Baby Squared : christmas

Our Very Own Stroller Derby

Roper — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 17:10:00 GMT

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).

Party Time, Excellent

Roper — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 21:00:00 GMT

Elsa and Clio partied hard this weekend. It was non-stop cookies, apple juice and dresses with tights, plus a little dancing and sugar-high stair-climbing thrown in for good measure. The revelry kicked off on Friday, for Santa's annual visit to my place of work, as mentioned in my last post. The girls loved the cookies, the candy canes, the juice boxes, the carpeted stairs to climb on and long halls to run down. But they were definitely suspicious of the man in red. Not that I blame them. I always found the whole picture-with-Santa experience rather harrowing, even when I was much older than Elsa and Clio are now. If they never want to sit on the dude's lap or tell him what they want for Christmas, it's fine by me.

The partying continued on Saturday morning. Any fans of Steve Almond or former readers of his Baby Daddy blog may be interested to know that Steve and his wife just welcomed a new baby boy, Judah Elijah, to the family. I brought the girls over to the Almond residence for a celebratory brunch and virtual bris (Steve recounted the circumcision, which took place at the hospital, in charming detail). I thought the girls would be excited about seeing a new baby -- they like to say "baby," after all. And they enjoy dragging their baby dolls around the house by their feet, feeding them things, whacking their heads against the refrigerator, etc. But they could have cared less about real-live baby Judah. The paper cups, stirrers and creamers from Dunkin Donuts, on the other hand -- woo hoo! And the bagels. My god, did they eat a lot of bagels.

We went to yet another party in the afternoon, at my friend Tricia's house. The girls got antsy in the car on the way there, and I began to wonder if it was a mistake to try to hit two parties in one day, but, in fact, the girls had an awesome time. When we got there, music was blasting in the den, and a whole bunch of kids, mostly boys, aged 3 - 8, were almost literally bouncing off the walls: dancing around, rolling on the ground, slamming into furniture, a'whoopin' and a'hollerin'. I thought the girls -- or at least Clio -- would be terrified. But in fact, after observing the madness for a few minutes, they started dancing, too. Elsa even gave a few of her trademark squeals of joy as she busted her moves. I left the room for a few minutes to get some food, and when I came back, Clio was sitting on the couch watching, clapping her hands, grooving to the beat. It was the most comfortable and independent I've ever seen either of them at a party. In fact, I even managed to get in some actual, uninterrupted exchanges of 3-5 sentences with other adults!

The only issue -- as it had been at the other two events -- was trying to keep them from eating, er, everything. They're both tall enough now that they can reach up and grab things off your standard-sized table, which makes controlling their food intake at parties next to impossible. Elsa scarfed down the equivalent of an entire pineapple (chunked) and at one point managed to grab a handful of guacumole. Clio alternated between cookies and crackers. To watch how those two eat at parties, you'd think we starved them. Then again, they're always happy to eat if it's 1.) A carbohydrate, cheese or piece of fruit 2.) not served on a plate as part of an actual "meal." (Maybe, like me, they feel like if you don't actually sit down to eat it, the calories don't count?)

You would think they would be partied out after all of this, but the next day, they rocked yet another social event -- a tree trimming party at my friend Megan's house. I wasn't there -- I went to Springfield for my co-worker's funeral -- but judging by the pictures they had a fab time:

(Doing their Mary-Kate and Ashley impression)

(Captions, please?)

Season's greetings and goodbyes

Roper — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 17:49:00 GMT

For several years now, around the holidays, the ad agency where I work has had a little afternoon Christmas party for people's kids, including a visit from Santa (a.k.a one of our graphic designers, who has naturally Santa-like attributes, and actually does the Santa gig professionally this time of year).

We've sort of introduced the character of Santa Claus to the girls, through books and things. I was hoping that when we brought them in for the party yesterday, maybe they'd make the connection between the guy in the red suit they'd seen pictures of and the guy in the red suit sitting there in the conference room. Barring that, I thought maybe they'd agree to sit on his lap, seeing as both of their grandfathers have beards, and the idea of being held by a big, hairy guy wouldn't be too scary to them. But no.

They were, not surprisingly, rather spooked by the whole thing. (I should have some pictures to share in a few days.) But they loo-o-o-o-ved the Christmas music, the cookies, and the juice boxes -- which they are gradually becoming more proficient at drinking from. Not easy to master, the juice box. Hold it just a little too tightly and you've got yourself a real situation. And that bendy straw can be tricky...Several times I had to help the girls when they were attempting to suck on the bend of it, instead of the end of it.

