Discovery Museum

Nicky’s daycare was closed after Christmas so he and Kate and I had a week at home by ourselves.  Luckily, daddy had Monday off and grandpa Sam was around to help out at the beginning of the week, but by the end of the week it was just us.  I’ve done many errands with both kids, but never an outing, so we decided to experiment a bit and the three of us went to the Children’s Discovery museum one morning (pictures here).  Kate slept through the whole thing and Nicky was very good at exploring independantly, sharing with the other kids and listening to mommy.  No one got lost, there were no tears and no temper tantrums. All in all, it was a success.

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Williams Family Visit

We had a very fun visit from the Williams side of the family during Christmas (pictures here). Nicky loved going to the park with grandpa Sam and showing Grandma Cheryl all of his toys and flirting with his aunties. Baby Kate loved being passed around from one pair of arms to the next. I don’t think that little girl napped in her bassinet one minute while they were here, which is exactly how she likes her day to go.

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Christmas Recap

It has been a very hectic two weeks, hence no posts over Christmas. Nicky kicked off the festivities on the night before Christmas Eve by developing a stomach virus. He didn’t give any indication of feeling poorly, he just stood up suddenly when we were out to dinner and started vomiting EVERYWHERE. Poor little guy. Needless to say we all slept badly that night and none of us were 100% for the next couple of days. Nicky spent the next 24 hours on the couch watching Frosty the Snowman on repeat while he was in recovery. Sam spent the next 24 hours on watch after Nicky looked at Sam while being held over the sink and vomited straight into his mouth (luckily, Sam’s immune system survived the direct assault). I spent the next 24 hours washing everything that had come within 10 feet of Nicky, bleaching any surface that he had even looked at, and washing my hands neurotically in the hopes that I could keep Kate healthy. The one silver lining was that all of our sterilization efforts paid off and baby Kate didn’t get sick.

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Nicky rallied from his sick bed on Christmas morning and was completely amazed to find the tree buried by presents. He spent the next 4 hours unwrapping everyone’s presents (pictures here). What better medicine to help you forget that your tummy hurts than piles and piles of presents?

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Gingerbread Train

One of our Christmas projects this weekend was to make the gingerbread train that Aunt Jan sent. Nicky loved adding his creative input but also loved trying to eat the candies and frosting as fast as we could put them on. The result was one very happy boy and one a very funny looking, but delicious, train.

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Cookies!

Nicky helped me make Christmas cookies this weekend. I use the word “help” very liberally. He helped me stir the flour mixture, and then dumped a bunch of extra flour in when I wasn’t looking. He helped me cut out the cookie shapes, and then rolled the precut shapes out with the rolling pin when I wasn’t looking. In his defense he was VERY helpful with the sprinkles and of course with eating the results.

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Visiting Santa

Nicky was SO excited to see Santa this weekend. For several days before he kept asking to see Santa. When the day finally came he couldn’t stand to be in line waiting and kept saying “Nicky’s turn” and “I want to sit”. He had a plan to tell Santa “ho, ho, ho, merry christmas!”. By the time we got to the front of the line I could barely restrain him from running up to Santa and ruining the nice picture that was being taken of the family in front of us in line. It was finally our turn and he walked confidently up to Santa…until Santa moved his hands. That was the point when Nicky realized Santa was a real man, not a lawn decoration. And he would. not. go. any. closer. We tried to lure him in close enough for a picture by offering a chance to pat Santa’s knee and even used baby Kate as bait but he wouldn’t be fooled. He conceded one fist bump from a safe distance but that was all we got. Baby Kate, on the other hand, cooperated perfectly.

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Smiles and Cooing

The first couple days this week were hard.  For unknown reasons, baby Kate spent several days crying all day long for 3-4 days.  The only thing that would calm her was being walked around the house, so walk we did.  We wore tracks all through the house pacing back and forth.  It was bad timing in that I hurt my back over the weekend so I wanted to do as little walking as possible.  The doctor ruled out ear infection, sore throat, cough, runny nose, and fever and ended up diagnosing an acute case of 6-week-old-itis, the only cure for which is to wait it out.  Luckily, it passed relatively quickly and we are both getting better now.  On this side of her mystery ailment, Kate has been winning our hearts with her huge smiles and sweet little coos.  I could swear I even heard her trying to laugh yesterday…

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