Since both Mark’s and my parents are divorced and living in different parts of the country, where we spend Christmas Day varies from year to year. This year was my mom’s, so we headed to Santa Fe to spend the holiday with the Wylie-Holland-Onuf clan. We packed for extreme cold, and as luck would have it, 2010 ended up being one of the warmest Christmases we’ve celebrated in recent years. Go figure that when I don’t pack any lightweight clothes, we need lightweight clothes. I’ll learn – someday. It goes without saying that my mom (Gaga to the girls) knows how to celebrate. We had a three person birthday party our first night there (me, my stepdad and the Monkey were all born between 12/16 and 12/24) and had another party on Christmas Day.
The entire holiday was great, but a few moments stuck out:
The Monkey started walking. Not by herself, mind you, but she figured out how to grab hold of a push walker and dash across the house. She also figured out how to climb onto the bottom rung of a stepladder. Getting off the bottom rung is a whole other matter… here's the video.
The Squid found just what she asked for under the tree on Christmas morning, plus a personal note from Santa Clause and a stocking full of goodies. She oooed and awed over the wooden train set and managed to take it completely apart within a few minutes. The Monkey helped a bit, but she was too enamored with her own gift from Santa Clause – musical instruments.
Despite the cold temps, the Squid treated her GG (my grandma) to several tea parties on the back patio. It was absolutely adorable to see the two of them sitting on the back porch, sipping pretend tea and chatting away about nothing in particular.
Date afternoon: So, the one thing I requested for my birthday was a chance to go see a movie with Mark. My dream came true and we saw the latest installment of the Harry Potter franchise. I don’t remember the last time we had an afternoon to ourselves, so to say it was delightful would be an understatement. Many blessings to all grandparents and great-grandparents who are willing, able and excited to give their kids some time to themselves now and again!
There are quite a lot of us in our blended family and everyone gets a stocking - whether you're at mom and Chris' house or not! GG made all the knitted stockings and has one for the Monkey in the works as we speak!
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!
