Maturity

I've always marveled at watching the boys grow and mature. When they were small there were such huge accomplishments in their abilities. Those large, noticeable achievements don't occur very often now, but they continue to grow inside. Their thought processes and decisions show signs of growth as well as signs of reversion to immaturity. Most of these incidences are not memorable, but just a small sign that our boys are growing up. Well, over the holidays we had two very memorable happenings in regard to their maturity.

1) To much of our family's and friend's dismay we chose to never 'do' Santa in our house. We always told the boys that Santa was a game each family played differently and that the origins of Santa are from Saint Nicholas, a man who secretly gave gifts to help out the poor. We explained to them that we like to play 'Santa' and that they can as well anytime they want. They have always known this and still thoroughly enjoyed Christmas and their secret 'Santa' gifts. This year, the three of them decided to play 'Santa' without Andy or me knowing about it. When I went to fill their stockings on Christmas Eve I found Andy's with some things already in it and mine full. I didn't look and left it alone until Christmas morning. The boys were excited and had a great time opening their stockings, but they could hardly wait for me to open mine. As I did all they talked about was how they had been sneaking things into it for the previous two weeks. I found so many thoughtful and wonderful treasures in my stocking this year. Conner bagged up some of his Legos for me to assemble in my own fashion (they all know I love Legos), they collected chocolate Kisses from the house and put them in. I got some Pokemon cards and even a dollar bill, plus many other trinkets they decided to part with and then a sweet note that each of them took part in writing telling me what they loved about me. They had such joy in getting to participate in the whole 'Santa' gift giving and I don't think I've ever received a better stocking. They still talk about how stealthy they were in getting things into our stockings and love that we had no idea. They really caught the joy of giving this Christmas.

2) Tegan looks forward to the New Year's Eve party each year starting on January 1st and this past year was no different. He loves a good party, with lots of food and fun and it's even better when he gets to stay up super late. We left for L.A. on the 27th so we could spend New Year's with my mom's family. The boys played hard leading up to the 31st and had a great time with their cousins on the beach. People started arriving for the New Year's Eve party around 5pm. These were people in addition to the 18 of us family already at the house. A live band came and there was plenty of food. It was a party in every sense of the word. The little cousins (6 kids, ages 6,7,8,9,10 and 11) had a great time running free, from the bonfire on the beach, to the buffet line, to listen to the music and back to playing their games. I was pretty tired following the previous few days and decided to head to bead around 9:30 (I know, party-pooper, but I just couldn't do it this year - Andy, Riley and Conner represented our family well). Just before 10pm Tegan came into the room and asked if it was okay if he got in bed too. After getting over my initial shock I said of course, but why???? He said he was tired and really wanted to enjoy his day on the beach the next day. I certainly couldn't argue with that logic seeing as he has heard that more than a few times from us. We did ask him if he was sure and he said yes. He and I had a good night sleep and he had a full day on the beach the next day.

On a different note, while we were all playing Bananagrams (think speed Scrabble) last night I challenged the boys on several of the words they played. Each time they not only knew it was a word, but could give me the definition. At one point I looked at Tegan's words and said, "I don't think 'sot' is a word." He replied, "Yes, it is. A sot is a habitual drunkard." Where our 11-year-old learned that I'm not sure, but he was absolutely correct.