Gotta feel sorry for her first boyfriend

Last night I took Lucas to my hair girl for a little trim, and of course brought Zoë along for more people to oohh and aaahh over. Our family has been going to the same hair salon for years now, it's a father/daughter salon, and the daughter April cuts all our hair, and often her sister and/or mother are there - so we know the whole family.. oh, and how "small town" is this? April's husband is also our gardener (which, we didn't know until one day she was talking about Gil, her then fiancee's landscaping business, and we were like "Gil? Wait - We use Gil.." duh). Regardless..

Aprils father, Lloyd was cooing over Zoë's petiteness and adorable little feet, when he mentioned "Oh, those feet are so cute I just want to bite them off!" (which is interesting since I didn't realize the desire to bite off and shove adorable things like tiny baby parts in my mouth was so universal. I thought it was an odd-ball thing that me and my college friends just thought of because we were always drunk). So Lloyd turns to Lucas and says "Can I bite off her little feet?"

Lucas' eyes got all big, his face got red and in a very grown-up voice screamed "NO! THOSE ARE MY SISTER'S FEET!"

At 3 1/2 years apart, we figure Lucas will be a senior in High School when Zoë is a freshman and I already feel sorry for any teenage boy who looks at her the wrong way..

Making Spirits Bright

As a parent around the holidays, you want to do all these things to create fabulous memories of the season for your kids. In 20 years I want to show them pictures and videos of when they were little and the beginnings of all the wonderful holiday traditions you still force upon them to that day. One of those perfect Hallmark commercial traditions I insist on forcing BECAUSE ITS FUN DAMN IT is cookie making. What could be more fun for a 3 1/2 year old than rolling and cutting out candy cane, gingerbread men and star shapes in the soft cookie dough? Oh, I don't know.. maybe EATING the raw cookie dough? Or throwing it? Or rolling it, throwing it and then eating it?

As we were frosting the cookies I laid the ground rules. NO EATING the cookies or the frosting. I turn around for one minute to shift through the cabinet for more food coloring and when I turn back, Lucas is literally spooning the sugar frosting into his mouth.

Hhhhmmm.. what do you think happens when your already hyper preschooler consumes about a cup of sugar frosting?

So happy that my baby is a girl.. a sweet, calm baby girl..

Spreading holiday joy to all the good little girls and boys

Aaahh, the joys of Christmas pasts..

But as you can tell by the look on his face, this was from before we could start using Santa to attain good behavior and clean(er) rooms. But I will say that I'm not quite sure how long we will really be able to use Santa for all his goodness.

The week of Thanksgiving we were lucky enough to make two different trips to two different malls (with the infant and the 3.5 year old, yes, I am INSANE). Both times Lucas was lucky enough to pop in to just say "hi" to Santa. But he did have questions.. "Why is Santa here at the this mall and at the Outlet mall?" he asks me. I tell him that Santa is MAGIC! and can be everywhere at the same time. He seems to like the fact that Santa is MAGIC!, and stops with that particular line of questioning.

Which, not to veer too far off topic, but the movie "The Polar Express", good for the little ones because it's all about Santa being real? Bad because it starts the dialogue that there really might not be a Santa? Or whatever because at 3 1/2 all they care about it the cool train and the song where all the kids get hot coco?

So, we've really been pushing the "I'll call Santa!" line. To the point that we pick up the phone and pretend to dial his number and talk to him. Which ,we thought, installed the fear of the no-toys-god into the kid. Then yesterday when I told him not to be sassy and talk back to me, Lucas looked at me and said "That's it! I'm calling Santa!" and using his hand as his phone, he "dialed the number" then put his hand to his ear and said "Hi Santa, this is Lucas. I'M being good but my Mommy is being mean and telling me to listen. Uh-Huh... Uh-Huh.. Ok, bye!" He then "hangs up the phone" and looks at me and exclaims "Santa said NO TOYS for you!"