Negotiation

It is nap time.  Xavier now has a habit of sleeping with Pookie the stuffed bear, a toy Elmo, and a stuffed dog who remains nameless.  That's all fine and good when he has the whole pack-n-play to flop around, but at nap time I still rock him to sleep.  I told him today he could only choose one toy.  Here's how the negotiations went.

Xavier: "Elmo"
Me: "Okay, only one toy today"
Xavier: "One, two, three"
Me: (very impressed by the counting, but not giving in) "You said Elmo first so let's get him"
     We retrieve Elmo who is still sleeping in the pack-n-play
Xavier: "Pookie"
Me: "No, you can only hold one toy today and you are already holding Elmo"
Xavier:....(thinking) "Mama hold Pookie"

I laughed so hard he started laughing with me even though he had no idea what was funny.  He fell asleep just fine with only Elmo.

The stomach bug and other things keeps us busy

J.J. hasn't been feeling 100% since around Christmas.  It seemed like mono from all the symptoms, except his stomach also hurt.  The first trip to the doctor told us just about nothing, except it wasn't the flu.  He hung in there for a few more week and then when things got worse again we decided to try another doctor.  They ran a bunch of lab work and discovered it had been mono all along.  On top of that he has a bacteria in his stomach, the kind that causes ulcers, that was giving him all the abdominal pain.  So he starting taking lots of medicine and was feeling some relief.  Then I caught a stomach bug from who knows where.  I always took building immunity as a perk of teaching small children so I guess now it is a perk of having play dates and exercise time with other moms.  J.J. tried to stay away but managed to catch the stuff anyway.  I'm sure I've lost weight, but I would not recommend this method.  Praise the Lord, Xavier has seemed to miss out on the worst on the symptoms.  He has been sleepy, gassy, and unpredictable in the diaper department, but nothing that matched our second homes in the bathroom.  My mom saved the day by watching him during my initial siege.  Thanks, Mom!  We are praying tomorrow brings more energy and less illness.
We also do other things besides being sick.  We go to lots of basketball games.  The season is actually almost concluded.  I don't know about the post season chances.  Xavier loves to talk about basketball, but he doesn't spend much time watching it.  He spends most of his time running in the "carefully chosen so we will disturb the least amount of people actually watching the game while preventing Mommy from having to say no 1,000 times because it is safer" section of the bleachers with his basketball friends.  Several elementary school girls think he is awesome and enjoy playing with him at all the home games.  We've been getting ready for teen camp this summer.  We get to plan with some great friends, which means fun planning dinners followed by entertainment by our kids.
Mostly though we've just been doing our fun and not so fun daily things.  Xavier's been home for almost 8 months now and I'm excited to see how his 2 1/2 year old check-up goes in a few weeks.  He is growing and changing all the time.  He now sleeps in his pack-in-play every night and no one has to rock him or cajole him into sleep.  He does try to negotiate release most nights, but he really doesn't put up a big fight.  He can reach door knobs and open some doors now.  He loves Elmo and wants to watch the potty video at all opportunities (more on that later).  Whew!  This post is just stretching on and on.  Maybe I'm finally caught up from Christmas and I can do more everyday posts.  Stay tuned for less "As the Stomach Turns" and more "Days of Our Lives".  =)  Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Russian Christmas Eve

We stretched our Christmas celebrating out to include some fun on Russian Christmas Eve, January 6th. Xavier and I made gingerbread cookies.  I noticed gingerbread boards on display in one of the art museums in Russia, so I decided that gingerbread cookies was a good traditional thing.  It really doesn't take much to talk me into gingerbread cookies.  Then we made blini for supper.  Finally Xavier opened a few more small gifts.  I don't know how traditional any of those things were, but we wanted to at least keep the idea of heritage alive.  I did some research on Christmas celebrations in Russian and they seemed to center around the church.  That is fantastic except there is not exactly a Russian Orthodox church anywhere near our little hamlet in Texas.  Maybe another year.  Here's some pictures from our day.

I had this hat and apron from gingerbread man/cookie activities with my Pre-K students.  Xavier actually enjoyed wearing it, but here he looks like, "Really Mom?".

Happy Birthday Jesus!

We made chocolate cupcakes for Jesus' birthday.  We all enjoyed the cake and it helped us remember the reason why we celebrate Christmas.

Christmas with my mom's family and Christmas at home

We had Christmas with all my mom's family on Christmas Eve.  We drove to there and back in one day because we had candlelight communion that night at our church.  We opened gifts with Xavier at home at communion.  So both these celebrations occurred the same day. I only took about four pictures at mom's family celebration.  One was this cute "cheese" face from one of Xavier's cousins.  We got Xavier "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" (my favorite children's book) with a toy caterpillar, playdough toys, a popper, and a kitchen.  Notice our lovely blanket wrapping jobs.  It was such a long day, but it ended well.

Oh and PJ's which we modeled in the rocking chair

Christmas with my parents

We like to spread Christmas out around here.  Share the love.  We had Christmas with my family on the 26th.  We probably would have opened gifts on Christmas evening but J.J. was sick. Poor guy.  He's spent more of his break feeling yucky than well.  My parents made a "traditional" meal of turkey although we discussed that maybe goose was the real traditional dish.  We like to take turns opening gifts so everyone can watch the other people reactions.  It was a fun time.  We got to play more games.  My dad made his famous tapioca pudding.  We all watched Jeopardy. I helped the kids put together and decorate a gingerbread house.  The older girls played in the snow. It was just a nice relaxing day.

More Angry Birds please Uncle Brian

A sippy in our stocking. Hooray!

A Weeble tree house

Cousins in the snow with Grandpa

The finished product

Playing/eating Don't Break the Ice

Big Family Celebration #3

I guess I will go in reverse order (since my husband apparently already downloaded some the pictures off the memory card on his computer and it is with him at work).  Our last big Christmas celebration was with my dad's family.  It was my aunt's year to host, so we made the 6+ hour drive last Thursday to spend a couple days with my family.  We actually headed down a day early.  My sister and brother-in-law live within 30 minutes of my aunt and they agreed to watch Xavier for most of an evening so J.J. and I could have a date.  This was our second date since bringing Xavier home.  Last time we went to football game.  This time we went out to a movie and then had dinner.  It was so nice to just sit and talk!  Friday evening the whole family got together for food and games.  My aunt had a finger food contest and there was so much food!  Xavier even made pigs in a blanket.  Saturday we got together again and, of course, ate some more.  We played more games and just enjoyed each others company.  Xavier had so much fun running around with his cousins.  The event was in a church fellowship hall that doubles as a gym, so there was plenty of open space for running, spinning, jumping, rolling on the floor, all those things that Xavier likes to do.  We headed home early in the afternoon.  Xavier did so well in the car.  I don't know if I've mentioned it, but he usually behaves marvelously in the car.  There have been a few exceptions, but this time he was a trooper.  Once again I hardly got my camera out, but I did snap a few cute pictures of Xavier with his youngest cousin.

Looking very mischievous

I had to crop the photos because the poor kid had an accident and his mother didn't bring him any extra pants so he spent most of the day running around pantless.  I thought I would save him the embarrassment later in life of having diaper pics on the Internet.