the santa list

Every year we are fortunate to be able to take T to my work's Christmas party for employees's children and grandchildren. Held early in December, there are gingerbread cookies to decorate, a bouncy castle, face painting and food (glow-in-the-dark mac and cheese, chicken nuggets, carrot sticks and potato chips). But of course, the main attraction is Santa. The children line up in age and get to sit on Santa's knee for a photo op and then they are hustled off and given a present from Santa's elves. Two year's ago, my photo's feature a screaming, stiff T. He wouldn't go anywhere near Santa that year. Last year, T sat on my lap, while I perched on the arm of Santa's chair but he leaned as far away from Santa as possible but still managed to put in a request for "Thomas videos and trains".

What a difference a year makes. T has been waiting for this for months. He's had his list since August and regularly drags it out and shows it to everyone (at church, at school, anywhere he has a chance to ). D printed out the list, after T wore out his small catalog that came with a toy tractor he got last Christmas. So this year's wish list includes

- earthmover
-dumptruck with long dump body
-concrete mixing truck
- paver
- road grader
-steam roller
-quarry truck
-snowplow
-low bed with a track backhoe

Lately he has added
- logging truck with grapple hook
-crane
-two black racing cars with batteries
-forklift
-skidsteer

Last week, I asked him if he wanted to go to my work Christmas party and his yelled answer was "is SANTA going to be there?"

When I said I thought Santa was going to drop in, he said "I'm going to bring my list!!". Oh dear. This should be interesting. I've already talked to Santa and told him how excited T was to see Santa and show him his list. I'm still trying to get T to give me his top 3 picks to get from Santa because the elves at the North Pole are so busy making toys for all the boys and girls everywhere around the world and Santa has to fit all the toys in the sled to go around the whole world so probably Santa will only be able to deliver 3 construction trucks.

At this point, thankfully, T doesn't seem to be remembering the bulk of his previous presents from Santa, last year's big art easel and spider web bean bag chair and the previous year's big train table.

Meantime, I played Santa's helper today by wrapping gifts for the party. As it is less than a month to the big day, I'm easing myself into getting into the spirit. A christmas CD in the car, this week. Next week the advent calendars come out - T's chocolate one and a quilted one I made when T was a baby. When I get that out, I might start with the door hangers as well. Have to do it slowly so as not to trigger D's Scrooge reflex!

construction up close

T has had some very exciting moments recently. One day last week we came home to find a road grader (rogator) in front of our house. T was so excited. He couldn't get out of his seat fast enough to go and have a closer look. "Wook, mummy - a rogator! At our house!" (The reason that the road grader was parked in front of our house is that they have been replacing a major water pipe on the street above ours and for weeks we have been driving past the backhoe parked at the end of that street. Paving happened yesterday.) He had to take D out to look at the rogator as well, and they went up and looked up close at the backhoe. The grader was gone the following day. Oh dear!

Last Friday, D took T for a visit where his Uncle M works - they build and service trucks and buses so T had a wonderful few hours climbing all over trucks and getting completely filthy!

Sunday, after visiting the market, having brunch with a friend, heading out to the park for T to dig and swing and doing a quick swing through the grocery store, we came home to find an asphalt paver parked on our street. So we had to go investigate the paver up close, to discover that there were two police cars also parked on the street. We never did find out why as they left shortly afterward. T then had to take D out to look at the paver when he got home from work. They also discovered two big steam rollers being unloaded and parked around the corner.

Yesterday morning we watched the paver move up the street and head off to do paving on the next street up. While the paver was moving away, a truck moved in front of our house and unloaded a small roller. T got to watch before heading off for preschool. As we headed home from daycare, we saw a big truck down the hill. On investigation, this proved to be a big low loader being loaded with a big orange Hamm steam roller and the road grader. So we and another mum and her two boys, watched the equipment being chained up on the loader and the ramp going up before the driver waved to the boys and headed up the hill in the big, yellow, Peterbilt cab and low loader. So T has more truck and construction equipment stories to tell today at preschool!