Truth is stranger (and funnier!) than fiction!

I heard this story on the news on the radio this morning, then saw this article on the Fox News website. This article is a little short and doesn't give a lot of details. But according to the news report I heard, the 4-year-old little boy (I think they said his name was Hayden) thought Christmas wasn't coming soon enough. So one night he sneaked out of his mom's bed and found a beer at his house, then went to a neighbor's house and apparently got in through a door that wasn't locked (what are people thinking?!). There he opened all of the presents under the neighbors' Christmas tree.....and one of these gifts was a little girl's dress. A while later, he was found down the street, wearing the dress and obviously under the influence! I just laughed out loud when I pictured what that must have looked like!

Poor kid.....it would be a very funny story except for the extra details here in this article.....apparently the boy's dad is in jail and his parents are getting a divorce. Poor little kid....

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — Tennessee investigators say a 4-year-old boy was found roaming his neighborhood in the night, drinking beer and wearing a little girl's dress taken from under a neighbor's Christmas tree.

The child's mother, 21-year-old April Wright, tells WTVC-TV the boy "wants to go to jail because that's where his daddy is." Wright says she and the boy's father are going though a divorce.

The boy, found outside his house in Chatanooga on Tuesday, was taken to a hospital and treated for alcohol consumption.

Hamilton County Sheriff's Department spokeswoman Janice Atkinson says the incident is being investigated but the department declined to release the report.

The boy's mother says she met with child protective services and was told she will get to keep custody of her son.

Not quite like I expected.....

Yesterday at Grant's school they had the preschool Christmas program. This is Grant's first year officially in "preschool," so his class was the youngest of all of the classes participating. I was so excited about it.....you see this portrayed in movies all the time, where moms and dads sit in the audience proudly watching their child singing, and it's almost more fun if they don't do exactly what they're supposed to do. Grant has never been in front of a big group, so I had no idea what to expect.

So Drew and I got there a few minutes early and sat along the middle aisle, where all the classes would be coming in. I wanted to videotape Grant walking in with his class. A few minutes later, all the older kids filed in, then Grant's class walked in last. Grant was holding his teacher's hand, and he saw me as he got close to my row. Without hesitating, he turned and started walking in to sit with me. His teachers tried to grab him to take him with them, but he started screaming and crying. So to avoid a scene, I just told his teachers I'd take him.

At the same time this was happening, I was thinking, "no! He can't do this! He needs to go stand up there at the front so I can watch him perform! That's why we're here! This isn't supposed to happen!" I tried talking him into going up there, but he would have none of it. His teacher Ms. Machelle tried coming back after the first song, but he refused to go with her. And I know Grant.....he would have screamed and made a huge scene if we had dragged him up there at that point.

So anyway, I was frustrated for a few minutes....mostly at myself for sitting there right where he could see me! I never thought he would react that way.....he seems to be over the "there's Mommy....I need her!" stage. But maybe the whole situation was just a little weird for him.

We stayed until the program was over, then went to Grant's classroom for his Christmas party. The kids ate lunch, and Drew was hungry too....he found an empty seat at a table full of girls, and he sat there and waited for some food! Then he'd stand up and walk around and try taking food from other kids' plates. It's pretty funny to watch....I guess he's too young to be bashful- he'll just go after anything he wants! He also tried taking Grant's brownie out of his hands....and this led to a slightly embarrassing yelling match between Grant and Drew. Thankfully most of the moms there have more than one child and have been through that themselves!

Miscellaneous

Here are some pictures we took this morning before taking Grant to school. The boys want to be outside so badly, and the front yard is the least messy place to play right now. Here's Grant with his "racket" or "fishing pole," depending on what he wants it to be at the time:

A very rare overalls day for Drew (I think overalls are cute on little boys, but they're bulky and I hardly ever grab them when I'm looking for something for him to wear). His poor little eyes are red.....Grant had the same thing last week but apparently it's just a cold symptom and not pink eye (according to our doctor):

Drew has learned from Grant that when you start walking down the sidewalk away from our house, you have to wave and say "bye."


Drew has been asleep for over an hour and a half, so I know I'm pressing my luck by trying to do a blog post! Any time I decide to hurry and quickly post something before he wakes up, it never quite works out.

I haven't even logged on to our blog in the past week....this Christmas season just seems so busy! We managed to finally put up our tree about five days ago, but we still haven't decorated it. Just on Saturday night, we put the majority of our outside decorations up (although we still aren't quite finished). It's been incredibly cold and rainy....one of the coldest Decembers on record so far. So we're kind of having the opposite problem we had this summer....now it's difficult to be outside because it's too cold! And we haven't been outside in our backyard to play in probably over a week.....we've had so much rain and everything is just yucky. I guess if I were a good mom, I'd let my boys play in the mud and standing water. But most days, I just don't feel like doing that!

But it has been fascinating to watch Grant this Christmas season. It's so much different than even last year.....he doesn't understand the real meaning of Christmas yet, but he can appreciate the magic of the lights and all of the festivities. Quickly, some of the highlights from this Christmas season so far:

- He loves Mickey's Christmas Carol.....thanks, Mom, for the DVD!!! He wants to watch it over and over when we're in the car. It was one of my favorite cartoons growing up too, so it's fun for me to see him enjoy it so much.

- He is just amazed by Christmas villages at the craft stores. He could stand there and look at the little houses, churches, and toy shops for hours. It's fun seeing which details he thinks are especially cool. He likes to point out the dads, moms, brothers and sisters. And he loves the carnival rides too.

