You all are so cool. I have my homework for the winter! And just as I was hoping; I have a wide variety of different types of literature to choose from! Well rounded, indeed, I will be!

So, if you haven't had a chance and still want to, please feel free to send me a list of books I should read. As I told a friend this morning, I'm looking for your top 5 desert island reads. Books that will make me a more well rounded person.

Special thanks to those of you who provide book reviews on your website and sent a list anyway. Cause you know I can be just that lazy, can't I?

Well, it happened.

Little Boy knows the truth about S-A-N-T-A.

Had to happen some time - and this seems to be the age where we start putting two and two together and coming up with five.

I went shopping and to a movie with my mom Saturday and they wrapped my Christmas present while I was gone. Apparently, Hubband was looking for appropriate boy-to-his-mom paper and coming up empty. Then Little Boy comes up with this one.

"Why don't you use that roll of paper under Big Boy's bed?"

This being the S-A-N-T-A P-A-P...Santa Paper.

One would think this would be an easy bluff, and it would, if not for the fact that Hubband had already made the mistake of wrapping some of this year's presents in LAST year's Santa Paper. He thought the boy wouldn't know. Ten minutes later we were explaining that Santa shops at Hallmark, too, because elves only make toys. They don't make the wrapping paper.

He's 9 1/2. He wasn't buying that for a second.

Then, when he found the other paper, the Hubband just thought it was time.

He cried, a little.

And I'm not supposed to know. He doesn't want me to be upset. Big Boy was the same way. Pretending he wasn't in on the ruse for a couple of extra years so as not to upset his mother.

They know. They know we hate for them to grow up. And this is the beginning. This is the part where they find out that their parents have lied to them for years. And if their parents can lie to them about this, what else might they be lying about?

I have much to do tomorrow. Little Boy's annual whole-school-going-to-a-movie-field-trip. I am chaperoning. (I just know that's spelled wrong.) We're seeing "Monsters, Inc." That's fine, because even though we've seen it we haven't seen it with the "outtakes".

I have to admit, I cannot stand spending a lot of time at Little Boy's school. It's the claustrophobia thing. All those little people screaming and running and pushing and shoving - they're like lemmings. That's okay if they're my lemming, but when they're not it's kind of icky. So I try to volunteer for at least one thing a year. And this is my thing - especially since this year we don't have to ride the bus with the kids! We're going to meet them there.

Last time I chaperoned this trip my son had to pull me aside and ask me not to be so mean to his friends.

When Big Boy was little I chaperoned a trip to Meadowbrook Hall for his school. I was in charge of him and four other 10 year old boys...touring a three story historic mansion filled with priceless antiques. The tour was dreadfully boring until one kid woofed all over the Persian in the guest chambers. Then it was pretty much a free-for-all. They didn't care what we did as long as we did it outside!

That was the trip where we got almost all the way back to school and then got the call that our bus had left without one of the kids. (Not mine! I came with the ones that brought me!) It was very funny.

Tonight we went shopping for Teacher Presents. My son had some very specific ideas, most of which would have bancrupted me or involved more detailed knowledge of his teachers than I ever hope to have. He is a very generous and considerate gift giver. His teacher lost her Palm Pilot this year and he wanted to buy her a new one. And that was one of the cheaper things he came up with.

He has five teachers. His actual teacher, the teacher's assistant, the special reading teacher (all of which he sees every day), his art/music teacher and his gym teacher. We ended up with some pretty good gifts without spending much. (I love that he wanted to get his teacher a foot massager so we got a little fancy pedicure kit that includes a hand held one. It's perfect for her because she's on her feet all day and I rarely see her in anything but sandals!)

Tomorrow, after the movie, I have to come home and wrap all of the presents I haven't wrapped: Hubband's, Big Boy's and Little Boy's. My back should feel really good!