Christmas Day 6

Thank you Uncle Dan and Aunt Courtney!

Thank you, Uncle Justin and Aunt Beezee!

A year ago at this time, we were still in the nine-month-long phase of John purposefully hitting Mary numerous times per day. It was a hard time in parenting and I didn't know when it would ever end. But now we're in a wonderful play time. While walking on my treadmill, the children playing with me in the bonus room, I got to witness this precious, yet now-typical, scene:

Mary dumped out the alphabet blocks and called to John across the room: "John, want to come over here?"

John, pausing in his activity: "Sure!"

They settle in with the blocks and then sing a full and well executed duet of the "ABCs." (I have got to capture them singing a song together. The grandparents got to see "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and it really is sung well.)

John: "We can build blocks together."

Then they built blocks together, side by side, and didn't smash each other's towers and cry.

So small, yet so sweet! I don't know if this change would have happened naturally with age or if it happened because we spent a lot of time intervening and "making them" learning to play nicely, but it sure is lovely. Really, our current biggest problem is simply that both kids love wrestling with each other, but then each child doesn't know how to read the signals or respect when the other child is not in the mood to wrestle. So Mary will be wrestling down John, or vice versa, and the one child isn't respecting the other child's 'no,' so then we have to intervene and remind the one child that 'no means stop!' Not such a bad problem to have.

Yesterday Daddy got the idea to make "juice ice cubes" in this weird round ice cube-making contraption sent to us for free by Maker's Mark (even though Chris hasn't bought Maker's Mark in more than five years, the company still deluges us with free gifts). Getting the juice into the ice cube maker involved using a blunt-edged medicinal syringe. It was quite a "Daddy project," I thought. The kids, of course, loved it. When I came to take a picture, John said, "Mary, quick! Close your eyes!"

After an enjoyable search through IKEA (to see if any of our furniture needs would be met by their 60% off sale: no, not this time), we drove to my favorite sewing store and purchased Chris' big Christmas gift to me: a new sewing machine! He had given me brochures wrapped in Christmas paper a few days ago and we'd been researching machines to decide which to buy. I am so excited!!!

In the evening, Chris and I hired a babysitter and went out alone! The kids had a blast, as they always do when Miss Rachel comes over.

About half an hour before leaving for our dinner, it hit me that we're in a rare and brief pocket of having our youngest child old enough to go to sleep comfortably with a non-parent and not having a newborn yet: "how about we go to a movie too, honey?" With a glint in his eye: "What?! That's crazy!" We quickly scrambled to look up movies. It is rare that Hollywood has something out that we would see, and I had just seen "Narnia" recently, so we were delighted that "The King's Speech" was out. Maybe you have to be a nerd to be fascinated by the story of a speech therapist cum psychologist, but we thought it was great. The movie was preceded by a fabulous dinner at a beautiful Italian restaurant. We were gone for five hours. (Yes, I know some of our friends are laughing at us right now.) Only a few more months of these opportunities before our latest little blessing is in tow (and I don't go see any movies for at least a year!).

Christmas Day 5

TODAY . . .

I slept beyond 4:30 a.m., which already started out the day well! Restless legs syndrome and heartburn usually keep me awake past midnight, Charlie horses in my legs and children waking interrupt me during the night, and early morning insomnia has lately woken me at 4:30 daily. I have to look at my children to remind myself that all these pregnancy symptoms are worth the huge blessing in the end.

I woke up--after having fallen asleep reading a wonderful book on preserving that my dad gave me for Christmas--and decided to make Brandied Cranberry Preserves first thing, while still in my pajamas. I am a novice at canning, so I know I was making mistakes and I'm not sure if I actually achieved a seal on the jars.

I spent about three hours like a woman possessed reorganizing my homeschooling supplies. This involved much decision-making about where I think I'd like to be doing schooling and where I think I'd actually be doing schooling. By moving many of my homeschooling supplies, I was able to use my kitchen shelving for books on cooking, housekeeping, gardening, and home maintenance.

I had a visitor over from our church.

I doled out seemingly endless rounds of discipline to both children. Why is it so numbingly exhausting to me, yet they seem to have the energy to overcome anything I can come up with?

