Another Day in Parradise: Christmas

Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts

When I grow up I want to be: "BIG!"

So if you're a Pinterest devotee like mee, you may have seen the "Birthday Interview" pins sprinkled aboot. Being the little joiner that I am, I compiled a list of questions for TJ and conducted his three-year-old interview a couple days after his bday.

We even got through 2/3 of my 50 questions - not counting follow-ups. I mean, what kind of interviewer would I be if I wasn't prepared with questions, and thinking on my feet for those hard-hitting follow-ups? I have cred to maintain.

So, without further adieu...

Ladies and Gentlemen - THIERRY JAMES PAAARRRRR, 3 years old! (My comments are the words in italics.)

What is your name: "TJ."
How old are you: "Free!" We don't quite have that "th" sound down yet :)
What is your favorite color: "Black."
What is your favorite toy: "Dump trucks."
What is your favorite fruit: "Apples."

Doing good so far...

What is your favorite lunch: "Lasagna!"

We've never had lasagna for lunch. Not once. But I digress.

What is your favorite game: "Fishy's!"
What is your favorite animal: "Horses!"
- Me: "Any horse in particular?"
- TJ: "BENNY!" (Shout out Aunt Allie-Poo)
What is your favorite song: "Horses."

<Smile> Nope, not a duplicate answer, that's our kick-off anthem for bedtime songs

What is your favorite outfit: ...<Wide eyes>..."I don't know."
- Me: "Soccer jersey?"
- TJ: "Ummm...yeah."
What is your favorite thing to do: "Push buttons." (Hides giggle)
What is your favorite toy: "You just said that!"
- Me: "No I didn't"...<looks at list>..."oh, right, yes I did."

Gah! Stop being smarter than me! When does this STOP?!

What do you want to be when you grow up: "BIG!"

So profound. So hilarious.

What is your favorite cereal: "Cheerios"
What is your favorite food: "I just said lasagna!"

Note to self: learn the difference between lunch and general food. THAT is important life stuff.

Who is your favorite person to spend time with: "YOU! And dadda!"
What is your favorite thing to do outside: "Go in that truck that talks!" That's never happened. "And go high in the air...And hit golf balls with the 7-iron."

Yes. Except for the talking truck. I have no idea what that even is.

What is your favorite drink: "Lemonade!"
What is your favorite holiday: "Christmas. And birthday party."
What do you take to bed every night: "Nightnight and nook."
What is your favorite sport: "Soccer."
What is your favorite show: "Thomas!...I need to go potty."

<Intermission>

And we're back!

What is your favorite sports team: "GIANTS!"
- Me: <confused...and not pleased> "...Excuse me?..."
- TJ: "Giants, mama!"

<Deep sigh, shakes head> I mean...what?

And WHO DID THIS?!

WHO?!

Not gonna lie. I needed a minute to compose myself before I continued the interview.

And then this...

What is your favorite birthday dinner: "LA-SAGN-NA, mama. LASAGNA...And candy."
Who is your best friend: "Dadda!" Saw that one coming.
Where do you live: "Rochester."
- Me: "Where else?" (I was looking for "40!" or "Pink house!")
- TJ: "Chicago." (Hmm..alright.)
- Me: "Ok...where else?"
- TJ: "Next to Mr. Tom. And Dennis."

I give up.

What do you do really well: "Poop."

<Stifles an LOL> Now we're back on track.

What makes you laugh: "Jokes." Again with the profound!
What is your favorite book: "Itsy bitsy spider."
What is your favorite thing to do with your family: "...Am I done?..."

Yes. And you're 3.

<Big sigh>

So there ya go.

Nostalgia.

Eat it up.

We'll do this again next year. And hopefully 365 days is enough time to get good at something other than pooping.

Much love from next door to Mr. Tom and Dennis,
CP

Bless My Child and His Aversion to the Gluttony of Christmas

So TJ hates Christmas.

Ok, that’s an overstatement.

Especially considering TJ loves himself some Christmas, but it’s not the presents he loves.

No, no. It’s the tree, and the stockings and the lights and the special movies and the sledding and the hot chocolate that he loves.

But seriously, not so much the presents.

Christmas morning came and I thought T would be ecstatic to open his presents and see all of the new things Santa brought him. Our Christmas day schedule is pretty jam-packed, and our plan was to wake up early, eat a quick breakfast and then go straight to Yaya and Poppy’s house. After that we would return to our house and have Christmas with my parents who were visiting for the holiday. I was nervous that T would see all the presents under the tree at our house as we were leaving, and not want to go to Yaya and Poppy's. So I hatched an ingenious plan to have his shiny new workbench from Santa all put together so he could play with that and hopefully be averted from wanting to open the presents under the tree before it was time.

So on Christmas morning he came into the living room, and there...next to the tree...was his <trumpets sound> new workbench!…and he had no idea what to do with it or why it was there.

Cool hammer, what’s for breakfast?

I think he was actually very confused. We showed him the workbench and all of its little accessories and noise-making capabilities…but, not being one to stray too far from his routine, all TJ really cared about was what was for breakfast, and which show he could watch while he ate it. No mention of presents under the tree. Nothing.

