The story of the Christmas Cow

As the excitement and understanding of Christmas grows, it dawned on me the other day that perhaps we should be teaching Toby about the real origin of Christmas. After all, it’s not all about Frosty and Rudolph and the big bearded man with presents. As I’ve mentioned before, Rob is the religious one in our family, but some things are important, and of all the religious stories, this is one I felt somewhat comfortable teaching him. How badly could I screw it up?

It took a bit of searching but finally I found him a short and colourful book that explains the nativity story in plain English. AND there was a picture of a cow on the front. When we got home from daycare that day I told Toby that I had a new book for him (he loves books) and he got very excited. He got even MORE excited when he saw the cow on the front and eagerly sat down to read it, flipping each page to get to the part where the cow is introduced.

It’s a long time to wait for an impatient-cow-obsessed-toddler; Mary and Joseph were introduced, the shepherds in the field were introduced (sheep are not quite as enthralling as cows), the angel came down, Mary found out she was pregnant, she and Joseph had the “oh shit” conversation, they traveled to Bethlehem, they tried to find a hotel and THEN (and ONLY then) did they end up in a barn with the Christmas Cow.

Needless to say, I wasn’t entirely sure how much of the actual story he absorbed. (Although it was a BIT of a relief that the word “virgin” slipped past his inquisitive mind unnoticed…) Later on that day when we told Daddy about the new book Toby introduced it as the story of “the cow and the baby Jay-Zee”.

“No, Toby, the baby’s name was JE-SUS, not Jay-Zee” (how does he know who Jay-zee is?!?)

“Yeah. Jay-zee!” he replied, grinning. This was the start of a dangerous game…

I corrected him one more time and then decided to drop it. I would UTTERLY fail in my quest to teach my son a simple bible story if the end result was his insistence on referring to Jesus as Jay-Zee.

I thought maybe that was the end of the whole story and my contribution to a more wholesome Christmas, until this morning (a week later) when he brought it up again on the way to daycare.

“So…the baby Jesus…” he started musing out loud to himself in the car. (He had obviously been THINKING about this…)

“Yes, what about him?”

“The baby Jesus…his mommy was Mary?”

“Yes,” I encouraged, “And he was born on Christmas day which is why we celebrate Christmas every year.”

Toby thought about this for a bit and then expanded on the story,

“So the baby Jesus was born and his mommy is Mary. And there was a COW and he had to lie down in HAY in a barn.”

“That’s RIGHT, Toby!” I said impressed but still wondering where this was all going…

Skeptically, Toby finally got to his point, “OK…well…but WHO is JOE?!!?!?”

After correcting him on the name “Joseph” I smiled at our mutual accomplishment.

We’re making progress…

"The quiet one" has been deciphered!

I’ve mentioned before on my blog about “the quiet one” and how different this baby seems to be from my verbose-hyper-energized toddler. One of my favourite memories of Toby in the womb was his predictable love of hip-hop. Driving to and from work I would always search the stations for Kanye because I knew it would elicit some forceful and often well timed kicks from him; in my head he was a cool little hip hop dude before he was even 5 months formed. What a shock when he not only came out WHITE, but a hot nonsensical mess.

I feel better prepared for the realities of this baby but despite this, find it somewhat disappointing that I can’t decipher its musical tastes. Believe me, I’ve tried; dance music, country music, kids music – I get nothing. For the first 6 months I even went to weekly hip-hop classes which had the inverse effect of lulling it to sleep. Nowadays, even Raffi (which is on repeat in the car, having long ago stolen the spotlight from Kanye) doesn’t get a rise out of this baby.

So what a shock (and a bit of relief) last weekend when I discovered that this baby DOES have a musical preference (and adequate hearing). During a fabulous weekend in Toronto with the girls we went to see Priscilla Queen of the Desert. It was absolutely fantastic and a definite must see. From the second the music stars it is one great song after another; the baby kicked, bounced and wiggled away the ENTIRE TIME.

So there you go – it took a long 7.5 months to unveil, but my baby is NOT a dud. It just so happens I’m carrying a drag queen.

French Lessons

Since Toby has moved up to the older group at daycare I have lost track of the multitude of things he is learning at circle time each day. Some days he comes home asking what time it says on the clock while other days he analyzes the weather trying to decipher when exactly fall ends and winter beings. My favourite is when he tries to engage me in a debate about what day of the week it is. Needless to say, he has yet to fully GRASP all of these concepts …it’s a work in progress.

Last night at dinner, however, he shocked us. We were (as usual) discussing our plans for the week when he very matter-of-factly turned to Rob and said, “Today is MONDAY and that means tomorrow is TUESDAY and if you want I can say that in French; Lundi, Mardi.”

So there you have it. Apparently he DOES know the days of the week (or at least the first two) and some French to boot. Who knew??

Sleeping Arrangements

Over the past few months we have slowly eased the unsuspecting Toby into his new life in the basement so that the baby can take his old room upstairs. We are not cruel parents; our house is only two levels with our bedroom on the main floor and the living room and kids room(s) in the basement. As we did with Toby, the baby will start upstairs and the Grandparents have the luxury of guest-rooming beside Toby in the basement until the new one is old enough to not have me running down stairs for 3 am feeds…

Toby has done exceptionally well with the move. He LOVES his big boy bed and his big boy room AND his froggy bathroom and proudly shows it off to everyone who comes to visit. In fact, I was showing around a lady who is (hopefully) going to start doing some cleaning for us and Toby just ASSUMED she had come to see HIS new room so bravely overcame his shyness to grab her by the hand and lead her to the downstairs so she could see his room before she’d even glanced at the rest of the house. I’m hoping his charm has won her over ;)

This weekend I realized the transition was officially complete when Toby remarked that this upstairs room was no longer his and WHAT was it going to be used for? I told him that that was where the baby was going to sleep.

