Monday night we got a few inches of snow, and Tiny and Buba were beyond excited to see the yard and street covered in glistening, white snow when they woke up Tuesday morning. They wanted to go out and play immediately, but I insisted that we have breakfast and get ready for school like we always do. However, I told them if we could all get ready quickly, which requires a great deal of effort and cooperation on their part, we could go out and play before they had to go to preschool. Then I had the brilliant idea that we should skip playing in our yard and go straight to school to play in the schoolyard. Both Tiny and Buba were extremely motivated to get ready and out the door, and we had a great time playing outside at school. There weren’t any other kids there when we arrived (about 30 minutes before the start of the school day), and the yard was pretty much untouched. Buba immediately began making snow angels and Tiny soon joined in. They cleared off all the swings and slides, and we made a small but happy looking snowman right outside their classroom door. And the best part was, when it was time for school to start, we were already there! No whining or complaining about having to stop our play to get in the minivan and go to school. They just walked right in and got on with the day.

Thursday morning, we found ourselves without plans and decided to head to the library for storytime. We had been regulars at storytime for the past two years, but we hadn’t been once since the kids started preschool. Our days have just been so busy. But Buba and Tiny jumped at the chance to go and had a great time listening to their favorite librarian read and sing songs with them. Afterwards, I dragged them shopping with me so I wouldn’t miss out on spending some Kohl’s cash. I didn’t really plan to be there long, but five minutes turned into 15, which turned into 30, and before I knew it, we’d been there almost a full hour. But the reason I hadn’t noticed all the time passing by was because Buba and Tiny were so incredibly well behaved the entire time. They stayed right by me as I looked for things we didn’t really need, and in the end, I bought them both new Color Blast picture books. They totally deserved it.

Friday night, we got a few more inches of snow, and Tiny and Buba were all ready to go for another fun day of snow play. They went out for about an hour in the morning, and then went out for over an hour after quiet time.

They slept really, really well Saturday night.

Sunday morning, T headed out to Foxborough with Grammie just after 10 to get ready for the big playoff game (Grammie is a longtime Pats fan), so Tiny, Buba and I had the whole day to ourselves. It was only in the 20s, so I opted for indoor activities. We did a bit more shopping and then watched the first part of Mary Poppins (Tiny and Buba’s first feature film!). We’d watched a few clips on youtube, so they were psyched to sit down and watch the real deal. I popped some popcorn and watched them watch. It was so fun to see the excitement on their faces. We stopped the movie about 30 minutes in so we could all get ready to go to a party at an indoor kiddie playspace. Buba and Tiny had a great time running around (burning off energy) and had their first face paint experiences.

Before going to bed, we watched about 20 minutes more of Mary Poppins (at their request), and by the time I turned it off, they were already talking about how they would play a Mary Poppins game and who would be which character. We probably won’t see the next few scenes of the movie until the weekend, but they seem to be okay with that. For now, they’ve got all they need to keep the film alive for themselves. And it really is fun for me to see them loving a film and characters that I loved so much as a child.

On Monday, I had a tutoring cancellation, so I made my first ever trip to lululemon athletica  at the mall. It’s an upscale store that sells yoga, running, and workout clothes. I’d received a very generous lululemon gift card for Christmas, so I decided to spend my somewhat spontaneous free time browsing their collection. In the end, I walked away with a new pair of pants and a new top too. I know I’ve been working out just fine in TJ Maxx and Kohl’s activewear for the last three years, but now that I’ve added some lululemon pieces to the mix, I’m sure I’ll be going back for some more. Not anytime soon (unless there’s some sort of major sale), but someday.

Wednesday night, I had a parent education seminar to oversee (I’m the parent education coordinator for our town’s family organization). The week was already feeling long, and I would much rather have spent the evening at home relaxing. So to motivate myself to get out the door, I decided I’d stop at Starbucks on the way to pick up a tasty coffee treat. Now that the holidays are over, there are no more caramel brulee lattes, but the decaf mocha latte was a fine substitute. It wasn’t a huge splurge, but it was a nice mid-week pick-me-up.

