Christmas with the Arcaro-Burbridges

We used to stop by Tom's house on the way to Ohio to open gifts, but with the kids now, our trip is interminable so we don't have time to stop in the morning anymore. So we started another new tradition of getting together on the weekend before Christmas.

Opening presents.

The aftermath: no one playing with the toys they just got.

Alice eating lunch at the kids' table.

Simon: Two can play at this game, Grandpa!

Mia realizing that Alice wants her to read every book in the house to her.

Nothing sweeter than a sleeping baby.

Solstice Celebration

Since this is the first year Alice is really aware of things, we've put a little more effort into thinking about the holidays and what family traditions to have.  Christmas has presented two main things to think about: Santa Claus and Christmas Morning.  We decided to just be vague on Santa this year.  I said I didn't want Santa to get credit for presents we picked out for Alice, and Zac took the high ground and said he just didn't want to lie to Alice.  So although she is really into Santa, he's just like any other pervasive story book character right now.

Christmas Morning presented a problem because we are always in Ohio for Christmas day, but we wanted to have our own family Christmas, since it didn't really make sense to wrap presents for the kids and haul them to Ohio to be unwrapped then hauled back to NC.  The solution for this year, which may become a sort of tradition, was to celebrate our family Christmas on the winter solstice.  It was a nod to our being atheists, but also it worked out because it was a Saturday.

Before the day, I thought about what traditions we might have and how to make the day special.  Obviously we'd open presents in the morning, but what about the rest?  My main goals were to make the day as fun as possible with none of the normal weekend work like laundry, cooking, and cleaning.

First, I thought of breakfast.  We should have a special breakfast, something we rarely have.  I thought cinnamon rolls would be good, because I love them but never bake them.  The idea was that the tradition would be to make the dough the night before with the kids, and bake them in the morning.  Since this is a rough year and we were planning rather last minute, we decided that cinnamon rolls from a canister would be fine.

I didn't know what to expect for the present opening part.  Alice is very interested in opening presents, but for her birthday six months ago she just opened the first one and wanted to play with it and didn't have much interest in opening the other presents.  So I was prepared for an all-day affair.  Zac also had the good idea that it might set a bad precedent if Alice got to open all the presents under the tree and they were all for her.  So amongst her presents, we also put some for Zac's siblings (to be opened the next day), so that Alice would learn that everything wasn't for her and that she had to look at the name on the present and see if it was for her.  Simon also had two presents.

Since the weather was going to be nice (70s!) I thought it would be fun to go do something outside in the afternoon, but if for some reason it didn't work out, that would be ok.  We picked the North Carolina Museum of Art park for the place to go, since we hadn't taken Alice there in a while.

Then, for the evening, I thought it would be fun to go out to eat.  There is a new restaurant right by our house that I walked by the other evening, and it seemed almost magical that there was a place where other people cooked food for you.  The place just exuded happiness.  I thought it would be so nice to have a day where we didn't have to spend one second preparing supper or cleaning up afterwards.  And, since our family Christmas wasn't actually on Christmas, it didn't seem depressing or sacrilegious to go out to eat.  It seemed like a brilliant idea.

And to end the day, I wanted us to go on a walk that evening to look at Christmas lights.  It seemed a fitting way to honor the season and the darkest day: by looking at lights.

So that was the vision I had for today.  Here is what actually happened:

The kids slept in until about eight, so we were able to get partially ready while they still slept, and then we kept Alice occupied in her crib with some books until we were fully ready.

Here is a video, starting when Alice gets released to come to the living room:


After opening her first two presents, she did a pretty good job staying focused on unwrapping.

Simon watches the present unwrapping action with great interest.

She got two main toys: a marble run and some wooden blocks.  She also got a flashlight, two Thomas books, and a book called Roly Poly Pangolin that I had to read again and again to her all day long.

Simon happily munching on one of his new toys: some plastic keys.

We took a break for cinnamon rolls.  Alice ate about half of hers, but she didn't like the inner most circle because it was "squishy."  She has no idea that that is the best part.  She doesn't seem to have much of a sweet tooth.

Then the kids actually played with their toys for a bit.

Then we headed off to the art museum park to play and enjoy the beautiful weather. I am always really happy that Alice enjoys playing outside so much.

Alice was getting tired, so we drove home and she napped, then played, then Simon napped...it was a very relaxing afternoon.  Then we went to the restaurant, called Banana Leaf.  We could have walked there, but we needed to have the carseat to put Simon in, so we drove.  It was Simon's first time in a restaurant ever, and probably Alice's first time in about 8 months.  We don't eat out much.  The place was busy, which was nice because it was a little noisy and no one could hear us.  Alice did a great job though (compared to previous attempts at eating out with her).  And Simon, as always, was the epitome of a calm, happy baby.  

