Week 15 Naughty or Nice?

Thursday morning I wake up and wander out of my room. Earlier Mac has asked if he and Sailor can get up and play. Not sure why he feels the need to ask for permission. I am greeted by a small voice calling out from the cavernously dark living room. “Good morning, Mommy!”
I return the greeting. Both boys stand before me in their new “elf” pajamas, which we purchased on a bit of a whim last night when the boys “suddenly” remembered that they wanted elf costumes for Christmas. Mac is covered in green fleece. Atop his head is his elf hat, purchased a few years ago but still too big. Atop Sailor’s head, one of our Santa hats. But covering his face is his Darth Vader mask. “I am not Darth Vader,” he informs me. “I am an elf but I am allergic to reindeer.” This mask would help him breathe, apparently.

Earlier in the week Sailor’s friend Sophie D. comes to play. Her mom dropps her off and I drive both kids to school. Sophie is well behaved and Sailor is super-silly. They have a great time together. And I realize this may in fact be Sailor’s first drop-off play date. But I can’t be certain. So "second-child…" Over lunch I notice Sophie has a tattoo stuck to her arm. “It’s a spider,” Sailor says.
“Actually it’s a tarantula,” Sophie corrects. “Tarantulas can attack you,” she continues.
“How?” Sailor asks.
“I don’t know.” Then Sophie consoles, “But you only have a little bit of a chance of being attacked by a tarantula here because most tarantulas live is Texdis.”
“Where?” Sailor asks.
“Texdis?”
“Where?!”
“Austin, Tess-dis. TESS-DIKS! Say it, TESK-DIS!”
Sailor tries but has no idea what Sophie is really trying to tell him. I can’t help laughing at the exchange.

At school Sophie tells everyone that she had a play date with Sailor and that she got to walk to school with him, which I find funny because we drove. The most remarkable part to me is the unlikely pairing of their friendship. While Sailor just turned 4 in September, Sophie celebrated her 5th birthday a few weeks ago. Despite this, the two seem to really like one another. By coincidence, Sophie’s older sister is in Mac’s class.

I think Sailor has picked up on too much label reading of the foods we eat. At soccer on Tuesday I somewhat absentmindedly pick up his gym shoe and look at the size tag inside while I wait for him to put on his soccer uniform. “Is it good for me, mom? Is it ok for me to wear?” he asks.

We rush out of French on Wednesday to do noon hour activities for Mac’s class again this week. I set Sailor at Mac’s desk to eat part of his lunch and then I get busy prepping for the kids. They arrive like bulldozers and within moments I realize that my project is horribly inadequate to fill 20 minutes. Luckily I have brought a Christmas stocking maze for each child to work through, a word find puzzle with this week’s spelling words, which I made myself, and the remaining wooden ornaments from last week’s project. Midway through the activities I look up and see Sailor, still sitting at Mac’s desk. He has been so quiet and well-behaved I forgot momentarily that he is here with me. Mac does not join us for this activity and I wonder at the intelligence of working my butt of to do a project for my son’s class so I can be with him only to have him not show up. I am not truly offended, though.

On Friday after school Mac tells me that despite the intense difficulty of this week’s spelling list, he spelled 11 out of 12 words correctly. I am SO excited for him! We studied hard! I made the word find and a crossword puzzle and drilled him to learn to spell circle not cercol and pencil not pencele and cell not cele. Really, I don’t know where the teacher is getting these words but they are much too difficult and too seemingly random for children who don’t know all the rules of our crazy language.
Mac and I walk over to the children’s hospital, where Mac donates a big bag of stuffed animals and books that his friends brought to his and Sailor’s boys only pj party two weeks ago. I am so proud of my boy I could burst! And so when he asks for a big cookie and hot chocolate from Starbucks of course I say yes.

Sailor seems to be sick when we pick him up from school. His head and tummy hurt so we laboriously make our way home and go right for pajamas and Polar Express on DVD.
“If the Polar Express was real I would hop on!” Mac tells me earnestly.