Subject: Samantha and Christopher update
Date: Tue, 05 Jun 2001 15:41:13 -0500

Well, it has been a long time since I have sent out an update ... so I
apologize as this is a little long. As always, if you wish to be
removed from my Mommy Brag mailing list, e-mail me and it will be done.

Samantha completed Kindergarten at Holy Family Catholic School last
Thursday. It went by soooo quickly, I can hardly believe it! She is
going to Jourdan-Bachman Pioneer Farm summer camp this week. Next week
will be Vacation Bible School at Bethany (I'm teaching 2-year-olds ...
what was I thinking??) and the week after that will be soccer camp, and
then a weekend at Corpus Christi beach with my parents, brother Phillip,
Aunt Linda and cousin Mindy and her kids. Starting in July, we are
going to have a little enforced boredom around our house. Pioneer Farm
is a living history museum that recreates farm life of the 1880's. The
campers dress in period costume and do things that children of the
1880's might have done. Today, they gathered eggs. Unfortunately,
rumor has it that the cow has a new calf so the kids won't get to milk
her this week. This afternoon (camp is from 9-noon) we started reading
"Little House on the Prairie". True to form (she is a sensitive soul),
Samantha was sobbing at the end of Chapter 2 when it appeared that the
good watchdog Jack had drowned in the river. This was right after I had
explained to Samantha that this was a real story of things that really
happened to the author of the book, so I couldn't even pull out the
"it's only pretend" explanation to make her feel better. We read on to
Chapter 3, at the end of which, Jack appeared in the camp much to the
delight of Laura and Mary and their Ma and Pa ... at which point
Samantha started jumping up and down on the bed and screaming YEAH! So
much for getting Christopher down for his nap (sigh); he was almost
asleep at that point. It guess it will be a no-nap day.

Speaking of books, boy do you have to be careful what you read to your
children! Yesterday, I took Christopher to the doctor. He has croup.
Anyway, while we were waiting, I read the book "Green Eggs and Ham" to
him. You'd think that Dr. Seuss would be a safe bet. Well, not so.
Christopher is a little train fanatic. And, in "Green Eggs and Ham",
Sam I Am tries to convince the protagonist that he should try green eggs
and ham on a train. Eventually, the train crashes into the water.
We've read that book to Samantha at least 50 times and she never worried
about what happened to the train ... but Christopher was distraught
because the train went under the water and nobody pulled it out. He was
only distracted away from the plight of the train by the entrance of the
pediatrician into the room. Dr. Guerrero was very understanding about
Christopher being so upset by the train and explained to him that he was
sure they pulled the train out of the water after they polished off
those green eggs and ham. (Have I ever mentioned how great I think our
pediatrician is?)

As I mentioned, Christopher is a total train fanatic. I think we have
checked out every book about trains that the library has at least once.
The amazing thing to me is that Christopher remembers where we got them
off the shelf. He will run to the shelf of the library where we
previously found a book about trains and stand there and point at the
books yelling "TRAIN TRAIN TRAIN". Also, we now have enough Brio/Thomas
wooden track to start at the front door, go down the hallway, through
the family room, into the dining room, through the living room and back
to the front door in a large track. Setting all that up and playing
with it is one of Christopher's favorite activities. We recently
received a "Percy" engine in the mail (Yoplait Yumsters Yogurt had a
special offer - a car for $1.00 with two box tops - a very good deal!)
and it was very cute to see Christopher introducing his new Percy engine
to all of the other engines. I was in the other room watching him hold
up Percy and Toby and say "Percy, Toby ... Toby, Percy ... and then they
kissed, and then he went on to Thomas, Rusty, James, Toad, Trevor,
Terence, etc. For the uninitiated, there are a series of stories by Rev
Awdry about Thomas the Tank Engine and his friends. It used to be a
show on PBS, and now there are videos available as well as wooden track
and cars. Christopher is addicted. It all started last November when
we checked a Thomas the Tank Engine video out of the library.
Christopher was sick that week so I let him watch a lot of television
and he watched "Rusty to the Rescue" over and over and over and over and
over and over and over and over again. He cried bitterly when we
returned it to the library. Since he was still sick, Samantha and
Stephen went to the store and bought him a Thomas video, which he also
watched repeatedly, We now have quite the library of Thomas videos and
books and toys and coloring books. We even have Thomas the Tank engine
crayons in the shape of trains, of course!.

One thing that Samantha learned at Kindergarten was how to read. She is
reading Level 1 and Level 2 early readers. We are so proud of her! Of
course, in an effort to encourage her emerging reading skills we are
always getting new early readers either at the book store or the
library. The trouble with early readers is that they are so short you
get through them very quickly! The other day, we were on our way home
from the book store. We had purchased a new early reader book for
Samantha ... and of course, that means that Christopher got a new
picture book, too. Samantha was in the back seat, reading her new book
out loud to us. Christopher was in the back seat with his book,
"reading" out loud to us also. He has to try to do everything that his
"Sissy" does. It doesn't matter to him that she is six and he is two.
And never mind that we couldn't understand a word that he was saying, he
was intent on his task, pointing at the pictures and being very
expressive!

I've attached two pictures that were taken in the bluebonnets in early
April. We got permission from the photographer, Donna Moore Photography
(512-335-4277), to scan them in and put them on the internet. One of
these days, Stephen will add them to his web page. They are in JPEG
format.

The pictures were taken right before Easter. For Easter, we all flew
out to South Carolina to spend an extended weekend with Stephen's
family. Everyone ended up coming except for Stephen's brother, Brett,
who lives in Arlington. Christopher was funny on the airplane. He had
been on airplanes before, but he didn't remember. We had seats with all
the same number row, but the rows didn't line up on the plane so Stephen
and Samantha were across the aisle and in the row behind Christopher and
I. Christopher was all strapped into his carseat and the airplane had
just pulled away from the gate when I explained to him that the airplane
was going to taxi to the end of the runway and then the pilots were
going to rev the engines real loud and then we were going to take off
and fly in the air to see Grandma and Poppa. Christopher's eyes got as
big as saucers when I mentioned the part about flying in the air and he
started screaming "OFF OFF OFF". I told him that the only way to get to
see Grandma and Poppa was to fly in the air. He thought about it for a
minute ... queried me with "Poppa, fly, Poppa?", I nodded, he mulled it
over and then started screaming "OFF OFF OFF" again. He clutched my
shirt and held on for dear life and didn't let go until he finally fell
asleep. Somehow, I think he would have liked it better if we had taken
the train!

Take care and have a nice day!
- Tana Reeve (a.k.a. Mommy)