Oook.

So we went to Yaya and Poppy’s house for family Christmas. A mountain of presents was under the tree, and when we walked in I was thinking – “oh yeah, here we go, TJ is going to love this!”

But, nope. Still didn’t really care about the presents.

He got a Big Wheel, which he sat on for approximately 1.4 seconds, and then got off.

Cool Big Wheel, can I get off now?

I had to open his last 5 or so presents. He just wasn’t interested.

Then we went back to our house to have Christmas with my parents, and I’m thinking, “ok – now he knows the drill, and he has seen all the presents under the tree at our house, heeeere we go, he’s going to go nuts for his presents this time.”

The kid seriously would not open his presents.

As soon as he opened one thing, he would get very upset when we would take it away so that he could open another. He just wanted to play with the presents he already had.

Eventually we stopped torturing him with gift unwrapping and he went to his room to play. I was certain he had to be playing with some new toy or other, so I snuck to the doorway of his room to snap a picture, to find he was deeply invested in one of the ~~newly acquired gifts~~ most boring things in his room…

Ah, States Puzzle, at last we can be together.

Fast forward to December 30, and all of his presents were finally unwrapped. Yes. Five days after Christmas, with some prodding and reminding from mom and dad, my child was finally forced to open the last of his Christmas presents.

The stuff he received for Christmas hasn’t all been played with yet, but all gifts have all been liberated from their festive Christmas wrappings.

Maybe we’ll just keep some of them in storage and wrap them up again next year. He wouldn’t know.

Or, and I am seriously considering this idea, maybe we will forgo presents for him altogether next year, and for his birthday in August, and instead just say that in lieu of gifts people can make a contribution to his college fund.

At the very least we are having a massive pre-Christmas purge of old toys before we bring home anything new next year. My house is a freaking hoarders dream right now, with all of the stuff sitting around it – and TJ wouldn’t even know if it wasn’t there!

At any rate, bless my little baby boy’s heart for not getting into the gluttonous spirit of Christmas just yet. I’m not counting on that being a permanent thing. He is an American, after all.

Red and Green Tinsely Yuletides,

Christa

This is a staged photo taken a week after Christmas for our Thank You postcard. He didn’t even get excited about unwrapping trains on Christmas morning!

“I have no idea what’s going on either, but that’s ok because I’m adorable!”

Hey! I'm Back!

Oh man, has it been forever! I have missed blogging! Three months, 2 weeks and 1 day into this craziness I feel like I FINALLY have enough of a handle on this parenting thing to say we have established the all-important routine. Let's catch you up on the last three and half months, shall we?

The first 6 weeks after Thierry's birth I was on maternity leave. And it was AWESOME. Tommy was in his brother Dan's wedding on August 21 (6 days after bebe made his appearance) and left for NY on the 18th - the same day my parents arrived to meet their grandson and hang out while baby daddy was away! When he was 6 days old Papa Mac took Thierry to his first baseball game (outside the womb, that is, he had been to approximately 50 games while in utero). Tomas returned to us unscathed the day after the wedding and we met him for a much-anticipated reunion in San Francisco. After meeting Tommy at the airport we spent the day at Pier 39 and enjoyed a birthday lunch (for ME) at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. We left mom and dad, er, excuse me, Gramma and Papa in San Fran and returned home to Motown as a family once again!

Tom's parents Ken and Connie (aka Yaya and Poppie) came to Modesto about a week and a half after TJ was born for a delightful visit that included lots of laughter and an awesome rib barbecue at our house. My mom came back for a double dip and overlapped her visit with Ken and Connie's so they could meet each other. Shar-Bear stayed for a week and was an enormous help with the baby and around the house! Anytime you wanna come back ma, you're more than welcome :) After the visits were over the days blissfully ran into one another, we didn't get much sleep, and took lots of walks around the neighborhood with our baby boy for the remainder of my maternity leave.

Buuuuut, those long days of delightful relaxation and hanging out with all of my babies came to an end and I returned to work in October. Fortunately my boss has allowed me to work part-time from home and my schedule in the office is only 8:30-1:30 everyday until we return from our Christmas holiday break in January.

At 11 weeks TJ started sleeping through the night and he has been a ridiculously amazing baby since we brought him home. He's incredibly strong and very easy-going. He doesn't cry too often, rolled over for the first time when he was 7 weeks old and loves to hang out with mom and dad. He's also content spending time with himself, and at just 3 months likes sitting in his bouncer or laying under his mobile and just checking everything out. One thing he does not particularly like is sitting in one place for too long, and he lets us know it! He's starting to recognize words, is smily and giggly and absolutely fantastic. I could seriously gush about the kid for hours!

Being a parent is completely surreal. I can't even describe it. But I know that I love it. Over the next couple of weeks I'll catch up on some of the fun adventures we've had since welcoming Thierry, and do my best to keep up with everything that's coming up. For now, here's some pictures of the boy...welcome back to blogging MOM...bahaha, so surreal :)

This is What We Were Doing August 14...