My Kid Circus

So, it has started.  Mr. Z, at 5 years old has decided he is smarter than his parents.  In fact, sitting at dinner the other night he just looked up at Jeff and stated, “Daddy, I’m smarter than you”.  Jeff looked at me and laughed, and challenged him, saying, “Oh yeah.  Tell me something I don’t know”.  Without missing a beat, Z says, “A spider is not an insect.  That is because spiders have 8 legs”. Ha ha!  🙂

He tried stumping me this morning, but since I am usually the one reading him the “Magic School Bus” books, we seemed to be tied on random science facts.  I guess it won’t be long.  I thought we could keep our children convinced that we knew everything at least until Kindergarten, but no such luck I guess. 🙂

One of my very first blog posts was about my husband buying princess pull-ups for our little guy.  Well, for probably the first time since that occasion, I sent him to the store for pull-ups.  What do you know, he did it again!  Our little guys is now 3, and it was obvious that he has grown when he yelled, “NO!  Those are for girls!”.  Well, it is icy out, and the little guy had to wear them.  Poor guy!

So, for beter or worse the holidays are over, and the kids are back at school, giving me a quiet minute at the computer.

I wanted to update on our “Santa” situation today, and then I will write again in the next few days about some of the other highlights of the holidays.

As I last wrote, D requested “Dirt Buzz” from Santa Claus.  This was actually a regular Buzz Lightyear that was just plain dirty.  For a 3 year old, he was incredibly consistent with this request.  At first, I thought it would be a passing thing, and he would soon move to another Christmas list request that Santa could fulfill.  This didn’t happen.  Every single day before Christmas he told anyone that would listen that he asked for this “Dirt Buzz”.  He took it all very seriously.  At one point, this child  looked around his room and asked me to clean it so that Santa would come bring him that Dirt Buzz.  (That was because Santa asked him if he had been keeping his room clean).  And yes, the fact that he wanted me to clean up his toys rather than doing it himself is a problem, but one I will deal with on another day and another blog.

So, picture my husband and I on Christmas Eve, outside, with D’s new Buzz Lightyear (and Woody too).  We rubbed those toys in the dirt attempting to recreate the Buzz that D loved from the Flickr slideshow.  When we thought we had a close version, we  put the muddy toys in our freezer in an attempt to solidify the dirt so we could actually put them on our couch with the other gifts from Santa.

Christmas morning comes, and D does immediately run to his new, dirty toys (even overlooking a new bike!).  He says, “COOL, A NEW DIRT BUZZ AND DIRT WOODY!!!”.  We are feeling like the morning has been a success, so we ask him to hold up his new toys for a picture.  He looks at them, looks at me, looks at them.  Then he says, “They dirty.  You wash them?”.

He won't even touch them!

Oh well.  As parents, we will go to any length to try to bring happiness to our children.  Sometimes we get it right, and sometimes we don’t.  In this case, we sure tried our best! 🙂

As parents, I think that one of the most fun things that we get to do is be Santa.  Although I spend much of December trying to reinforce to my boys the true meaning of Christmas, I can’t help but be pulled into their excitement over Santa.  When Z was 3, he desperately wanted a pirate ship.  He sat on Santa’s lap and told him his great wish with such seriousness.  I think that Christmas will stay in my memory as one of my favorites.  I will always remember him coming out of his room.  When he saw the pirate ship, he threw his arms around it screaming, “I LOVE it!!”  Bringing such joy to your child is an unbelievably incredible feeling.  I wish it was something we got to experience more often.

Of course, that brings us to the current Christmas season.  D is now 3, so I have been hopeful that we would have a similar sweet experience with him.  When will I learn that this child is his own human being, and will not repeat the history of his older brother?

A little background for this story;  D LOVES Buzz Lightyear.  He has loved him for several years.  I believe that “Buzz” was one of the first 10 words that he learned to say.  Over time, he has accumulated quite a collection of Buzz Lightyears.  He has them in multiple sizes, several colors, on articles of clothing, cars, etc.  Anyway, one of his favorite pastimes is to look at “Buzz pictures”.  To do this, we go to Flikr, and let him watch a slideshow of pictures of Buzz Lightyear.  So as we started talking about Christmas for this year, D tells us that what he wants to ask Santa for is “Dirt Buzz”.  We went a few days trying to figure out what that was, when we realized that it must be one of the pictures that he has seen in the slideshow.  Great.  So, I had several sit-downs at the computer with D watching the slide show.  Me: “Is THAT Dirt Buzz”??  D:  “NO!!”.

Finally, success!  He identified Dirt Buzz.

Yes, this is what my child wants for Christmas from Santa Claus.  What is a parent to do?

Thanksgiving is absolutely one of my favorite holidays. I love that it is all about being with family and food, two of my most favorite things. 🙂  We had a truly wonderful one this year, with all of our immediate family together in the mountains.

During our Thanksgiving meal, we asked Z what he was thankful for.  He sweetly answered, “Mommy and Daddy”.  Aww.  Then we asked D.  What was his answer?  Peanut butter and jelly.  Gotta love him.  I believe that he meant it from the bottom of his heart.

D and PB & J!

A few days before Thanksgiving, Z put together that when we eat turkey, it was an actual live turkey.  I think he was thinking that it was just the same word for 2 different things.  Well, he is not at all happy about this discovery.  He announced to me, “I am NOT going to eat ANY of God’s animals!!”.  So here we are at a week, with our 5 year-old vegetarian.  He doesn’t like that title, however.  If you refer to him as a vegetarian, he will indignantly reply, ” I am NOT a vegetarian. I am a BUILDER!” 🙂