Baby Squared : santa

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.)