Merry Christmas 2021
Merry Christmas to everyone!
Several days ago, while leaving a park, Xavier asked why people wanted to know what presents they got early. "They'll find out on Christmas," was his reasoning, so why be anxious to know ahead of time?
Fast-forward to Christmas Eve, or the morning of. Xavier pops in to announce he has nine presents under the tree. A few minutes later, he pops in to announce "Correction. I have ten presents under the tree." The was followed quickly by a third announcement of him having eleven presents under the tree.
He grew anxious as the day progressed, wanting to know what might hide within the colored wrappings of his eleven presents.
Christmas morning arrived. For Xavier, that meant 03:30 in the morning. He came into our room, crawled in bed with us, but did not sleep, nor did he lay quietly for long.
After half an hour, I got up with him and we went downstairs. This allowed Rebecca and Aunt Kathy to sleep until a reasonable hour. We prayed together, then read further in the book we are reading (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix), then came upstairs to get some breakfast.
At about 06:15, Xavier was vibrating with more excitement than I could control. I told him he could make noise to get the girls up; making a child wait past 06:00 on Christmas is a mild form of child cruelty, not to mention I had been shouldering his ever-building exuberance for nearly three hours instead of sleeping.
The girls did get up grudgingly. Rebecca fixed her coffee, then they moseyed into the room and sat down.
Stocking first, of course, then Santa's offerings. Xavier had tried talking me into opening Santa's gifts before the girls got up. When I said we needed to wait, he tried to convince me to let him at his stocking. (yes, such were the hours between 03:30 and 06:30)
After Santa's gifts, we moved on to family gifts. Xavier got some piano books, gag toys like a woopie cushion, Life ® board game, a microscope and a rock tumbler to name a few of his eleven gifts.
Throughout the day, we had other times of opening of gifts when the grandparents were available, and when Aunt Chelle arrived for dinner.
Two remote control cars (which seem to be the biggest hit this year so far) and two wrist watches. He wears both watches (one a storm trooper helmet, the other that pops up with a "Baby Yoda"), unable to decide which he favors more.
Hope you all had and are enjoying a very Merry Christmas.
Christ is Born!
School Christmas Concert
Hello to you all.
It's that time of the year when the school herds parents into cramped quarters to hear the 3rd, 4th and 5th graders sing carols and play instruments.
The students were asked to dress up. Xavier has a suit from last Easter, but its pastel purple shirt did not quite fill the Christmas color scheme that Xavier wanted.
"I want to wear a red shirt, but not like those I wear at school because that would look stupid," he informed me as drove home from school yesterday. In part of that conversation, Xavier suggested he would settle for a green shirt. Also, he wanted to wear a tie, not a bow tie this year.
Such shirts in his size in the stores were woefully lacking. I visited four stores today looking for a suitable shirt in his size.
At last, I found one, but it came with a suit attached. It was 40% off, so I grabbed it.
The Inside of a Cow's Eye
Hello to everyone.
Xavier had a busy day ending an short, but exciting scholastic week.
He had Monday off. His theory is that teachers do not want kids hopped up on sugar in the classroom the day after Halloween.
On Wednesday, he excitedly informed us that because he has an A in math, he needs to only do half the problems every night, either the odd ones or the even ones. Rebecca and I had each an email from his teacher confirming this.
He was one of three students in his class with an A grade, and of the three, the only boy. We celebrated by taking him out to The Melting Pot for chocolate fondue.
Today, Xavier had a rally for the volleyball team, a school assembly and after that a science project: the dissection of a cow eye.
His teacher emailed a plea for parents to come and help. I signed up. Help involved setting up the work area and prepping the cow eyes. We parents also handed out latex gloves to the third graders. During the dissection, we helped out where we could, either answering questions, helping with parts of the dissection and often encouraging the students to make that first snip with the scissors.
Nearly all the students, boys and girls including Xavier, were put off when they opened their kits and asked to remove the cow eye and place it on their tray.
After the students got past the cutting of the eye in half, most of the squeamishness had gone. With some encouragement, Xavier overcame his aversion. (As we drove to school this morning, he was excited and thinking only he and his teacher were happy about the science class today. Turns out, the cow eye did not appear as he expected).
He and his lab partner got through the dissection and Xavier was able to correctly answer questions posed to the class.