Christmas Day 2010

Our kids woke up a bit later than most kids on Christmas morning.  On the one hand, I really appreciated this because it gave me time to clean up the mess that the reindeer had left on the front stoop from their none-too-neat carrot eating.  On the other hand, we were saddened that this late awakening was because Hallie had been up coughing for most of the night.  This, plus the fact that Hallie was burning up with a fever, worries us that Christmas-New Years 2010/11 may turn out to be a little bit too much like Christmas-New Years 2009/10.  (Fortunately, regular breathing treatments and tylenol seem to be doing the trick so far.  We are monitoring her respiratory rate, [40 and above is worrisome; Hallie's been staying at about 33-34 breaths per minute] fever, and hydration and so far she's not getting any worse.)

Anyway, the onset of this crud meant that Hallie was a bit more subdued than she likely would have been, particularly given her excitement level of the days leading up to Christmas. 

But that did not stop her from exclaiming, "There are presents in my stocking!" when she saw the following sight:

 

And indeed there were, and lots and lots of presents under the tree, too.  And cookies that had been munched and chocolate milk that had been slurped, and carrots strewn around all outside our house.  There was also a lovely note from Santa on cute reindeer stationary that read as follows:

Dear Hallie  and Lea,

Merry Christmas! The elves and I had a great time this year getting ready for Christmas and we were probably as excited as you two were when the big day finally arrived.  I got Rudolph and his friends harnessed up for the ride and we were thrilled to dash across the sky and land at your house in Philadelphia.  We were so happy when we heard that you guys were going to celebrate Christmas at home with your mommy, your mama, your cat Zenny, and your grammy.   It’s wonderful that you were able to pick and decorate your very first live tree.

News travels fast to us at the North Pole and we were so happy to hear about all the great things the two of you have done this year.  Hallie:  You became such a big, independent girl, almost overnight.  You got potty trained, began drinking milk out of a cup, and learned how to write your own name and read lots and lots of new words.  You also turned into such a great older sister who is always looking out for little Lea.  And Lea: you became a toddler this year.  You learned how to walk, gave up the bottle, began talking really well, and can do lots of things for yourself.  You are a great sister for Hallie and a wonderful mommy to all of your sweet little dolls.  Your family and teachers are really proud of both of you.  Here at the North Pole we had no doubt that you guys were nice and deserved to get those cameras that you told me you wanted the other day.  We also left you a few other trinkets and sweets in your stockings to make your Christmas extra special.

And speaking of treats:  thank you SO MUCH for the cookies and milk.  How did you guys know that chocolate milk is my favorite?  And Rudolph and the other reindeer enjoyed munching on those carrots you left them.  They get awfully hungry pulling my sleigh and really needed that snack.  They apologize for the mess they made, though.  They were in an awful rush to eat them because we have a lot of houses to visit still tonight. 

And that reminds me that I must be off now too.  Have a very merry Christmas! 

Santa

Hallie and Lea were both thrilled to rip open Santa's special wrapping paper:

Both of them spent a lot of the rest of the day (and the day after and the day after that) taking pictures of anything and everything.  They were constantly telling me, Sharon, Grammy, and our cat Zen to say "cheese" and took lots of pictures of parts of our bodies, the floor, the ceiling, and their own limbs (knees and toes and not just fingers).  They also took pictures of some of their favorite playthings.  Here, Lea has posed her babies for a shot:

And we have some very good pictures of Kai Lan that have been uploaded to my computer:

Lea even tried to teach her babies to use the camera, too:

Speaking of babies, the girls got lots of new ones from their grammy and us.  Hallie got a Baby Alive who constantly exclaims "I'm hungry" and likes to eat bananas (and hence hardly resembles her new owner; fortunately Lea takes care of this baby much of the time).  And Lea got a baby who likes to coo who came with a very cute outfit but who, like all the other residents of our baby nursery, has been stripped down to her birthday suit by the girls.  Lea also received a baby for the bath and a special tub and all the relevant accompaniments.  She had a great time washing and cleaning her bath baby this afternoon.  Finally, the girls got a new cradle for their babies.  This has led to some interesting "games" of tug of war around here and we've surmised that, even though Hallie usually ignores her babies, now that Lea is so very interested in them, her own curiosity (or is it desire to remain the alpha kid?) has been piqued.  Suffice it to say that we will be working on the concept of sharing in the new year.

