WOWEE CHRISTMAS CAME AND WENT AND BOY WAS IT FUN

I feel like I need to do catchup on all the stuff that’s been going on since I last posted. Obviously, Christmas came and went. It was really wonderful. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Last Friday I got to thinking about the weekend and decided I didn’t really want to be bothered going to a WW meeting Saturday morning, so I went to one close to my work during lunch. I had a very exciting loss. The bad side of course is the last week has been all Christmasy and staying at home and generally I do rather poorly during holidays and also when I’m at home. So today and tomorrow I’m really trying to get back on track to hopefully maintain that loss, or at least not gain it ALL back. Guess we’ll see Saturday morning.

Saturday morning (Christmas Eve Day!) Ethan and I went out to do some errands and get the Christmas present for James that I had inadvertently not ordered. Ethan was happy that it was a copy of Jarhead on unabridged CD, and thus, he got to play with the Thomas trains at Barnes and Noble for a little bit.

We had a pleasant afternoon making cookies (Chocolate Crinkles) for Santa and playing with the kids. Then night fell, and after waiting an hour to make sure everyone was asleep, the Great Christmas Eve Tryst began. You know, the tryst that every parent makes with their spouse on Christmas Eve, the tryst of putting together all the things that need to be put together, wrapping the presents that still need wrapping, getting everything down under the tree, and NOT forgetting to eat or at least put away the cookies and milk for Santa (we forgot last year. Luckily no one noticed). We were pooped by midnight. James did the brunt of the putting together work however. Maybe next year we should do it earlier, LIKE I SUGGESTED WE DO several nights before. Ahem. Not that I’m bitter or anything. It’d just be nice to have a relaxing Christmas Eve.

Christmas morning I was half awake when I heard the click of Ethan’s door opening and closing as he made his way to the bathroom. After I heard the toilet flush, I propped myself up to check out our door to make sure he didn’t go down the stairs. He started to, but I called him and he came running in and did a whole running flying tackle thing onto our bed. Well, it SEEMS like he did, but he had to climb up the bed first and THEN he did the flying tackle thing over to the head of the bed, where we were. He snuggled in with us for a while while we waited for any signs of life from Jocelyn, and then we all made our way downstairs for Christmas.

It was at this point I realized that we only had like 10 minutes on the tape in our camcorder, as I taped the kids coming into the living room and seeing the little tikes play kitchen that was all set up.

James looked everywhere for more tapes but none were to be had, so I stopped rolling tape and we switched to the camera instead. While I’m disappointed, because when I’m old and they’re all grown I know I’m going to want to see this and FEEL the excitement of the 3 and 1 year olds on Christmas morning. Photos are always nice, but video is better for really feeling it. BUT on the other side, it’s hard to enjoy Christmas when you have to pay attention to the camera. I think maybe setting it up in a corner on a tripod might be the way to go next year. Of course, that’s only if we actually HAVE A TAPE TO TAPE IT ON. Later on we discovered we did not have any AAA or C batteries in the house. I scrounged some out of other older, and thus not important toys to put in the new toys. However, given the amount of toys that were opened, the ratio to those needing batteries and those which came with batteries already installed was actually pretty good.

It was a nice Christmas morning. Not really marred by the fact that the cinnamon rolls I made didn’t turn out at all. I made them the night before, put them in the dish, and then covered with saran wrap and stuck them in the fridge to bake the next morning. They just didn’t seem to want to get “done”, each time I pulled them out they were still doughy. Next year I’m not killing myself making cinnamon rolls from scratch, we’ll just buy the damn things and heat them up for Christmas morning. In my family, we always had homemade bran date muffins, which sounds nasty, but actually was super yummy. But not as yummy as cinnamon rolls, so I cast my own family traditions to the wayside to go with James’ family traditions. Cough. Hey, yumminess wins, what can I say.

POST-CHRISTMAS EVENTS

Monday was a day off of work for both of us, but Tuesday and Wednesday James went back to work while I stayed home, and now today (Thursday) and tomorrow, I work while James stays home. Jocelyn’s day care provider is on vacation this week, thus the staying at home. And while Ethan’s school is open, if Jocelyn is home might as well have Ethan home also. It has been really nice staying home with them. I don’t know if this JUST happened, like it FEELS like it happened, or it’s been gradual and I just haven’t noticed, but Jocelyn is just becoming such a sweet little PERSON. (This is where I probably will launch into Cute Kid Stories, just so you are warned.) She understands so much of what we’re saying, and while she doesn’t string more than 2 words together yet, she is starting to really get this communication thing down and is so pleased with herself for doing so as well.

