Christmas Day - Presents & Princesses

Christmas Eve Drive to Ohio

We did our traditional Christmas Eve drive to Ohio again this year. The kids seem to both finally be beyond the stage of having bouts of crying hysterically in the car, so the trip was easy and smooth in that regard. However, a certain child did ask variations of "Are we there yet?" about a hundred million times.

The last part of the journey was pretty cool because there was a pleasant sunset in the west and a beautiful full moon rising in the east.

Zac's selfie below was at our last rest stop break before arriving at Cam's (with the moon between Simon and Zac's heads). We had to make a lot of stops because Alice was still having tummy trouble as a result of the antibiotics she was on for an ear infection. Given how bad it was once we got to Cam's, I realized in hindsight that we actually got off easy in that she didn't have any disasters in the car.

The trip only took about eight hours, start to finish, given Zac's efficient driving.  It had to be our fastest trip since we had kids. We were happy to arrive safely at Cam and Don's and have a good supper.

"Do you want a piece of cake?"

Simon's imagination and playful personality are really developing lately. While we finished up packing for the Ohio trip Thursday morning, Simon wandered around the house with one boot on asking me if I wanted a piece of cake or a piece of chocolate, then offering me a magnetic square.

Alice thinks she looks cool

Christmas with the Arcaro-Burbridges

On Sunday evening, Zac's dad's family came over for our Christmas celebration with them. We opened gifts, then got ready for supper. Alice had a major low-blood-sugar breakdown at the beginning of supper. Her new thing is to go and sit on the couch in her bedroom and cry and mope. She was particularly upset that "we always have lasagna when we have guests" and that she wanted to sit at the adult table. In the end, I sat in the kitchen with Alice, Eleanor, and Julian, while Amelia, Simon, Ami, Tom and Zac sat at the dining room table. I had fun at the kid table, actually, once I got Alice to drink her milk  to get enough energy to stop crying. After supper, we popped open Christmas crackers, and the kids played with toys. It was a fun visit!

Sunday game of tennis

Sunday morning was cold but beautiful, so we went to nearby Godbold park to test out Alice's new tennis racket and take a little walk in the woods. Alice does pretty well hitting the ball if you throw it right at the racket. She needs a lot of work on her ability to learn and keep trying, though.

Brain Power

I (Zac) was reading Alice her new body book for a bedtime story tonight.  We were reading about the nervous system, and we learned how the brain was connected to all the different body parts--how we can't feel pain or control our muscles if the nerves aren't working. The book had a good illustration of the nerves running all the way from the brain to the hand and fingertips. We talked about how if the nerves are damaged, even if the muscles are still healthy, the brain can't tell the hand to move. I held my hand limply for demonstration purposes.

In the diagram, as part of the nervous system, it also had a picture of the adrenal glands. I described how if you are in danger, the adrenal glands release a chemical that give you "super powers." I described what it did as making your heart work faster and making your muscles stronger so you could fight off the danger. I mentioned alligators trying to eat you as an example of a dangerous situation where your adrenal glands would release their chemicals to help you survive.

Alice, who is into superhero battles right now, and had been reading a book about the Avengers earlier in the evening, quickly came up with her own application of the new information: "I would stab the bad guy in the brain so that he couldn't use his muscles to hurt me." Despite this violent image, I was impressed with how she was able to take the idea from concept to actionable steps.

Solstice Celebration

Saturday morning we had our family solstice celebration. We like to do it on a weekend day before we head to Ohio for the real Christmas. Last year, we were able to do the Santa tradition, because Alice just wasn't as aware of what is going on. But now she is a talkative four-year-old spending all day with other talkative four-year-olds, so I didn't think we'd be able to get away with having Santa visit our house nearly a week before everyone else without having to invent a lot of explanations and causing chaos in homes around Raleigh as kids reported to their parents that Santa visited Alice early. So, here we are. Life is complicated. These presents are just from Mom and Dad and Santa is going to come on Christmas.

We still managed to have fun.

 

 

I think the pictures pretty much tell the story, but let me see what I want to remember...

Alice actually behaved pretty well--we had been giving her lectures about not complaining, whining, or grabbing any of Simon's toys. And she did a good job.

Simon had trouble focusing on opening presents since he wanted to spend some time playing with each thing he opened. It was really fun how long he drew out the process.

Both Simon and Alice really loved the last minute dollar store crap I got them. A plastic mermaid for Alice and a plastic excavator truck for Simon. Simon also really liked the fake plastic LED candles I got him. Note to self for next year: Dollar store is good.

The kids each got a Pez dispenser in their stocking. Alice barely ate one candy and spit it out. Simon ate all of candies in one sitting, one after another. Later Alice gave him half of her candies, and he did the same thing.

Simon really loved his magnetic fishing pole. Technically it's a bath toy, but since we put the kids in the bath together, I'm afraid they'd fight over it and poke out someone's eye, so it's going to be a living room toy. It was fun to see how quickly he got the hang of it. At first, he would put the magnet on the fish's mouth with his hand, but soon he got the coordination to dangle to magnet in the right spot to catch a fish.

Alice seemed to like her things, but she spent a lot of the time packing them up and hoarding them, rather than playing with them.

We had eggs and cinnamon rolls for breakfast about half-way through. Simon ate all his eggs first (he loves scrambled eggs). He surprisingly only ate some of the cinnamon roll. Alice ate more than she has the last two years, so maybe there is hope for her after all.

The one-eyed catfish is a beloved hand-me-down from Pete and Donna.

I think, actually, my favorite moment was when the floor was nearly covered in torn wrapping paper and Simon found one little piece of it, said, "This is trash!" and took it up to the trash can in the kitchen. He came back and reported, "I did it! I clean upped!"