Familly Traditions

We're trying to include as many of the family traditions we grew up with as we can. On Christmas Eve, we read Christmas story books and watched some Christmas specials on TV (one channel is playing A Christmas Story, back to back, nonstop for 24 hours!) We tracked Santa through NORAD, watching him deliver toys across the globe, slowly coming closer to us.

We ate tacos for dinner, a practice that started when I was still dating Steve. His family used to go to a friend's Christmas Eve party every year, and needed a quick dinner that was easy to make but filling. Three years in a row it was tacos. We dubbed it Feliz Navidad and continued the tradition. The friends have since moved away and the party no longer happens, but Christmas Eve tacos live on.

Before bed, we cleared the space in front of the fireplace, and left out a plate of home made cookies and milk. Now I'm looking forward to her first real Christmas morning!

Paging Doctor Summer

She came up to me and said "Your shirt hurt you, Mommy," and patted my arm. "You need medicine. And bandage." So I gave her a piece of tape and said "This is a pretend bandage. Will you put it on my arm, Doctor Summer?"

She did, then said I needed medicine. So she grabbed one of her wooden spoons, declared it be "pretend medicine" and rubbed it on my arm. She said my other arm was hurt and rubbed the spoon on it. I asked her if the medicine would make me feel better.

She replied "Of course. I doctor."

Bedtime Routine

We usually eat dinner around 7pm. After dinner, Summer usually plays a bit with Daddy while I clean up the kitchen, pack lunches and breakfast and in general get ready for the next day. At 7:30 we head upstairs. She is generally enthusiastic if we pretend to be bird climbing up our tree to get to our nest.

Once upstairs, we brush her teeth. This used to be fun and easy, until she decided she didn't like it. That was solved by making up a Tooth Brushing song. Now however, like many other things, she has decided "Do it MYSELF!". We can usually get her to compromise by letting her brush her front teeth, which she does a good job of, and then I guide her brushing efforts for her back teeth, with varying degrees of success.

We change her diaper and put on diaper ointment and then begins the battle of pajamas. Some nights it's easy as pie, other nights it involves her running around the room like a diapered banshee while Daddy and I try to reason with her, and finally just grab her and hold her down while we wrestle her into soft, comfy night clothes.

Diapered, brushed and clothed, we begin the winding down portion. We all snuggle together for a few moments. Some nights she had a drink of milk, either in a cup or a bottle, other nights she just wants a snuggle. When she's ready for bed, she gives Daddy hugs, then I pick her up and sing to her while Daddy heads downstairs. We sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, then I lay her in her crib. She gets comfortable and I cover her with a blanket and give her either her Bunny or her Whale Shark to snuggle with, then I sing "Hush A Bye." She gets a kiss on the head, I tell her that Mommy and Daddy love her very much and I assure her that if she needs us, she can call for us. Then I head down stairs. About once or twice a week, she calls for us once, but most nights she goes right to sleep.

Let's Play

What an imagination she has! So far this week she's been a princess, an astronaut, a pirate and a chicken. When we play princess, I have to dress in a "princess dress" which is actually my pink houserobe, and she needs "shiny armor." This ranges from my chain mail shirt to the remote to her Moon light (which apparently runs on gas, as she frequently tells me that it's out of gas).

Yesterday she told me that she wanted to dress up like a doctor. So I grabbed her lab coat and her stethoscope and she had a doctor costume. I'm pretty happy that so far we've been able to help her with all of her costume requests. We had to improvise a bit more with her pirate costume, since she's outgrown everything that we had already. I used a bandana as her pirate hat and her Daddy made her a pirate sword out of cardboard. She runs around the house waving the sword, looking for treasure and yelling "Ho ho ho!". It's supposed to be Yo ho ho, but she's getting it a bit mixed up with Santa Claus.

Oh, and she's got a big cardboard box that she uses as her sailboat.

Toddler Logic 2

Little one said her doll needed a bandage. I gave her some tape. She looked at it, looked at me and said "That not bandage, mommy. That tape."

Pixie Dust

Little one told me that I needed pixie dust, so she sprinkled some on me and said "Here you go, Mommy." I'm informed I can now fly.

Fun Day

We had such a fun day with the little one today! This morning, the Overlord and I played hide and seek. Then she told me "Dress like princess, mommy!" So I grabbed my pink robe and declared it to be a princess dress. I got one of my summer dresses and tied up the spaghetti straps so that it fit on her, just barely. It was ankle length on her. She was quite happy. When her daddy woke up, he looked at me with puzzled look, so I explained that we were dressed like princesses. He said "oh, that makes perfect sense."

Next she declared that she needed water for garden in the kitchen. Apparently the cat furniture is actually her plants. In the afternoon, we went to a jump house. So tired now!

Funny Colors

Summerism of the day: I asked her if she liked different colors - red, yellow, blue, etc. She said Yes to each of them. So I asked her if there was a color she didn't like. She was silent for a moment, then said "Gray. Gray not funny."