Back from the land of the lost

Remember when my kids used to nap and I had time to blog? Mmmm hmmm, me too. Nowadays Grant is still learning how to rest in his room, so I spend most of my afternoon escorting him back to his room and reminding him that resting time is playing quietly in his room time. It makes me insane.

Anyway, it's been quite a month so far, what with all the Christmas cheer and such. Decorating our house was a total nightmare and not the lovely event I had imagined it might be. Both kids were tired and borderline cranky, Grant spent the time tossing various decorations out of the bins while I was digging through other bins. Emma spent the time constantly hounding me to help with one more thing before I even had anything unwrapped. Hubs was completely unable to read my mind on exactly what I wanted him to be doing and when. I finally threw my hands in the air, declared I wasn't having any fun at all, turned off the Christmas carols blaring on the stereo, and decided to finish decorating the house after the kids were in bed.

On the other hand, decorating the gingerbread house the next weekend was really quite pleasant. The kids each had a pie pan filled with various candies and some gingerbread men, so they were occupied while I put the house together and piped the frosting. Each kid decorated one side of the house and the front of the house on their side. It was fun, and Hubs even got in on the action this year.

Emma's winter show at school was awesome. She announced the songs her class was going to sing, getting to speak into the microphone to do so. She was animated, dancing along, doing the signs with great enthusiasm. Overall, it was a typical Kindergarten show - full of unintended comedy with a little bit of singing mixed in.

Emma also had her parent conference during the time of no blogging. As suspected, she's leaps and bounds ahead of the Kindergarten standards. Her teacher wants me to keep her challenged by working on writing in lower cases, learning when to start a word with an upper case, and starting to form complete sentences with proper punctuation.

I subbed in Grant's preschool class during the time of no blogging too. It was great, although, according to his teacher, Grant was particularly poorly behaved. Which was a relief to know he's not that poorly behaved normally. His class is a great group of kids, and while there were some challenging moments of no listening ears (or blatant disregard to what I said, like when I had to chase a girl all around the playground TWICE in order to scoop her up and escort her into the classroom), overall it was super great to be back in a classroom. I told the director I'd like to know if there are any openings in the next few years.

In Kid's Worship at church, the teacher is talking with the elementary aged kids about World Vision and how it helps kids get clean water, medical care, etc. They are encouraging the kids to bring in money to support one of these causes. Emma came home excited to contribute, suggesting she get money from my wallet. I suggested she get money by doing some work. So during resting time that day she wrote out a list of chores she could do to earn money. They included gems like: make sure Grant brushes his teeth, comb my hair in the morning, and give dad a hug. With some modifications, we came up with some chores we could agree on, and negotiated a monetary amount for each chore. Emma has been busy folding towels, vacuuming her room, and emptying the dishwasher, and the envelope she wrote "donate" on is slowly filling up.

Finally, we had a visit with Santa yesterday. For the first time since 2004 there was no screaming or crying, although Grant refused to sit on his lap, opting for standing next to Emma instead. Santa's beard elastic was showing, and he didn't understand a word the kids said without me saying it for him. When we got home, Emma wondered out loud why in last year's picture Santa had a straight beard and why this year his beard was curly. I thought maybe it was because he was going with a different beard style this year and she was satisfied with that answer. Thankfully.