One year. Two houses. Two moves. An incredibly energetic son whose energy rivals some of the hurricanes that came through this year. Another son who will be here before we know it. And we finally made it to Christmas in our new home…a dream that started at the beginning of the year is finally here.
Please forgive us if we stop to catch our breath for a day! 🙂
What better way to do that than give Nicholas his second shot of sensory overload in a week with a mighty mountain of presents. Nicholas does tend to hold his own but one thing you learn with the little ones is that you put together an early present so that when they get tired or overloaded, they’ll be occupied when *YOU* are opening your presents! One of the first presents opened and put together was an airport set and it was honestly a photo finish as to who fell more in love with it: Nicholas or Daddy. This airport is pretty neat as the vehicles can interact with the terminal (so turning the rotors on the helicopter will cause helicopter sounds, etc.). The things they can do with toys these days are just plain amazing!
Nicholas also got to meet a new friend who can be his baby when his brother comes to join us. His friend is one of the Cabbage Patch dolls…you know the ones that have names and birth certificates and all the trimmings, right? We were quite surprised to discover the name of Nicholas’ baby. We just can’t make this stuff up, folks…the doll’s name was Alexzander (different spelling than our Alexander James but a coincidence nonetheless). Mommy was quite surprised, too…the goal was for Nicholas to have a baby of his own to play with and learn how to be gentle with his little brother but to subconsciously pick one with the same name without having looked at the birth certificate is pretty amazing.
But that’s not all…every growing boy needs an industrial strength Tonka truck. They’re so versatile…you can haul stuff with them, you can push it round the place, and you can use them as a new recliner chair. It doesn’t look like it’s the most comfortable of seats but Nicholas seemed to make it work.
But the big prize of the year was upstairs. It doesn’t cease to amaze us just how much of a difference a year has made in the boy. Last year, he’d move a bit but was pretty happy to stay in place…this year, you can try to keep him in one place (it won’t work but you can try!). Last year, his big present was the Peek-a-Blocks wagon. This year, we appreciated just how little we could get by with last year without fear of recrimination from our little one. So by moving the decimal one place to the right, we found ourselves in the big leagues with a Pottery Barn kitchen that is pretty amazing. He had a ball playing with the refrigerator and island when we were there previously and this stuff looks like it could take on Conan the Barbarian and emerge victorious. I can assure you that they’re heavier than you can imagine if you didn’t load it in the truck and schlep those suckers upstairs for a bit of a put-together session a few days earlier. But they ought to survive our boys and Nicholas had a great time cooking us a late breakfast.
You know what? The smile on his face made the last year’s trials and tribulations absolutely worth it.
Once the presents were opened, it was time to just sit and relax and enjoy the day and the odd Christmas movie on the TV. But the assembly wasn’t done…the time before dinner was devoted to putting together Midnight, Nicholas’ bouncy horse. Midnight was actually last year’s gift from Grammy but with all of the packing and moving, it was easier to just hold off until we were situated in the new house. So what if the instructions were in Chinese or Sanskrit and the diagrammes were drawn by someone with the same talent for graphic arts in a technical document that I have (read…none at all past stick figures and even those tend to come out wretchedly at best! Hey…Mommy paints the amazing murals on the walls…I handle singing and picking at various musical instruments!) The real pain was getting the plastic tubing pulled up over the springs (a nice innovation since I had one of these bouncy horses…landing on those springs hurt!). Nicholas, never one to pass up a chance to show his superior climbing and equestrian skills climbed right up there on Midnight and started riding off toward the entertainment center.
Midnight has been put into the stable upstairs (i.e. Mommy’s office) because our little Nicholas has shown quite an ability to climb on things. I don’t think there is much doubt of what’s going in the back yard this spring. If we don’t get a jungle gym out there, the boy is probably going to go ape! (Oh, I know…I’ll pay for that horrible pun!)
What a day. What a year. And it’s our hope that you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