He was shocked. And then heartbroken.

Why was the baby going to sleep UPSTAIRS?

I explained why she (OR HE!!!) was going to start upstairs but that when the baby got older (like him) s/he could move downstairs, too.

This brought on a slew of questions that came in quick succession. Where would she sleep when she got older? How would we get the crib downstairs? Why couldn’t she just sleep downstairs right away?

I responded as best I could, answering both the logistical (Daddy could take the crib apart and then put it back together downstairs) and more emotionally sensitive (she or HE would sleep in Grandma and Grandpa’s room downstairs) topics. I then held my breath and waited. After months of being so subtle about the move and not wanting to disturb his world or make him feel at all usurped, THIS was the moment of truth…

As all good conversational pauses go, he took a mouthful of cheerios and thought about things carefully before responding with exasperation,

“But why can’t she just sleep right BESIDE me in my bed?”

Oh, the Guilt!

Part of my daily amusement stems from asking Toby what he did in “circle time” each day. Sometimes his answer consists of a lively song, a question, the mention of a particularly notorious kid who bit or hit someone else or a simple answer, “nothing”.

Yesterday I happened to ask him the question while we were still at daycare, which was good because I could then go and check on the calendar wall and verify what exactly he was talking with. His answer was an excited mess of words about safe and unsafe animals, dogs and cats and whales. As he talked excitedly his emotions fluctuated from concern about the “unsafeness” of his tiger costume for Halloween to a morose lamentation of the fact that he didn’t have a dog NOR a cat at home.

Sure enough –it’s pet week at daycare. Their circle time discussion had centered on what pets were and were not safe to keep as pets. The poor kid had obviously realized that he was left out of the dog or cat ownership clan and then upon trying to make up for it by announcing that he had a tiger (costume) was probably told it was unsafe.

“Well,” I told him matter-of-factly, trying to hide my sadness for his dejection, “You’re getting a baby brother or sister which is even BETTER than a pet,”

He thought about this on the way home and his silence on the matter mistakenly made me assume that he’d conceded.

Not 10 minutes later as I was changing out of my work clothes did Toby BURST into the bedroom exclaiming, “I have a PET, mommy! LOOK!!! I found a PET!!!” Praying it wasn’t a snake I rushed out of the closet to see my little boy remarking over his newfound pet that he was lovingly and carefully carrying over to show me.

It was a dead fly.

I don’t doubt that dead flies are considered “safe pets” by his daycare’s standards, (if you ignore the obvious health risks of handling them), but I hope tomorrow they’ll make some mention of useful vs. not so useful pets and maybe I won’t feel quite so guilty about having made him throw his first pet into the garbage…

Aha! So there IS life after bedtime

Last night we made a shocking discovery; when you sleep in a big boy bed it is possible to actually get OUT of bed without the help of your parents. It may seem obvious to some; it may seem trivial to some others. But to us, this groundbreaking newsflash our two year old discovered is neither and just may herald the start of a difficult new stage…

He has been in a big boy bed since September. The transition was *remarkably smooth. He not only went from being upstairs in his crib, sleeping right next door to us to downstairs in the dark basement all by himself in a big boy bed. He has a little bed rail to keep him from falling out, but other than that there hasn’t been anything stopping him from getting out on his own. Nonetheless, he has always contentedly stayed in bed, sometimes for up to half an hour at a time, playing with his animals if he wakes up before we go down to get him and calling out for us if he needs something.

Until, of course, last night, when he woke up around 10pm, rolled over, got out of bed and marched down the hall to the TV room to find a very surprised Mommy and Daddy sitting on the cough.

Standing there holding his bear, still in his sleep sac, he gave me an incredulous and speechless look.

I rushed over to see if he was OK and make sure he wasn’t actually a ghost (he has NEVER in his LIFE entered a room without his mouth or excited foot steps announcing his impending arrival first) and then escorted him back to bed. After getting him tucked back in and lying down with him for a snuggle he turned to look at me and very VERY seriously and with a tone of accusation questioned,

“WHAT were you DOING out there, mommy?”

I refrained from telling him that I had been eating ice cream and girl guide cookies while watching baseball on TV; that would have solidified the end of evening freedom for me forever. I chose the most innocuous statement I could come up with,” I was sitting with daddy. He was doing work.”

“OH?” he said, “Daddy was doing work?”

I explained to him in as banal a tone possible that that’s what grown ups do at night -- work. And no, I hadn’t gone into the hospital. When I don’t have to work I just sit with daddy.

This seemed to appease his little mind and settled the issue for now. I heaved a sigh of relief and went back to eating ice cream…er…I mean, sitting with Daddy. I spent the next 8 hours sleeping in innocent bliss, thinking how brilliantly I’d resolved the issue. That is, until I was awoken by my bedroom door being slammed open and the quiet ghost of Toby standing, in his sleep sac, in the middle of my room, announcing, ‘It’s morning time, mommy!”

I’ve said it before and I suspect I will be saying it again; there goes the end of MY freedom!