- So far I've only wrapped a few gifts. But the other day when Grant saw the wrapped presents, he quickly learned which ones were his and which were Drew's. The next morning, the boys loaded some of the gifts into their shopping cart and took them into the den. Before I knew it, Grant was saying, "markers!" I ran in as Drew was walking towards me, showing me his new puzzle that he had just unwrapped. Little stinkers! At least Grant's opened gift was just markers, and not some other toy that he'd immediately want to play with (and would have led to a huge fit when I told him he had to wait until Christmas).

- At Target last week Grant found a car that he'd never seen before, and his heart was set on buying it. I told him we couldn't buy it that day, but he could ask Santa for it. So he starts pulling me down the aisle, saying, "I want to go ask Santa" (as if he just needed to go ask for Santa's approval really quick, then come back to get it). He just doesn't quite understand! And he still doesn't get the concept of days, weeks, minutes.....the other day he said, "Christmas is coming in a few minutes." To him, I guess "Christmas" is just an indefinite time in the future, and hopefully it will come sooner rather than later!

Leaps and bounds better!

Last November we took both boys to the doctor together.....Drew for his 2 month checkup, and Grant for his 2-year checkup. Grant was horrendous! He freaked out at the beginning when the nurse tried to weigh him, and the wailing never stopped until we left. It was completely chaotic, with two nurses in the room (one for each boy), then our doctor had to talk to us over all the screaming. Grant had been great at 18 months, so this was completely out of the blue, and made me nervous about ever taking him again!

Today we went for his 3-yr checkup. So much better! I was guessing that it would be, because he's been there a few times this year (although only once as a patient) and hasn't freaked out. Plus, it's a lot easier to reason with a three-year-old, I now know. I'm sure age three will have its issues, but Grant is starting to seem like my easier child now....he has actually become a somewhat reasonable, rational person! He still has plenty of crying fits, but he understands a lot more about the world around him. And now he knows that doctor's offices are just normal places where the people are very nice. So he can assume that nothing horrible will happen....whereas a two-year-old might not be able to see things in such a big picture.

Anyway, he is fine (and big....around 90th percentile in height and weight....although his weight included a ziploc bag full of Teddy Grahams that the nurse must not have noticed). He said some funny things to the nurse and he was just relaxed as could be (he also knew that he had candy waiting for him if he was a good boy). We had to take a potty break.....we're now at the point where he does pretty well leaving the house with underwear on......and then he had to get a few shots. Of course he hated them for a minute, but immediately was asking for his candy afterwards. So they must not have been completely awful!

PACIFIER UPDATE: "Anonymous" wrote a few days ago suggesting the Paci B Gone website. I looked at it and it looks interesting. Thanks for the link, whoever that was! Basically, it's a 7-day program that involves teaching your child about a pacifier fairy who comes in the middle of the night and will take his pacifier in exchange for a stuffed duck. Every morning the child wakes up with his duck and then gets rewarded with stickers, etc. for making it through the night without his paci.

The main drawback is that it costs $60 (they say it's fully refundable if it doesn't work). And Grant isn't really into stuffed animals too much, so I have a feeling he might not be so excited about waking up with a stuffed duck instead of his paci. So I'm trying a couple of other things, and I might do this if it seems like we're getting nowhere after a couple months. Mainly, the past few days I've really been trying to crack down and only let him have his paci for sleeptimes. And I'm trying to distract him when he randomly asks for it any other time. If he hurts himself or gets in trouble, he'll immediately ask for it. And once he thinks about it, he has his mind set on getting it! So I'm trying to distract him with Little Einsteins (his favorite show right now) or by suggesting we go outside. And yesterday we bought him chewing gum......hey, if it works on a nicotine addiction, it just might work on this pacifier addiction! He has no problem chewing it, and Drew cannot understand why he can't have some too! So we will see how that goes.....

Snow, etc.

It's happened two years in a row now.....snow in Houston! It started snowing at our house early this morning....before 9am. The boys and I went to Kroger, and it looked almost like a snowstorm when we came out of the store. Huge flurries and lots of wind to blow them sideways across the parking lot. We rushed home so the boys (both of whom normally dash towards the door every chance they get) could have a chance to play in the snow. But apparently my little guys belong in Texas, where it rarely gets below 50 degrees.....we tried going out twice, and both times we were back inside within three minutes! They just weren't happy being so cold, and they weren't very impressed with the huge white chunks falling out of the sky.

So instead of just sitting at home, I packed them back in the car and we drove around for about an hour. I bought some Exxon coffee (my favorite....half coffee and half cappuccino) and both of the boys slept while I enjoyed the snow. It accumulated quite a bit this morning, but it stopped snowing before noon, and the snow slowly melted on the ground. It snowed again later in the afternoon for a few hours, but we didn't get any accumulation out of it.

I heard on the radio that this is only the 34th time in Houston's history that we've had snow. And today was the earliest it's ever snowed here. And.....tonight it's supposed to be 25 degrees, which will break the record low for Houston (for this date). So much for global warming, right? Oh wait, excuse me.....now it's conveniently called "climate change," to give them an excuse for when the weather does silly things like actually get colder instead of warmer!

Tonight for dinner we made chicken nuggets and french fries (not from scratch, just a basic frozen meal). We usually have a fast meal like this once a week, and tonight Dean did all the work while I was trying to get other things done. Grant and Drew both just love this meal....it's (sadly) just about the only time I can get them to eat the same thing as we're eating! As we sat down for dinner, Grant took a few bites and said, "This is really yummy. Daddy's a good cooker."

Then later he was putting together the extension pieces for our vacuum (very gross, I know!), and he put three of them together to make a very long stick. He said, "this is called my new invention." Then he'd look through it like a telescope, and he pretended he was shooting with it. I guess we're getting into the imaginative years!