christmas with preschoolers

I was telling a few friends some stories and realized how silly some of the stuff is that my kids do. 

Here is the story of the green pickle.  My mom bought me a green pickle ornament years ago to hide on the tree.  I read the tiny paper that describes the tradition and T and W thought it was a great idea.  Hide the pickle ornament and find it.  Over and over.  They "hide" it up high in the tree, but to me it is front and center and eye level. 

I finally got irritated at how much they were playing in the tree and moving ornaments around that I told them no more green pickle.  W's solution?  Cut one out of green paper.  No problem Mom.  And she even made a miniature pickle to hide on her miniature tree. 

E takes ornaments off the tree.  He knows he is not supposed to.  Just like how he knows he is not supposed to take the heater vents off the heaters.  How do I know?  Because I can hear him saying "No no!" in his cute E voice as he is in the act.  He does the same thing when he is ripping jewels off the crown W made or taking thumb tacks off her bulletin board.  It is so hard to be destructive when you tell on yourself.


T and W were balancing on a retaining wall at the park and pretending to be trains, choo chooing and all.  So that is exactly what E did, too.  They call him Percy because E has a green jacket now and Percy is a little engine just like E.  If I took him off the wall, he would ask to get up and say "balance?"

T has figured out, finally, how to pump on a swing.  He was properly motivated the other night when I said pick the last thing.  He picked swings and I told him I would give him one push.  And he was swinging away for quite some time.

E also mimics T at play in crawling down the playground stairs like a cat, going down the slide like a cat, walking around the house with his huge fuzzy over his head with "hair" like T, jumping around like the kids, etc.

T invented a new game called hair cut.  He folds his baby blanket up so he can balance it on his head.  That is when he is a girl cat, but when his long hair gets in the way, he runs off into his room and gives himself a haircut, in which he takes off the blanket and then can play freely again.  E likes to do the same game.

Another random funny E story.  There I was.  Trying to sneak some chocolate as I was making dinner.  I had a few chocolate candies when E came over asking for me to read him a book.  He obviously smelled my breath and recognized it as chocolate from his morning fix.  More on that later.  He looks at me, opens his mouth, says aahh, and peers into my mouth, inspecting it for chocolate.  He doesn't see anything so he does it again. 

I am creating chocolate addicts, but oh well.  We can all be addicts together I guess.  One thing I remember as a kid being so much fun is the advent calendar.  I just loved getting a chocolate everyday.   But I wanted an advent calendar that focused on the season, not on the materialistic side as much.  So I got boxes and put candies in them with papers of stuff about giving gifts to Christ.  Well.  I don't know.  The chocolate wins every time.  They are getting up earlier now.  W gets up and gets dressed, makes her bed, etc very quickly.  She can't wait to open the box.  E cries with huge tears from the time we get the basket down until either W or T finds the right number and opens it.  They are a little hard to open.  T got desperate one day and ripped open the bottom.  He is in quite a tizzy.  And of course they pick theirs first, then the next oldest child and E gets his last.  Quite a time these mornings.

It happens to be that this last week before christmast that we are doing school is my week to teach.  Good thing it is fun because I sure am getting absolutely nothing done for Christmas.  But they set it up so we have passports and they visit different countries and learn different traditions.  It is sooooo much fun!  We have "been" to Sweden, Israel, Germany, London, Mexico and maybe one other.  It seems that the Christmas traditions have all be incorporated here in America.  I don't know if that is true, but it sure is fun to see. 

T ground a whole bunch of wheat one day.  Probably about 2 cups.  That takes a lot of dedication.  He put his water bottle and the rest of his snack on the window sill for his breaks from grinding.  When he finished his snack, he wasn't sure what to do because he might get hungry again.  Cracks me up.

T also was so considerate of his pre school friends.  One of them didn't come today because she was sick.  He said he missed her.  He was already making a card for her due to the gift exchange next time, but he really wanted her to know she was missed.  He also knows the favorite color of another kid.  Pink and green because that was what was on her bday cake 2 months ago.  Good observation and memory.

W gathered up a bunch of toys and spread them out very nicely so E could see and play with them all.  She was so cute about paying attention to his most favorites.  So thoughtful!

J offered to do popcorn chains and watch a movie with the kids.  Sounded like a great idea.  But I forgot that fine motor activities for boys at the end of the day is not a good idea.  j was disappointed and said it was a bust.

I think having small kids go shopping for gifts might be a bust.  I might have to wait until they get the gimmies for it to be meaningful and a useful practice.  But it still might work out.  We will see.  W and E were with me shopping for T.  We talked about some things T likes.  W pointed out the stuff to me that she likes.  But then I was able to point out some ideas for the boys and she seemed to like them.  She also found some really cool toys for the boys that they won't be getting this year.

J was having a similar experience.  T found something for W.  He found two, one for him and one for W.  It is something he really likes.  Then J helped him by finding something w would like, but T insisted she wanted yellow over purple.  Really. 

The Christmas party about melted my heart.  W and T were given the choice to be an angel or a shepard.  pretty obvious choice.  Lots of girl angels and boy shepards.  They sang very nicely.  I loved it.  I asked them later what their favorite part of the party was.  T: Santa.  W: getting the candy cane.

Even E says Santa really well and then laughs, smiles and gives the biggest grin ever.  W didn't want to sit on Santa's lap at all.  E didn't understand the question, just kept repeating Santa.  Until I placed him on his lap and it was all screams and frowns.  T talked W into it. He instructed Santa "one leg W, one leg T".  They are too big for poor santa to hold both of them, but he tried his best.  It was only worth it for W for the candy after. 

Their Sunbeam teacher loves Christmas and went all out.  She got all the kids in the class a mini nativity set, a mini card game, and special CTR rings.  She picked out a red one with a car on it and a white one for W.  They are some sort of bendy plastic with a bit of metal in it and they totally stay on.  T loves wearing it on his index finger.

I love how E has to have his huge fuzzy in order to read his books.  He runs to fuzzy, not mommy, if he is only mildly hurt or upset.

T does really well when he has a job to do.  He totally has a " I've got this Mom attitude".  When E had a cold, T made everyone "medicine".  Warm water with honey and lemon juice.  Wintertime lemonade.  I don't know if it works, but Mina and all of Argentina swears by it.  And I went to get E baby medicine for colds and those were the ingredients.  Whatever.  I can make my own at home.  Anyway, T made four doses of it and was so very sweet with E as he gave him his medicine.  E took it better from T anyway.