steveprattfamily.com The adventures of the Pratt family in Vancouver - Steve, Lisa, Cedar, Dawson, and Sandy (the dog).

Cedar lost another tooth tonight and we thought it would be business as usual.  This is tooth #7 to go, so we’ve got a pretty routine down - take a picture of the hole in her mouth, put the tooth under the pillow, wake up and find some money.

Tonight, though, Cedar decided to mix it up a bit.  She wanted to renegotiate the standing agreement with the Tooth Fairy, feeling the standard ‘I take your tooth and give you money’ deal was no longer in her best interest.  She wrote the following letter:

Dear Tooth Fairy,

I would like to keep my tooth.  Please do not take it.

Thanks, Cedar

(I still want the money)

Seriously.

And THEN she told us that because she’s now 6 years old, the tooth fairy should bring her more money than when she was 5.

This is a scary sign - she’s now arguing with creativity and in the second case, REAL logic.  I’m doomed.

Posted under Cedar News

So Cedar turned 6 yesterday.  6!!!  She got loads of great presents, including a watch, a kids camera, and a “Canadian Girl’ doll that she has been desperately craving for close to a year.

Another perk of birthdays in our household is that Sandy always helps to unwrap the gifts…

But the highlight of the big day was her birthday party.  She invited 14 girls, all 5 or 6 years old, to our house for a “Ruby The Red Fairy” party.  For those not in the know, this is a reference to the Rainbow Fairy collection of books about a vast variety of fairies who are constantly being plagued by the dastardly efforts of Jack Frost and his army of half-witted Goblins.

So our house was quickly filled up with Fairies of all colours of the rainbow.  After the girls arrived, Lisa revealed a secret to me - that I had to pretend to be Jack Frost for the duration of the party and, at some point, steal all the presents the kids had brought for Cedar.

It was all VERY funny.  I wrote a note that was quickly discovered - it revealed Jack Frost’s plans to steal all the presents and sent the fairies into a hyperactive panic.  I sent several more notes during the next hour, each one increasingly odd, but getting the girls more and more riled up.

They went over the top when Jack Frost actually ’stole’ all the presents while they were out in the yard playing, although they quickly found them hidden on our front porch.  They TOTALLY lost it when the presents went missing a second time and it took almost half an hour to find them.

However, karma is a weird thing. After all the panic I caused, I got paid back big time.

After we recovered the presents for a second time, we hid them under a blanket so that Jack Frost wouldn’t be able to find them again.   When the kids were in the kitchen eating cake, I moved the presents yet again and hid MYSELF under the blanket.  The kids came roaring in after cake, extremely pumped for the present opening.  One of the kids ripped off the blanket, at which point I popped out and screamed that I was Jack Frost and scared the living hell out of them.

I hopped up in triumph, surveyed the screaming and mad psychosis I’d created, and enjoyed more than a small bit of satisfaction at a job well done.

And then… WHAMMO!

One of the girls ran up and HAMMERED me in the nuts.  HAMMERED.

Fairies win again.  Poor Jack Frost, who hobbled off to find an ice pack.

Posted under Cedar News, Humour

Cedar has recently become obsessed with money.  I think it’s because she’s wanted several toys, including something called a Canadian girl that costs about $100 (!), and we’ve told her to wait until her birthday and Christmas.  She’s become frustrated that she can’t get what she wants exaclty when she wants it and has decided that getting lots and lots of money is the solution to all her problems.  (Scary how early that gets ingrained…).

Cedar and I began bargaining - she wanted me to give her $100 for doing nothing.  I told her that you don’t just get money for free because you want it - you have to earn it.  If she wants money, she has to do something of value, like chores.  I also told her that no matter how many chores she did, I would never give her $100.  Maybe $1.

After about 15 minutes of hard-core negotiations, we came up with a win-win solution yesterday.  Cedar rubbed my feet for 5 minutes and I gave her 65 cents.

The Maggot is infuriated. (She claims its horrible that I paid our daughter money to rub my feet, but I think she’s just jealous that she didn’t think of it first.)

Posted under Cedar News, Children, Humour

This week marked another major milestone for Cedar - the start of Grade One, which also means her first full day at school (including lunch!!!).  Here’s the annual pic with past ones for comparison:

Posted under Cedar News

Cedar is taking a class called PedalHeads this week and Lisa was a bit shocked that they yanked off her training wheels in the first 10 minutes on the first day.  After Cedar narrowly avoiding a tree and then ran directly into a playgym, we were worried. BUT, it’s worked out really well.   Took this video after day 3 and it’s pretty amazing.  Go Cedar!

Posted under Cedar News

Cedar can no longer eat carrots.  She lost the second of her top front teeth on Friday night and the first one hasn’t grown in yet.  LOVE the look of a giant gap in a kid’s mouth!

Posted under Cedar News

Cedar’s school had their spring concert this week.  It was a 2 hour extravaganza featuring a student-written opera, a student written play, dancing and singing.  Being in Kindergarten, Cedar had about 3 minutes of stage time, but it was pretty great.  The class sang a few songs about colours, waving streamers and dressed up as crazy hippies in tie-dye shirts and headbands. 

Posted under Cedar News, Children

Posted under Cedar News, Humour

After about a month of wiggling, jiggling, pulling and yanking, one of Cedar’s top front teeth fell out this week. The other one is not far behind, so soon she’ll probably have enormous difficulty eating apples and carrots.  Good thing she’s not a horse.

Posted under Cedar News

Cedar draws constantly.  We go through a ream of paper a week.  Usually, she draws about 1,000 of the same thing - a princess over and over and over again. 
This week, she started trying to draw a bunch of family members.  Here are her final portraits, plus a recent photo of her subject (although she draws without any reference photos).  I LOVE the phonetic spelling of all our names: Lisa becomes ‘lesu’ (lee-suh), Steve becomes ’sdev’, Dawson becomes ‘dosin’, Kooky becomes ‘coce’ (coo-kee).  Why I am the only one with ears, I don’t know.
And, as for her self-portrait, she nails the spelling of her own name, but the nose is somewhat… er, disturbing.

Posted under Cedar News, Children, Family