I did my daily chores: washed two dishwasher loads of dishes and two loads of laundry, made meals, did pottying and diapering duty, made all the beds, picked up toys, swept the kitchen, and so forth.

I spent 90 minutes unsuccessfully trying to get Mary to fall asleep for a nap (which I know she needed). It usually takes Chris ten minutes to get Mary to sleep whether for nap or bedtime. It takes me 90 minutes of misery that takes me to the verge of losing control of myself. Even when I deprive Mary of a nap (which is more often than not now), she still fights bedtime for 90 minutes with me. This wouldn't be an issue except that Chris travels almost half the time for work, so I face this problem often and it has become my obsession and nemesis over the last six months.

I proceeded to throw a tearful tantrum to Chris for about an hour about how I am a terrible mother, I'm ruining the children's lives, they're ruining my life, and I haven't been a competent human being since I threw my life away to be a stay-at-home wife and mother. It was a pretty dark moment. Most of my mom-friends have way more experience than me, but my mom-friends who are earlier in the journey than me can know that I don't always have advice and encouraging words: I have black moments too!

I then took a deep breath, left the children with Chris for a few minutes, and mopped the kitchen floor, which I like to do every couple of weeks whether it needs it or not (ha!).

I scooped the litter box, which also needs attention every so often too (ha ha!).

I facilitated the children's painting, which is a craft John asks to do almost daily and I let him do rarely because I am lazy about the mess.

I made a long overdue Food Journal for John in which we can draw or paste pictures of every new food he eats, in order to encourage and praise him. He is very excited about it!

I waved the white flag after Mary had unwrapped without permission Christmas gifts on six occasions over the last few days. Now all the remaining gifts are locked away and I will bring out a couple per day.

I ran two errands Chris had been planning to do so that I could get out of the house and away from children. Even mailing packages in frigid weather is a welcome break compared to child care sometimes.

I relied on serving leftovers of our Christmas meal for the third dinner and second lunch in a row.

I got to have some quiet time upstairs after dinner, during which I just lay still and watched the baby doing big rolls in my belly. Thank you for the quiet time, Chris!

Christmas Day 4

Today we gave the kids (really, mainly John) our big present: a pair of handmade wooden swords and shields, painted with the Knights Templar and Knights of Malta cross and colors!

We're not pacifists, but we also didn't see any good reason to expose toddler John to television shows with battles or guns. Nonetheless, by age three, if not earlier, John began making everything he could find into guns (which he calls "shooters") and swords: toast, branches, any rod-shaped toy, his own finger . . . . So after a couple of months, we figured this was his boy nature coming out and we set about teaching him chivalry: Defend your sister, your mama, your family. Fight off the bad guys. Only play shooting or swords with somebody who wants to play. As soon as somebody wants to stop playing, you have to stop. Breaking these rules means the "weapon" gets taken away.

Later in the day, Chris took John out to a field that still had a lot of snow where they built a snowman taller than John, then John defeated it with his sword.

I was incredibly touched to open today this handmade, monogrammed purse to store my chapel veil in my purse! Thank you, Elaine!

Christmas Day 3

John sleeping peacefully with "Monkey"

Mary wore her apron for about four hours yesterday until I took it offer her so we could go to dinner with Chris' parents. When she woke up this morning, she asked to put it on again over her pajamas.

I took video at the tail end of Mary doing gymnastics on the Learning Tower, with many exclamations of "ta da!"

The kids' behavior last night when their grandparents arrived gave me much to think about concerning John and Mary's differing personalities. When John was a baby and toddler, he was cautious in new surroundings. He would stick close to me, usually in my arms, and he observed with wide eyes everything going around him in a new situation before he'd warm up and join in. Now at four, he is warmer and makes friends more quickly, but I'd still recognize him as reserved and I'd never call him gregarious.

