A Visit to Santa

Nick had his third visit to see Santa this week. For Henry, it was his first visit ever. Both boys seemed pretty happy to meet Santa Claus.

Yup. Both kids actually smiled. I always feel bad when I see those pictures of kids forced to sit in Santa's lap. I can understand why they'd be scared of a portly gentleman in a funny red suit. This tradition does indeed seem a little weird when thought about objectively. In what other culture do we encourage our children to sit on a strange man's lap while we take pictures of the event?

Since my sons do not seem to harbor any fear of the man, however, I will continue our Christmas tradition of taking them to see Santa and tell their wishes. I took Nick in 2009 and 2010, and he smiled both times.

Henry, though pretty happy to pull on Santa's beard, was only able to communicate through drool and baby smiles. Nick was able to give very clear guidelines to Santa Claus about what he wanted in his stocking. "Cars and a block!," he asked politely. "For building. And one of those chocolate candies," he said, pointing at the bin of chocolates next to Santa. (Santa ended up giving Nick two chocolates. Nick is just that persuasive. Perhaps he'll be a lawyer some day.)

It actually was a pretty nice visit to the mall. The day we went, it wasn't crowded at all, so there was no line to worry about. Nick absolutely loved the lights and decorations. His favorite decorations were the strings of lights hanging from the ceiling.

(Nick was pointing to the lights in the picture above.) When he saw the lights, Nick exclaimed, "Mommy, look! Glowworms are up there!" He jumped up and down with excitement. "Are we in the cave?" For a minute, I was totally confused.

"No, honey, we're in the mall," I replied.

"But look at the glowworms!," said Nick insistently. Then I remembered. Since we gained a DVR, I've been recording all of the Planet Earth movies. Nick's favorite is the one about caves. There's a cool and rather gross part in that one where they show glow worms that create sticky strings that glow. The light attracts bugs and when the bugs stick to the strings, the glow worms devour the bugs. This is fascinating to a little boy. Nick always says that the glowworms are having lunch.

Anyhow, I told him that the lights did, in fact, look remarkably like the glow worms. "But those ones up there are just lights," I told him. "No, Mommy. They are glowworms."

I gave up and agreed. "Okay. Fine. They are glowworms."

A Smile From This Little Guy. . .

can make even the worst day better. How can you do anything but smile right back.  :)

I love basking in his baby cuteness.  Henry has such an interesting emerging personality.

I am very much looking forward to my five-day weekend, so that I can see more of Henry's smiles. Also, I can have more story time with Nick, and more snuggle time and play time with both boys. I especially love when Henry and Nicholas play together, and both of them smile and laugh.

Plenty to be thankful for, indeed.

Way Too Busy!

I have been a little absent in the online world lately. There's been too much to do offline.

The first day of school for my students was Monday, and I've been teaching graduate school one evening a week all month. This new evening job involves learning how to use Blackboard, an online program for managing student work. It's been driving me crazy. So basically, my first and second jobs have been taking all of my time. I've been spending any additional time I can find playing with my boys.

This is what makes it all worthwhile:

Henry has been smiling and laughing more. He even coos, and it makes me smile everytime.

Even when I'm feeling overwhelmed with work and errands, a smile like the one on Nick's face (in the picture below) cheers me up and reminds me of what I have to come home to at night.

Nearly Wordless Wednesday: The Elusive Smile

Henry has recently started smiling. . . but only on his own personal schedule. I cannot get him to grin when I have the camera in my hand. He will be just beaming, and as soon as the camera goes on, this is what I get:

I swear, though, Henry has definitely been smiling at us. This is the closest thing to a smile that I could get on camera. Greg said that Henry looks like my sister in this picture.



I guess it's really more of a smirk than a smile. The one below is kind of a crooked half-grin. That or it could be just gas.



I will keep on trying to get a picture of Henry's elusive smile. It really is adorable. Babies must be programmed to get cuter and start smiling right about the time parents start getting fed up with waking up in the middle of the night. I suppose it's some sort of protective mechanism. It works, too. Who could be upset with this face, even at three in the morning?

 



Table Games at Lalo's

As promised, here is Nick playing peekaboo with a corn tortilla. He actually loved the corn tortillas, and the beans, and the chips. Lately, his favorite word is "Eat!," announced while pointing at his mouth.