 

The kids also got a lot of ornaments.  Hallie's included were Lucy and Charlie Brown, Dora and Diego, and a Dr. Seuss Green Eggs and Ham ornament (this is currently one of Hallie's favorite books).  Lea stash included Linus and Snoopy, Cookie Monster and Elmo, and a dancing Snoopy and Woodstock ornament. We are glad to be able to keep up the tradition of getting them ornaments that will one day be hung with care on their very own trees.

In addition to all of this, Lea received a puzzle and Hallie received a dragon puppet from their good friend Eliza Grace.  Both girls really enjoyed playing with these gifts.

Sadly, we never made it over to the ICN at Pennsylvania Hospital with cookies and the girls as we had initially planned.  I could have run the cookies over before the big snow began but I suspect that the staff would have been disappointed if we had not had Hallie in tow.  But I also imagine that they would prefer that they, and especially their wee charges, be spared whatever crud is colonizing Hallie.  So we've revised the plans a bit and hope to get over there some time between now and the New Year.

We also have not gotten outside to play in the snow (this is not to be confused with getting outside to shovel the snow; I've had plenty of opportunity to do that).  One clear indication that Hallie is, so to speak, under the weather, is that she has not asked to go outside and build a snowman even once over the past 24 hours.  Another clear indication that something is amiss is that she is asking to go to bed quite early (even when dosed with albuterol not that long before bedtime).  Hopefully she'll improve soon and we'll at least be able to get out to see the snow if not actually play in it before it melts away by this weekend.  If not, I suspect there will be some more opportunities to do so this season.

I hope everyone out there who celebrates Christmas had a super holiday and that everyone is staying safe and warm.

Christmas and Beyond: A VERY Belated Post

As Sharon just helpfully pointed out, I never did manage to do the Christmas post. I have also not managed to post much of anything else. The heart is willing, but the blogging hands are tired is all I have to say. Things have been nutty around here lately: we are currently experiencing a rare moment (that I am no doubt jinxing as I type this) when both kids are well, but between Thanksgiving through the end of the first week of the New Year, one or the other kid was sick, and quite dramatically so. Then they both recovered but Nadia, our mother's helper/nanny, contracted pneumonia (unrelated to Hallie's; she came back to work on Monday already showing symptoms of distress) and she's been out of work most of the week. So I've been doing pretty much all of the daytime childcare AND trying to prepare to start teaching full time again in a couple of days. Needless to say, blogging has suffered.

So, in the spirit of trying to catch up before the proverbial crap hits the fan, here goes:

Christmas:

We have crappy pictures that do not do justice to how much fun the kids, and especially Hallie, had at Aunt Laura's on Christmas eve (sadly, Santa neglected to leave us a D-SLR under the tree; we are trying hard not to believe we were on the naughty list). Both of the girls were thrilled to see their cousins and things got even more fun after Hallie cracked open a Christmas cracker and found a very small ball inside. She located a cardboard tube from some wrapping paper and initiated a game of 'blow the ball through the tube' with Hannah. What's notable here is that it was Hallie who came up with the idea for this game.

As usual, Hannah was thrilled to play with Hallie. She is a great older cousin and Hallie has benefited so much from being around her quite a bit this year.

Lea had a lot of fun, too. She spent a considerable amount of time at the chalkboard practicing her writing skills:

Now, while she did not in fact write the names on the board, she is really interested in writing/drawing because she sees Hallie doing it so often. She can smell a crayon a mile away and she has successfully drawn a few scribbles on our easel at home. She also enjoys biting off and swallowing the tips of crayons, so we tend to keep her away from them as much as possible.

We ended our Christmas eve soiree by going outside and scattering reindeer food for Rudolph & co. As you can see, we still had a whole lot of snow left over from the two-foot snowfall of the previous weekend. I find it much easier to believe that Santa comes flying in on his reindeer-driven sled when there is some snow to cushion the landing. And, since Sharon had been tracking Santa's progress via an app downloaded on her iPhone, we knew that the big guy was getting near and that it was time to get the kids in bed.