Thursday night, I went to curriculum night at Buba and Tiny’s school. I went because I felt it was important, not knowing that I was actually going to have a lot of fun learning more about what they do all day and how it fits into the school’s philosophy. I hope to devote an entire post to what I learned that evening, but in a nutshell, it was all about the importance of creative play in a young child’s life. Fortunately, there is no shortage of that going on over here, and I was very please to be reminded of how this will help them to be successful in school and in life for years to come.

Friday, the excitement was mainly around the kids’ separate playdates that afternoon. They woke up exited for the playdates to come, and went to bed still talking about all the fun they had. Hopefully I’ll be able to arrange more of these types of playdates in the not too distant future.

Saturday morning was busy with chores and errands. But that afternoon, when T headed off the the Patriots playoff came with Grammie (in the freezing cold, I might add), Buba, Tiny and I went over to Michael’s to look for some new stamping supplies. During the holiday season we had purchased some Christmas stamps (a reindeer and a Christmas tree), and the kids used them to create Christmas cards for their teachers and instructors. We packed them up with the other Christmas decorations, but the kids were really wanting to do another stamping project, so I said we’d go look for some new ones. I was shocked at how expensive the stamps in the scrapbooking were. Fortunately, there were several $1 stamps in a bucket on display for Valentine crafts. They’re all sort of love themed, but that’s easier to get away with all year than the ones we bought at Christmastime. So we picked up 8 new stamps and some drawing paper to stamp them on. After a delicious gourmet pizza dinner (chicken pesto on wheat crust), the kids used their new stamps while I cleaned up the kitchen. It was easily 20-30 minutes of quiet fun for them, and the mess wasn’t too bad (the washable ink comes off their hands pretty easily). We’ll definitely be doing it again soon.

As an attempt to get the early morning wake-up shenanigans under control, I told Tiny and Buba early in the week, that if they each earned five stickers for being good sleepers (staying in bed and staying quiet until 6:30am when their sun light glows), I would take them back to family swim at my gym. They both seemed motivated by this activity, but only Tiny actually earned the five stickers needed to go. So, this afternoon, Tiny and I went off to family swim without Buba, and we had a great time. Tiny (with her floaties on) made several attempts to lie on her back and kick her legs. She also experimented with holding her breath and putting her face in the water. That evening, Tiny was very excited to report all that she’d done, which made Buba even more upset about the fact that he’d had to miss family swim. I’m really hoping this consequence might help us have better sleeping habits from him this coming week, but I’m not completely convinced that he’ll remember his disappointment if/when the opportunity arises for him to choose whether or not to stay quiet or make a naughty choice in the early morning hours. Time will tell, I suppose.

Tuesday was Buba and Tiny’s first day back to preschool after just over 2 weeks off. They transitioned back pretty well. Buba was a little whimpery at drop-off and was sobbing when I came back to pick them up, but his teacher reported that he was happy and having fun all morning and that he only started to cry when he realized it was pick-up time and didn’t see me within the first five parents who walked through the gate. He gave me a big hug (which I didn’t mind at all) and calmed down as soon as I got him into the minivan. When I told him it was okay that he missed me, he responded, “I was crying because I was cold.” Not even four years old and already he’s too cool to miss his mama.

Thursday Tiny and Buba had their first afternoon with our new babysitter. I had been using some middle school girls to look after the kids for about 90 minutes on Thursdays while I went off tutoring and T was still at school. The girls were great babysitters, but there were some transportation issues involved. So, I decided to hire an experienced high school girl who is able to drive herself to and from our house. Buba was tentative at first, but warmed up quickly once the sitter agreed to read 101 Dalmatians. T got home before I did, so I didn’t get a full report of how things went, but he said they all looked like they were having fun.

We had another gorgeous day on Saturday, so T and I took the kids and their bikes over to Grammie and Grandpa’s house. The kids played outside in the cul-de-sac for probably an hour or more while T supervised and Grammie and I chatted in the driveway. We all had lunch together and then we took our family home for quiet time.

Saturday night T and I had our weekly in-home date night. We like to wind down on Saturday nights with a movie and some popcorn. Sometimes we just watch something in our own collection or stream something from Netflix, but recently we’ve been renting some new releases from Redbox. It’s a good thing they only cost about $1.00, because most of the rentals have not met our expectations. However, last night, we watched The Change-Up and actually enjoyed it. There were definitely some not so great, eye rolling parts, but we had quite a few laughs, and it was definitely not a waste of our time.