We were eating at Lalo's, a Mexican Restaurant right by Fox Valley Mall in Aurora. This is definitely not Nick's first time there, though. Actually, he went to Lalo's when he was less than a week old. I remember that I had an appointment with the lactation consultant, and we stopped for dinner after the appointment. Our waitress and the hostess exclaimed over how tiny he was. He's not so tiny anymore. 

I was trying to figure out what he was pointing at. It was my iced tea. Nick loves it, and keeps trying to sneak a sip whenever he can. "Tea. Tea. Tea!," he'll cry when he sees me taking a drink.

The food was pretty authentic, at least from our gringo perspective. I especially like the chicken soup they serve before the meal. The salsa was a little spicy for Mr. Nick, though, who squealed when he tasted it.

I'm not sure why Nick is shrieking with joy in the picture above, but I love the look of pure happiness on his face. I'm very glad I ended up with such a happy kid. It makes us enjoy the simple things.

When all of the tortillas were eaten, Nick decided that the container they were in would make a great hat. He put it on his head, and then on mine. Yes, he is silly. But easily entertained.

Things I've Lost Lately

I'm usually pretty bad at keeping track of things, but lately it's been particularly bad. I've never been a neat kind of person. Quite the contrary, in fact. Finding two shoes that match on a daily basis is a challenge I have yet to master. The other day I actually had to change my whole outfit because I couldn't find any two matching brown shoes. So I had to find an outfit that went with black shoes. This is not fun for poor Nick, who sometimes has to go through multiple clothing changes because I can't find the matching pieces of his outfits.

When I was a little girl, all of the other kids would get free time on Fridays, and Melissa would get her desk dumped out on the floor and have to clean it. Often the other children would point and laugh. I've never figured out how to organize tangible things. When I taught 6th grade, I'd have some of my girls come in to school early and organize my desk for me. I miss that; I only move piles nowadays. The messiness, especially at home, has only gotten worse since my little man has started crawling around and moving stuff.


Stuff keeps disappearing. Part of the problem, I think, is that I don't put things away immediately, and my husband puts things away very quickly, but not in a consistent manner. He cleans daily, and he'll just take piles of paper and random objects, and dump them in rubbermaid bins or on top of my desk. Greg cleans like I did when I was nine and wanted to go out and play; he dumps everything in the closet or in a box and calls it clean. He also takes any paper in the house and puts it on my desk in the living room.

Don't get me wrong; I'm grateful that he cleans, and he is the only reason I have a clean coffee cup every morning. (Thank goodness for that.) But I organize in a unique way. I sort things into piles and then figure out what to do with them. Unfortunately, I don't usually get to finish sorting my piles, and then Greg just dumps them onto the desk and I have to start all over again. You can see the stack of junk on top of my desk; I haven't seen the surface of this desk in literally months. I'm going to have to tackle it soon; I can't find the ComEd bill. Sigh.

So here's just a sampling of what I'm currently looking for. This is by no means everything I've lost recently, simply the items I haven't given up on yet. I have lost: tweezers, baby nail clippers, two packages of stickers, at least twelve single baby socks (yes, there's one lone sock on the table; it's partner is missing), three pairs of shoes, a glue stick, q-tips, photo paper, a magenta printer cartridge, two memory cards for the camera, my gray thumb drive, a bottle of astringent, two brand new hand soap refill bottles, my last box of checks, three baby pajama tops (I have the bottoms for some reason), my neti pot, a package of mechanical pencils, my brown purse, a push-toy I bought for Nick, five pairs of adult Fiskars scissors, my spare car keys, Yum Tummy Tickly (one of Nick's favorite books), a bottle of Flintstones Vitamins, the shapes that go with Nick's little kitchen, the comb I use to brush the kitties, eye makeup remover, one pearl earring, the cloth I use to clean my glasses, and fourteen binkies.



Wow. I guess I hadn't realized quite how bad it is. I'm at the stage now where purchasing new items is way easier than finding the missing ones. I only find these missing items when frantically looking for something else.

I was trying to organize things around the living room tonight when I got distracted by a silly baby who wanted to play. I'm always looking for a reason to stop cleaning, so of course I played with him for a good hour and never got back to the organizing. Tonight he was fascinated with his turtle toy; he pushes a button on the top and it plays music. Then, Nick dances. Not a bad night, all in all. Although I never did find the ComEd bill. . .