By the time we got back to Grammy's that night, Hallie was thoroughly exhausted. Perhaps she was coming down from a slight sugar high (her Christmas eve dinner consisted of two two-bite brownies; what they lack in nutrition, they make up for in calories). She opened her Christmas jammies, put them on, hit the bed, and crashed for the night.

As is typical, Lea completely came into her own just as Hallie was going down for the night. (This has become a source of great distress to me, by the way, since it bodes poorly for me getting my work done in the evening after Hallie goes to bed).

The first project that Lea undertook was stealing (and eating) Santa's cookies:

Then she moved on to Grammy's dish of Peppermint Patties. She found the shiny silver paper very alluring and the minty chocolate contents even more:

The kids slept in, but we finally shook them out of bed around 10:00am. Hallie clearly had no idea that Santa, Mommy and Mama, and Grammy had left a huge number of presents under the tree for her and Lea. It took a bit of time for us to manufacture the requisite excitement of opening presents on Christmas morning, but by the time Hallie was done, we think she got it. She certainly was into the presents -- which is not at all surprising and, for several weeks running, would regularly ask to open more presents from Santa. This, of course, was reinforced by the fact that we saw lots of good friends and family after Christmas was over and exchanged gifts with them then. I think that by the time New Years Day came around, Hallie was pretty convinced that every day is Christmas.

Anyway, I digress. The big ticket item that Santa got Hallie was a red guitar.

By evening Hallie was strumming away at it quite naturally. We've downloaded an iPhone app to help us tune it but we've yet to find an app that will prevent Hallie from turning the keys and loosening the strings again.

Hallie especially enjoys playing along with the Wiggles and Muno (from Yo Gabba Gabba). Lea's gotten in on the act, too. While the little red guitar is way too big for Lea (which of course does not stop her from cruising over to the guitar stand and plucking at the strings and occasionally threatening to drag the whole thing down on top of herself), she has taken to putting the guitar strap over her head (yes we watch her carefully when she does this, and the strap has a 'breakaway' feature) and playing the toy electric guitar that we inherited from brother Jake. She is so cute and so smart and reminds us a lot of Hallie in a very, very good way.

Of course, Lea got her own musical gift from Santa. Here she is unwrapping her Bee Bop Baby Band set:

She enjoyed the band set, but her real thrill came when she emptied her stocking. Here she is sampling her binkies:

In this next shot, Hallie is posing with her favorite gift of the day, which Grammy got her:

This remains her favorite and, today, several weeks after Christmas, Hallie took a bath with the Wonder Pets figures (we think she is partial to Ming Ming) and had them floating in a makeshift flyboat.

Grammy let Santa know what she was getting Hallie, so he also brought her a Super Hallie cape so that she could be just like her heroes. Unfortunately, the tight velcro around the neck bothers her, so we need to fashion a device to make it a bit looser for her. I think that one of the new mitten clips that we bought would work just fine. (Several times now Hallie has helpfully informed me, when I have inquired about the whereabouts of one of her mittens or gloves, that she 'put it on the floor' -- meaning that she had thrown yet another mitten onto the sidewalk during one of our walks. Even at three dollars a pair on sale at the Children's Place, all of these lost mittens have begun to add up so I've diverted our resources toward the purchase of super cute mitten clips from Etsy; one of them can be repurposed for our little super hero's comfort).

After we finished unwrapping our gifts and had time to test all of them out, Aunt Laura and Uncle Bryan and the extended family brought over Christmas dinner. The kids had a blast playing together and Hallie was very much part of the mix. Here, Hallie is playing with her cousins Hannah and Adam and their cousin, Quinn. The three older kids got Nintendo DS's for Christmas and Hannah shared hers with Hallie after Hallie asked for a turn. Hallie loved being part of the older kids' games.

She also really enjoyed pretending to be one of the five little monkey jumping on the bed and alternatively rough housing and cuddling with her cousin. Hannah makes Hallie very happy and I know that the feeling is quite mutual:

Lea also enjoyed playing with her cousins in her own Lea-like way. Here she is running her hands through Adam's hair (which is super thick). Adam was great because he also tolerated lots of face-patting (and slapping) and hair pulling from his littlest cousin.

