What will you celebrate?

Little Star, Big Star

The day after returning from the Happiest hotel stay on earth, we had to coordinate our schedules to get Anna to the church on time. No, not for a wedding but for the pre-school nativity. It hardly seemed like 4 years had gone by since Hallie began her stage career as a star. Now it was Anna's turn. Because of the way their birthdays fall, Anna was actually 3 months older than Hallie was and those few extra months of maturity may have shown. Hard to say though since Anna is much more of a natural participant than Hallie. Hallie had only been in the 2 year old class for two weeks prior to her first show and she basically yawned and pantomimed through the whole show. She knew the words and movements very well but was a little overwhelmed by the audience. Anna didn't smile or look like she was enjoying herself much either but she only yawned once and sang most of the words. She had practiced at home (at the the store, in the car) with Hallie so that may have helped make her more confident. Of course it was adorable and we took video and lots of pictures. Feel free to decline to view them in their entirety.


Hallie also had a holiday show to perform. It was easy to get her where she needed to be because Mom had to be there too. At our school we have two performances to accommodate the crowds. With 550 kids, one cafeteria does not provide enough space for the parent-razzi. This year, in first grade, Hallie didn't have to perform as much individually but did a great job on the risers singing with her classmates. Mom got a chance to step away from her class to watch the actual performance and snap some pictures. (Next year they'll be with the same grade level so Mom will actually be directing her!) The favorite and loudest song, of course, was Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer - complete with the now traditional interjections of 'like a light bulb', 'like monopoly', etc. The songs were sung beautifully by the children.

You know, these shows are always the things about which endless jokes are made. "Having to sit sit through a bunch of ___ year olds........" but anyone who's ever sat to watch their little star/sheep/wiseman/angel/toy soldier/elf knows that for 15 or 20 minutes their isn't a better sight or sound on earth than that.

Merry Christmas!

Yay, December!

And.....there goes the other one!

It's a good thing the tooth fairy got some change with her X-Large Coke today!

Notice anything missing?

So....because picture day is tomorrow.....
Hallie decided she needed to give us a little deeper insight. No, not into her winning personality or her sentimental little soul - just into her mouth.

Her first milestone of the first grade - losing a baby tooth. And it WAS the first one in so she's doing it in the right order (she's very proud of that). Mom was pretty sure the smile wouldn't make it in tact to picture day since the daily briefings on the wiggle capacity of her tooth started a month ago. We told her to keep it in, but we could see that the desire to wear the badge of a toothless grin in her school picture was too great. After gently explaining, a couple of nights ago, that the restaurant was not the place to share the napkin she was using to dab away, we told her she wasn't going to make it. Last night, after hearing that it was bleeding a LOT (which meant the napkin was red and not pink) Mom asked her if she could have a look - just to check things over. (Let Mom just add here that it's been about 25 years since she's pulled a tooth, and never one belonging to someone else, so it was a first for her too) Well, after a slight grab and they found themselves staring at a tiny little object - shocked that it just jumped right out - no root, no twist, thank goodness! Her first comment was that she couldn't wait to tell Taylor (her bff). Mom carefully washed it off (after putting in the drain stopper) and after finding the 'tooth fairy' that we bought, put it in the little bag. Yes, she contemplated the idea of doing it the old fashioned way and just putting it under the pillow but, the way that kids sleeps, we'd, ehem, the tooth fairy would never find it. After we explained to Hallie that the tooth fairy brought money and not toys (she's not the Great Pumpkin, after all) she happily trotted off to bed. Mom had to admit, for as much griping as she does about 'kids these days', a dime sounded pretty weak, so the benevolent and generous tooth fairy left a dollar.

You'd have thought it was gold - or Christmas. In the morning Hallie wanted to show us her dollar and wanted to bring it to school to share. We told her that she worked hard for that dollar when the tooth first came in and that we'd hate for her to lose that special single. Attn. Grandparents....it should be noted here, that she not only intends on showing you the vacancy in her mouth, but the actual dollar as well. She asked her teacher if she could tell the class and after regaling them with the details of her adventure, she explained that the tooth fairy (that held the tooth) was just the helper. She wasn't the real thing.


Funny thing about these rites of passage. As a parent, you are so excited for them (when it's a good thing, of course) and yet, feel a sense of loss at the fact that the time is gone. Mom and Dad clearly remembered how hard it was for those teeth to come in and now, since both came in together 5 or so years ago, we anticipate the other following its buddy soon. We SO get why parents all over the world have little boxes of teeth rattling around in their dresser drawers. It's a good thing the tooth fairy gives back the teeth to the Moms and Dads otherwise, she'd probably have a fight on her hands.

Just a guess.....but you might want to tune in at Christmas for our version of "All I want for Christmas is my Two Front Teeth". Hopefully, we won't be looking at four.....