Kaylyn and the Tooth Fairy

Kaylyn ate her first tooth. Or so she thinks. It was loose for a long time, until the day she came back from kindergarten with a hole and a story about losing it at lunch. 

So no tooth fairy for the first time out. She lost numbers two and three in quick succession. We saved them up in a Ziploc and told her the tooth fairy would come and get them soon. Not having a point of reference, she didn’t care too much. We forgot after a day or two.

After number four came out at home one day, we put it in a Ziploc bag, Shar found the other two, and we tucked all three under her pillow when she went to bed that night. The only problem was, we woke up to sobs. Turns out no one told the tooth fairy. Oops. So I told her that the tooth fairy hadn’t heard, and that I would make sure and email the busy fairy and ask her to stop by our house the next night, which she did.

The other day Kaylyn came home from Kindergarten with tooth number five in a small, plastic, taped-over treasure chest. She said, “Daddy, email the tooth fairy!” Fortunately I remembered at 2 am when Shar got up to use the restroom. Whew! This tooth fairy business is tough.

Christian Becomes a Monkey

Christian is really a monkey.

He decided the other day at Friendship Park to try the monkey bars. For real, as they say. He has been fascinated with them for a while but was too scared to swing out.

So after swinging for a while, he wanted to try again. Shar picked him up, and held him up so he could grab the first bar, and then she said, “Go fast! The faster you go, the easier it is.”

Taking the advice, Christian began swinging. First he went to the first bar, and then the next one, and all of a sudden, he was across!

He was so excited that when they came home, he dashed up the stairs and said, “Daddy! We want to show you something! It’s a surprise.” We all went back to the park, and he showed me how he had become a monkey. But he only did it once for me, because, being January, he commented, “The monkey bars are SO COLD!!!”

 

Our Christmas Miracle

As we have logged in this space here and here, Joslyn has been flirting with the potty for a long while. After getting our hopes up last spring and summer, we trudged through the fall and into winter thinking we’d be wiping her bottom for years to come. Why, we wondered, doesn’t she just seal the deal?

People have said, the baby of the family takes longer. And it’s not even that she is late or anything, it’s just that she started the idea so early. (She turned 2.5 on December 26.) Based on when she first started expressing interest, and when her older sister finished up, though, we thought she would have been done by then.

Of course, the actual date of December 26 is a bad goal anyway. The focus on Christmas and traveling to see family, and the disruption of routine,  make a bad time to do anything as big as moving to panties.

Or so we thought. We got home on January 1 from Longview, and lo and behold, the very next morning, she was good to go. Panties all day and all night. She is proud of herself, for sure. And although is doesn’t rank up there with the birth of Jesus, we still call it our Christmas miracle. 

Getting on Board with Baby

The news of the gender of baby number four provided a good opportunity to have some fun with the kids, so one night we gathered them around the table and began to talk about the baby in Mommy’s tummy. We asked each of them if they would rather have a boy or a girl. Predictably, they each wanted their own gender.

So then Shar said to Kaylyn, “You already have a baby sister and a baby brother. If we have a girl, our family will be 4 girls and 2 boys. But if we have a boy, then we will have 3 girls and 3 boys.”

Kaylyn said, “Ooh! Yea! I want a boy.”

Christian was already good to go, so then we said to Joslyn,  ”Joslyn, would you like to have a baby to play with?”

She grinned and said, “Yes!”

So we said, in a magical moment of redirection, “Would you like to have a baby boy to play with?”

“Yes!” Joslyn said. It’s all in how you phrase the question.

Recently Overheard Vol 4

Omniscient Man 

 

Kaylyn, after I explained how heating and cooling systems work: “Dad you know everything!”

 

There Will Be Giants

 

Christian, on the way home in the van yesterday evening: “Mom Mom Mom!! (loooong pause) Um, when Kaylyn bes grown up, and Joslyn bes grown up, and I be grownup, will you and Dad be giants?”