In contrast, Mary is gregarious. When we visited the grandparents a few weeks ago, we pulled into the driveway, the van door was opened, and Mary--still strapped in her seat--began laughing and shrieking, "Look at me! Look at me!" Last night the grandparents arrived here and Mary launched into performance mode. In contrast, John was exuberant but wanted to show things to the grandparents, such as the Christmas tree, versus showing himself. Then when he warmed up even more, John ran to get the new Christmas book and asked to "read" (tell) it to everyone in the room. I was so impressed that John felt confident enough to want to perform anything at all. He began "reading" the story aloud to us and instantly Mary began belting out loudly various songs. "MARY HAD A LITTLE LAMB . . . TWINKLE TWINKLE LITTLE STAR . . ." She maneuvered around the room to stand directly in front of a person, to try to get the person to stop watching John and start watching her. "Look at me!"

Now that is a gregarious girl! Not the first time she's done that, and won't be the last. I find it fascinating to think that I've had to spend a couple of years gently encouraging John to be more brave, open, and friendly with others, and yet I'm going to have to spend effort teaching my next child to step back, share the limelight, and stop being so demanding of attention and bossy. At 25 months, Mary's little performance last night registered laughs. But I was thinking about how by even three years old, such behavior would be decidedly unattractive. By four years old, I'd consider such behavior outright bratty. Sort of put things in an interesting perspective for me to think how deeply personality habits are being laid at this tender age and how I want to pay attention to such matters.

On a lighter note, today the kids opened gifts from Grandmom and Pop-Pops.

The kids' grandparents had personalized, unique quilts hand made for each of the then-seven grandchildren a few years ago. Today Mary received hers! Utterly precious and beautiful!

While I was cooking our belated Christmas dinner, Mary asked for a snack. I gave her a bowl full of celery, onions, and water chestnuts, which she ate eagerly. On a related note, John is doing so well in occupational therapy for eating, which we resumed after a break of about a year and a half. He is with a new therapist at a new practice and he has so much fun there. Today the OT was able to get John willing to take five bites of dehydrated apples, and five bites and then ten consecutive bites of apple sauce. APPLE PRODUCTS. This is the child who eats no fruit. What was most remarkable was that John started gagging and retching during the second round of bites of apple sauce. But for the first time in his life, he was able to gain control of himself, push through the discomfort, and keep taking bites (instead of throwing up and/or simply refusing to continue eating). I was playing it cool and fighting back tears of joy.

For Christmas dinner, we (Chris, Grandmom, and me) cooked stuffed pork tenderloin with apple cranberry chutney, stuffing, onion roasted potatoes, baked beans, and apple sauce. For dessert I baked a Nantucket Cranberry Pie, which I now highly recommend.

Christmas Day 2

The snow began last night, technically making it a White Christmas. The kids woke up to a "winter wonderland" Southern style (read: not much snow!) and were thrilled. Upon learning that he could go sledding after Mass, John dressed for Mass more quickly than I've ever witnessed before!

Mary's Christmas dress

Bundled up for Mass

Our driveway in the snow

Our house in the snow

After Mass and breakfast at The Waffle House, we got bundled up in snow gear. We had bought snow suits for the kids last year when leaving for Boston and anticipating a big snow storm. But it melted so quickly that we didn't get to use the snow suits last year. I'm glad I bought them big as they still fit the kids today and probably will next year too.

It turns out that Mary does not like snow balls.

We drove to St. Patrick's cathedral to sled and dig on the hill behind the church. Many other kids had the same idea!

Daddy and Mary, walking along

My "athleticism" of the day was merely to go with the family to stand upright on flat ground and take photos of them sledding. That was enough for my back and I've been lying down at home much since then.

John didn't remember to ask about today's Christmas gifts till 2:00 p.m.! He is very excited about growing butterflies in the coming spring (thanks, Grandpa!).

We gave Mary her first apron and she has now been insisting on wearing it for more than two hours. I guess it is a hit!

Meanwhile, John is outside building a snowman with Daddy and we are expecting Grandmom and Pop-Pops to arrive tonight for a Christmas visit!

Christmas Day 2010

Sleep? Who needs sleep? We got to sleep at 2:00 a.m. after Mass and the kids still woke up at 6:30 . . . not because of excitement (they didn't have any built-up expectations about receiving gifts on Christmas--probably the last year that will be the case!) but because they naturally wake up that early no matter what. It was additionally hard for this mama because I had taken my anti-emetic medication after Mass only four hours earlier, as one of the ingredients is doxylamine (otherwise known as a sleeping pill). (And, amazingly, taking the medication only four hours late made me feel sick all day.)

