Chile

Tonight for homework, John had to read a story and then answer some questions.  The story was about two sisters, Rosa and Blanca.  They both had gardens and picked all types of vegetables.  One of the vegetables was a chile pepper.  John was putting a lot of emphasis on the e.  Daddy and I giggled.  And Daddy argued with him about how to properly pronounce chile.  John said "That's how we said it at school. It's Spanish!"  I got some video of him reading to us and Daddy arguing with him.

Flowers

Daddy and I overheard the following conversation:

Gillian: You know, Miss Mary (one of her teachers) doesn't like the snow. You know why? Because it kills her flowers.

 

John: Well, you gotta look on the bright side, the snow only lasts a couple of days and then it's gone.

Gillian: Yea, but the flowers are still dead. 

Thankful

No cute stories tonight. I'm just thankful for two amazing kids that call me Mommy. 

Drop off and pick up

On Tuesdays, I drop off Gillian and pick up both kids from school. Since I don't drop her off daily, my drop offs are miserable. And today was no different. She didn't want me to leave. She clung to me and the teachers and I ended up distracting her so I could leave. I hate drop offs like that. I feel guilty about leaving her and I spend the day looking forward to to picking her up all day. 

Tonight, I arrived at school and found Gillian playing with two boys at a table. She looked up when I walked in, looked at me and continued to play. I let her play for a few minutes and then said "Ok Gill, we gotta go get John." She said "I just want to play more." I said "I'm sorry, but we gotta get Johnny." She continued to play. Then Miss Denise, her teacher, said "Start cleaning up." Gillian continued to play. I attempted to help her put away the toys. All that did was aggravate her, and she ran across the room. Miss Denise said "I will have to write Miss Lisette a note letting her know that some of our friends didn't have a good night. And she won't let you play tomorrow." This statement scared Gillian and she apologized and started to clean up. But then she refused to put her coat on. 

Ugh. All day I think about my kids and I can't wait to spend time with them and then she treats me like this. I wrote about this tonight, not because it's a memory I would like to remember but so years from now when Gillian has a stubborn little girl that refuses to leave school I can remind Gillian that she once did it to me.  

The duck part 2

Tonight, I picked up Gillian from school. In the car I asked "How was your day?" She didn't answer me. I asked again "Gillian, how was your day?" She said "I don't want to talk about it now." Ugh. I hate that. So we sat in silence for awhile until she heard something on the radio. "Mama, can you make it louder?" It was a commercial for the new Imagine Dragons song. She said "I want to hear it. Mama where did it go." Unfortunately it was just a commercial, and we didn't get to hear the whole song. So again we sat in silence. Then she said "Can we play the duck game?" About a month ago I blogged about how she was quacking in the backseat and I kept asking her about the duck. Well that's what she wanted to do. So she quacked and I asked "Gillian, did you hear that?" And she laughed. Then she quacked again and again. I played along and questioned if she saw the duck. She thought it was hilarious. Finally she said "It was me! I am the duck!" Love her. 

A day at Grandma's

On Friday, the kids went to Grandma's house during the day. I woke up Gillian in the morning and all I had to say was "Today you go to Grandma's" and she sat up and there was no complaining. 

We got to Grandma's house and once they saw Aunt Betty and Grandma they forgot about me. Aunt Betty sent me a text in the middle of the morning. The kids had completed their first craft project. 

When I picked them up that night, I heard that Gillian got to go to the beach with Grandma and Aunt Betty. 

While the girls were at the beach, John was "babysitting" Grandpa. The girls came home and Gillian counted up all the rocks she found. Gillian loves rocks. It took her a couple times, but she determined that she found 21 rocks. John did not believe that Gillian could count to 21 and said "Well I can count to 100."

Gillian didn't want to leave. "I just want to stay here forever!" I'm so glad she had a good time with Grandma, Grandpa and Aunt Betty. Don't worry Gillian you will get to go back again. 

What I really wanted

I brought John to work with me the past couple of days. Sharon asked him on Monday, "Did Santa bring you everything you wanted?" He said "No. And I'm not going to tell you what I wanted." Sharon laughed about it when she recounted the story to me later. 

That night when I had both kids in the car, I asked them "Did you get everything you wanted for Christmas?" Gillian said "No! I wanted a big Minnie Mouse like my Mickey Mouse!" I said "Sorry, I didn't know that you wanted a new Minnie. You already have a Princess Minnie." She said "Yea, but she's little. I want a big one like my Mickey!" I asked "John, did you get everything you wanted?" He said "Yes." I said "Really? Then why did you tell Miss Sharon that you didn't?" He said "Oh yea. Well I didn't." I pressed and said "What did you want?" He wasn't budging. So I said "Did you tell Santa when we saw him the other day?" He said "No. But I did write him a friendly letter at school telling him about it. But I'm not sure if it got mailed." I said "Ok, well it's hard to get you something if he doesn't know. Can you tell me about it?" He said "I'll give you a hint. It's something you can do with a toy." Well that's vague. I asked "A table? You know so you can do your Legos on it?" He thought this was a crazy suggestion. I guessed a few more random things and then it dawned on me. I said "Did you want to give someone a toy?" He said "Yes, I wanted to do a giving tree. I wanted to give a toy to someone." He just melts my heart. I said "Johnny, I'm so sorry. I didn't know. I promise next year we will do a giving tree and you will help pick out the toy." My sweet little boy didn't want something else for himself, he wanted to help someone in need. What a wonderful little man!