Mommy's school had an early dismissal today, and I didn't want to be out when she got home, so we really didn't a chance to do much. It was probably best to stay in anyway, as we will be needing all the energy we can muster for the next few days.
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Christmas vacation: the highlights...
Our first day off, we had to leave our son with Gram for a short time so we could go to the doctor about a serious medical issue: WE'RE PREGNANT!!! We told our families and select few others back in October, but we didn't want to tell the world until we knew everything was going OK. Almost as soon as the ultrasound technician put the wand on my wife's belly, I knew what we were having. You know what that means: it's a BOY! He asked us anyway and typed the same words on the screen. Everything looked good (according to the mumbling and bedside mannerly-challenged doctor), so we figured it was time to let the rest of the world know. After sharing with our families, we took it one step further: Facebook Official!
We visited Grandmom K later that day for Christmas #1. Her big present to our son was a model train set. While there was no way I would be able to set it up in time for Christmas this year, I look forward to seeing his reaction next year. While we had a nice and relatively quiet visit, today began an unsettling trend of inconsistent naps that would continue through the next week.
We drove down to my sister's house in Virginia the next day for Christmas #2. He slept a little bit on the way down but was more interested in his afternoon milk and snack than opening presents. We didn't have a lot of time at my sister's, so her young daughters understandably wanted to get right to the presents. He did his best, but he just wasn't himself and clearly is still too young to "get it". We left after dinner and hoped that he would sleep a little on the way back, but not too much so we could still get him a full night of sleep before Christmas.
My wife and I woke up before my son on Christmas morning, so we had a chance to exchange our gifts. We both took it pretty easy this year (she plans on taking a full year of maternity leave next year), and my big gift to her was of the homemade variety. I compiled many of the videos of him into a music video and gave it to her after we got home on Christmas Eve. After spending so much time on it and getting it just right, I couldn't wait. I didn't think it was possible, but she may actually like it more than I do.
My son's second Christmas (and our third so far this year) saw him actually being able to open presents. Just because he was able doesn't mean he wanted to. Eventually he got through most of them, but luckily Santa had preassembled a couple of gifts that he seemed to enjoy.
Later that day we had Christmas #4 with Pop Pop G. It began with a combination of too much eating and moving and a result of puke on his nice Christmas outfit. He was then relegated to spending the rest of the evening in one of his cousin's old t-shirts. Best laid plains...
Christmas #5 came a couple days later when Gram and Pop Pop returned from Virginia. We asked them to come over to our house (mainly because we had a Christmas tree and they did not) and then spent almost no time at the tree. Whoops. They had plenty of playtime with my son in our living room, and I don't think anyone was really thinking missing the tree.
We spent New Year's Eve at the home of our friends who have twins. Our New Year's countdown was for 8 o'clock, so we could get all the children in bed at a decent hour. None of us had a problem with that. We swapped the champagne for ginger ale and discovered that our son seems to love ginger ale. It's either that or he just really enjoys drinking out of a real cup.
We finally had a chance to check out the Kids Court play area at our local YMCA. It's a pretty impressive indoor playground with a rock wall and a bunch of other cool stuff. Though our son is still too little to appreciate most of the obstacles, he did have fun going up and down some puffy steps and running around in the day care area. He was also quite fond of playing with their toys that we have at home. Toward the end of the day, he started trying to climb up a small slide. This being the first time he had shown interest in a slide, I helped him climb up the steps on the back of the slide. I was very proud of him as he walked right up to the slide and sat down all by himself. I called Mommy over as he was about to do it again, and he didn't disappoint!
My son, being a small child and all, has a fascination with lights. We took our first family trip to Christmas Village, an unexpectedly and immensely popular nearby attraction on its final day of seasonal operation. As expected, he was amazed by the trains, lights, and kitsch that surrounded him. Never mind that Christmas was a week earlier and it started to rain when we were there- nothing could wash away the joy in his face. That is, until we realized we had to get him home before bedtime.
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There were some odd bed- nap- and wakeup times over the break, so I was a little worried about what time he would get me up this morning. He must have realized we had nothing that needed to be done today, so he didn't get up until 9. A dusting of snow, extremely cold temperatures, and a slight case of extreme laziness kept us inside today. This gave us a chance to work on a little bit of learning.
He knows the names or relationships of most of his relatives and pets as well as some other essential words. However, a couple recent encounters made me realize that we never taught him very basic parts of his body. He knows his legs and arms because we call them out when he is getting dressed, but today I was determined to teach him toes, ears, eyes, nose, and mouth. Everything was going great until I tried to show Mommy when she got home. By that point all he wanted to do was hug and spend time with her. After the day that she had, I figured that was OK, too. We can always try again tomorrow!
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