Christmas 2006

Let's Not Tell Them. . .

We were at a little Christmas party with Tristan's football team (yes, football has been over for awhile, but they always do these little get-together things) and at the end one of the other coaches dressed up like Santa Claus and came out to let the kids sit on his lap. Daniel pulled the boys aside and reminded them to not say anything about Santa not being real, because the other kids all thought he was. Oliver replied, "what about the other grown-ups? Should we not tell them he's not real, either?" We told him that the grown-ups probably already knew, but to not say anything, just in case. Oliver was very suspicious of the whole affair, and kept looking around at everyone trying to figure out what they thought of Santa Claus. He did end up going to sit on Santa's lap, though, and he got a little sack of candy, so after that he and Santa were great friends.

What if?

Tristan and Oliver often like to think of weird or crazy situations and imagine what it would be like if they were true, and Rachel has started copying them, which is fine, of course, except when it happens during Sacrament meeting.

Yesterday at church, she stood up on her chair, and then in her "whisper voice" that is just a tiny bit softer than a yell, she asked me, "Mom, what if we only had ONE toy, and we didn't have ANY house, and we didn't have ANY clothes and we had to live outside, and WE WERE NAKEY?" As I quickly tried to "shush" her and pretend that people weren't looking at us, she kept asking loudly, "would you be sad if that happened, Mom?" and she wouldn't give up until I answered that "yes, I would be sad if we only had one toy and no house or clothes and we lived outside and were nakey."

I wonder why she was still allowing us to have one toy. It's like she couldn't imagine life with absolutely no toys, so she had to throw just one in there to make the situation a little more realistic. For some reason that particular combination of hardships has become her favorite thing to talk about, and she keeps mentioning it to me. I think she feels cool and grown-up to be able to imagine something soooo drastic, like, "wow, I am really thinking about the end of the world, here".

Christmas Decorations

I think Oliver was born to enjoy Christmas decorations. We have a rule that Tristan and Oliver can't get out of bed until 7:00 in the morning (I put a little clock in their room, and starting at about 6:00 Oliver watches it like a hawk and then sounds the alert as soon as it reaches 7:00) and every morning at 7:01 Ollie is down in the family room sitting in front of the tree.

He's reacted almost violently to all of the decorations - when we were getting the Christmas tree all set up, he kept saying he was so happy and excited it made his stomach hurt, and after we got the nativities out he was looking all around beaming, and said it just looked too, too, beautiful and almost made him feel like throwing up. And no, he's not sick - that's just typical Oliver talk.

I have caught him several times in the last few days wandering around singing to himself, "I love Bethlehem, I love Baby Jesus, I love Bethlehem, etc."

"Will I get hit by the ball?"

I just had an interesting conversation with Oliver. He was drawing a picture at the kitchen table while I was cleaning up from lunch.

Oliver: Mom, do the people who draw pictures in books ever mess up?

Me: Yes, they do lots of practice pictures and then just put the good ones in the book. You are so good at drawing pictures. Maybe you could illustrate books when you grow up.

Oliver: But Mom, look at how bad I'm coloring. I don't know how to color pictures in a book.

Me: You could learn how to illustrate at college.

Oliver: But I already go to college.

Me: No, you don't.

Oliver: Hmm. But isn't college like jail?

Me: No, of course not! BYU is a college.

Oliver: Aaah! Will I get hit by the ball?

(I think here he is assuming that BYU is just one big never-ending football game with footballs flying all over the place.)

He obviously has a solid understanding of how the world works.