Holiday Musings

Francesca would like to know why we wish everyone a "Merry" Christmas when on every other holiday we say "Happy" (Easter, Thanksgiving, Halloween...)

Gavin has announced this year that he would like to celebrate Hanukkah. He learned all about it in school this week. I am not sure if he likes the idea of presents for 8 nights, or what. I told him he can go to my brother and Pam's if he would like to partake in a Hanukkah celebration. They celebrate both Christmas and Hanukkah.

We have a new addition to our family this Christmas season....it's Blue, the class fish, from Francesca's first grade class. She wanted to take Blue home for Thanksgiving, but someone else had already volunteered. So she volunteered for this break the first day back from Thanksgiving break. So Scott picked Blue up at the end of the day and safely brought him home to Francesca's room. Francesca was very worried about Blue's safety given the presence of our cat Picky-Picky. That would be a real Christmas treat for Picky, fresh fish! So hopefully we will not kill the fish over the break. That would really suck.

To you and yours, from me and mine, a Happy, Healthy and safe Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and any other holiday I may have missed!!!

The Wallet

Gavin wanted a wallet. Why, we are not sure. Francesca has some girly kind of wallet, which totally would not do for him. Scott has been promising to get him one. He went to Jembro yesterday and bought him one for $3. Gavin LOVED it. He was so proud of his wallet. I don't think he'll be putting it in his back pocket though, it's probably bigger than Gav's right butt cheek. He showed me and Francesca what was in his wallet, and let me tell you, if he ever decides to have a big adventure on his own, he's all set.

Contents of Gav's wallet:
$2
Scott's business card
A Dunkin' Donuts gift card (not sure if there is any credit on it)
A Metro Card (Scott thinks he may be able to get downtown with it, Gav VERY excited by the thought of hopping on the subway)

I am sure that Gavin will continue to collect treasures in this wallet. I can't wait to see what else he hides in there!

Gavin Lost a Tooth

OK I was thinking on my way to work this morning that I had not blogged about Gav and his tooth, and then someone commented that I had forgotten to blog about it! So Monday night Gavin showed us his really loose tooth. Gavin actually has 8 loose teeth, according to his most recent dental visit. Like Francesca, Gavin has really teenyweenyteenytiny teeth. It was getting close to bedtime but Scott and I were afraid to let him go to sleep with such a loose tooth. That's because Gavin is a grinder and we were afraid he'd grind grind grind that tooth right out of its' spot and swallow it! When Francesca lost her first tooth she was eating popcorn at the time and her tooth was so small...well you get the idea. Thankfully she did not realize it and we were able to keep her occupied until we were able to run to my mom's (she saved all of my teeth) and grab one of my old ones, and then, POOF, Oh look Francesca, your tooth fell out! She was 4, she believed us. May she never read this. My mom actually made me return the tooth to her too! But back to Gavin. He sat on the counter in the bathroom and twisted and wiggled and pushed and pulled. Scott offered to tie a string to it and then tie it to the bathroom door. NO NO NO said Gav. He even swished water around in his mouth about a hundred times hoping that would do it. No. We finally had success brushing the teeth over and over again and then it just popped out! He was so excited. The tooth fairy brought him $1 and some stickers and a Matchbox car. He told me last night that he has another loose tooth. I hope it falls out a little easier than this one!

Peace on Earth...blah blah blah

There may be peace somewhere, but it ain't on Wesley Avenue. Well, at least not if you are Francesca and Gavin. They argue incessantly. Scott said they argued all the way to school (well all of the 1 minute it takes to get there) and proceeded to yell at each other once they both went into the gym to line up with their respective classes. They yelled across the gym at each other. What were they fighting about you ask? Francesca accused Gavin of stealing her turn to put another mini ornament on our Christmas tree Advent calendar. This is a big deal in our house. The kids deliberate over who gets to put the next ornament on and which ornament it will be. Yes you did, no I didn't, yes you did, no I didn't. And so on...Scott finally said that Mommy (me) put an ornament on and maybe they should yell at me. Thanks hon!

