Phone, school, friends

Nolan will now pick up the phone when I am calling - sometimes to say I am on the way home for example- (don't know if he defaults or if they suspect it is me) and says 'Hi Mom, how are you doing? How was work?". His natural mode is clearly politeness but he is experimenting with being a grouchy little beast who shouts, stomps and yells. A learned behaviour by observation, I think- I see that type of stuff from from one of his little buddies- so we are working on it. Last night he had a chat with his grandad in London, and as I walked in to the livingroom I heard Nolan saying, 'Who are you??" and I thought "yikes, who is he talking to, that sounds rude maybe"- but as turns out was a very reasonable question as they hadn't spoken before. I'll show him the photo again (in his bedroom) and see if we can make the connection from phone to person.

Preschool went to a Christmas event- the Festival of Trees at the conference centre downtown, which was a decorated room with many themed christmas trees, and two rows of "village shops" staffed by volunteers (jr high to geriatric) with things for kids to do. We wrote a letter to Santa, fished at a "fishing hole" for presents, decorated a mini tree, personalized a christmas stocking, listened to school choirs, avoided letting him see the ice cream stand and got something in a candy shop - all for a hospital foundation charity. The funniest was a shop with a 3 ft high door where kids could go in with money ("no parents allowed") and buy presents for their Mom, dad etc...I saw ornate "rose" china vases, and bath stuff, toys for siblings through the door...I had no change. I sent him in with trepidation and $20 and told the volunteer at the door he was buying for Mom, Dad and Crissy. He came out with $12.00 and a bag of toys (all dollar store 300% markups) . I said- "umm, that looks like it's for you, sweetie??" "No, the tractor is for you, the giant pen is for Daddy...."

The other interesting thing is he has totally bonded with a little guy in preschool who shares his train obsession and actually held hands with him getting on the bus, which was so cute. In Africa (Zim and Uganda) I was a bit startled that adult friends would show friendship- male-male or female-female- by holding hands, but having experienced it (I was startled when Phoebe held my hand on a tour of campus- but we were having a nice long chat, and I got over the startle) I think it is too bad we don't just do as a 4 year old does and show friends affection like that....

On the other hand, after then exclusively wanting to hang with buddy A, he then felt left out when friends B c and D excluded him on the way back- it wasn't overt or systematic, but he felt dissed. Welcome to politics....