Last night, Mass went fairly well. We had already dressed the kids before bed in comfortable daytime clothing, so all we had to do was put sweaters, socks, and shoes on sleeping children. We wrapped them in child-sized afghans to take to Mass so as not to fuss with jackets. Mary in particular cried for about a five-minute transition of getting into the car (making me wonder if I would regret this whole attempt) and, when I tried to soothe her and suggest she go back to sleep, she screamed, "I don't want to go back to 'seepies' in me car seat!" John ended up sleeping through almost the entire liturgy, while Mary stayed wide awake in my arms. She was in awe at how the church had been festooned ("Wook! Christmas trees! I think they have wights!") and with the exquisite music being sung and played from the choir loft.

We opened stockings--note the one Daddy put out for the new baby that is coming! In the afternoon, John told me sagely that "the new baby isn't here yet anyway" and "candy doesn't last forever," so could he have the new baby's chocolate? We also opened about two gifts each. We were so pleased that, once we explained to the kids how we'd be opening gifts every day for twelve days, they were calm and essentially satisfied with what we opened today. There was very little resistance, and no tears or moping about the pile of presents left remaining. Now, we'll see how that really proceeds for the next two weeks, but it went very well this morning.

John quite liked the book we put in Mary's stocking: "Who Is Coming To Our House?" and memorized it almost perfectly after hearing it four or five times.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to find children's sunglasses that do not have cartoon characters or things such as flames or skulls on them? (About as hard to find the same in toothbrushes, pajamas, etc. . . .)

We gave the kids new snow boots in their current shoe sizes. We made sure they opened that gift today because we were expecting a possibility of snow--and, indeed, snow began falling lightly right at bedtime! The weather man is saying we will get two to five inches overnight.

John is so "unbranded" that doesn't even know that cartoon characters are available in all manner of paraphernalia, such as stuffed animals. (This is the child who saw some Sponge Bob Square Pants pajamas in Wal-Mart recently and asked me, "Why do those pajamas have cheese on them? That's silly!") Despite his familiarity with Curious George (we have about a dozen books and eighteen episodes on DVD), when he opened this thoughtful gift from his aunt and uncle, he exclaimed, "A monkey!" He spent all day calling it "a monkey" even though we told him who it was. Also, the stuffed animal gave the opportunity to show the innate difference between boys and girls: As soon as John opened it, Mary rushed over, grabbed it, and began cradling it tenderly like a baby. Then John found a long ribbon, tied it around the stuffed animal, and began swinging it wildly around the room to see what he could smash.

John received a kazoo in his stocking and Mary's big gift today was a selection of percussion instruments, so we broke out in a spontaneous family music-fest, each one of us playing an instrument to a random tune we made up. John had great fun conducting us, telling us when to start and stop the music.

We started this idea of opening gifts over the Twelve Days of Christmas not so much to be traditional but to help with John being overwhelmed with opening gift after gift when little kids naturally want to stop and play with one toy. We saw this effect by the time of his first Christmas at twelve months old. In fact, this morning I noted that John in particular (who shares my more quiet temperament that becomes overwhelmed) paused after stockings, retreated to the kitchen, and sat on the windowsill. When I found him, he asked if I would please sit down next to him and "have a cereal picnic." So I sat down and he would eat a piece of dry cereal and ask me to eat a piece of dry cereal, so it was our own little quiet communion for five minutes before he wandered back in the den to open a big gift. Why would we want to force him to "get over" that calmness?

For breakfast, I made a casserole of eggs, bacon, vegetables, cheese, and hash browns plus a coffee cake (Trader Joe's mix--highly recommend it!) and bagels. Mary fascinates me, in that she ate all her casserole before she'd touch her cake (same child who rejected some fun kid lunch last week in order to eat my green salad).

At breakfast we sang "Happy Birthday" to Jesus.

Unfortunately, I was experiencing a lot of pregnancy aches and pains today so after the morning's excitement, I had to spend most of the rest of the day lying on the couch. It's very humbling for me not to be able to "do it all" like a Super Woman Mama. I'm grateful that I have only to contend with my own self-criticism, as Chris is very supportive and understanding.