I remember when Ethan was her age and was just starting to talk a lot, his stock phrase was, “Maybe later.” – And WHAT A BLESSING that it was, because you do not know HELL until you have to take away a toy or try to explain why you can’t go to the bookstore and play with the train table there and then put up with the fit that ensues. With Ethan, he just seemed to latch onto that concept, that sure, I may not be able to do it now, but there is always later, and he was always saying, “Maybe later!” to my, “Not right now,” and oh what a boon that was.

Well, Jocelyn’s stock phrase is definitely, “That’s better.” She says it all the time, whenever anything happens that pleases her. She is on the floor, “Up peas! Up peas!” and I pick her up, and she looks around and states, “Dat’s better.” I am really drilling the manners thing into her. It was only recently that she started to actually say, “Please” instead of just throwing a fit when she wanted something, and I try to NOT give her whatever it is she wants, until she communicates that she wants it. This makes for some unpleasant times if she doesn’t want to say it, but would rather throw herself on the floor with the Jocelyn Volume turned all the way up to “Burst Eardrums,” but generally, it seems to be working out well.

CUTE KID STORIES OTHERWISE KNOWN AS MIGHT AS WELL GET THIS UNDER THE PROPER HEADING ALREADY

Here is a list of cuteness I have observed or participated in recently:

• Jocelyn has an intolerance to dairy. She gets all snotty and sickly if she has milk proteins. Ethan was the same way, but outgrew it by the time he was 18 months old. Jocelyn still hasn’t outgrown it, and as such, has soy milk instead of cow milk. So, it’s fairly important that she not drink out of Ethan’s sippy cup. We let Ethan have soy milk whenever he wants. Anyway, so in the sippy cup department, we have purple and pink cups and lids, as well as green, blue, yellow, and one ghastly orange cup. So being a girl, of course we give Jocelyn some purple and/or pink in her cup and/or lid so we’ll be able to know which one is hers. I have never been all that much of a pink sort of person, and I’m always grumpy when I get her cup ready for the day. I mean really, she should have blue if she wants! Or yellow! Who are these nazis who decide what colors are girly and which are not??! Ahem. Anyway. So the other day, I got her a purple cup and purposefully put a blue lid on it. It’s got purple in it, right? Right! Good enough, dammit!So, the morning goes on, and I catch Jocelyn picking up her (full!) cup, and walking over to Ethan. “Here, Ethan.” I try to correct her, and tell her that it’s HER cup, but she will have nothing of it, and keeps “giving” Ethan the cup. She apparently totally knows which colors are hers and which ARE NOT, and she will not bring cup to lips that do not have pink or purple lids, by george!
• Still on the sippy cups, but different story. Jocelyn loves to pick things up and bring them to you. Even if you didn’t want them. It’s something to do with this age. Also interesting, it’s the same age that she would rather pick something up herself rather than take it from your hand. Case in point, I had a bread stick and broke some of it off and offered it to her, to an immediate protest of, “NOOOOOOOO!” – but when I laid it on her plate in front of her, she picked it right up and crammed the entire thing in her mouth. Ain’t development kooky?

  Anyway. What was I talking about? Oh yeah! So Jocelyn picks up Ethan’s cup and brings it over to him. Ethan is otherwise engaged and didn’t particularly care if his cup was brought to him or not, and barely notices. Jocelyn puts the cup on the couch in front of him and turns to face him. “Dankooo” (jocelyn-speak for “thank you”) she says to him. “Dankoo!” She repeats. “DANKOOOOOOOOOO!!!!” She says again, until I realize that she is WAITING for him to say thank you! She is DEMANDING IT! “DANKOOOOOO!!!!” she hollers at him again, and I have to give Ethan a gentle, “Tell her thank you for crying out loud!” which he does and then she grins and trots merrily off. It was pretty funny.

• Especially when Jocelyn was a baby and couldn’t do any talking for herself, I’ve often referred to her to Ethan, as “our girl”. She would roll over, and I’d say to Ethan, “What is our girl DOING!” to get him engaged in the situation. It has dropped off more and more as she’s grown older and I’ve just used her name instead. The other day, Ethan had come downstairs after waking up from nap time and was playing with his train. Sounds of “HI! HI!” started to emanate from the baby monitor connected to her room. Ethan said to me without looking up from the train, “It sounds like our girl is awake, Mommy!”
• I bought a new plastic bin with a lid to keep Ethan’s GeoTrax train stuff in. I bought an extra one cause I thought it was especially nifty and knew we could use another one for something somewhere. So I brought them in from the car when I bought them and they were hanging out in the family room for most of the day yesterday. The bin height is exactly at crotch level for Jocelyn, which means she can climb into it fairly easily. Ethan was climbing in and out of one of them immediately, so Jocelyn decided to give it a try as well. She climbed in and out of that bin for EASILY a half hour, totally involved in the process of swinging her leg over and bracing herself and then getting her other leg in and sitting down. Then standing up and doing it all over again.

