Tristan’s friend Adah told him “Show me your ninja moves and I will dance with you”

Time to give wisteria a hair cut!

On driving over the bridge into DC this afternoon the following dialogue ensued.

Tristan: Wow, this whole city is cool! Wow look at that pointy tower!
Dad: yeah that’s the George Washington Memorial.
Kieran: I bought it was a monument.
Mommy: You can call it a monument or a memorial.
Tristan: Well, I’m going to call it George!

Mommy and Daddy both burst out in laughter.

Maranda was getting ready to run down to the bus stop to pick-up Kieran yesterday, and Tristan was absorbed in a T.V. program.  The bus stop is about 150 yards away around the corner from our house.  Maranda told him to watch his program and if he needed anything, he could go downstairs as Mercedes (who rents our basement) was there.  

Bus was late and Maranda waited for about 10 minutes.  Suddenly just as the bus arrived Maranda looked up to see Tristan coming down the road on his training wheel equipped bike, most of the way to the bus stop.  He was hugging the shoulder and a car was carefully passing him giving him a wide berth.  

Keep in mind Tristan is three, so NOT ready for riding on the street alone.  Maranda was shocked and Tristan appeared embarrassed and he quickly picked up on the scare he gave Mommy. Our road is actually very quiet with no outlet and only neighbor traffic and the road is straight with lots of visibility, so the actual risk was probably small. 

So, not being there myself I fight conflicting emotions.  Of course my first thought is about the danger and we will definitely be talking with Tristan about never riding on the road by himself (something he has abided by for a long time).  That said, I can’t help but admire his determined ingenuity.  He knew where mommy was, he knew how to get there, and it was a long walk so of course he was going to take his bike!  ;)  This will be one of those stories that goes into the family tales….

After we watched (separately) the Discovery shuttle being flown to Dulles today to its final resting place, I told the boys I wasn’t sure how many space missions it had flown. Tristan immediately piped up “Dad, when we get home you can check on the Internet!”. LOL

It was 39 missions by the way.

Tristan to Maranda: “mommy, I’m starting to grow nickels like you! Right…. (pauses to search his chest) here!”

Tristan was mad at Maranda because she did not let him make his sandwhich by himself.  He took it out on the sandwhich!  Silverware drawer was almost empty by the time he was done!

After he was finished he said to her “Mom, when I cry like that and pile things on there from the silverware drawer, that means I’m mad.  At you”

Kieran has been thinking about religion lately and in particular the “leap of faith” since you can’t put it to the test like a hypothesis.  We try not to steer him too much in this area and let him work through the ideas without indoctrination.  He was deep in thought this morning in the car and then offered the following statement:  ”Dad, maybe belief in God is like a baby bird learning to fly.  It won’t ever learn to fly unless it believes it can, even though it has never actually flown before.”  I spent the next five minutes turning that over in my mind…

We had a great Christmas eve, boys got new PJs, Cars movie for Tristan and Sonic the Hedgehog for Kieran.  We all put our new ornaments on the tree and Kieran prepared a plate for Santa, which included wrapping a cookie with the note “eat at your house” meaning one of the cookies was “to go”.  

With both boys in bed we watched an animation of the story of baby Jesus on Youtube, then “Twas The Night Before Christmas” before we turned out the lights.

This year Kieran had Santa “figured out” and was sure he wasn’t real, so we upped our game and have tracked in Santa “footprints” with large boots and flour, our Santa gifts have wrapping paper they have not seen, and Maranda made great tags that look fully Santa worthy!

Time for a good nights sleep! 

Maranda: Consequences of hunting and butchering at home: Your two-year-old says stuff like, “Mommy, I’m going to chop you into burgers and eat you for dinner”, and “When Daddy and Kieran get home, I’m going to chop off their meat and eat it all gone”. Said while waving a wooden sword and giving a menacing scowl. Imagination is a good thing, right? We encourage creativity, right?