As I write this, the girls are downstairs with Alastair, whining and yelling and crying, as they seem to have been for most of the morning. It was my day to sleep in, and I did it with a vengeance, and earplugs. I probably should go down and give Alastair a hand. Wait....they're quieting down...must mean their mac and cheese is ready...Thank God.
Who knows why they're suddenly in terrible moods? Maybe they realize that Christmas is over, and they're feeling the inevitable let-down? I suppose that's one advantage (perhaps the only) of their birthdays being on the 28th. At least, it may prove to be a comfort to them in future years. Just as the thrill of new Christmas toys is starting to wear off, they get another little hit three days later. Actually, we reserved a number of their Christmas gifts for their birthday, because it just would have been too overwhelming for them to open them all at once. As it was, Christmas morning was a little manic.
They got some great presents from the grandparents, as well as far-flung uncles and aunts, family friends, etc. But I would like to spend this post congratulating myself (and Alastair) for the awesomeness of the gifts we gave them. There were really only three things -- we wanted to keep it simple; besides, what do they know from presents? -- but well chosen.
The first was a very basic, wooden train set -- you know, the interlocking wooden rails, little train cars that stick together with magnets. If I set up a loop of track on the coffee table, the girls will spend up to ten, fifteen minutes just pushing the trains around, saying "choo choo!" About every 10 seconds, a piece of track falls apart, because they don't have the most delicate touch, but no matter -- easily fixed, and around and around they go again. Only problem: they fight over the blue engine (you may have heard of him -- a Thomas something or other? English chap). There is only one. I plan to remedy that ASAP.
The second gift was a small Elmo doll for each of them. Things didn't start out very promisingly with this one: the first thing they did was start jabbing the poor little guy in the belly and squeezing his feet, saying "Make it sing! Make it sing!" How inadequate did I feel for having bought them the $6.99 inanimate Elmos instead of the $69.99 super-deluxe Elmo that sings and dances and makes omelettes, or whatever? They'd seen and played with this -- and other -- "singing" Elmos in a toy store, so they'd had a taste of the good life. I know I could have spent a few more bucks and gotten them even basic battery-powered Elmos, but I JUST DIDN'T WANT TO. We have too much battery-powered crap already. Fortunately, just like at the end of a holiday special, where everyone learns the true meaning of Christmas, the girls learned to love their floppy little Elmos, and now insist on cuddling with them in their cribs. They also enjoyed using them in conjunction with gift #3 -- the very best gift of all:
Doll Strollers! (Dolls already owned.) OK, I realize that the girls don't look particularly happy in this photo. In fact, they look rather like the twin ghost girls in The Shining. But the fact that we got them to stand still and pose like that was a feat. Because all they wanted to do, all day, was push those strollers around and around the house, with various dolls and stuffed animals in them, including non-singing Elmo. By the end of Christmas day, they were navigating over the thresholds of the childproof gates like pros.
If your home has a circular floorplan, and you have a toddler, you really must get one or more of these things, or something similar. (What is it with toddlers and pushing / pulling things?) Hours of entertainment, with only occasional need for parental intervention, in the case of minor wheel entanglements. Honestly, it took a lot of willpower to wait until Christmas to give them these. I knew they would adore them, having seen them glom on to the strollers at other kids' houses. Only drawback is that they also want to sit in them themselves, which they really are too big to do. We're working on enforcing a dolls/stuffed animals only policy, but it's tricky.
Anyway. The best part of Christmas was the family and the food and the memories and blah blah blah. All that unmaterialistic stuff we're all supposed to say and remember. But seriously? Giving toys to little kids is a blast. It's fun to see their excitement, it's fun to play with them, and it's really fun that they are perfectly content to play with their new toys by themselves. At least for a little while, until the novelty wears off. (On that note: I think we need to start instituting some kind of toy-rotation program, where we take toys in and out of circulation for a few weeks at a time. Our house is just too small to keep everything out, and half the toys don't get played with anyway because they're buried under other ones.)
On a completely different note: holy crap! The girls turn TWO tomorrow!!
Enjoying a short winter's nap with Grandma Jaycee and special occasion out-of-the-crib ga-gas (pacifiers).
