Christmas-ing continues!

As this may be our last sunny weekend before the year ends, we thought we would take advantage. Since Matthew's class went on a bus for their most recent fieldtrip, Matthew's been asking to go on the bus again. We woke early on Saturday (again!) as it seems that Matthew likes sleeping in on the wrong days! Arghhhh!!! We caught the bus at Oakridge and rode it to the Cambie & Broadway train station. He was very excited about being on the bus. He said "Hello Bus Driver" when we hopped on (he even said thanks when we left!) He was looking out the window and around on the bus. He's been on the train now a few times but it doesn't seem to get old for him. Especially this time, he got to stand and hold the rail! He was trying out his balance. He stood without holding the rail and had to shift his weight. It was cute to watch and he kept his balance well. The passengers seemed to have gotten a kick out of this little show! We rode the seabus to grab lunch at the Quay again. We napped him late, around 2pm. Although it was late, it kept saying "no sleep". But once he got set up, he went out like a light. So much for listening to a 2 year old! We shopped a bit around downtown. Holt's was having a "Black Friday" sale - trouble! Then when he woke, we trained it to the Yaletown Candy Lane event in search for Santa. Before we went on this outing, I had showed him the previous years of photos with Santa. I told him that we will be looking for him and for him to think about what he wants when Santa asks him. So when we got to Yaletown, it was a zoo! We finally found the line for Santa, but it seemed to have wrapped around the block and couldn't even get a view of the jolly man so we trained it back to Oakridge where we knew the line couldn't be as long. Great call! We only waited for one other family to get theirs done and then it was our turn. Just as we were getting called for our turn, they had to reload the film. So we patiently waited with a good view of Santa. Santa was waving to Matthew and he was waving back. I wished I could know what Matthew was thinking! Then we settled in on Santa's lap and his chair. Santa asked Matthew what he wanted and Matthew responded with a straight face "May I have trains please?" Santa responded that he will work hard on it and that he's a big fan of trains himself. Then snap, snap, snap...I think the photographer must have taken 20 shots of us because the Elf was having lots of trouble getting Matthew to smile. She even tried to use a dust feather to tickle him but Matthew only swatted it away! This was very, VERY serious business for him!

it's ALREADY beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Growing up, Christmas was by far my favourite time of the year. So what better way then to make my favourite pastime Matthew's?!?! It's been a tradition of mine (and luckily easily adapted to James') that we start decorating during the November long weekend. Usually I try to wait until the day after Remembrance day, but this year we did it on the day of. So first, the tree went up, a Gingerbread house was made, tacky decorations up everywhere possible and voila - it's Christmas! Potty update: Matthew's been doing so well. He hasn't had an accident in a very long time. It seems like he's only had a couple since the weekend we trained. Last week, Matthew's class took the bus to Metrotown as buses are the big interest currently with his classmates. So the teachers decided to make it a learning experience. The main purpose was to ride the bus, but then they added a shopping component to it as well. They made a shopping list and took it to T&T supermarket. As they couldn't cart everything back that was on the list, they just bought Travis' suggestion of buns - light and delicious, great choice! The shopping list was funny. There was ice-cream, chips, buns, carrots, books...on the list. Matthew's suggestion was soup. Apparently Matthew and the gang had fun pushing the soup cans so nicely displayed into the shelf and destroying the displays. The 6 six teachers (volunteers included) quickly escorted them to a different aisle! The teachers did find everything on the list and the child who suggested the item got to pose with it. So the class was walking back to school from the bus stop when Matthew was saying "no oh oh bus" (no pee accident on the bus), "no oh oh shopping" (no pee accident in the mall). He kept repeating these two phrases and the teacher closes to him said, "Yes, you are doing so well. We are almost back at school". She clearly knew that Matthew needed to go. All his teachers were proud of him for being able to control his pee and knew it was coming! Just a minute away from the school, going down the steps before crossing the street, Matthew saids "oh oh down stairs!" (peeing right now while going down the stairs!!!) So Matthew had an accident for the first time in a very long time. Since the odds were against him, the teachers were so proud (as well as me!) that he almost made it through the whole fieldtrip without an accident. Oh well, at least it was only pee!

first homework assignment

Now that it's November, the school curriculum is in full swing. Matthew's class consist of 14 other friends who share the 12 full time spaces in his split baby/JK1 class. Since July, Matthew was joined by 6 new babies sharing 4 full time spaces. I was very in favour of the split as I knew Matthew (so selfish!) would learn empathy towards the young, the understanding that we need to give more time for the younger ones and just learn that every one is different and it didn't matter of age. In my opinion, this is the only split class/age that I prefer. I won't go into much detail (since it's not about Matthew and this is now Matthew's blog) but I feel that children should not skip ahead just because one stage of development surpasses another; that I feel every developmental stage should be somewhat equal before one can move on. Anyway, back to Matthew. So for the reading curriculum, one homework component is that each classmate gets to bring home a stuffed, pack back teddy bear with a journal. The point of this assignment is for the parent to document a weekend long events and then the student who had the turn gets to "show" the class what they had done. This bear's name is Georgie. Matthew had the first turn. The teachers wanted us to set the standards for all other entries...the pressures on! Matthew had his first sleepover weekend! We brought Georgie home on the Thursday before the November long weekend. (We've been taking Fridays off for Matthew's cooking class). So the adventure begins. When we first introduced

Georgie to Grandma, she kept calling him George. So Matthew had to keep correcting her - "No George. It's Georgie!" We ate dinner with Georgie (since Matthew likes to put his feet up on the table while he eats and has been learning "feet down", he didn't quite comprehend that Georgie's legs were too short to reach the bottom of the chair and kept telling Georgie "feet down!"). Then we had a bath with Georgie (well, Matthew did and Georgie watched). It was then bed time and Georgie just posed with Matthew and then he was booted out of the bed. The next day we went to cooking class, then took the skytrain to downtown, the seabus to Lonsdale Quay (yum yum steamed clams!), back to downtown and skytrain to our car. The next day, again we took the skytrain downtown with Grandma, Georgie, Matthew and I and then dinner with at the Keg with the whole family (Uncle Calvin, Auntie Kim and cousin Clayton and Cole as well). We had time before bed so we played peek a boo with Georgie before bed. The next day we met up with Connor. The last day with Georgie, we took him on the Metrotown train and then had dinner at home with the home family again. What an exhausting weekend and pictures to prove it!