Father Christmas

Liam with Embassy Santa

In many ways I feel like Jason and I slipped into this Christmas without a Santa game-plan.  Charlie's curious mind is firing away questions about Santa (How does Santa's sleigh fly? Why do elves wear gloves? How will Santa get to our house if we don't have a chimney???).   Reflecting on my own childhood, I was devastated when my 7-year old younger sister (I was 9) broke the news to me that Santa wasn't real.  I had become a little evangelist for the existence of Santa, and I just really felt deceived and disappointed...  Equipped with these memories, I was ready to raise our kids letting them participate in Santa activities but being truthful about the fact that Santa wasn't real.  That is... until we were at Charlie's preschool and in front of his little buddies he said that his teachers told him Santa WAS real.  It hit me that we were possibly about to create the bratty, know-it-all little kid that cruelly dashes the dreams of his little friends...  Can Charlie handle the truth in a mature manner without declaring it to everyone he sees?  At four years old??? I really don't think so...  So I feel like we are in a bit of a conundrum...   I think we will wrestle with this the rest of this Christmas season and pray for more vision for next Christmas.
So - we jumped full-throttle into Santa world this Christmas.  We saw the Santa parade last week, followed by Santa at preschool, Santa at an Embassy function and Santa at our playgroup.   I was startled by the final Santa encounter at playgroup.  A soft-spoken older gentlemen with a flowing white beard was Santa at our playgroup at the Anglican church (I suspect he is one of the Anglican priests?). Unfortunately his Santa suit was missing an undershirt resulting in thick gray and white chest hair erupting from his Father Christmas suit.  It was weird, and I chalked it up to a "Kiwi" thing, until I saw the hushed reactions of other mom's in the group.  Thankfully, they thought it was also a little strange...

Sexy Santa

Preschoolers welcoming Santa (look at Charlie's excitement)

Kid's singing "Santa Got Stuck in the Chimney"

Santa calls Charlie's name

Charlie extremely hesitantly received his gift 

 Santa calls Liam's name

Charlie tells Embassy Santa he wants a motorbike for Christmas

All By Myself!

Charlie is growing in independence and insists on doing things "all by myself." At preschool yesterday he dressed himself and put his jeans on backwards. His teachers thought it was so cute that they let him keep them on backwards all day. Before dinner today he did a fantastic poopoo in the potty all by himself. He proudly strutted back to the dinner table dressed like this.



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Christmas Commercialization

Our plan to take the commercialization out of Christmas backfired somewhat when Charlie's preschool took a field trip to the local toy store. The teachers told them to look for the gift they want Santa to bring them for christmas and took a picture of the kid next to the gift. Charlie wanted a Thomas the train boat with a lighthouse and it was about $100. ???

On a side note we have charlie's first parent-teacher conferences tomorrow. Should be fun!








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Crèche

I brought cupcakes to Charlie's school for snack and I tried to take a few videos to give a picture of what the school is like.  Jason had his camera and he got better quality video/pics that we'll try to upload soon.

Here is a video of the class singing Happy Birthday to Charlie.  Please ignore my atrocious singing that drowns out all of the cute little kiddies. 

 

Before the cupcakes they were given a snack of marmite (salty yeast extract) sandwiches, dried apricots and large whole grapes - not quartered, yikes!    The other American boy now loves marmite after only 4 months at the creche.  We'll see if Charlie bows to the pressure... 

Charlie was taking a long nap and missed all of this fun!  The teachers poured dishsoap onto the slide and hosed it down for the kids to take a ride down the water slide.  I bring 2 extra changes of clothes for Charlie and he almost always is in his 2nd or 3rd outfit by the end of the day. 

A little embarrassing

Sorry for the small break in blog posts. As you can see (by the humungous hot springs pic) I am playing around with the blog format. I am also trying to convert pics to picassa because the picture quality is much better.

I picked up Charlie from crèche on Tuesday and enjoyed seeing Charlie and Lola play. Although Lola is only 2 weeks older than Charlie she is quite the biker. Her mom expects that she will drop the training wheels at Christmas time. I feel bad saying this but sometimes Jason and I find ourselves a little embarrassed at the parks in Wellington because the kids are so adventurous. 2 year olds scale huge playgrounds and masterfully ride scooters and bicycles. We are still trying to teach Charlie how to pedal. Honestly it can be a little embarrassing.

Lola and Charlie took turns pushing each other and riding each others' bikes. I thought maybe charlie's tricycle was hard to ride but Lola took it all over he preschool, literally doing circles around Charlie. This video shows pretty clearly the difference in abilities.

All that being said, i learned when Charlie was very small the dangers of comparing him to his peers. I am excited to live in a city with plenty of opportunities to hone gross motor skills.

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Lola

Charlie really likes preschool. He goes every Tuesday and Thursday all day. His favorite friend is Lola because she has sparkles on her face and she's cute (that's unfortunately actually a quote). Lola's mommy is the director of the preschool. This is a snapshot from this morning when she got a hold of her mommy's lipstick.

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