“Call me Gumbo”

I am sitting in the livingroom with Tyler in the early hours of Sunday morning. Tyler came in to wake us up and Toby told him that he needed to go back to bed..that we were all sleeping in this morning. Well Tyler took that as a great personal insult and left our room sobbing. I told Toby that I would get up with Tyler so he could sleep a little bit longer. I found Tyler in his room crying. “Why doesn’t anyone want to be with me?!” he cried. I tried to explain that it wasn’t anything personal, Daddy just really needs to sleep in.

We went into the livingroom and I put in the movie Dumbo. He had never seen it before and loved it. He thought baby Dumbo was so funny. When the movie was over he told me that he wanted to change his name. “Momma, from now on call me Gumbo!”

Tyler playing with his Tonka truck in the dark

Yesterday was spent getting things done around the house in the morning…wrapping gifts and cleaning. I never realized how much my kids thought my life revolved around cleaning until I overheard a discussion between Rusty and Tyler. I told the boys that I was going to be going out with girlfriends in a few days for a “Mommy’s night out.” Tyler said that he wanted to come. I explained that it was just for moms. As the boys walked away I heard Rusty say to Tyler..”Tyler, you don’t want to go anyway. All they do is talk about cleaning.” 🙂 Yep, my favorite subject to discuss with girlfriends..how to remove stubborn spots.

Rusty and Tyler in their Christmas PJs

In the afternoon Tyler had his monthly visit with the psychiatrist. It went well and was a quick and easy visit. When everyone was back home it was time to get dressed and ready for our church Christmas party. The theme was” The Polar Express.” Everyone was to come dressed in PJs. I let the kids wear their new Christmas PJs because their everyday PJs are kind of sad..worn out and much too short. Tyler didn’t want to wear his PJs. Part of the reason he didn’t want to was because he was having too much fun outside to come in and change. A friend of ours gave Tyler some hand-me-down Tonka trucks. He was outside for hours moving dirt from one side of the sidewalk to the other. Even after the sun went down he continued excavating. We finally convinced him to come in and change.

The Polar Express party was enjoyable. When we first arrived you could tell Tyler didn’t want to be there. He sat nicely through dinner and the talent show but there was no enthusiasm. Then it was time for Santa to come out. I thought he would be eager to sit on Santa’s lap because he has been asking me if we could go and visit Santa. It turns out he didn’t want anything to do with Santa. I could tell he was nervous. Instead of waiting in line for Santa he found a friend to run and play with. After that he had a blast! He had so much fun that when it was time to leave he didn’t want to go home. As Toby and I walked around the church gathering up our kiddos we couldn’t find Tyler. We didn’t think anything of it at first but after searching the entire building to no avail we began to panic a little. Rusty ended up finding Tyler outside the building hiding in a dark corner. Evidently Tyler was having fun and didn’t want to leave so he thought if he hid we wouldn’t have to go. Needless to say, we had a nice long chat on the way home about why that is not a good plan!