Dayna remembers quite vividly the first time Brody read something that he hadn’t been practicing at school.  It was the Rosie the Riveter picture we have in the den. 

He walked in, looked up, and read…’We can do it.’  Later that week, he read the sign on the front of a store ‘Toy Sale’ … and from then on we started spelling words, we didn’t want him to understand, backwards.

Well, today was that day for Mo.  She had a small Thanksgiving show at school and I was able to leave early to attend.  After they sang some cute songs, we did some crafts; specifically, we made a turkey.  Afterwards we had to go to the library, Brody needed a mystery for a book report and I needed some sort of anti-big business book to maintain a healthy paranoia and to keep my shiny skeptical glow about me.

Mo asked if she could get a book to read to Ms. Turkey who had chosen to accompany us into the library.  As we looked around, Brody suggested a Dr. Seuss book.  Mo indicated that she hadn’t read any of his books (oddly enough, she doesn’t read those at home and they are focused on others at school – Brody was the same way with Sandra Boynton, hated her books) and that she’d like to try one. 

She picked out Green Eggs and Ham (which we do not have (to the best of my knowledge) though I assure you, each kid in drowning in books, so they are not going without) and without hesitation, read the first couple pages without hesitation!

It was an incredible moment to observe.

This may sound bad, and somewhat ‘unparently’, but when Mo started school, we were concerned.  She just didn’t seem quite as prepared as Brody was on basics like letter sounds.

Mo has, with very little show, just proved us wrong.  The other day we were driving and she took out a pad of paper and started spelling words.  She did an incredible job stretching them out and then writing down how the word was spelled.

It was incredible how well she did, and how often she would get them completely correct.  Last night, she typed an e-mail to my Mom, and did an impressive job (I only helped locate the keys (QWERTY is not intuitive for a kid), not with spelling).  Tonight she wrote out her own Christmas list!

Ever since she started, she hasn’t stopped and is now asking for a diary for xmas!

Brody has been doing great with his expander; however, the Orthodontist has determined it is time to add the ‘head gear.’

We put it off about a week, resulting in the postponement of an appointment (surprise – Brody was less than disappointed), but finally got back on track last weekend. 

Kudos to D who has been really leading the charge here; having not experienced or observed this as a child, she’s really done wonderfully well with Brody.

Brody, like any child dying to fit in, was less than impressed with the gear.  Oh D did a good job, had him convinced he’d be like a robot and it’d be cool…didn’t last long.

The other day, after I had given Mo a hug, he comes up to me and says ‘You probably don’t want to hug me because I look like a freak!’  His head down with a pre-emptive dejected look on his face.

I kindly responded, ‘Damn straight!  Now go git the neighbor kid so I can hug them instead of you!’

NOT!

I’ve always been surprised that Brody has yet to discover, figure out and/or admit to the ‘Santa Delusion’. 

Early on, Brody would make the occasional comment on the similarity of the packaging of Santa’s gifts to the item in the store; he’d wonder why it mattered if a requested item was ‘expensive’ if Santa had access to plentiful, cheap labor that Wal-Mart would envy; or why Santa’s gifts sometimes showed tell-tale signs of a price tag or of price tag removal.

It appeared that we had at least one more year of ‘belief’ before this, and then by extension, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and Compassionate Conservatives, all were revealed to be imaginary.

So I was surprised when Brody first asked me if ‘I believed in Santa when I was a kid.’  Nice try dude, but you won’t get me on semantics and/or verb tense!  (I minored in English you know!)  So I responded, ‘Of course I BELIEVE in Santa Claus.’  (Which is different then saying ‘I used to …’) 

He then very seriously just asked, ‘Dad.  Do you and Mom buy all the presents with your own money and put them under the tree and just say they are from Santa.’

(PREGNANT PAUSE)

In my head I had several responses; they are as follows, though all arrived and were considered simultaneously:

-You bet they are, and now that you know, I don’t have to spend so damn much!

-Shit! He’ll tell his sister and blow it for her this year!

-Dayna will be mad at me if I have this important (in a Lifetime Movie sort of way) conversation with him when she is not around or without her input

-WWDD (what would dayna do)

-No son, Santa makes those gifts, he has a licensing agreement with all of those companies and he compensates for their lost sales (due to his socialistic spreading of the toy-wealth) by purchasing the packing from them.

-‘Bout freakin’ time you figured that out!

-uhhhhhhhhhhh

I wisely went with, ‘Want to stop and get some ice cream for your buddy that is sleeping over tonight?’

Aw yeah, I look innocent, but I am the MASS-TAH of redirection.

Dodged that bullet (at least until another day when four Amazon.com boxes show up).

I think parents today, myself included, have a predisposition to hover.  I don’t remember my parents hovering…they’d let you outside, hand you a chain saw and say, ‘Watch out for the dog poo while you play’ and that was it.

Okay, I exaggerate a little but my topic sentence stands.

The constant reminding by parents to their children to say ‘thank you’ during Halloween was a good example.  It starts off innocent; you want to teach your children gratitude and manners.  However as an observer, I went from empathizing with the parent, to finding it somewhat comical, to wanting to bitch slap every hovering parent who barked ‘now say thank you to this studly gentleman who seems far more virile than my own spouse for the candy’….before I had even given the candy or before the kids had a chance to take a breath to speak. 

Occasionally, a child with good lung capacity, or good rhythm, was able to blurt out a ‘thank you’ fast enough to pre-empt the passive-aggressive reminders. 

On those occasions, you’d see a small bit of pride on the part of the parent (as they planned how to get out their dire warning sooner next time). 

Today, I felt that same pride.  As we entered latch key this a.m., a gal from Brody’s class was right behind us.  Normally, he’d let the door slam in her face, but today, without any hovering instruction, held the door for her. 

She said thanks and they struck up a conversation…then her 6 foot 4 inch 350 pound Dad came in and scared Brod, and off to class he went!

Maura is now designing stuffed animals for Hot Topic.