We left Grammy's exhausted and in good spirits. The next day, more fun was in store because we had Boxing Day plans with Anne, Eliza Grace, and her Nana. Hallie was super excited when we pulled up at Nana's condominium complex. She knew exactly where we were (she has a phenomenal memory and sense of direction; perhaps she can get us out of all of those jams where we get lost and circle round and round when she gets a bit older). And she was thrilled to be there.

Here's a lovely shot of Anne with Hallie and Eliza:

We hung out all day, exchanged gifts, played hard, ate a couple of meals together and generally enjoyed the company of good friends. We love it that we manage to get Hallie and Eliza together pretty regularly and wish only that we all lived even closer to one another.

The girls ended the day with a nice bath and had a brilliant time splashing around in the tub and playing with Eliza's excellent array of tub toys:

After her bath, though, Hallie's face got very flushed--which is always a sign of a fever--and I became a bit worried. She seemed a tiny bit warm, but the condo was very hot (we had the oven on to cook dinner), and we attributed her slightly more subdued nature to lots of play and no nap. Hallie kept wanting to pretend to take a nap in Eliza's bed, and I suspect that she really did want to sleep, but there was too much going on to really settle down.

That was the evening that Hallie came down with pneumonia. Thankfully that's a thing of the past...at least where Hallie is concerned. Now let's keep our fingers crossed that Nadia (our nanny) recovers in time to take over for me when I need to return to work on Tuesday...

Stay tuned for more (and hopefully shorter and less delayed) developments in the life of our little family during the month of January....

Halloween Season 2009

One of the wonderful things about the fall/winter holiday season is that the holidays fall in such proximity to one another that it prevents those of us bloggers prone to bouts of procrastination from doing so indefinitely. Anyway, that's the motivator for finally getting this post up and running and, in contrast to a couple of the most recent posts, this one is going to be heavy on the pictures and light on the commentary.

Halloween season got off to a roaring start with a visit to the Please Touch Museum for their members-only Halloween event. We went at the gracious invitation of Hallie's friend, Alex, who was extremely excited to have her little buddy with her for the occasion. The museum was packed with kids and, at first, Hallie found the whole thing a bit overwhelming (and overstimulating). But, after a bit of adjustment, Hallie settled right in. She began her visit with a fun carousel ride, which was of course fitting given her costume choice:

Then, after some time at a few of her favorite exhibits, Hallie, Sharon, and Alex and her mom, Sheila took in a puppet show. We weren't quite sure whether Hallie would enjoy the actual show as much as she liked the idea of it, but, as it turns out, she had a splendid time and talked about the puppet show for days. The characters included a pirate, and that's always a good thing. Hallie loves pirates and likes to walk around covering one eye with her hand or a spoon and saying "Ar Matey!" while holding her telescope up to the 'working' eye. I think there may have been a duck involved, too. I'm not sure because I was speed-walking Lea through the museum while she napped. Anyway, the puppet show was grand and then we repaired to the Please Eat cafe where we grabbed a dinner of pizza, apples, and juice boxes. Hallie did eat some, but the highlight of her evening meal was collecting the trash--all of ours and some of other patrons, too--and throwing it out. It was nice that she felt so comfortable walking up to strangers and asking them if she could toss out their garbage.

The next day we paid a visit to the Johnson Farm with Hallie's preschool. I don't know why I thought this--perhaps it was the homeyness of the name?--but I thought we were going to be going to a relatively small working farm with a little pumpkin patch and a tiny petting zoo, all scaled to the size of your average three to five year old. Instead, we got this. I should have known that any locale with a spiffy website and that sells its pies online would be the opposite of homey. The place was buzzing--with people and bees--which makes some great sense the weekend prior to Halloween. The huge hayrides were very full; the pumpkin patch was enormous; and there was a performance area set up that featured locale country acts; 4H dance troupes and the like.