Sunday afternoon, I took Buba and Tiny to family swim time at my gym. With my membership there, I can bring up to two guest to swim for free. This was not the first time we’d gone, but we hadn’t been swimming for several weeks. They were both beyond excited about getting to go swimming and asked repeatedly all afternoon when it would be time to go. I was both pleased and impressed to see that they wasted no time getting right into the water (with floaties, of course). And both were comfortable enough to do some jumping into the water. Tiny will only jump from the steps and does more of a horizontal jump, which keeps her head mostly above water. But Buba has recently learned that he likes to jump straight down and have his whole body under the water. He jumps right in front of me, and his floaty brings him right back up to the surface, but man, I was impressed with that kid today. He must have jumped a dozen times or more and just couldn’t get enough.

I’ve loved receiving comments and know that through the comments I’ve made several good blogger friends in the last two years. But I also know that I sometimes can get worrisome about posts that don’t get any comments or ones that get very few. I’ve been telling myself that I blog for myself and to keep faraway family and friends in the loop, but I’ve noticed that I’ll often postpone putting up new posts to see if more comments will come in on a recently published one, and that just isn’t what I intended when I started this blog.

My preference would have been to simply remove the comment link from all future blog posts. But because I’m using a WordPress template, I cannot remove the comment link completely. The best I could do (as far as I could figure out) was to turn the comments off.

I’m happy to know that disabling the comments link has not stopped quite a few readers from reaching out through Facebook or emails to let me know their thoughts.  I plan to do my best to keep up with the blogs that I’ve loved reading, and you’re still sure to see my comments there.

I woke up this morning feeling overwhelmingly sad and missing my mom. I can’t really say why today was the day, but after almost 10 years, I know that my grief is often heightened around Christmastime. I was feeling way too sad to try to tuck my feelings back into the corners of my mind, so I had a good cry and then did my best to try to get on with the day. After all, I did have two kids who needed to be dressed and fed.

Fortunately, I had made plans for the kids to spend some time in the playroom at the gym so I could get in one more workout before taking a little holiday break. That at least got us out of the house for a bit. I wasn’t surprised by how distracted I was during the step class. It clearly was not my best workout this week, but it felt good to get moving, and I left the gym feeling better than I had felt when we’d arrived.

Still, back at home with several hours before quiet time, I knew that I was not in the mood to play pretend games or read book after book. My heart just wasn’t in it. I needed to come up with something that Tiny and Buba could do peacefully on their own.

Puzzles!

Both Buba and Tiny are into puzzles big time, and I can hardly keep up with their desires and requests for new ones. I’d just recently pulled out some large floor puzzles that we’d picked up over the summer, and they were so excited to have the chance to give them a try.

I have to say, I’m really quite impressed at how focused they both get when working on a jigsaw puzzle. They have their strategies down, and they just keep trying and trying until they make it all work. They mostly want to do it all by themselves, so even when I see that they are frustrated, they often decline any assistance from me.

They worked on these puzzles for over an hour- putting them together, taking them apart, putting them together again, trading puzzles and starting all over. While they worked, I finished up the last batches of Christmas cookies, and enjoyed the quiet time in the house to just be with my thoughts.

And fortunately, my sad mood passed and the day ended much better than it began. Tomorrow we will begin celebrating Christmas by opening gifts from my side of the family (way too much to do gifts from my family and T’s family on the same day), and I’m pretty sure it will be a joyful day for all of us. I’m excited to see Buba and Tiny tear into their gifts and to listen to them play happily with all their new toys. Tomorrow will be a good day, for sure.

Yesterday, after dropping the kids off, I headed straight to the gym for my Zumba class. Normally, I have Tiny and Buba with me on Wednesdays, and they play in the gym’s playroom while I workout. They can only take about an hour down there, so I usually rush off to retrieve them once the class is over. But since I didn’t need to pick them up from the playroom this time, I decided to stay a bit longer and tried out some of the African dance class as well. Today, I headed down to the gym again, but did my own workout and didn’t stay quite as long. After a tough workout and a quick shower, I headed out to a (much needed) haircut appointment. And then finished up my free time with a delicious coffee treat from Starbucks. The whole experience was quite nice and well timed. It was the perfect preschool substitute experience we all needed to make it through an otherwise long and uneventful week.

