The tooth fairy visits Gilmore Street

Catherine lost her first tooth this week and she was very excited to have a visit from the tooth fairy. Bill and I had to decide the going rate for these visits. He suggested $5 but I reminded him that she has six loose teeth. We are in a poor economy, people! Even the tooth fairy has to cut back. We agreed that she would get $2 for each tooth. For some reason Catherine thought that she would be receiving stickers and a coloring book from the tooth fairy. I have no idea where this idea came from and I certainly did not have a stock of these things hanging around the house. I explained that the tooth fairy was far too small to carry around coloring books so that is why she left money.

And so began the millions of questions… How big is the tooth fairy? How does she know I lost a tooth? Does she make a list? Will she look in my mouth? What does she wear? I truly have no idea! I was very prepared for questions about Santa. I had an answer for every possible question. I never even thought to prepare myself on the tooth fairy. I tried my best to explain all about the tooth fairy but with every sentence it just seemed more and more ridiculous. “The tooth fairy is very tiny…like Tinkerbelle. She flies into your room at night and takes the tooth from under your pillow and replaces it with money.” Sounds kind of scary if you ask me. Bill & I went into her room to get the tooth and leave the loot. She opened her eyes just as I started to put my hand under her pillow!! Bill made a mad dash out the door and I put my head under her bed. I had to lay there for quite a while until I was sure that she was back asleep. She was very excited the next morning to find the $2 under her pillow. She has another tooth that is ready go to any day now. I still have a few days to decide what the tooth fairy wears.

I slept like a baby...a newborn baby

Let me sum up the past 4 1/2 years for you. I haven't slept. Okay, so there have been a few times that I got a full nights sleep. Not very many. I think new parents are prepared for the fact that there will be sleepless nights ahead of them. I don't think I was prepared for how long this would last. Maddie is going through the "let's see what Mommy is doing at 2am...and 4am...and I'll just wake up for the day at 6am. I'll take a nap!" phase. When I do go in there to check on her she laughs at me. Its a conspiracy, I tell ya! The other night I was awakened by Catherine at midnight. "Mommy, you want to play a game with me?". Ya sure, kid, let me go get candyland. Last night she woke up in the middle of the night to tell me that she did not want to use the little spoon when she had pudding. Good to know. Now can I go back to sleep???!!

There have even been mornings that Bill wakes up and says "the kids slept really good, huh?". It is all I can do to keep from knocking him out! I am resigned to the fact that I will never get a good nights sleep. I will always have dark circles under my eyes. I will live for my morning coffee and I will be eternally grumpy. Does anyone want to take my kids for a night? Cause Momma needs a tylenol pm.

Santa was trying to be creative....

Christmas this year was a lot of fun. Catherine really seemed to be "getting" the concept of everything. She was excited about Santa coming and had learned some Christmas songs at school. I was worried that she would wake up at the crack of dawn to open presents but she didn't. She came down the stairs and went to the tree and got a huge smile on her face when she saw all of the presents there. She unwrapped her first present and said "I didn't order this!".

Santa must have a timeshare in Massachusetts...

When I was a kid there was such a mystery surrounding Santa Claus. He was this wonderful little character that only appeared when you were sleeping. Perhaps he was at the mall – but I did not have a mall nearby when I was a kid. I remember my father once dressed up as Santa on Christmas Eve and my mother woke us up to watch him walk down the road. We would listen to our radio on Christmas Eve as they reported where Santa’s sleigh had last been sighted.

My, how things have changed! It’s pretty hard to go anywhere in the month of December without seeing Santa Claus. (Sometimes even in November!) How can we even keep telling kids that he lives in the North Pole? Who would believe that? We have seen Santa at the following locations:

As we were driving to a Christmas party we saw Santa parachuting down from the sky to a party at the fire department in Dracut. Santa then appeared rather quickly at a party in Pelham. We saw Santa this past weekend at “tea with Mrs. Claus”. I had already explained to Catherine that Santa wouldn’t be there since he was so busy packing his sleigh. But there he was….. Santa will be at the kid’s school on Monday and then at my Christmas party on Tuesday. Most of these Santa’s don’t even look close to being real.

Santa also has to hand out presents at each of these events. What ever happened to waiting until Christmas morning? The kids are basically getting a present every weekend in December. I will tell you – it’s very difficult to reign them in after the holidays. Wouldn’t you be upset if all of a sudden you stopped receiving presents every day??

I miss the way Christmas used to be. We’d wait all year for the Christmas shows to be on ONE time. We’d try very hard to be good (for at least a couple of weeks) because Santa might bring Coal for our stockings. (No kid is buying that anymore). We were very excited to open one gift on Christmas Eve (which was always Christmas pajamas – a tradition that I’m keeping for the kids). And, Santa only visited on Christmas Eve…..

Is it just me?

Okay, I'm not a perfect mother but I'm also not STUPID! I had an interesting request this weekend. I was shocked because this was not the first time - it was the second time someone has asked me to do this.

The first time was last winter. We took Catherine to see Finding Nemo on Ice at the Boston Garden in Boston. We bought the super-duper expensive "VIP" tickets and ended up being right down on the ice. We were sitting next to a woman and her little boy. He appeared to be about three years old. She was trying to get her son to talk to Catherine, who of course was having none of it! After about 10 minutes she turned to me and said "I'm going to get some popcorn and he doesn't want to come. Can you watch him while I'm gone?". Seriously?? I do not know this woman. She does not know me and now I've been put in charge of babysitting for her. Being that we were in the super-duper expensive seats, she had to walk all the way up to the top of the section to get out to the food consessions. This took quite a while and I began to worry that she dumped him. He was cute enough but we had our hands full already and I didn't really know what to do with a boy anyway.

The second time was on Sunday. We took the girls to have "Tea with Mrs. Claus" at Smolak Farms in North Andover. The kids all sat at the long table and wrote letters to Santa and decorated gingerbread cookies. There was a little girl and a little boy (again about three years old) that was sitting next to Catherine. They were there with their father. We never spoke to each other at all. I was getting Catherine ready to leave because she was not interested in sitting on Mrs. Claus' lap. The father turned to me and said "I have to take my daughter to the bathroom. Can you watch my son for a minute?"

Am I crazy? Is this acceptable?? Because, I do not think it is. I told Bill all about this episode, looking for signs that he thought this was something he might do in that scenario. He passed with flying colors when he was just as shocked. Maybe I need to give myself more credit. I may forget to bring extra diapers sometimes but I have never asked a stranger to babysit my kids!

Scenes from a 5 year olds Birthday party

Boy 1: "fruit punch makes you STRONG!"

Boy 2: "I know, because it has fruit in it"

Thankful Mommy

We have a lot to be thankful for this year. We have a wonderful family. We are all happy and healthy. However, I am also thankful for the following:

• The parking spots reserved for families with small children. I wonder how long I can milk that one.
  
• Catherine’s trips to the naughty chair are getting less frequent. We will keep it around for Maddie. I have a feeling she will keep it warm quite a bit.
  
• The new play area in the mall. What a great idea! I do get confused about the shoes though. Is it just the kids that need to remove them? Or the adults too?
  
• Maddie feeding Abby from her highchair. Sometimes I get busy and forget to fill Abby’s dish. Next I will teach her to throw some food into the fish bowl.
  
• A market basket employee actually helped me put my groceries in the car last weekend (and I was alone – no kids). I have not seen that since I was a kid.
  
  Happy Thanksgiving!