The crew meets Santy

Yup. We took the boys to meet Santa at a charity event for the local animal shelter. The event was really meant for pets, but you know me, always looking to save a buck. So in theory it seemed like a good idea, make a donation and get a picture with Santa. My lack of foresight never ceases to amaze me. Trying to get two kids and a dog to sit still, smile and look in the same direction is just not feasible. The group was kind enough to give us about 20 shots on a CD - each more ridiculous than the previous. I kinda like them though -they really make me laugh. Like in this one, Banjo is blinking. That's such a human thing to do. Anyhoo Noel was half asleep and on the verge of crying the whole time and Paudie just is scared to death of the big man in red so he wouldn't sit near him. Nor would he take his mittens off.

The last few weeks have been flying by. We had a very low-key Thanksgiving and post-Thanksgiving weekend. P really gave us a run for our money behavior wise. He was such a brat. We took him to see Santa and 3 (elderly) elves jump out of an airplane and parachute into a field by our house - froze for an hour plus. How did he repay us? Well by a complete and utter meltdown of course. Then the next day we froze for 2+ hours at the Christmas parade in Quincy. Again, some really brutal behavior. I had no choice but to bust out our brand spanking new shelf elf. We've been talking the guy up for weeks and finally I decided enough was enough, time to get some reinforcements in for some nice-boy behavior. I put him in the stairwell and when John took P up to bed, as they came around the corner and P spotted the elf... silence. And clinging. And right to sleep. Thank you elf on the shelf!

So Mr. elf, who P named, "tree," has been doing wonders for our little Padraig's temperment. Earlier this week I asked John what would we do after the holidays once Tree is put away. "Threaten to take away all of his new toys" of course. Ah yes - good answer. I never thought I'd parent-by-threat as much as we do, but I also never thought an angel faced pre-schooler would be screaming. "don't be stupid" in my face several times a week. Where does he even get it from I wonder because we may say lots of things that we shouldn't say, and we're working on our language, but we really aren't angry yellers.

We are also working on teaching Paudie how to be charitable. That's a hard lesson to teach we are finding - or rather the concept is lost on P. I think he can't really get his head around the fact that some kids don't have toys. So when he sees us donating to Toys for Tots etc, he really struggles with seeing shiny new toys go unplayed with. He even tries to argue that he too has no toys. He was watching Even Almighty with John Saturday night, which really had him in stiches, and John was trying to explain about God to him. Then when the St. Judes commercial came on with Morgan Freeman P said, "look dad, there's God." I had to bite my tongue to not express my deep down thoughts on where God is or isn't when it comes to children with cancer.

There are a handful of children whose stories I continue to follow in terms of their cancer battles and my heart breaks that the vast majority of them are reaching or have reached the end of the treatment line. To be looked in the eye and told there is nothing further that can be done for your child is... just so wrong in this day and age. We can study life on other planets, transplant practically every organ there is from one human to another, fight pointless wars and so on and so forth but we can't help cure children whose diagnosis stems from (I love this) bad luck. Until my own child was diagnosed with cancer I really thought modern medicine was kicking the ass of childhood cancer. I miss that ignorance.