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.