Sanjay's Story

While coloring a page with a picture of a frog, Sanjay says to me, "I will tell you a story". And, then he proceeds to ramble these words...

"Once upon a time, a frog came and then a bad guy came and killed him. A girl came and then some more family comes with some frogs and some frogs comes with some help. Then they go to the doctor, then a firefighter truck came and put some fire on the frogs and they put some fire on the house, too. And the house was broken. All the frog families and the person families and then the two bad guys were killing the frogs. The End. And some more bad guys and some more firefighters and some more bad guys and some more firefighters and some more bad guys and some more firefighters came and fight them. They were trying to get the fire things and some guns and killing the bad guys. They were trying to kill them but they can't, but then they shoot one of the bad guys then they get all of the bad guys. And then they shoot one of the firefighters and then they get all of the firefighters. The End."

Ok, clearly we have grammar issues... but the violence, too? I keep chalking it up to him being a boy and all, since Priya didn't use the word "kill" until she was at least twice as old as he is now. Hopefully, I'm not taking this too lightly.

The Dream Is Coming... or Is That Sanjay That I Hear?

The alarm rings at 4:45am for me to wake up for swimming and not 5 minutes later, I see a light shining from Sanjay's room as he quietly walks over and asks me to hold him. Once he climbs in bed with us, he says, "The dream is coming" which we knew meant he had a bad dream. This fearless boy is suddenly starting to be afraid. It turns out his dream was about spiders... spiders walking on his leg. This is the first time he's ever come to us in the middle of the night... and hopefully it will be the last, although honestly I was looking forward to snuggling with my little man. It was all I could do to pull myself out of bed this morning to swim instead.

Christmas Countdown

I feel like it's under control finally. For the past couple of weeks I've been overwhelmed with all that needs to be done for Christmas and I've slowly been checking things off the list. Teacher's Gifts, Fix Light in Kitchen, Annual Family Newsletter with Christmas Cards, Shopping for Gifts, Those Family Calendars, Put Up Christmas Decorations, well, you know the drill. But, I can finally see the list is dwindling and it's time to enjoy this beautiful time of year.

This year the kids are old enough to help with the tree trimming... the only problem is that they finish in about 5 minutes flat. I prefer to take more time, enjoying the Christmas music in the background and generally spending time together as a family. Now that the house is festive, Sanjay is growing more and more impatient waiting for Santa Claus. He's been asking, "Mom, when is Santa gonna be here?". At least we've got him focused on Christmas now instead of his birthday, but it's still more than two weeks away... an eternity for this soon-to-be 3 year old.