Lunch Date with Jack

So as part of Christmas this year, Charles and I gave the kids homemade gift certificates. They were for various things but the most anticipated ones were a day out for lunch with Mom or Dad by themselves.

Well, so far Addie has tried to redeem both of these coupons - in fact, she tried to redeem them both the first week in January. We told her that she wouldn't get new ones until next Christmas, so she should try to make them last. Deferred gratification is a hard concept for a four-year-old!  We have, however, let her redeem her Daddy lunch coupon. One of the stipulations is that kid gets to pick where they go for lunch. So based on Addie's  pick, Charles enjoyed a fabulous lunch at Burger King's play place. He blames me for not redirecting her decision to a more acceptable place!

Jack redeemed his Mommy lunch date coupon last week. He chose Las Margaritas, one of our favorite Mexican restaurants. We had a great time. It was one of those moments that comes every so often in parenting where you realize that your kid is maturing and is actually fun to be with!

One of my favorite conversations we had while at lunch revolved around saving money and getting a car some day. This was prompted by our nephew Justin just recently getting his drivers' permit. Jack told me that he wanted to start to save his money so that he could buy a car when he went to college. After some more discussion, he decided that a used car made sense, given that they were less expensive. His reasoning is what cracked me up. He said that he thought that by the time he got to college he thought that Dad and I would probably not want to take him everywhere!  And immediately, I thought I must record that!  He didn't say that HE wouldn't want US to take him places, but that WE wouldn't want to take HIM places. Somehow I believe that his little eight year old self might think differently well before eighteen, but I won't complain if not!

Best Mommy In His Small World

A few days ago I was chatting with Theo and he mentioned that he thought I was a good mommy. I was kind of teasing him and bantering back and forth. I then said, 'do you think I am the best mommy in the world?' and without missing a beat he said, 'well, you are all I really know'. LOL.

Factory by Jack

One of Jack's vocabulary words is factory. I was asking him what the definition of factory was today and he quickly told me 'a place people went to work beginning in the 1760s'. He may be the only kid who would define factory by its place in the Industrial Revolution. I even had to double check the date. He was right.

Pauses by Addie

Today on the way home from church Addie asked me if she could pause her nap? A bit confused I asked what she meant. She said, 'you know when you stop something, you pause it.' I quickly told her no, and then informed her the correct definition of pause - emphasizing the part of starting again and not stopping for long. That was done just in case she decides on her own to pause her nap today!

Letter to Grandmother

Today Addie asked me for a card because she wanted to make Grandmother a card. I went and got out a card and then left her to it. I came back later and found that she had made a card with lots of stickers of dogs and little girls in it 'because Grandmother likes dogs and pretty girls'. A few minutes later I glanced over and saw Addie trying to put a postal stamp on it. I was in a hurry and quickly told her that the letter didn't need a stamp. This is all I vocalized. In my head, of course, I thought that we would hand deliver the letter and it wasn't worth wasting a stamp on it.

Well, later that day, I went out to the mailbox to put a letter in it that I wanted to posted tomorrow. In the mailbox, I found this:

Addie had taken it upon herself to put her letter to Grandmother in the mailbox. It was so sweet. It had no stamp, or name, or address on it but Addie knew that it should be in there if it was going to be 'mailed'. I rescued the card today and will hold onto the memory for a lot longer. So precious.