Catching Up, Part 2: Christmas

I was loving and sympathetic about Jack’s stomach problems on Christmas Eve, but even more so when I found myself experiencing the very same problem. Nooo! The last thing I wanted was to feel sick on Christmas, especially with a house full of family coming. Steve surveyed his pitiful sick family and promised that as an extra gift to me, he’d take care of everything that needed to be taken care of. That of course, is a pretty big gift, especially since we needed to make dinner still. Check us out, looking like hell:



But more importantly, I didn’t want to miss anything. Jack was feeling fine, and I didn’t want to be pathetically stationed in bed or on the couch while he gleefully ripped through all of the presents from Santa. I decided to do my best to get my strength up. I sipped a cup of very weak coffee, then while everyone else dined on chocolate chip pancakes and bacon, I took tiny bites of one of Jack’s Dora The Explorer yogurts. Amazingly, it worked, and I felt okay again.

Jack was thrilled at the piles of presents downstairs, shouting, “Santa!” He’d open a gift, then upon seeing, say, Fisher Price animals, beg, “Abra! Abra!” Then, as I attempted to rip out the freaking vacuum sealed, multiwired creatures from their package, Jack would move on to the next gift, which he also needed someone to abrir.

Big hits from Christmas included the aforementioned little plastic animals, Elmo DVDs, a Sesame Street CD (“Bye bye? Ernie? Duck?”), and, amazingly, a set of flash cards. The flash cards have pictures on them and the corresponding letters of the alphabet. Jack is fascinated by them. We talk about the letters some, but since he’s really working on trying to learn the words for absolutely everything around him, he loves talking about what the pictures are. Thanks to the flash cards, Jack can now say words such as mitten, mouse, yo yo, and zebra. Pretty cool. He also loves shoving the cards into his shape sorter, between the cushions of the couch, and onto his airplane.

The massive amount of presents were a bit intimidating to the Cub, so we took a break midway through so he and Steve could go for a brief walk outside. We also saved some gifts for the next day. No sense in having Christmas magic include a tantrum.

Christmas gets more fun with the kid every year. The first year, Jack’s Christmas included such fun things as his first ever bath, lots of sleeping, and having his dad stumble through diaper changes. Hey, he was only one day old! The next year was a blur of presents and craziness. But this year, I got to hear Jack say, “Santa!” in reverent tones, request Christmas books, and even sing carols (if you count yelling “Hey” during “Jingle Bells” which I obviously do).