Breather

With my project done and launched, I could afford to hang out with Mary Poppins tonight. It's been a while since I babysat her. She's not really a baby anymore. With her being a smart, sassy and lovely ten year old, the conversations we have are priceless.

I'm her secret Santa. Every Christmas when they leave town, my job is to sneak into their house and take the cookies and note she left out for Santa. In the last few years, because she is so dang smart, I've had to embellish my effort. It now involves leaving a note in return with "official" stationary, mocked up from whatever Santa website she wrote to and if it's the Mall Santa, I include a picture of him at the top of the letter.

I thought it would be fun to quiz her on whether she still believes in Santa. It was an exercise in keeping a straight face.

In a nutshell, she does not believe in the concept of Santa BUT she believes he has some arrangement with her parents to get into their house because she always makes sure that she's the last one to leave the house when they leave for their trip to make sure it isn't her parents who take the cookies and leave the note AND the freaky thing is that the note is always from the right Santa because his picture is on it and her friend across the street has never gotten a note even which makes it even stranger.

Then she taught me how to play Minecraft, I let her play Blendoku on my tablet and we almost missed her bedtime. She wanted me to read to her and right before I turned the lights out she asked me what Africa was like. It seems the stalling has not been outgrown.