We had the book ‘Green eggs and Ham’ out from the Library about 3 weeks ago. Last night, we served G some very fine green beans, and he began reciting lines from the book.
He said to me: ‘Look, you be Sam I am….. I will not eat them in a box or in a house.” And he went on and on for a while.
Our community parks department held a ‘Story time with Santa’ event. Kids were encouraged to wear pajamas and listen to ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas,’ read by Santa himself.
The parking lot was full, so I dropped off the family and snuck in just before Santa arrived. The first thing Gavin had done was to make friends with a little girl wearing pink pajamas. They were holding hands and looking as cute as possible. They went and sat on the floor together just when Santa entered. Unfortunately, she was also a bit nervous about Saint Nick, and fled to Mom a moment later. G spent most of story time looking around for his new missing friend.
After the story, everyone formed a line to sit on Santa’s lap. Lines require patience, so we accepted that we would be nearly last, and let G run around in the back room while the line died down. He was very entertained by running in circles, until he bumped into another girl. Turns out, she loved being chased and they had tremendous fun chasing each other around and around. They looped into the main room when the line was almost gone, so we grabbed G and had him stand in line.
Just by luck, the girl in the pink pajamas was in line just ahead of us. He bashfully walked up to her, and a moment later they were holding hands again. Unfortunately the girl who liked being chased would have none it that. She stomped up, pulled his hand away from her rival, and started dragging G away.
The girl in Pink PJ’s was next to see Santa, but was not up to facing her fears. G was next and informed Santa he wanted ‘presents,’ The threat of getting coal kept everyone behaving the rest of the night, and we all soon left for home.
Today Gavin clearly announced that he was accompanied by someone the rest of us cannot see. A Scary Talking Skeleton, who was sitting right next to him. Although most of us might be disturbed to have a scary talking skeleton sitting next to us, he was rather happy and not concerned. We are somewhere between being proud at his robust imagination, and disturbed. Most likely a leftover from Halloween, we are going to kick back the age at which he can see ‘Nightmare before Christmas’ a few years.
Emilia slept soundly and did not have the opportunity to meet the well mannered skeleton.
The question was: What do you want for Christmas?
Answer: Balloons.
(?)
The Santa display at the mall has paper mache hot air balloons floating over it. Turns out, they were a bit distracting to Gavin. We are not sure if one of then will fit down the chimney, not to mention under the tree. Perhaps Santa is trading in the Reindeer for this year.
During dinner last night, Gavin suddenly said, “I am going to make a hole in my face!”
Stunned silence. I had no reply, picturing his cute little face suddenly full of piercings, streached out ear lobes and such. He continued, “Then I’ll take some hair, put it in, and I’ll have wiskers!” Relief: he only wants to be a cat, or perhaps start a beard early with hair transplants.
"I want to go see a farmer."
We took Gavin to a 1880’s living historical farm run by the Columbus Metro Parks. He got to see piglets, pet a horse, and wear those snazzy sunglasses. The farm is run entirely as though it was 1880, though there was a lot of contemporary metal work on hooks, clasps, hinges. Guess there is not a 1880s blacksmith nearby. We picked pumpkins straight from the patch, which he did not enjoy because the weeds were almost as tall as him. Oddly enough, Gavin’s favorite activity was grinding up corn into meal, and he was able to see some of the feed corn he ground get fed to the sheep. The sheep were not impressed.
The other evening, Gavin was riding his tricycle along the sidewalk with grandma. I drove by, coming home from work, and he exclaimed “daddy car! Daddy car!”
As I parked, he found a well preserved butterfly who had met an unfortunate end. Quickly preventing him from carrying it home in the pocket of his jeans, grandma had him store the treasure in the tricycle’s little bin.
At dinner, he mentioned the butterfly a few times. Then, realizing the butterfly’s state, he said, “Me kill butterfly?” Thinking that he is a bit young for getting much out of a talk on death, we quickly tried to distract him by telling him that something else had caused the insect’s demise,and said that it might have been hit by a passing car.
He thought carefully for a moment, a small frown of concentration on his face, then said, “dada kill butterfly?”