Dear Matthew

Dear Matthew,

I am thrilled that we were blessed with many, many fun Christmas toys for you to play with. I will always remember the joy in your face when you were opening and playing with all your new toys.

However I would like for you to realize the sacrifice I am making with all these toys. I have been losing sleep and chewing my nails more than ever in the last few days as I think about and stare at the toys taking over my house. I am running out of room and my clean, orderly house has turned in to a disorderly Toys R Us.

You will understand as you grow up that mommy enjoys order and cleanliness. And since having you, mommy has had to bite her lip, take a deep breath, and "just let it be" on numerous occasions because of you and your toys. So...with that said, You are welcome, Matthew.

Oh... and I should also mention; thank you, Matthew, for teaching me patience I never knew I had and for showing me that spending time playing with you, laughing with you, and cuddling with you is more important than my house being clean.

Love,

Mommy

Merry Christmas!!!

What makes a Christmas morning perfect?





Husband and son in their jammies, sitting around the Christmas tree eating breakfast,

Opening a present and finding a toy train,

Having a fire going in your fireplace,

Opening presents sent from your great grandma,

Opening books and immediately reading them,

Opening a present and finding Hulk Hands,

Snow on the mountains,

Being so exhausted from Christmas morning that you fall asleep on your way to Grandma and Grandpa's, with your new toy train in your hand, of course.

Merry Christmas!! I hope your Christmas was all you ever dreamed of.

Santa

It has been a long time since I blogged. I took a little break. Nothing exciting going on or any real reason for the break, I just didn't really feel like blogging :)

I wanted to share my thoughts on Santa Claus. I never thought about Santa Claus so much in my life as I have in the past month or 2. Because I have a child, I began thinking about what my exact position on Santa Claus was, I wanted to find out the exact origin of Santa Claus and as it turned out, there are MANY, MANY stories about the origin. Each website claiming the origin of this jolly, round man was different, some drastically different.

Most all agreed that he was a patron saint who was a very good saint and did good things for children. This was the only common thread. Many different parts of the world claim him and all claim he did different good things. All in all, he wasn't a bad man and his origins are not evil or bad in any way.

The problem that I have with Santa Claus is that he has been so commercialized and so saturated in to the American culture that Christmas has become all about Santa Claus. In reality the origin of Christmas has absolutely nothing to do with Santa Claus. This is what bothers me. Christmas is Jesus' birthday- end of story. Bringing Santa in to the picture clouds the TRUE meaning of Christmas and makes Christmas all about presents even further, which should not happen.

Also, has anyone truly thought about the fact that parents are flat out lying to their kids? Why is this huge lie, a lie that forces parents to make up fantastic stories about a fake man, so ingrained in to our culture?

I am not putting parents who do the whole "Santa Claus thing" down. Please don't think that, I definitely think the "Santa Claus thing" is kind of fun and exciting and does bring a certain amount of magic to the season. I just think it is a very interesting tradition that Americans have come up with, so interesting that it has caused me to think about it in depth for the last month.

Also, I wanted to apologize in advance to any parents whose kids may be around my son. I am so sorry if he tells them that Santa doesn't exist. I truly don't want to shatter your kids innocence or destroy their Christmas magic. But I am going to do my best to instill that innocence and that magic in to my son using another person named Jesus.

I will get off my soapbox now.

Thank you for listening.

Dear Matthew

Dear Matthew,

I was completely surprised last night by your politeness.

I sneezed and you immediately looked at me, smiled, and said, "Bwess you."

It made me smile.



Thank you for always being there to make me smile and thank you for being so polite.



Love,

Mommy

1, 2, 3....

Does my child know how to count? I always thought he didn't, although I do work on it with him. Counting things when I give them to him and counting to 3 before I let him jump on the couch. I guess I never really thought any of it would stick for a long time. Then something happened yesterday night.

I was cutting Matty's nails, counting each finger as I did it. The first hand, "One finger, (then I would clip the nail) two fingers, (clip the nail) three finger, (clip the nail)...." Then I was about to move on to the fourth finger when he said, "four" clear as can be, no mistaking it....he said the word "four" after I said the word "three"!!

I was shocked and instantly looked over at Steve, to which he said "What?" Obviously he wasn't paying any attention.

Now, I know it could just be a fluke or a coincidence. But it could also mean that he listens to me when I try to teach him something and sometimes what I am teaching him actually seeps in to his brain!!!!

It is so unbelievably fun to watch a little human grow, change, and learn right before your very eyes. What a blessing this little guy is.



I will say, he isn't a complete genius. Last night at 8:00 he whined and cried for 30 minutes because he wanted to go play outside. It was 5 degrees outside, snow was on the ground, and it was dark. Hmmmm.....

It's Beginning to look a lot like Christmas

This year Christmas seems to have more magic than any other year. For the first time I can see excitement and joy for Christmas in my son's eyes.

When we put up our Christmas tree he was genuinely excited and jumps up and down and claps whenever I turn on the Christmas tree lights.

His favorite part of Christmas so far has been the train around the tree. Steve and I got this train many years ago, before we had Matty. Steve always loved trains, for his family always put one around their tree. Now that Steve has a son to share in the train tradition and to delight in the train as much as he does; Christmas has a whole new meaning to Steve also.
They lay under that Christmas tree every night playing with that train. It is almost too much for my heart to take :)

Matthew says, "Dadda Twain!!" And they both go to the tree, lay on their stomachs, and watch the train.

Enjoy all the magic leading up to the Christmas season. There is so much of it, all you have to do is look for it.