Girls and shoes

Our little Maeve had her first ever ballet lesson this morning. At just 20 months, she was such a little grown-up, taking her teacher's hand and following her into class. (All the moms were to wait outside the room. They do appease us with one of those little viewing windows. You know the kind were they can see you, but you can't see them? Ha!) At first, Maeve's expressions told me she was a little apprehensive, but before too long she was all smiles, doing 'ballet marches,' port de bras, chasses and twirls, with three other girls -- all 'big girls' all of age three and dressed the part, complete with tights, ballet slippers, leotards and tutus.

So here is the funny part. Drew was asking Maeve if she liked dance class at dinner. And what does she tell him? "Dance shoes, Papa." Without her and I talking about it, or anyone really mentioning it to her, she observed she was the only one in her class without ballet slippers and decided to tell her papa in the hopes of getting some we guess.

"You scare me Maeve," this is what Drew tells her. I say bless her heart, and you better believe I will run right out and get her some little pink ballet shoes. I have, afterall, have been waiting for this day ever since I found out I was having a girl.

Let's just hope though there's a little delay before she starts asking for the entire wardrobe to go with her new hobby.

Spreading good news!

Jackson's preschool class made the historic trek to Bethlehem today, dressed as shepards. ("Let's go to Bethlehem to pay our taxes!" Jackson keeps telling me, even though his line for their upcoming Christmas program is "Let's go to Bethlehem to see the baby!" Stay tuned for the outcome of that one.) His little class was truly, truly adorable as they told everyone in the foyer they were going to see baby Jesus. They searched until they found the barn and the manager -- a nativity displayed in the hall. Once they found it, they kneeled and said a prayer, posed for a group picture, and then told everyone the good news -- baby Jesus is born!

You'll see from the pictures Maeve actually believes she is part of the class, and her very kind brother catered to this, holding her hand and leading her around. There were a few tears when mom made her stay out of the class photo. Oh, the woe of the younger sibling! I get it, babe, I do.

It was an exciting and touching morning and made for an absolutely precious memory.

The great candy buy-back

So our neighbor was looking for information on a post-Halloween 'candy buy-back,' and I still had the newspaper with the information (s0 I am turning into my newspaper-cherishing mother after all!) so I gave her a call and recited the details. This was at about 4:30 on Monday night, and the kids are at my feet in the kitchen 'playing' with our miles and miles of candy collected on Saturday night. (Which was a blast by the way -- the kids zooming from house to house with the neighborhood crew, myself running behind with Maeve in arms, Maeve shivering out the words "Happee Halloweeen!" by the end of the night, Drew toasty warm thanks to the beers and bottle of wine hidden in his handy-dandy Trader Joe's insulated bag tucked in our red wagon.) Jackson had about 25 tupperware containers out so he could sort the candy by type, color, size -- you name it. He was lining it up, mimicking the sound of a grocery store scanner. Perfectly content to admire -- but not eat -- all this candy. Maeve on the other hand would sneak any piece she could get her hands on. Sweet thing that she is though, she would hand it back to me -- all I had to do was ask.

So back to the details of the candy buy-back. "Martine Dentistry. Out at Stonegte. Yeah, Stonegate Drive. From four to seven p.m. tonight. Okay. Have fun. Bye."

Jackson, my little set of ears, of course overheard this conversation and was intrigued.

J: "What are they doing with the candy, mommy?"

K: "They are going to send it to the servicemen and women in Iraq."

J: "Are they gonna eat it?"

K: "Yes."

Hmm. Eyes are thinking. Jackson sets about four pieces of candy into my giant reusable shopping bag. I explain that you get one dollar for one pound, and four pieces of candy will not equal a pound. The rest is blurry as I tried my best to explain to him what one pound would look like, reassure him he will get money and that he will get to use it to buy a toy, and we go back and fourth over which pieces of candy our family likes, which we want to keep and which we want to donate. In the end I gave him a small tupperware to put all the "to keep" candy in. It seemed like it took forever, probably only about 10 minutes, but finally we ended up with a huge and heavy bag to donate and a little to keep too. (Seriously, I would have never asked my kids to give up their candy. I truly, truly love sugar.) So we got on shoes and coats and loaded up the car.

What a great setup and idea this dentist's office had! A servicemen greeted us in uniform, the ladies at the front took our candy and weighed it. We had ten pounds! I could not believe it. This was the limit, so it is a good thing we saved a little (good for everybody!). Then the kids had to sign a giant card that was being sent to the troops with the candy, (yeah, for Jackson for making his own J!), and follow some ghosts around the office to the banker. (The cartoons on the TV screens really sidetracked the kids -- a dentist with TV, how things change.) The dentist/banker then handed Jackson ten single dollar bills, one by one. We picked up a little goody bag with flashing toothbrushes Jackson loved and off we went. (You should have seen the dance he was doing with these flashing toothbrushes, buck naked, in the complete dark in front of the mirror in his bathroom last night. "What is this a rave?" Drew wanted to know.)

And then we all headed to one of my favorite toy stores to buy the toys -- five bucks each. The store even gives an "allowance discount" when kids use money they earned to buy toys. How sweet.

So, theoretically speaking, we should all have fewer cavities, fewer gained pounds, fewer sticky "what is this" to find, and fewer candy theives to catch. Another one of those unplanned plans that worked out perfectly. Love it!

In the car

Some of our discussions while shuttling about in the car (We do have some downtime between singing along to Miley Cyrus's "Party in the USA" replays on XM radio. Shouldn't we be finding something better to listen too?!)

#1

On the way to school from Jackson:

"Why did Mrs. Morris and Mrs. Remeander pick this church, Mommy?"

"You mean why is preschool at this church?"

"Yes."

"Because this is a nice place for school."

"I want to build Mrs. Morris and Mrs. Remeander a new, huge, huge school, Mommy."

Note that the school in question is no dump; in fact the facilities will knock your socks off. I think this desire to rebuild even bigger and even better is just genetically inherited. Like father, like son. Too funny.

#2

Out of the clear blue from Maeve:

"I love Georgie, Mommy." (As in Curious George. Maeve has a little Georgie she gives a kiss too before each and every nap and each and every bedtime.)

#3

From Jackson, again on the way to school:

"Look at that mini-excavator Jackson." (A Caterpillar 305CR).

"Is Papa in there working?"

See you in C-U

Jackson, Maeve and I took a little C-U roadtrip -- what a perfect day! Our great friends the Rahers meet us there for a little children's museum action and lunch at one of our favorite college spots. The kids had so much fun together discovering, giggling and just being buddies.

I heart fall

More fall fun: Jackson's crafts continue, ("Let's make the house spooky, Mom."), a "Pumpkin Party" in the park (at least that is what we called it) with pumpkin painting and hayrack rides, and one of the best parts of fall -- leave piles (thanks to our neighbor we now know how to play the game "leaf zombie").

Swimming take two

Jackson loved his second session of swim lessons, moving all the way past Goldfish to Guppies! He is absolutely loving the water, his teacher and "his kids," buddies in the class. Maeve and I enjoyed sitting this session out -- just sitting by the side of the pool and watching Jackson splish and spalsh.