Who is Taz?

Kaylin's teacher does lots of projects involving animals. On the way home from school the other day, Kaylin was asking about Tasmanian devils. I told her what little I know about them and then made a comment that they're nothing like the cartoon character. (Crickets chirping...) My child has NO IDEA who Taz is!!!! She's eight! This kind of blew my mind! We've got Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon and Disney Channel available 24/7 and my child's never seen a Taz, Bugs Bunny or Roadrunner cartoon! I WILL fix this problem!

Gene took the day off work yesterday and we finished our Christmas shopping (other than a Looney Tunes DVD.) We somehow managed to find everything we were looking for at two stores! Logan wanted a police car Transformer we assumed we'd have to go to 18 stores to find. Nope. Toys R Us had it! I've been kicking myself for not buying Kaylin a Tinker Bell DS game back in November because I haven't been able to find one since. Wal-Mart had a dozen. We came home and wrapped (almost) everything. I have a couple more things coming in the mail and haven't bought any candy for the kids' stockings (because I will eat it) but that's it.

I'm still struggling to figure out what to do about Santa Claus. Christmas Eve and Christmas fall on the wrong days of the week this year! Santa usually comes early for us, but my closest day off is the Saturday before Christmas- that's FIVE days early. One or two days might be acceptable, but five? Ugh. I work hard to find the perfect fun stuff to fill the kids' stockings. I want to be there to watch them "open" them! At our house Santa only leaves a couple of small presents and stockings so everything from Gene and me will be opened on Saturday or else Christmas Eve after I get home from work (probably 10 or 11am.) Maybe if the kids KNOW they have to wait for me to get home, Santa can come a day early and everything can be under the tree and opened at once. Santa makes this concession for parents who have to work on the holidays :)

I'm half inclined to just TELL Kaylin there's no Santa, but we're going to Disney World next month and I want her to believe that Tinker Bell leaves her a gift (tooth fairy style) every night if she's good during the day. This little trick has worked wonders for our past Disney trips! The temptation to fight/whine/cry/throw a tantrum is miraculously curbed by a quick threat that Tink is watching and won't leave a box of princess band-aids or a cheap, dollar store Tigger pen if the kids aren't good. (Yes Sarah, Kaylin IS going to be asking Abbey what she got from Tink the night before! You're welcome.)

Oh, and in case you're wondering why I'm only worried about Kaylin finding out about Santa/Tink/Tooth Fairy? Logan has such a completely different personality, I strongly doubt this information will faze him. He'll be perfectly happy as long as he gets a present. For Kaylin, the "magic" means as much as or more than the gift. Logan is opposite.