week ending dec 3, 2006

Week ending December 3, 2006: Ok, tomorrow is going to be a long day with an afternoon/evening party over an hour away, so I’m going to write today. Today we took the kids to an Xmas party at Casey’s work. There were over a thousand people there and they had lunch, Santa, balloons animals, Sesame Street characters, face painting, and shows. The kids had a blast but are now really tired. Alex has had a rare evening of defiance. We had to put him in “time out” twice during dinner. “Time out” is reserved for when the kids are engaging in dangerous behavior or are openly defiant. Alex hardly ever needs time out because he hates conflict and really wants to make to keep the peace. Chloe, on the other hand, spends a few minutes in time out each day and doesn’t really seem to mind a bit. This week Chloe decided she wanted to sleep in her sleeping bag, and it didn’t seem worth a fight, so we let her. Then she wanted to sleep in her sleeping bag in Alex’s room, so we let her. So far it is going well. She slept in there two nights and then on the 3rd night Alex said he wanted her to sleep in her own room. She was crushed, but she slept in her own room. This week Chloe asked “why does Santa come at night?”. I think I said “because you aren’t supposed to see Santa’s magic” to which she replied “why?”. She’s made me aware that it is too often that I answer, “that’s the way it is” to her questions of “why?” because when she said “I am going to ride with a clown in a roller coaster on Xmas”, and I said “what makes you think that?”, she said “that’s just the way it is, Mommy”. So if anyone has a better answer to “why does Santa come at night?”, I’m open to suggestions. This week Alex’s cough (of 13 days and counting) got really bad so I took him to the doctor who said it was constricted bronchia and prescribed a nebulizer. Since this is our 2nd year of nebulizer-ing, we now own a nebulizer and Alex is officially “asthmatic”. The pictures this week are of Chloe getting her face airbrushed, and Alex with a dinosaur on his face, a balloon sword, and a petit four.