It was a nice little gathering, but also bittersweet, which is the real thing I wanted to write about today. I had trouble keeping the tears back, and I don't think I was alone. There was someone who would have and should have been there with her 1-1/2 year old baby boy (I'm pretty sure they would have come in spite of being Jewish) but wasn't. Her name was Melanie, and she'd been one of our traffic managers (sort of like a project manager for those who don't speak ad agency lingo). She died this past Thursday. She was only 33 years old.

Her death was strange and unexpected. She had a virus called CMV that's very common and usually benign, but can be deadly in people with a compromised immune system. Because Mel took immunosuppressants for Crohn's disease, her body wasn't strong enough to fight it. She stayed home sick for a couple of weeks starting in late October, then went into the hospital when the virus started to attack her respiratory system. We all knew she was seriously ill, but we just assumed she would eventually get better and come back to work. Of course she would! She was our Mel! So young and energetic -- an enthusiastic mom and wife; a constant, cheerful presence in the office. She was part of the fabric of the place.

But she didn't come back, and she never will, and I can't quite get my head around it.

Mel and I weren't friends outside of work, but when you work with someone day in and day out for years, especially at a small-ish company, they end up feeling almost like family. You bond over crazy clients and ridiculous deadlines. You get annoyed at each other and then forgive each other. You have shared jokes and memories.

Melanie's and my pregnancies overlapped, and as the only two new moms in the office at the time, we talked a lot about the ups and downs of being pregnant and taking care of newborns. I gave her my old maternity clothes and my body pillow. She always asked me about Elsa and Clio, and was an occasional reader of this blog, too.

I guess this is all a little bit off-topic. But I just needed to share this news, and honor Mel somehow. My heart goes out to her husband and son and the rest of her family. And to her, wherever she is.

Melanie and her son, Tyler -- taken by a friend of hers last spring.

Table for Two

Roper — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 22:28:00 GMT

So, yesterday, like a naughty, impatient kid, I opened one of the girls' Christmas presents early. It's a cute little folding table and chairs I'd ordered from Leaps and Bounds. I was going to wait and set it up for Christmas morning -- maybe put some dolls in the chairs, or something; the kind of thing Santa used to do at my house when I was a kid. But I didn't.

The thing is, we've been having trouble getting Elsa and Clio to sit in their high chairs at the dining room table lately. They frequently want to sit in the "big girl" chairs, but those chairs are too low without a booster seat and too tippy with. Clio is also going through a phase of wanting to be on our laps while she eats, (sit-a mommy? sit-a mommy?) which is not a pattern we want to get into. Particularly because then Elsa gets jealous and wants to sit on a lap, too.

So, I thought that maybe being able to sit at their own little table would help. Also, they woke up early from their nap and it was too cold to go outside and I was bored, OK? Merry Christmas!

The first thing the girls did was push the chairs around for a while. Because they are currently obsessed with anything that can be pushed or wheeled around. (You should see our floors.) Then, I set them up to color with crayons. Within seconds, Elsa had scribbled on both the table and the seat of her chair and started yelling "Me mup! Me mup!" (Translation: Clean up! Clean up!) The girl loves "cleaning" things almost as much as she likes messing them up.

Later, I actually did give the girls their dinner at the table, in the middle of our kitchen, all the while spouting lots of pro-table propaganda, like "don't you love your new table?" and "what big girls you are, sitting at your own table!" etc. etc. It went reasonably well. But there are two main problems: 1.) The girls can get in and out of the chairs on their own, and did several times during the meal. 2.) The table is lightweight enough that they can -- and did -- push it back and forth at each other repeatedly, laughing laughing laughing until somebody, inevitably, pushed too hard and pissed the other one off.

So, it's still an experiment, this eating at their own table thing. Maybe it won't work out. But I feel very good about the purchase. It'll be great for arts and crafts type stuff, games, kiddie bridge parties, etc. It's nice to be able to set them up in the kitchen, where there is always other stuff to be done. And I love the fact that the table and chairs fold, so we can stash them away when we're not using them. They're also very nice looking and of good quality, all for what I think was a pretty reasonable price. (I'm not getting paid to plug this product, I swear!)

I guess I feel a little lame about jumping the Christmas gun. On the other hand, it's not like they really *get* the idea of Christmas yet -- or presents for that matter, right? It's funny -- I've really enjoyed picking out a few presents for the girls for Christmas, but it's also a little frustrating knowing they won't really recognize them as being special treats, on a special day. No gleeful cries of "thank you mommy!" and "it's just what I wanted!" (Not that furniture generally evokes this sort of response from children anyway....) Ah well. Next year, maybe?

Playing with stickers at their new pre-Christmas table, with Adriana, our regular sitter. (Who also does their hair up fancy-like.)