Alice did a great job waiting for the food, then eating the food.  But she was absolutely thrilled when the waiter brought out the complimentary dessert: ice cream with marshmallows on top!  Zac was pretty happy too.

Simon's first fortune cookie.

It was getting late, but I wanted to acheive the last part of my family Christmas vision: a night walk to see the Christmas lights.  There are two areas in our neighborhood that have a lot of lights, so to save time, we parked near one and then walked to the other and back.  One of the houses has a Thomas the Tank Engine blow-up thing, which Alice loves.  (Zac drives her by there on the way home from daycare sometimes).

All in all, it was a beautiful, perfect, happy day.  I had prepared myself to be stoic if my vision didn't play out as I wanted, but I was quite pleased when everything did happen.  Hopefully this is the start of many happy family Christmas/Solstice traditions to come.

Simon says

Simon hasn't "talked" much yet, but this evening he got quite chatty.  There is a big string of those packing bubbles on the floor, that he appears to be talking to.  A day or two before he watched as Alice jumped on some and popped them, so I think that's what he's talking about.

Morning

Simon is the very picture of equanimity in the morning. 

Meanwhile, Alice is a hot mess. 

White elephant chicken

Simon and Zac playing with a chicken dog toy that Zac got for a white elephant gift today. It has a squeaker in it that Simon liked. 

Alice the red-nosed daughter

Pizza sauce on her nose. 

Let there be sleep

Simon slept from 8:30 pm to 7:30 am. This 11 hour stretch was an incredible new record. We were all happy this morning.

I'm so used to waking up every night that it seems really weird when I sleep all the way through, like the night was so short.  I just fell asleep and then next thing I knew it was 5:50 and my alarm was going off.  I hardly realize the fog I'm in, until one morning I'm not in that fog, and everything is so bright and clear, it's amazing.  I'm almost giddy with energy.  To put this in perspective, I didn't sleep well when I was pregnant, so I can say without exaggeration that I can count on two hands the number of times I've slept through the night in the last year.

Happiness is a warm book

It's moments like this that I wish I could beam back to my younger, anxious self and say, "See, it all turns out OK.  Even better than you could have ever imagined."

Zac took this photo on his phone a couple of days ago, and when I saw it today, I sort of felt like he had captured the best moment of my life so far (no offense graduation, wedding, Namibia, Great Wall of China, Machu Picchu, and all that).  It was my own little photo on the subway moment.  It had been a rough week at work--one where it seemed like there  literally weren't enough hours in each day to do everything I needed to do and I felt I was on the brink of collapse.  But I am trying hard not to let the demands of my job interfere too much with time with the kids, and this photo attests to that.  So although there is technically not a big swirling New York City chaos and rush that this moment stands in opposition to, I see this picture and I know that hovering in the background was a midterm exam that needed made and a pile of papers to grade--my own hustle and bustle that I have completely blocked out so that I could read books with the kids.

Bath toys

Sometimes you just need all the toys in your bath. 

Of beards and chins

We had our annual holiday party with our little group of friends at our house on Sunday afternoon.  We told Alice that morning that we were having a Christmas Party and we started  naming the people who were coming.  She remembered most of them from our "Brunch with Simon" party two months ago.  Her favorite person is Dale, who is great with kids.  Dale and his fiance Kristen helped babysit Alice when we were at the hospital having Simon.  Alice said that Dale could play with her trains.

Luckily, at the actual party, Dale and Kristen showed up first, and Dale visited with Alice while she finished her snack.  Alice was a little shy as more people arrived, but she gradually warmed up.

People brought presents for the white elephant gift exchange, and Alice kept asking, fairly nicely and not-to-whiny if it was time to open the presents yet.  At first I interpreted this as the typical Christmas greed that infests children at this time of year and was a little disappointed.  But after the meal, when it was finally time, Alice opened her presents and she didn't really seem to care about them (Kristen and Dale got her a stuffed lion and a stuffed eagle).  She doesn't really have a good sense of ownership yet, other than that most things are hers when she's choosing which possessive pronoun to use. In reality, she shares quite easily and readily.  So it occurred to me that she was excited about opening presents for the very act of opening the presents and seeing what was inside.  She didn't really want the stuff inside.  She's excited whenever we get a box from amazon, and that's even without the fun wrapping paper.

Plus, the Christmas books at the library were pretty picked over by the time I got there the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, so one of the books having a big impression on her right now is a stupid book about a cat named Splat that wants a big present for Christmas.  So if anyone asks Alice what she wants for Christmas, she just says, "a BIIIIIG present!"