Gymnastics update: Last spring, Tiny’s coaches really wanted to put her into a group for advanced preschool gymnasts. I was kind of on the fence about whether or not I wanted her to be in the group. The timing was really bad (the class took place during the kids’ nap time), and I just wasn’t sure I wanted her to be in a group that would involve mostly older kids. Still, we said okay, and started the year with her in the advanced group and Buba in a boys only group that met at the same time. After just one session, I made the decision to switch them back to regular old 3-year-old gymnastics. I could tell after just one class, that the class time was going to be a big issue for us, and Buba had a really hard time not being in the same group as Tiny. I don’t regret either decision one bit. I’m glad we gave the advanced and boys only classes a try, and I’m very glad that we switched back to a standard morning time gymnastics class. The kids are very happy with their coach and the other kids in their group, and I’m not at all worried about whether or not Tiny is progressing at an advanced rate or not. For now, it’s just all about getting some exercise and having fun. And both Buba and Tiny are getting a whole lot of that!

There was no real need to keep Buba home, though, so I decided that we should have some Mommy and Buba time. The sad truth is that neither of my kids get much one-to-one time from T or me. And even sadder is that when we do have a chance to do one-to-one time, it often works out to be mother/daughter, father/son time. So, this time that I had to spend with just Buba was quite a treat.

I had some errands I needed to run, but I wanted to make things fun for him. So, after a quick trip to Carter’s, we popped into the L.L. Bean next door just to ride up and down the escalator. We also stopped to peek into their giant fish tank, and took ride in the elevator before heading off to do more errands.

Next up was a quick trip to Kohl’s. We were in and out in a flash, so we walked just a few doors down to the dollar store. Both Buba and Tiny have been heavily into jigsaw puzzles lately. They’ll sit with a puzzle for a good long time trying to figure it out, and more times than not, they are successful (up to 24 pieces). The puzzles have been great activities for quiet time, but they’ve done the ones we have so many times and have become hungry for some new ones. The dollar store seemed to be a good place to look. It didn’t take long at all before we found several Disney themed 24-piece puzzles. Buba chose a Winnie the Pooh puzzle and picked a nice Tinkerbell puzzle for Tiny. He also found new bouncy balls, Mickey and Disney princess number puzzles, Cars and Disney princess bath books, and wash cloths. At $1 a piece, it hardly seemed worth it to say no. And he was having such a great time picking out little treats to take home to Tiny. Fortunately it didn’t take long for him to want to leave with his goodies. We spent about 20 minutes and $16 before heading back towards home again.

I spend a lot of time with Buba practically every day, but nothing comes close to the way it feels to be with just him and do the kinds of things that make him happy. I know that life will only get busier with work and school and the kids’ activities, but I hope that we’ll always remember, every now and then, to stop and take the time to have these little dates with our kids. And I’m sure the busier we get, the more important they’ll be.

We were making our way down the bread and cracker aisle, when we saw Santa coming up the aisle towards us. I can’t remember if he was was wearing khakis or jeans, but he had on a bright red collared shirt underneath his everyday jacket. We’re not sure if he was trying to pass for just the average shopper, but his white hair, beard, and of course, the signature Santa hat definitely gave him away.

As he came closer and closer, Tiny watched with eyes wide open, drawing closer and closer into me. Just as he approached, she whispered, “Is that…”

But before she could finish, Santa reached into his jacket and pulled out a tightly wrapped candy cane. “Merry Christmas,” he said in a low voice meant just for us to hear. Tiny beamed as she looked at the candy cane with wonder and exclaimed, “Thank you, Santa!”

And just like that, he continued quietly on his way, unnoticed by the other grown up shoppers quickly working to fill their carts and be on their way. He had come and was gone in only a minute or so, but the happiness he gave to one little girl lingered on and on.

Yes, some day there will be questions about Santa, and there will come a time when the truth will have to be told, but not today. And not this holiday season. For now, we’ll enjoy being wrapped up in the fun and the magic of believing in Santa.

Finding time to spend with friends has been especially challenging, but this week I met up with friends at Starbucks not once, but twice! Both Wednesday and Thursday, after T and I put the kids to bed, I snuck out for about an hour an a half to enjoy a tasty, hot drink (Have you had the Caramel Brule Latte? It’s like liquid candy.) and some good conversations (and not just all kid talk). Although this is a relatively simple way of pampering myself, it was just the thing I needed before the craziness of the holiday season sets in.

