Busted!!

Bryan has always felt like it was dishonest for us to mislead Ethan and Courtney with the toothfairy and other magical creatures (if you get my meaning), but today we got really busted.

Ethan was at school, wiggling his latest loose tooth when it fell out on his tongue. He took it out of his mouth, cupped it in his hand and began running for his classroom. Somewhere near the playground he realized that he had dropped his tooth. He looked all over and started to get a little upset because the toothfairy couldn't give him money if he didn't have a tooth to give her. Along came a very helpful classmate of his that told him that it didn't matter if he had his tooth or not because his parents are the toothfairy. Ethan was shocked. After he got off the bus he came right to me and asked me to "tell me the truth" about who the toothfairy was really. I took him into his bedroom, away from Courtney, and told him the truth. He was pretty upset, but not about us lying to him for 6 years, but because he was nervous that the money train had stopped with the truth. I assured him that we would still give him money under his pillow for his teeth.

But Ethan is smart and began thinking things over. I had to take him to the store to buy a birthday present for a friend and we began having some deep conversations ;) Ethan asked me how I knew how to be the toothfairy. He wondered if they had a class for parents explaining how to be a toothfairy. I told him that my parents had done it to me before and so I knew what to do. He asked how they were taught and I said that their parents probably did it to them. I explained that I really didn't know how it got started but that we had to keep up appearances for Courtney. We decided that he could be assistant toothfairy for her.

Then he asked what I did with all his teeth. To be honest, they are in a plastic baggie in our cabinet by the bathroom sink. I didn't know what to do with them and didn't want to throw them away (I don't know why!). So he devised a plan to put out his old teeth so the "sugar bugs" (another lie we use to get them to brush their teeth) would be attracted to his old teeth and would leave his "mouth teeth" alone. I told him I wasn't sure if that would work or not, but he is intent on trying it sometime.

He also asked me about the notes I have written from the toothfairy on the nights when we have forgotten and haven't left money until 2 days after he lost the tooth. He also asked WHY we had sometimes forgotten and hadn't left money for 2 days. He is a really deep thinker.

It was pretty interesting and I think he took the news well. I told him the only reason we did it was to make him happy and I think he understood that because the thought of helping be Courtney's toothfairy made him smile.

Fire Station Field Trip

Today was the field trip to the fire station for the neighborhood preschool. On Tuesday they did fire safety and Courtney didn't like it one bit. For some unknown reason, Courtney is really terrified of firemen and fire engines. She thought for a long time that firemen set fires, not put them out. So it's been hard to get her to listen to reason. On Tuesday the woman set off her fire alarm so they could hear what it sounded like and Courtney went nuts, screaming and crying!

I had been talking up the field trip but she wasn't buying it for a minute. This morning I tried to get her to think it was going to be fun, but she wouldn't listen so I just dropped it. After all, it is just a preschool field trip. But at 10 a.m. I asked her again if she wanted to go, but she said "NO!" So we loaded in the van to run some errands. She asked where we were going and I told her the stores but said that we could go after the field trip if she wanted and she said, "okay, let's go to the fire station."

I drove as quickly as I could so she wouldn't change her mind, but it wasn't fast enough. By the time we got there she wouldn't get out of the van, so I started to drive off and she said to stop and said she would go in if I would go in with her. So we went in and found the other kids. But she had to be held because she didn't feel safe near the fire trucks. It took about 30 minutes before she would let me put her down, then she started to have fun. She wouldn't go in the fire engine, but she went into the ambulance for a little bit before she freaked out and wanted back out. But she loved getting a badge and a fire hat. She called herself "Fire Girl Courtney." So in the end she had a lot of fun and will tell anyone who listened that she had a great time. The fireman told a few scary stories so I'm hoping she doesn't have nightmares, but she did learn a lot about fire safety.

Sweet Boy

I just have to share how sweet Ethan is. I have really begun to dislike allowance. The minute Ethan gets his, he wants me to take him to the store to buy something and he usually doesn't have enough money so we ended up him upset and crying as we leave the store. He finally managed to save his allowance for a while and got some cool Legos the last time, but it has been a real struggle to get him to understand savings. He is more into instant gratification. Anyway, there are some weeks when we have Family Council and he doesn't join us so he doesn't get allowance. This last week was one of those so he didn't get his allowance.

Monday morning in his class his teacher was called out into the hall by her husband. Her father had been killed in an airplane crash in New Mexico that morning after she left for work and he was there to break the news to her. Understandably she was really upset. This is only her third year of teaching and she is also pregnant, so that just compounds the loss. She left and a substitute was called in to take her place all week. We have Spring Break next week for 10 days and then she will be back after that, but it is so sad.

