I’m proud to say we made it through our first Santa test with flying colors. Of course, it helped that my sister’s lovely children were 100% Santa excited, and my sister is an incredible mother. I have lots of stories about the actual event which I can share later (Sofia the First ruled the day), but my favorite story from our travels to GA happened tonight. First, you need a little background:

While I was away in London, a new habit started at home. Zoe started listening to Cyndi Lauper, then watching a few of her music videos on YouTube, then insisting on watching those at night after Daddy read a book. At first, she was great. She was allowed to watch 2 music videos, then let Daddy know she was done. She did. Then the iPad turned off, and night-night happened without trouble.

Then one night she found a ONE HOUR & TWELVE MINUTE Cyndi Lauper performance video on YouTube… Daddy noticed it was taking a little longer than usual, so he headed back in and sweet Zoe was just watching her 2nd video, Daddy. Needless to say, that one got removed from the list of approved videos.

I’m sure there’s nothing dreadfully wrong with this habit, but honestly, I wasn’t a big fan. First, fewer books = less likely she’ll be interested in reading – in fact, she was tolerating a book just to get to watch the videos. But I let it happen. It’s hard enough on everyone that I travel, so who am I to judge? We also assumed it would fade. It did not.

So I kindly asked my husband if we could make it stop after the new year, once we were a little more back to normal. He agreed, since we both shared the reading concern, then tonight he just decided to break the habit. In his most awesome, laid-back father way, he simply said “Zoe, we’re not going to watch videos anymore. We’re going to read books instead.” I held my breath, waiting for the certain protest.

When she didn’t complain, I added, “Yes, we want to make sure you can read, so you can go to college. You want to go to college, don’t you?”

In her amazing Zoe way she said, “Yes, I want to go to college so I can get married and get a ring. But I hope it’s a smaller ring so it can fit my finger.”

My heart melted, as a parent heart does when a kid says the cutest things and you have one of those indescribable family moments where you look at your husband and smile, knowing life really just couldn’t get better than this. THIS is why we had a kid, what makes it all worthwhile.

So looking my husband in the eye, with my perfect mother voice I added, “When you pick the right man, he’ll know just what to get.”

To which she responded, “I pick Daddy!”

Good choice :)