Last night they fought over the layout of our Nativity scene. I bought a manger this year at Wal-Mart (amazing what you will find for $10 when you are there at 4:45 on Black Friday). We finally found the big bag of people/animals that my mom had given us last year. Gavin meticulously placed every figure where HE thought they should go. Francesca took issue with this, mainly because she thought there SHOULD NOT BE 3 BABY JESUS'S IN THE MANGER. Well in Gav's defense he placed all the Baby Jesus's in different parts of the manger and had different people/animals looking at them. She did not like this and told him so. Loudly. He proclaimed that he was IN CHARGE and she should just go away. She then not-so-accidentally swept a few pieces off the buffet where the Nativity scene is set up and walked away. I thought a throw-fest would ensue but amazingly Gav just picked up the pieces, re-configured them and walked away. We will see how long all those Baby Jesus figurines last. I tried to tell them that maybe Baby Jesus should not be there at all until Christmas morning, but they did not want to listen. I told them that when I was little, their Uncle Rob, my brother, would hide the Baby Jesus and we would have to find him. Every day. We also had to find my brother's glasses the year he was 5 and hid them in the Christmas tree but that is a whole other story! So maybe ALL the Baby Jesus's should be hidden until then. That was a no-go. Oh no. Baby Jesus (all 3 of them) were staying right there. So stay they did. For now.

So there you go. Stay tuned for the story of Gavin loosing his first tooth. That happened 2 nights ago but I need to run out for lunch now so I'll blog about that later!

You Ate WHAT???

Last night was my holiday party for work. My parents picked the kids up from school, fed them dinner at their house and then brought them over to our house, got them changed and put them to bed. We got home around 9:30 and all was well, kids were asleep. No reported problems and my parents went home. This morning my mom leaves a message on my cell phone telling me that she forgot to tell me a funny thing and to please call. So I call and she starts laughing before she can even get the story out. I am like her in that respect, I do the same thing.

She tells me that once they got to our house she was getting the kids washed up and ready for bed. My dad was downstairs, apparently in the kitchen where he spied a plate of Christmas cutouts. My mom and the kids came downstairs and saw him holding one. The conversation went a little like this...

Pa: "Linda, these cookies that Dineen made are awful hard. What's in them??"

Ma: "I have no idea....."

Francesca and Gavin: "PA!!!!! WHY ARE YOU EATING OUR CINNAMON APPLESAUCE CHRISTMAS ORNAMENTS??"

I am so glad he only got one bite into them and did not break a tooth or something like that. He really would have been pissed off about that. In my defense, the ornaments had broken a little bit (well a few of them had dropped) so they looked a little "crumby". The reason they were on a plate was because Francesca wanted Scott to try to fix the broken ones. I guess they sort of looked like cookies. Really hard cookies. Oh boy did I get a good laugh at work over that one. That made my day.

Francesca's New Vocabulary

Thursday night, after all the Thanksgiving hoopla was over, Francesca and Scott settled into our bed to watch Andrew Zimmern's food show on the Travel Channel. I can't think of the title of the show right now to save my life, but you know the one; he travels to exotic locales and eats things that we would not, in our right minds, ever eat. Gavin and I chose to snooze on the couch and forgo television altogether. Francesca really got into watching it, and apparently asked Scott a few questions about what things Andrew was eating. As in...

"Daddy, what is that man eating? They said he ate the brain, stomach and...the what?"

Scott: "Go ask your mother to explain that word to you."

Francesca: "Mommy, what is the tes...test...TESTICLES! Andrew Zimmern was eating the testicles of the WILD WHORE!"

Me: "WHAT??? SCOTT! Turn the channel! Francesca, the testicles are part of the willie...sort of. And it's a WILD BOAR, not wild whore! Isn't it time for bed?"

Francesca: "HE ATE PART OF THE WILLIE??? THAT IS DISGUSTING! Why would he do that?"

Well, all weekend long we had to hear about Andrew Zimmern and his delicious wild boar testicles. I really really hope she doesn't go into school and tell people what she watches on TV. Ugh.