean or bossy about it.

here is an example from today.  i took the boys to "playland" at a local church.  it was pretty crowded because of all the rain lately, but not too loud and not overwhelming - just more than normal.  mason and maddux stay together for the most part but do not become upset if they split up.  at one point they were playing up in the play set with another boy, probably around mason's age.  they were playing like boys and there was some rougher, shove-style playing.  they were in a spot where i could see everything and hear most of their conversation so i knew that none of them were upset and they were just having fun (they were sort of shoving to take turns on a steering wheel, but giving up each turn willingly when someone else 'shoved' them out of the way for their turn).  so maddux starts to say "no" because he isn't happy with how rough the other little boy has gotten.  after about three times, mason addresses the other boy calmly but firmly, "do not push my brother".  and that was the end of it.  they kept playing together and the other boy took it a little easier on maddux.  mommy's heart swelled with pride and love for my biggest, little man.  love.