Holiday Hoopla

There isn't much documentation, since I am failing on #28 again (take pictures every week), but we had a pretty good holiday. Even with the sick kids, we still had a good break. A few random notes about the last 3 weeks:



Once Jack got over his nasty ear infection, he is communicating a lot. He is clearly nodding his head "Yes", asking for "Mo" (as in more food), trying to ask for help with sign language, and pointing at everything that catches his interest. He learned to climb onto the kitchen chairs (and table) and climb over the back of the couch upstairs. As he got better the Christmas week, he took all of the "twin life force" and Madeline got really sick. I guess we can only have 2 happy kids at one time.



I was pretty close to taking Madeline to the ER on 2 different days, Christmas Eve and the 27th. I had taken her to the doc at the begining of the week, but they said she just had a bad cold. Bad cold turned into Bronchialitis/RSV with probable pnemonia. So she was on a nebulizer all week and taking antibiotics. It took her a few days, but she eventually took back some of the "twin life force" and Jack started to slow down and might have conjunctivitis (eye infection) now.



Madeline learned to say "No" and "Mine" this week. The first time she said "No" I had offered her some food, and she pushed it away with a firm "NO". I laughed outloud it was so funny. Later I asked for a kiss, she again said "Noooo" and ran away. My laughter has fanned the flames and she says "No" to most requests for hugs and kisses now. It took us a couple days to figure out she was saying "Mine". I really didn't expect that out of a 16 month old, but here it is. She is learning all the animal sounds and is clearly trying to talk to us, but we have no idea what she is saying. Most of it sounds like Ewok talk.



Gwendolyn had a great holiday. She played hookey from school one afternoon, Jenna and I took her to lunch and to see The Frog Princess. She really enjoyed it. Christmas Eve, John caught on camera her complete lack of awareness that it was Christmas Eve. I don't know if that is good or bad, I think bad. She loved all her gifts, including a new kitchen and lovely play cupcakes. When the kids were all trying to play with the cupcakes, a brief tussle ensued - Gwen yelled "Cupcake Fight!" She also sang "No swiping on Christmas" from the Dora Christmas special about 200 times, sometimes changing the words to "No eating on Christmas", "No yelling on Christmas", "No recycling on Christmas". We also watched The Little Mermaid for the first time, she asked 175 questions, half of which were "Why?". For good reason, as the plot gets a little confusing at the end.



Thanks to Jenna for visiting and doing all the cooking. It was a much better Christmas with Aunt Jenna visiting! Thanks to John for my sweet Cricut and other awesome gifts - he did very well as usual.