It was also very very hard to find the other members of our group (we were, admittedly, a bit late, as is par for the course with us. The part of Medford, NJ where the farm is located is a great deal further than we thought and we needed to stop and pick up a pizza for Hallie's lunch). We did finally meet up with our fellow YCCAers--a few on the hayride and in the pumpkin patch and more at lunch time.

Anyway, the experience was pretty overwhelming for us adults, but Hallie seemed to have a pretty good time.

Here are the girls on the hayride en route to the pumpkin patch:

Here's Lea in the pumpkin patch:

And Hallie:

Here's Hallie trudging alongside Sharon, who was in search of the perfect pumpkins (more on this later). This took entirely too long and the kids were all a bit antsy. It didn't help that Hallie kept tripping over the pumpkin vines on the ground.

You can get a sense of just how big the pumpkin patch was from this photo.

And here they are on the way back:

After lunch, Hallie was excited about jumping in the bouncy house (she LOVES these):

And she proved just as excited about visiting the animals on the farm. I'm pretty sure, given how many times Hallie returned for large handfuls of corn, that the pigs were quite overfed that day:

She also found the playground area to be pretty grand and had a wonderful time sliding through the PVC piping tunnel that they had set up for these purposes:

When we got home, it became abundantly clear to me that all that time that Sharon had spent in the pumpkin patch assessing the individual merits of each pumpkin really paid off. You see, she was on a mission. A couple of years ago, Aunt Laura had given us pumpkin decorations that she had made when the two oldest cousins, Sarah and Megan, were little. Even though Megan grew up not watching Sesame Street (since Sarah was too old for the show by the time Megan came around) and hence thought that Big Bird was in fact Big Yellow Chicken, she definitely knew who these two guys were:

Hallie had a blast making them. We were very impressed at how much power of concentration and attention she brought to this art project. School is really paying off in this respect. Hallie was very proud of the final project. She was proud to pose the little finger puppets in front of their pumpkin likenesses:

Lea also got in on the action:

I think this is a fitting tribute to Sesame Street on its 40th birthday, don't you?

The next week brought the YCCA Halloween parade (see my Pumpkinhenge post above for more details on this...) and the main event, the big day itself.

We were thrilled because our friends Anne, Eliza Grace, and Bessie (Anne's mom and Eliza's Nana) came down to join in the festivities.

When Eliza decided at the last minute to jettison her Native American garb for that of a ballerina, Hallie followed suit. Soon, our two little dancers and their entourage were ready to hit the neighborhood:

The girls both proved to be very quick adopters of the trick-or-treating ritual:

Here's a nice shot of Eliza and her Nana trick-or-treating:

While collecting candy was definitely fun, what's even greater about Halloween in our neighborhood is that there's this one block where the residents close off the entire street and everyone, regardless of whether they have kids of trick-or-treating age, gets into the holiday spirit. Not only do they give out vast quantities of candy, but they also set up craft tables where kids can decorate their own gourds; color pumpkin or witch or similar cut outs with markers; watch as their balloon animal of choice is blown and twisted; or oversee the production of pom-pom spiders. Our girls had a blast doing all of these things:

The whole group had a grand time and we got home to our place in the nick of time to avoid a major downpour. After a nice visit, our friends headed back to New Jersey.

The next day, Hallie sampled some of her loot. It turns out that, though she doesn't eat much at one sitting, she very much enjoys chocolate (Hershey's bars, Kit Kats, and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups all pass muster, even if she takes a few small bites of each before moving on, and Hallie's fairly willing to sample--or at least open--anything that comes in a wrapper that might pass for junk food). She also finds cheese balls (but apparently not cheese puff sticks) quite delicious and has a fondness for bats-and-jacks pretzels. Now if you could only pass off green beans as junk food by giving it a pretty colored paper wrapper...

Anyway, that about sums up our Halloween fortnight!!! But even though the holiday is over, costume-, pretend-play and some candy eating live on (though not much this week, since Hallie's been home sick and not feeling up to eating much; probably it's H1N1 but we'll never really know for sure. Whatever it is, the fever is down and has been gone a whole day now and we've gotten away without any respiratory issues whatsoever, so we're pretty happy right now. Just two days of vomit, likely due to antibiotics to treat a suspected ear infection. So we're now up to 230 days without vomit this year for those of you still counting).