Busy pre-christmas weekend

Well, it was a very busy pre-Christmas weekend for us. Now that it is Monday I am finally getting a chance to recover.

It started on Thursday night. The moms of Colin's first grade class organised a pizza party at a local restaurant for the kids. Nice idea, because they chose a restaurant with a play area for kids, complete with "entertainers" (a nice euphemism for babysitters) to watch them while they are in the play area, and a big screen out in the dining area, so the moms could keep an eye on them, when they weren't chatting away. Unfortunately, it was supposed to start at 7:30pm, which of course means that it did not actually get underway until 8:00pm, and we finally made it home at 11:00pm! On a school night! And since Marco was out of town for the night, Lucia was also out until 11:00pm (she did however, nap for about the last half hour on my lap at the restaurant). Colin had a blast, and the children only stopped running around long enough to shove some pizza in their faces, then later, ice cream. However, getting them out of bed for school on Friday was a nightmare.

Saturday was Lucia's big day. December 13th is the feast of Santa Lucia, or Saint Lucy. In Italy, is it common to celebrate the feast day of your patron saint with gifts, etc. And Santa Lucia is a very important saint here, in fact, in parts of Italy, gifts are given to children on Santa Lucia instead of Christmas. Lucia was psyched with the attention this afforded her, and referred to the day as "Santa Me". I tried to explain to her that nobody would ever take her for a saint, but that there was a woman whose name was also Lucia, who was a very good person and.... And that was about the point she lost interest and walked away. At any rate, we had swimming lessons in the morning, which is fun for the kids as well as Mom and Dad, because there is a little gym right above the pool where Marco and I can workout while the kids are swimming. Then in the afternoon it was off to Lucia's Christmas show. She was a woodsman (woodsgirl?) in the play in which the king, queen and princess of a castle were searching for the perfect Christmas tree. Most of the big parts go to the 3rd year kids of the pre-school, Lucia and her fellow 2nd-year woodskids (?) did a nice little dance, some kids played trees, in general it was the typical chaos of pre-school Christmas shows. Big news this year is that none of the first-year kids cried. It's funny how the first year the kids are absolutely terrified - last year Lucia hid behind another kid, and at Colin's first year program, he just stood there looking out at the audience with a deer-in-headlights kind of expression. By the second year, they are much more comfortable, actually able to sing the songs with the group at the end, though still a little shy. By the third year, they are champs, ready for their close-up, Mr. Demille. Lucia was adorable this year. She did her little dance, then sat on the stage at the end with all the other kids and sang a couple of songs and recited a Christmas poem. I had made 2 little braids in her hair, as I thought this would go with the woodskid costume, and at the end when they were singing, she sat there with her little hands up near her face as she held on tightly to both braids the whole time. I asked her later why she was holding on to them while she was singing, and she said that another kid was tugging on them backstage. Then we were back home again, as Colin had to do his homework and Mommy had a birthday cake to make, because the next day was the party!

Yes, Sunday afternoon we had a little party for Colin. We only had 3 little boys come over, but they had a blast tearing up the house. We made a pinata, and of course the boys thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to bash something. Thankfully, no children were hospitalized as a result. We also played musical chairs, which Colin had played at another kid's party and he now loves I made a space rocket birthday cake, decorated with red and blue M&M's, which pushed the limits of my rather limited baking capacity, and then my husband never got a photo of the masterpiece! It was a nice little party, and Colin was so excited. He has talked of nothing but his birthday for weeks.

School Daze

I sent my son off to first grade this year, with a new backpack and a cool Ferrari pencil case, and all the supplies that were on the list provided by the teachers. His pencil case had, among other things, a full set of colored pencils and markers, and I thought that all those supplies should last him through to January, when the supermarkets have a second sale on school supplies. I had no idea that I would be making nearly weekly trips to the stationary store, or picking up school supplies at the supermarket, in what seems like the endless task of keeping my son's backpack properly equipped.

Take, for example, the colored pencils. His cool Ferrari pencil case has slots for 24 pencils and every weekend when we sit down to do homework, there are at least 5 pencils missing. "Colin , are you sure you didn't leave some of your pencils in your desk?" "No, Mom. We have to take everything out of our desks on Fridays." "Then what happened to your pencils? You had a full set on Monday." "I dunno". Needless to say, shortly after realizing that this was going to be a weekly restock, I purchased a huge box with every possible colored pencil under the sun. It is now December, and the refill box is nearly empty. It is especially annoying because they ask that we put names on all the supplies. So every weekend I have to take adhesive labels, write out Colin's name a couple of times, and then tape a label securely to each colored pencil. Why, you may ask, do I bother when the pencils don't seem to last for more than 2 weeks, and having the name on them certainly doesn't seem to help in getting it back if it is misplaced? I have no idea. I'm a sucker for stupid rules.

There is also the glue saga. I have no idea why, but first graders go through glue at a truly alarming rate. I keep wondering if they are sniffing it. I have purchased at least 5 huge glue sticks so far this year. And any day, I imagine that Colin will waltz home and tell me that he needs another one. Is he selling them on the underground glue market to junkie pre-schoolers?

Finally, the pencil sharpeners. Along with the endless procession of new colored pencils, there has been an endless procession of pencil sharpeners. Just last week, I purchased pencil sharpener #5, only one day after having purchased pencil sharpener #4. In the beginning, he didn't have the right kind of sharpener. He needed one with a narrower opening to sharpen better. Then the teachers told me it would be better if he had a sharpener that had a little container attached to collect the pencil shavings so he wouldn't have to get up from his desk and go to the waste basket every time he needed to sharpen his pencil. Then, of course, some were just crappy quality and broke shortly after purchase (pencil sharpener #4 broke before even making it to school).

I'm sure that any experienced parent reading this is shaking his/her head, laughing, and saying, "What an amateur!" But I miss the good ole days of pre-school, when everything was included, and I only had to supply the child.

Time waits for no man

My son is enjoying learning to tell time. He is completely fascinated by it.

"We are going up to bed in 5 minutes guys!" "No! 6 minutes!" "OK, 6 minutes."

"The pasta will be ready in a few minutes." "When the big hand is on the 7?" Yea, more or less when the big hand is on the 7." Then God forbid the pasta is not ready when the big hand gets to the 7.

There is an electronic clock in my car. Everyday, after Colin finishes his breakfast and brushes his teeth, he trots off downstairs, puts on his coat and shoes, and hops into the car. Meanwhile, Mommy is running around the house frazzled, as she tries to hurry Lucia along (Lucia likes to linger over her breakfast and she is not nearly as independent when it comes to getting herself off to the car) and also trying to gather up the necessities for school (backpack with AM. snack for Colin, clean bib for Lucia on Monday mornings, etc.) Colin sits in the car in the garage yelling "Hurry up Mom! We're going to be late" to his harried mother. He also gives me very frequent updates on the time. Even after I've finished running around the house, and have finally gotten myself into the car, he continues to harass me with, "Mom, it's 1 minute after 8 o'clock.......Mom, it's 2 minutes after 8 o'clock". This continues all the way to school, unless I manage to distract him with some good songs on the radio or a discussion of what fun things we are going to do after school.

The other day I tried to introduce the concept of understanding the difference between time. As we were finishing up our dinner, I asked Colin to look at the clock and tell me the time. He proudly said "8 o'clock mommy". So then I said, "If it is 8 o'clock and Daddy said he would be home at 7:30, how late is Daddy?"

This time Lucia chimed in, to show that her understanding of things reaches way beyond mere minutes and hours. "Very late", she said.