Santa's Coming

Well, asleep in his bed is a child who is anxiously awaiting...something all the adults have been talking about for weeks. Christmas is a pretty big deal for the rest of us, and this is the year, I believe, it will all come together for him. Gifts, maybe a bike (Santa said wait and see), grandparents all over the place, more cookies than he has seen in his life...this holiday must be a pretty big deal.

Here's a shot from the Westmoreland Mall Christmas Train, taken Thanksgiving weekend.

Ahalen!

Reid slipped into his traditional Arab garb the other day to reflect the multicultural nature of the holiday season. Such a cute little Arab-Italian-Scottish-Irish boy!

Game Play

Sharing early Christmas/Hanukkah presents, Reid and Aviva traded strategies for success in the toddler version of Memory

Say Pardner...DRAW!

Reid decided to test out a pair of our friend Keith's authentic cowboy boots. Our general fascination with boots (strange, I know) was born from the standard 'fire boot' model and expanded when it was understood that Woody (from Toy Story, not Woody Guthrie) wore cowboy boots.

Woody has become a hero, aligned as he is with, of course, Buzz Lightyear and also, with the good people who operate America's family farms.

That's right, Reid loves farmers. (This does, if you think about it, get into Woody Guthrie terrority, by the way.) It appears that various farmers appear in books for children from "Muncha Muncha Muncha" to "Duck for President." Farmers are generally seen, in Reid's worldview, as good people, with hats.

The other day, Reid encountered a man at the Container Store wearing a cowboy hat. Since the hat was not brown (like Woody's), he wasn't a cowboy, however. He was a farmer. The man took this in stride, thankfully.

Katrena tracked down an old sunhat and gave it to Reid to wear as his farmer/cowboy hat. He looks funny in a woman's sunhat, and I'm trying to see if I can get a picture of it to show everybody. It's quite funny.

Sorry about making the grandiose pledge to post nightly until Christmas and then breaking it on the first night. The cookie oddyssey unfolded into a second night (baklava!) and quickly turned ugly. One more night of cookie baking tomorrow and I'm through. Well, maybe some more baklava.

Okay, goodnight.

Holiday Crunch

Was up late making cookies (extremely long story) and decided to channel some of the energy I obtained from various dips into various sugary batters into a little time on the Hardly Born.

The problem I have, of course, is hearing that everybody wants more pictures, more pictures, and so I refrain from adding much content when that content isn't photographic.

Today, for instance, we had a birthday party for the daughter of a friend of ours who turned one. This was a little more difficult than we expected because we and everyone else he knows has been telling Reid for the past few weeks that soon he would have lots of presents to open, from all kinds of people he knows, not to mention Santa.

Well a whole bunch of people came over today, December 18th (very close to Christmas when you're two and a half) with gifts...for someone else. It was hard for little Reid. He's been looking forward to Christmas for a long time. Fortunately, one friend of ours, Ms. Janeen, brought Reid an early Christmas gift which permitted us a happy distraction and a delightful rest of the day...wearing mittens!



I'm going to try to commit to delivering a Christmas treat to everyone who reads the Hardly Born with any degree of frequency. I'm going to post a picture nightly until Christmas. I've been going through the archives of unpublished Reid-a-riffic delights, and I can totally do it. Life just keeps piling up on our hard drive and I can put them out here for you guys, or keep them all to ourselves. And we're always trying to model sharing behavior.

I'm Just Not That Into You, Santa

So the time came. I seem to remember last year that we ended up kind of balking with Santa last year. I think we went to see him and Reid really didn't understand who he was and what he represented, so we didn't make a strong push for a Santa-Reid moment, per se.

This year, we thought we'd have better luck. The boy has been talking about Santa. Santa, he believed, would bring him a bike, partly because we asked him if he wanted a bike from Santa, and he said yes. Nevertheless, the bike-Santa connection was there, and we thought that understanding the potential of this jolly man bringing you free things would make him an acceptable stranger.

Not so. Reid didn't lose his cool, and the Santa (no offense Arlington Jaycees) left something to be desired in the jolly-old-elf category, but clearly the photograph wasn't happening. Reid gave the internationally recognized patient-child sign for 'get me off this dude's lap.'

Of course, this put our adorable holiday photography plans into hot water. And you'll just have to wait and see how everything turned out.

In other news, K and I are sincerely talking about some more drastic solutions for Reid's school situation. We actually like the school, but it's been about six months and Reid still cries at the drop-off every single morning. Maybe three or four times he hasn't cried, but the rest of the time: bawling. Breathless, red-faced, snot-and-tears running everywhere, begging for daddy, struggling to break free, holding on your leg bonkers.

We've done internet research, we've confabbed with the teachers, and it's just not common. We've regulated the schedule, we've added inducements and we've straight-talked with Reid about how it's time to stop crying. We're always coming back.

No dice.

So we're trying to figure out what's next. Truly, this school is good, and Reid's learning and play have gotten much better since he started attending. But we're both worried that this is something we can't fix, and there are times when you just throw in the towel. I think our last big hope is for just at the beginning of next year. K's office will be moving closer to Reid's school, and we'll significantly overhaul the pickup/drop-off schedule, which could shake things up with the crying. But who knows.