Throughout the evening, she mingled quite well with the guests, enabling Zac and I to actually visit with the guests as well.  She mostly stayed with Dale, but also enjoyed reading books with Robin, coloring with Greg, and dealing cards with Meg, who received a mini black jack table as her white elephant gift.  All of the men at the party except for Zac and Nathan had beards or goatees.  At one point, I saw Alice taking a black crayon and trying to color in Greg's beard.  There was another moment I missed, but that was much commented upon, where Alice apparently reached up and tweaked Rob's beard quite randomly.  It was funny, I suppose, because it was Rob, who feels about children the way I feel about dogs: I don't really understand why other people feel the need to have them, and I don't really like them jumping on me.

The next morning, we were talking to Alice about the party and asking if she had fun.  She talked about playing with Dale, and we helped her remember Meg and Greg's names (since they're a relatively recent addition to our friend circle).  At the end of our review, Alice declared,  "I don't like beards. I like chins."

She likes it!

Alice and I enjoyed a nice breakfast together this morning.  She is eating Life cereal and ate the whole bowl without mess or fuss or videos.  Breakfast has been an ongoing challenge as she will like something for a while and then abruptly grow tired of it. She had earlier asked for oatmeal but then changed her mind and I ate the oatmeal. (Oatmeal is a problem because I have to cook it before I get her dressed so it will have time to cool.) 

We are walking the fine line between giving into the capricious demands of a two year old and treating her like the rational person (who might change her mind) she is slowly becoming.  We usually stick to a plan so she will know that her every whim and demand will not be met.  But the oatmeal looked good and anyway I had made it a bit soupy.  Hopefully I won't come to regret the choice - I certainly didn't this morning.
-Zac

Plop

Because of this page in a book, whenever Alice sees a snowman, she says, "It's warm out. It's head is going to plop off!"

 

This is the winter version of moldy pumpkins, I guess.  I don't know if it's every child, or if Alice is inheriting Zac and my morbid sense of humor, but she really seems to enjoy knowing that things that seem fine now have some inherent doom in them.  I just hope she doesn't have to learn that people die anytime soon.

Morning puzzle

Alice: Don't wake me up! 

Zac: Are you screaming, "Don't wake me up"?  How does that work?

The kids are growing up!

Simon, who hasn't rolled over since the initial roll, rolled over three times today.  The daycare people said he rolled over in his crib and slept on his tummy.

A day or two ago, Alice was in her booster seat unstrapped, but was being extremely wiggly, so Zac threatened to strap her in if she moved out of the seat one more time.  So of course she did, and Zac said, "I'm going to strap you in now."  Alice replied in resignation, "Ok.  I'm not going to cry. Ok."  When the exact same thing had happened the day before, Alice cried a lot.  I'm not sure if she was just in a better mood this time, or if she was really making a conscious decision not to cry.

Alice is also going through a phase where she really, really likes reading books.  We always read her books before bed, but now she wants to read books when we're in the living room too.  She'll often say, "Again!" right after you finish a book.  I remember her going through a similar phase about a year ago when she wanted us to name things in picture books all day long.  I think this must be another language development phase.

Another change that has occurred in the last week or two is that she will try to delay taking a nap or taking a bath (the beginning of the bedtime process).  Up until now, she has been amazingly compliant, and would sometimes even suggest that she was ready for a nap herself.  But now she will say she doesn't need a nap or she doesn't want to take a bath.

Last Sunday during nap time she sat in her crib for two hours and looked at books, and as far as we can tell, she never did nap.  For right now, I'm thinking that was just a fluke.  It can't be possible that she's done with naps yet.

Sometimes when I look at her she seems so grown up.  I want her to stay 2 1/2 forever, because I love this stage so much.  And little Simon, even being about 2 months behind Alice's milestones, still seems to be progressing too fast.

People with older kids always remind me that it goes fast, enjoy every moment. I always reply, "I know!  I am!" And I feel like many people have told me the oxymoron of parenting, "The days are long but the years are short."  It is so true.  Slow down, kids!

Like a bug caught in a spider's web

The parental unit voted unanimously to put the straps back on Alice's booster seat. The child is so squirmy and wiggly that she would spend every meal doing chair acrobatics. We thought it would get better, but she just got worse and worse (or better and better, from a gymnast's perspective). After her first meal with the straps back on, Zac concluded that she did ok, but she was kind of flailing around "like a bug caught in a spider's web."

Ornament

Alice's latest contribution to the Christmas tree. 

