Christmas Fun

Christmas seems to get more fun each year. Penny seems to have gleaned quite a bit about Santa from somewhere. Knew he was supposed to come, he had a sleigh pulled by reindeer, Christmas was his big day. Not really sure whether she knew he's supposed to bring presents, though. Santa made a guest appearance at her daycare on Wednesday and she says that it's her teachers that gave out presents. So she was worried that Christmas as a whole is brought by Santa, not just presents, apparently. 

Christmas came and was plenty of fun. Penny helped Daddy sort the presents. As you can see, there was a bit of confusion about whose gifts were whose. "P" is Penny's personal letter, not to be shared by anyone, so it took a while to convince her that some of the gifts were designated for Paul. Though she seems to recognize all the letters and their respective sounds, she doesn't seem to get that you can sound out a word by putting the sounds of individual letters together. Ultimately, she had to help Paul open his gifts anyway, but it seemed important that she realize some of the gifts are intended for Paul to play with. I was surprised to find that she knows my name - look at that, I have an identity in addition to being "Mommy!" 

Dan got some of the items he wanted as well. He's pretty tough to buy for - always on top of procuring the items on his own wish list. However, he Santa did manage to get there first on a couple of items - a very fun card game we were introduced to by our friends Brent & Celeste, as well Zelda. I'm wondering when he plans to play either, but whenever we get time, we are totally set!

Paul spent much of Christmas day sleeping. Fairly typical for someone his age, I suppose. He did manage to wake up long enough to venture over to Great-Uncle's house for Christmas dinner. He's also fighting his cold pretty well. He's still pretty stuffy, but the raspy breathing has lessened a bit. I've been annoying him periodically by introducing tummy time. On the plus side, it inspired his first successful roll onto his back today. He's also really good at holding up his head and looking around to explore the world. He seems most fascinated by ceiling fixtures. He also likes looking out the windows quite a bit. Perhaps with just a little more recovery time we'll start venturing out a bit more.

One Month

Where did the last month go? I'm afraid I have fallen into the trap of the middle kid having no pictures. So sad. But really, when am I supposed to have a hand free for a camera? When I'm not cuddling or feeding him, I'm doing my best to give Penny some fun time as well. In all fairness, there aren't any new pictures of Penny either. We did get a chance to do a family portrait session, thankfully, so I did enjoy that. Here's some nice shots of the two of them together.

After the photo session, Penny enjoyed a ride around the mall in the train with Daddy. It's amazing how long the session took, how shy she was, but how she really remained pretty good as we put together our picture order. Family portraits are expensive! Maybe we'll hold off for a while.

In the first couple of weeks of having little Paul home, we ventured out to the mall or shopping a few times. It's a good time to do so...he's still pretty portable, sleeps most of the time, etc. We even did a few trips with big sister Penny as well. Slow trips, but we got a few good things done. I'm glad we got them in when we did because we're definitely homebound now. We've all got some horrible germ that's got us coughing up a storm, even little Paul. The coughs aren't frequent, but pretty nasty chest-coughs. It's hard to watch the little guy because he has no way to really clear all the mucous. We're going to the doctor again tomorrow just to check that we're doing everything we should for him. Penny will be excited...she has enjoyed every one of Paul's visits, picking up his sucker and stickers for him (and maybe consuming them herself). I'm kinda bummed because I didn't really finish my Christmas shopping and can't really make it up at this point. Alas, maybe next year will go smoother.

Penny has finally made a real breakthrough in the potty training department. She has been able to detect for some time that she has to go, but never really had the motivation to go to the potty instead of her diaper. For some reason in the past few days, though, the stickers and possibility of wearing pink (training) diapers has gotten very motivational. She's going multiple times a day, asking to go, getting really excited, etc. It's awesome stuff. I like being able to praise her about something as well. I feel like I'm always telling her "no" recently, so this is a welcome opportunity to give some positive feedback to her.

Christmas is just a few short days away and Penny's WAY excited. She seems convinced that my yelling at her will keep Santa from coming. It's hard to punish her for doing something wrong, while convincing her that it isn't serious enough to merit the naughty list. What a strange balance to have to strike! An adventure every day, it seems!