  Even more amusing is even AFTER she’s done it 20 or so times, she started to get all anxious at that point when she has placed one leg over, and her foot hasn’t quite touched the bottom of the bin and she starts to feel all, “oh no i MIGHT lose my balance and why was i doing this in the first place????!” and starts to “Uh! Uh! Uh!” about the situation until there we go, her foot hits the bottom of the bin and her hands are firmly placed on the bin’s sides and then she’s in (“Dat’s better.”) and she lowers her little bottom down and kind of slides until she’s almost laying down inside the bin. Then she looks over at me and says, “HI! Mommy! HI! LOOK! FEETSIES! HI!” and then temporarily freaks out as she tries to get upright again even though she has already done it successfully the last 30 zillion times without any help, manages to get up, and then does it all again another fifty zillion times.

• Ethan doesn’t quite know the meaning of some words, despite parental issued corrections. He will interchange other words for the actual word he means. In his head, it means what the other word means.
  • “Last night” is code for anything that happened in the past.In addition to this, I think he thought that nap time was actually nighttime, and after nap time it was a new day. He loves to get dressed, and he usually comes down from nap time in a new set of clothes, even when I tell him he doesn’t need to change clothes. So sometimes he’ll make a reference to “Last night” when he actually means “this morning”. It’s actually a little scary, because he thought that he was actually staying overnight at his school, with the whole nap time = nighttime = new day thing. This is how I actually realized his misconception. It’s tough, because everything in the past is already “last night”, but he referred to something as “yesterday” and when I tried to correct him, he was really adamant and to explain, told me that it was before nap time, therefore, yesterday. We’re working on correcting this issue.
  • “Anything” actually means “nothing” or sometimes, “something”. Same thing for “anywhere” and “nowhere”.

    James: “Whatcha looking for Ethan?”
    Ethan, all trying to be sneaky and hide his true objective: “Anything.”

    Amy: “Where did your hot dogs go?”
    Ethan: “Anywhere! – Just kidding mommy, they’re in my tummy!”

• That last example reminded me of something Ethan did once. It was a while ago (like, probably over 6 months ago) but I believe it went something like this:

  Mommy: Where did your dinner go?
  Ethan: It went in my mouth, and down my throat, and into my tummy!
  Mommy: It sure did!
  Ethan: And then it went down my legs! Into my toes!
  Mommy: It did not!
  Ethan: It did too! And then it went to my bottom and I poop it out!
  Mommy: Well at least that part is right.

  I belive at this point, Daddy pointed out that if you get technical it DOES go to his legs and his toes and everywhere.

• Last night it was my turn to put Jocelyn to bed, and they had had baths just before. I had Jocelyn in her room, and James was still getting Ethan out of the tub and bundled into a towel. We heard him pull the plug in the tub, and could hear the gurgling water going down the drain noises. Jocelyn heard it, and stopped what she was doing to sing, “BYE BYE POOP!! BYE BYE WEE!”

On Tuesday, I took down the tree. FIrst of all, it was not a good tree to begin with. It was CROOKED.

I never did post about the day that it FELL OVER due to it’s crookedness and *cough* our inability to get it into the stand straight. So one morning it totally just fell over. Also, I let it go dry for too long and once that stump gets all dried out no amount of watering is going to get moisture to those needles and if they’re dry they fall off and that’s that. So I was looking at our sad tree, no presents underneath anymore to direct one’s attention there, and no presents to cover up the MASSES of needles that had fallen off. So with some “help” from the kids, we stripped it of ornaments and lights, and I hauled it into the garage to await trash day. It took my three separate vacuumings to get all the needles up, because about 3 bucketfuls had dropped in the de-decorating of the tree. Plus tons of itty bitty branchlets that were too big to just vacuum up and therefore had to be picked up by hand. The kids actually were a very good help at picking those up and putting them in the trash. Ethan used his new garbage truck to “collect” them and then “dump” them into the trash.

So our tree is down, which makes more room for GeoTrax Train Setups Extraordinaire! I took some action shots.

The timeless “My Little Pony On The Tracks” dilemma.

I think I’ve inflicted enough word-pain on anyone reading this today, so I will stop. It was a nice holiday. This weekend, I may send out year-end cards. If I remember.

– amy brings her face close to yours and gives you a great big “MMMMMMMMMWAH!!!!”