Merry Christmas, here we come!

Like everyone else, I find it extremely hard to believe that 2010 is almost over. This time last year, I was relearning how to take care of an infant - this time with the added challenge of taking care of a toddler at the same time. Both the Squid and the Monkey have changed a lot in the past year. Mark and I have, too, but the change doesn't seem as dramatic when you're an adult. Since I haven't blogged in a couple weeks, I thought I'd wrap up the year by providing a quick rundown of our Christmas holidays.

The Monkey’s birthday: I know from personal experience that kids born in December get royally jipped this time of year. Not only do people inevitably try to call gifts combination birthday-Christmas gifts, but they’re also really busy with their own families. Mark thought I was nuts for scheduling a birthday party for a one-year-old (thought the same thing w/ her big sister’s party) but I think it’s important to celebrate a child’s milestones. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I had few birthday parties as a child. Having a Christmas Eve birthday will do that to a girl. On the plus side, I get to spend every birthday with family. But on the downside, I get to spend every birthday with family. Rather than completely skip out on celebrating the Monkey’s birthday, we just spread it out a bit. Since her birthday was on Thursday this year, we started celebrating her first birthday on Wednesday the 15th with Mexican food, margaritas (ok, so this was more of a celebration for mom and dad!) and key lime pie (which she LOVED, by the way). Her actual birthday party took place on Saturday. A few other babies came over and we had a great time watching them scoot around on the floor, play in the Squid’s tent and eye the dogs through the door. The cake didn’t look like what I expected, but it tasted amazing – the custard filling was fantastic! Another top score for the Tom Thumb at Coit and Campbell! As exciting as her birthday was, it was also bittersweet as she completely stopped nursing the night before her first birthday. I’ve written before that she had become less and less interested, but that night she flat out refused to nurse. It broke my heart in so many ways. I know it’s better if they wean themselves, but I wasn’t ready. I’m sure it’ll be the first of many disappointments, but hopefully the happy moments will outweigh the sad ones.

Visit with Santa: After several weeks of careful prepping on my part (including a trip to Santa's Village to see him arrive that first night), we all bundled up and headed across the street to meet and greet the man himself. I went and got in line w/ the Monkey about 20 minutes before his arrival, but that wasn't early enough, so we still spent more than an hour in line. The weather was warmer than in past years, though, so the wait wasn't bad. The Monkey, Squid and I wandered around the Village taking pictures while Mark held our place in line. When it was finally her turn, the Squid climbed into Santa's lap and gave him a great big grin. We got some really cute photos and she told him that she wanted a train and a track for Christmas! She had told me several times that she wanted a train and track, but I wasn’t certain that she'd say that to Santa. Until a few days beforehand, she was saying she wanted “big girl toys.” She was never able to tell me what a big girl toy was, but that’s what she wanted. Needless to say, it was both a relief and a holy-cow-guess-I’m-going-shopping-again moment when asked Santa for a choo-choo train and track.

The Monkey’s first visit with Santa Clause was less successful, but the photo is definitely one for the album! She screamed her heart out as soon as Mark plopped her down on his lap and I snapped a photo and had Mark grab her back up before Santa’s elf had a chance to snap the official ‘Santa’s Village’ shot. Thanks to the wonders of Photoshop- and an awesome colleague of mine – we still wound up with a single shot of the girls! Woo hoo!

Feeding elephants

The Squid has always loved her dolls. From the moment she first laid eyes on her miniature Winnie-the-Pooh bear, she's been there to make sure that all her baby dolls and stuffed animals were well taken care of. She has cleaned up "stinky" diapers, "fed" them milk, juice and snacks when they were hungry, and put them to bed when they were tired and cranky.

Needless to say, it wasn't surprising when she grabbed her baby elephant and a bottle before joining the Monkey and I out on the porch Wednesday night. We were sitting out on the stoop, enjoying the cool weather and trying to catch a glimpse of the moon through the trees and clouds. The Squid plopped down right beside us and started giving her baby elephant a bottle of milk. I showed her how to tilt it upwards so her baby would get the "milk", then went back to playing with the Monkey - who was trying to pull the leaves off the nearby bush so she could eat them. I glanced back over at the Squid just in time to see her lift up the left side of her shirt and nestle the baby elephant up to her chest. - all without revealing her bare skin.

"She needs milk, mommy," she told me, reclining backwards just a bit to suggest that there was nothing remotely unusual about breastfeeding a baby elephant on the front porch. There's not, right??

"Oh," was about all I managed to say as I pursed my lips shut to keep from laughing. It was really, really cute.

After a few minutes, the Squid very discreetly pulled her shirt back down, cuddled her "baby" in her arms and went to put her down for a nap on the nearby table. "She's sleepy from the milk," she said, nudging her baby in the right sleeping position.

"Oh, is that right," I said. "That's because you're such a good mommy."

And she is.