How to get a two year old to finish her food

You saw that right.  Zac is getting Alice to take her last bites of spaghetti and spinach by allowing her to unwrap Hershey's kisses and give them to him.  (She has a taste of chocolate every once in a while, but so far doesn't like it.)

First roll

We are proud to announce that our son, at the ripe old age of 4 months and 20 days, has officially rolled over from back to front.  Here he is, right after achieving this milestone, completely unaware of what he just accomplished.

It was a joyous moment, and both parents were there to witness the whole event and encourage him.  Simon is good to us like that, unlike his sister who caused her mother to cry when picking her up from her first full day of daycare on her 3 month birthday to be told that she had rolled over (and mommy had effectively missed the first major milestone).

The yellow man

We were eating macaroni and cheese for supper and Alice said, "This is macaroni.  It's yellow, like the yellow man at Amy's house!  He played piano with me...and cars...and a helicopter."

I've noticed her using the word "like" a lot lately to make comparisons.  We had donuts for breakfast one morning, and I asked Alice if she wanted one, but we hadn't shown them to her yet.  She said she wanted one, but I wasn't sure if she remembered what one was (since we very rarely have them).  To test her, I asked if a donut was a circle, a triangle, or a square.  She said it was a circle, then added, "like a bagel."

Another time she was "helping" Zac make the salad for supper.  He cut the top off of a yellow pepper and Alice said, "There's the stem!  It's like a pumpkin stem!"

Stalking

We have a little stocking for Alice that was hanging from a nail on the mantle. At first, Alice kept calling it a sock and she wanted to wear it.

Then she said it was an ornament and needed to go on the tree. She tried to get it down, and although she could reach it, she couldn't quite coordinate getting it off the nail by pushing up then pulling out. I was verbally coaching her from the couch where I was nursing Simon but eventually Zac had to come down and help her get it off. 

She happily ran over to hang the "sock ornament" on the tree. Zac and I feel it is our parental duty to initiate her into the strange vocabulary and customs of Christmas, so we kept telling her it was a stocking. But she kept giggling and saying "No" like we were trying to trick her (because she may only be two and half but clearly, clearly people, even she can tell this is a sock ornament). 

 Finally the true source of her resistance to the word stocking was revealed when she said, in exasperation, "No, it's not a stalking. Bean stalk in the video scare me!  This is a sock!"

Alas, the poor child is still tormented by that scary bean stalk and misheard the word. 

Left behind

We go to the grocery store once a week with a big list of everything we need for the week. Sometimes Zac will go on a Friday night after Alice is put to bed, and sometimes I'll go on a Saturday morning and take her with me.

Last Saturday we did something else in the morning so I was going to take her in the afternoon, after her nap. But she ended up taking a late nap, and at some point I decided to go without her because I needed to get there and back with enough time to make supper. As I was just ready to head out the door, I heard her wake up, so I thought I'd take her with me after all.

I forgot that she would take forever to go potty, then take forever to eat a snack, and at some point I changed plans again and decided to just go to the store, since it would be quicker without her.  The problem was, I had been urging her to hurry up so we could go to the grocery store together.

As I closed the door behind me, I could hear her burst into tears.  Zac later reported that she cried for about ten minutes.  Although I was sad to hear this, it kind of confirmed my decision to go without her, because when she cries over something for that long, it means she is a wreck and would have been difficult in the store.

But boy did she make me pay for it.  All week, whenever there was any mention of the grocery store (who knew we talked about it so much?) she would get this really hurt expression on her face and say, "Mommy, don't left me!  I want to go to the grocery store!  You left me last weekend. I cried."  (Everything in the past is "last weekend" to her.)

REI catalogue

Zac and I love drooling over all the cool clothes and outdoor equipment we can't afford in the REI catalogue. This time we let Alice and Simon join the fun. On one page, Alice pointed at a pink bike and said that was her birthday present. 

Hug

While picking up Alice at daycare recently her friend Grayson was just about the go out the front door in his father's arms.  Grayson's dad encouraged him to say "goodbye" to Alice, who was up in my arms across the room. He said goodbye but was not satisfied and decided a hug was also in order.  He squirmed out of his father's grip and ran over to Alice shouting "Hug!".  I wasn't sure what Alice would do but I put her down and, as if it was something that happened everyday, they shared a little hug.  Grayson then ran back to his dad and the moment was over.  No pictures, of course, so you will just have to believe me when I write that it was a pretty cute sight.
(Zac)

Keeping both kids happy

Unswaddled

Simon had been wiggling out of his swaddle a lot lately, so the last two nights I put him in a sleep sack instead. He didn't sleep any worse than normal*, so the transition is official. 

*normal=waking up once (sometimes twice) a night, getting nursed then falling back asleep easily.