Christmas Eve 2010

We decorated our Christmas tree today, having bought it a week ago for fear of tree lots running out. But I noticed even today that several nearby tree lots still had trees, so I think next year we might be brave enough to wait to buy the tree till the very end! As it was, John was confused last week when we bought the tree, as he confirmed, "This is still Advent, right?"

So, today Chris hauled down all our bins of glorious Christmas ornaments, most of which are inherited or received as gifts each year since my childhood. Chris took Mary with him on errands and I was left with an excellent four-year-old helper to decorate. Today was the first day I listened to Christmas music (having done very little of our shopping in stores, so having missed all the Christmas Muzak) and it was heartwarming to hear!

First, we did the lights! I felt strong deja vu from my childhood, echoing my dad's words, as I instructed John on helping me wrap the lights and lecturing him on how important is the foundation of lights, that we don't want to do a slapstick job with it.

John was in charge of decorating the entire bottom half of the tree with durable ornaments of wood, metal, cloth, ceramic, and the thickest glass. All the delicate ornaments went on top. John asked many times if he could put on the delicate glass ornaments and I answered as many times that he did not have permission. At one point, he picked up a delicate ornament commenting how beautiful it was and, when I asked him to hand it back, he calmly threw it on the wood floor and it smashed into many pieces. I was aghast, with my jaw literally hanging open. I asked him why he had done such a thing. He could barely speak and looked at me with tears brimming in his eyes, and answered that he had wanted to show me that it wouldn't really break. He was mortified in a way I hadn't seen before, so I didn't feel the need to give him any further consequence. I just told him that he had proven my point about the delicacy of glass ornaments and that this was why he wasn't old enough to handle them yet. As we continued on with decorating, John was so naturally ashamed that he could hardly look at me or speak to me for a few minutes--poor sweet boy!

What a delight! This year I put up only one tree, so the end result is very sparkly.

The Advent wreath and calendar have come down from the mantle, replaced by stockings and Christmas decorations.

Bringing out these wooden angels is always so touching for me. They were purchased for my mom and me when I was a tiny girl and our names were painted on them.

The children "smiling" at dinner

Christmas Eve is traditionally a day of fasting and abstinence (no meat), so I made fettuccine Alfredo, peas and onions, and a faux meat sausage that unintentionally added to our penance.

We read our last Scripture story for Advent. Doing the Jesse tree has been so meaningful, I think. Mary mostly wandered around while we read each night and John needed reminders to sit still, but he did catch bits of the story. He would mention elements of the story to me at random times, so I know he was listening. Sometimes I had to get creative, like a couple of nights ago when I could tell the children were ridiculously wired up after dinner, so we gave them a bath (knowing it would calm them) and I read them from the Bible while they quietly played in the water. In the end, John is extremely clear that The Point of Christmas is to celebrate Jesus' birthday--and he had fun all month in preparation.

The completed Jesse tree

Today we were tickled to have two friends stop by unexpectedly with little gifties of an ornament and home baked goodies--so neighborly and warm!

At bedtime, we read the kids the same four Christmas books we've been reading to them each night during this fourth week of Advent. I recommend them highly for young children:

"The Star of the Manger" by Joni Oeltjenbruns

"The Friendly Beasts: An Old English Christmas Carol" by Tomie dePaola

"O Holy Night: The First Christmas" by Makoto Yamamoto

"An Angel Came to Nazareth: A Story of the First Christmas" by Anthony Knott

[EDIT: I can add to this list the book we gave Mary in her Christmas stocking: "Who Is Coming To Our House?" by Joseph Slate"]

Now the children are asleep (dressed in clothing to be carried asleep to Midnight Mass), the baby Jesus has been placed in the Nativity scene manger, the breakfast casserole is assembled and ready to be baked in the morning, and gifts are going to be set under the tree (the plan being to open them over the next twelve days through Epiphany). And I, for one, am going to lay still for a couple of hours watching "It's a Wonderful Life" before Mass because all this upright activity today has taken me to the limits that my pregnant body can handle--I wish I were stronger!