The class has been taking donations from students to buy her something to help her feel better. Ethan urged me, no he actually ordered me, to give some money so they could get something nice for Mrs. Feltwell. Ethan loves this teacher and she is really great at pushing her students but showing them love and how to have fun. So I sent some money with him for that.

Last night he asked me if he could get his allowance from last week because we forgot to give it to him. I told him that we would have to talk about it because he wasn't at Family Council. He told me that he really needed it so he could donate it to his teacher so she would know he loved her. How can you say "no" to that?! He also has been praying that she won't be too sad and that she can stop crying. I thought that was sweet. I'm glad I have a little boy that thinks so much of others. He's a real example to me.

Technology

I remember my mom telling me when I was a kid just how lucky I was because she didn't have TV when she was little. I thought she was nuts because TV was around when I was born so I had no idea what she was talking about. Now I find myself thinking the same thing about my kids. There are so many things now that we didn't have in the 80s that my kids have no idea the difference in lifestyle.

Example #1: Ethan has been getting kind of upset with us because Bryan doesn't have a cell phone. There have been a couple of times where we have made plans to meet Bryan at the library, only to go to the wrong library. I assumed he was talking about one library and he assumed we were talking about another. This just upsets Ethan so badly because he can't believe we wouldn't pay the money to have a phone that goes everywhere with us. I tried to explain to him about pay phones but he just didn't get it. I think maybe we need to find an antiques shop to show him a pay phone! I remember the first cell phone my parents had when I was in high school. It was ENORMOUS! They called it a "brick phone" and it was a in a huge box and the phone was attached by a cord to the box. Yeah, that was cutting edge technology.

Example #2: Bryan's parents gave everyone a webcam for Christmas so we could all video-phone each other. It's taken us until this week to set ours up and now my kids are ADDICTED! Courtney always wants me to check and see "who is available so I can see them." I've tried to explain to my kids that we didn't have computers when I was young. I remember the first time they got them at Huntington Elementary and I was so terrified of them because they seemed so HUGE! When I was young, we looked forward to Huntington Heritage Days every year because that's when all my cousins from California would come back to visit and we could see them. Yesterday Courtney got to see Baby Carter on the webcam and sing him songs.

Example #3: Ethan and Courtney both have CD players in their rooms and they listen to Primary music each night as they fall asleep. In 9th grade we got our first CD player. It was a little portable one and it was expensive! I remember thinking that tapes were much cheaper and that CDs weren't going to last because they just looked weird. Now there are movies in DVDs and we can't live without them!

I could go on and on because there weren't digital cameras (heaven forbid you had to wait a week for photos to be developed only to find someone had their eyes closed!), iPods, portable DVD players (no wonder so many fathers in the 80s threatened to "turn this car back around" on family vacations), and I could go on and on. It's just a changing world and now I realize how much I sound like my mom!

Bad Fruit?

I asked Courtney what she wanted for lunch and she said she couldn't decide. I told her that I was going to have some fruit and asked if she wanted some. She went nuts and started screaming at me that Heavenly Father doesn't want us to eat fruit and that if I eat any He will be really mad at me. I asked her why she thought that and she said, "Well, Adam and Eve ate fruit and they were cast out of the Garden of Eden. Don't eat fruit because I like you as my Mommy." I just had to laugh. I set her straight by asking her if she liked apples (which she eats a lot of) and then told her that was a fruit. She said, "Okay, so they ate a bad fruit then." I love it!

Daylight Savings Time

I had a love/hate with daylight savings time. I love that we have light in the evenings but I don't like having to wake Ethan up for school. Before he was in school I would just let him sleep as long as he wanted. I really hate waking my kids up because a) they are really grumpy when I do, and b) I like all the quiet time I can get in the mornings. They still go to bed at the same time they did before the time change, but now they sleep an extra hour. It makes mornings so much more rushed because we lose an hour to practice the piano and figure out what they want for breakfast. But Ethan wasn't too grumpy when I woke him up this morning and did everything without complaining. Now if we could get Courtney to wipe her own nose during the night instead of yelling for us three times each night, then we would be good. But that's another story...

Nicknames

I decided to post some of our nicknames.

I call Courtney "nutter" or "nut" because I used to call her "coconut" but it was too long so I shortened it.

I call Ethan "bug" because I used to call him "bug-a-boo" but it was too long so I shortened it.

Courtney calls Ethan either "E-E" or "bugga." The "E-E" comes from when she was a baby and couldn't say Ethan so she shortened it. And "bugga" is a new one that is her version of a shortened bug-a-boo.

Courtney calls Bryan and me by our first names a lot of times or "mama," "mom," or "daddy."

Ethan just calls everyone by their name, Courtney, Mom and Dad.