First up that day was a parent/teacher conference with Buba and Tiny’s teachers. I ran plenty of conferences back in my classroom teaching days, and it was really interesting for me to be on the other side of the table this time. The teachers had written up narrative progress reports on each child, and it was fun to see what they chose to point out.

From Buba’s report: Buba explores the room freely. He loves the moon sand and playdough and spends good amounts of time manipulating these materials…His teachers have noted his long attention span and ability to concentrate on the task at hand…Buba has a terrific sense of humor and is well liked by his peers…Buba is well able to occupy himself independently…

From Tiny’s report: Tiny is an incredibly happy child who comes into the classroom with a huge smile and a hug for the teachers each day…Tiny is happy playing with friends or working diligently on an art project alone…Tiny is a kind and thoughtful friend to the other children…Recently she was overheard in the kitchen area saying to a friend, “What do you want? I’ll cook it for you.”

Needless to say, I was very pleased to hear how well both Tiny and Buba have transitioned to preschool. We are all loving their school and their teachers, and look forward to seeing how the kids continue to grow as the year unfolds.

After the conference, we headed down to the mall for our annual visit with Santa (year #4!). Both Buba and Tiny were very excited to see Santa, and went right up to him when they were called to sit on his lap for photos. After they’d had their pictures taken, Santa asked each of them what they would like for Christmas. Tiny responded that she would like Tinkerbell, and Buba answered with, “Um…toys.” Santa chuckled and reminded them to be very good for their Mommy and Daddy (something we’re constantly working on, of course), and then sent us away with a candy cane for each kid. Fortunately, Buba and Tiny do not yet know about candy canes and did not protest at all when I took them away and explained that I would keep these fragile decorations safe until we were ready to hang them on our Christmas tree.

Next the kids picked out one ornament each to add to their personal collection of ornaments that we started their very first Christmas. Tiny picked a fire truck, and Buba picked an ambulance.

Our last stop was to be at the Apple Store to pick up a gift card for a cousin’s birthday present. One interesting, but sometimes difficult, thing about this store is that there is no specific are for check out. A team member comes to you and completes your transaction on the spot using (I believe) an iPhone that is able to run a credit card (not sure if or how they handle cash transactions). So, we picked up our gift card, and then I let the Buba and Tiny sit down and play on the kid computers while I waited for someone to come to ring up our sale. The woman who came was having trouble getting a good signal where we were, so she stepped away from the computers towards the back of the store. I started to follow her, but then explained that I needed to be able to see my kids. She nodded, and I turned back towards the computers to see just Tiny sitting on the little stool in front of the computers.

“Where is your brother?” I asked her. No response. Panic creeps up my spine. “I’m sure he’s just browsing the store,” another team member offered, but one quick sweep and I knew he was no longer in the store. Major panic. I grabbed Tiny and tried to run. I’m sure I looked absolutely crazy, and for good reason. Fortunately, the team member remained calm. “What does he look like?” she asked. 3 feet tall. Brown hair. Bright yellow rain jacket. No sooner had I spoken those words and she was on her head set communicating the same information to every team member in the store. By the time I got out to the mall walkway, I could see an Apple member about three stores down with Buba, who was sobbing. It had only been about 45 seconds from the time I realized he was gone until we found him, but they were the longest and most terrifying 45 seconds of my life. I was shaking and crying as I picked him up and squeezed him tightly.

We paid for our gift card, and promptly left the mall. I felt horrible, absolutely horrible. The magic of the Santa visit was gone, replaced with guilt and disappointment. Buba and Tiny recovered quickly, but it still kills me every time I think about this. My kids are usually so good at staying right by me when we’re out and about, but this recent scare has made it necessary to have even more rules and consequences for behavior when I need to take them shopping with me.

Fortunately the magic of Christmas has prevailed. I won’t forget that horrible experience, but I can’t dwell on it forever either. We’ve got Christmas music playing daily in our house, and soon we’ll be baking and addressing Christmas cards. It’s a happy time of year, and it should feel happy. But you’d be right to think that I hold Buba’s hand extra tight whenever we go into a store, even if it’s just a quick trip. Lesson learned.