For some reason, since last Thursday, Logan does not want to go to school .  We didn’t have much problems leaving the house, but he started telling me during the ride that he did not want to go to school.  He was persistent despite all the fun stuff I mentioned about school, so I just ended up distracting him to change the topic.  When we arrived at school, he became clingy and did not want me to leave.  He even broke out in tears on Thursday and Friday, and one of the teachers had to come over to take his hand to take him so I could leave.  This morning was easier.  While we were in the car, he suddenly mentioned that “Jaime is my best friend….Ian is my best friend too”.  Then I asked him about another of his buddies, Rohan, and Logan replied “Yes, he is my best friend too, and no one else”.  He went on to say “We fight the monsters or any bad people together”.  But as soon as I drove into the parking lot, he said again “mommy, I don’t want to go to school”.  Fortunately, Rohan was just arriving, so Logan got a bit distracted.  When we walked inside, Logan was helpful, taking his lunch bag to his classroom before returning to the courtyard as his classmates were playing there.  But Logan was still clingy, and was insisting to help Connor to his class.  By then, both Jaime and Rohan had been following Logan and trying to get his attention.  I had to remind Logan that his friends wanted to play with him, so he finally said “ok, mommy, bye!”.  Thanks goodness for his best friends being there this morning to help me out.  Here is a picture of them!

     The agenda for yesterday was to pick up and decorate a Christmas tree.  Both boys were high maintenance for some reason which made the event less enjoyable.  We basically picked up a tree pretty quickly at Home Depot and returned home.  Connor was very clingy and got mad easily.  I think he was teething again as he was drooling a lot yesterday and often wanting to put things in his mouth to chew.  He now has 14 teeth; it must be the bottom cuspids trying to come out.  Logan was very moody, maybe too much TV before we left the house in the morning.  He gets into his bad moods easily, and it usually takes lots of talking and waiting for him to be willing to return to do whatever we were doing at the time. 

   I managed to decorate the tree in the late afternoon while Stuart played with the kids.  The boys paid only some attention to the tree, and were excited only briefly when it was setup in the house, however, Connor did try to play with the hanging bulbs.  When Logan was younger he did not bother with the tree nor try to touch it, but we can see it will be a different experience with Connor and we’ll have to keep an eye on him.

     Last night was my work Christmas party at one of the doctors’ house, just as it has been the past few years.  This year we decided to hire a babysitter to take care of Connor so that he could go to bed at his usual time while the rest of us could also have an easier dinner out.  The babysitter got to our house before 6pm, and it did not take long orienting her to the house and Connor’s schedule.  Connor started crying as soon as I handed him to her, but he calmed down quickly and started showing her the toys in the house.

     The rest of us arrived at the party in good time, just right before The Kaos and the Tsaos.  There was a cupcake wars at this party and I was one of the contestants.  After a few days of deliberation and talking ideas with my friends, I had made 2 dozens of chocolate cupcake with chocolate ganache filling and cream cheese frosting.  So as soon as we arrived, I went to the kitchen to set them out.  The other contestants had already brought their cupcakes, and they were beautifully decorated.  I quickly wished that I had spent more effort in decorating them.  But all in all, it was fun entering the contest.  Stuart, Logan and I then walked around the house to say hello to people and to have some hors devours.  At the beginning, Logan just wanted to stay in his seat to have some food, but shortly after, he was willing to walk around with me.  He was quite excited and quite adventurous too, not as shy as he usually is.  Without Connor, having one less kid, I was able to socialize with some of my coworkers before dinner was served.  After waiting a long line at the buffet table, we all sat down together to eat.  Brandon, Peyton, Mckayla, Marcus and Logan all behaved well at the table, but of course, a few of them, like Logan, had to be entertained by an iphone.  After dinner, we had some tastes of a few of the competing cupcakes. By then, we were all stuffed, so we decided to leave the table to walk around and eventually did some dancing.  Logan was having fun walking around near the dance floor, and occasionally joining Stuart and I for some dancing.  Later, he even joined in with Mckayla and I for a quick dance too.  We wanted to be home by 10pm as we informed the babysitter, so we left the party after saying byes and thanks.

     The babysitter had texted me at 8:30pm to inform me that Connor went to bed.  When we got home, she told us that Connor got a bit sad shortly after we left, he looked around the house for us.  But he got over it fine, and was good the rest of the night.  He ate his dinner, drank his milk and went down to bed smoothly after the babysitter followed our usual routine.  Logan was tired and went down to sleep quickly after milk and bedtime reading.  The evening was a big step for us for having a babysitter, and we were glad that it went well and we all had a good time.

     I forgot to blog about this.  A few weekends ago after Logan ended a game of Mario Kart Wii, he suddenly said casually  “Sometimes you lose, sometimes you win”.  He is still learning how to deal with losing, so it sounded like he was trying to teach himself.  Both Stuart and I had to hold back from laughing after hearing that.

    Logan is actually quite good at the game, often winning the first place.  He will call for my attention and says “mom, look! I am on the top!”  Once during this weekend, he suddenly quit a game before it ended.  I don’t usually play Wii, and I am quite bad at driving, but I picked up his game trying to finish it just for fun.  I barely managed to drive the correct direction when Logan said to me “mommy, use the rocket”.  I told him that I did not know how to do that, then he just said “press the button on the back”.  I can’t believe that I am being taught by my 3 year old son already.

     Out of the blue, Logan started calling me “Mom” instead “Mommy” the past 2-3 days.   I tried to convince him to change back, but he is very persistent and only rarely uses “mommy” now.  Since yesterday, he also started using “dad” instead of “daddy” too.  Logan must have picked up this habit at school, and with this change, he now sounds like a big boy.  I really prefer being called “mommy”, but I guess it is going to be a lost cause.  Our boy is really growing up!