Christmas 2012

Here is a standard, what we did for Christmas kind of post. This post did make me realize how picture crazy we are though. It was near impossible going through all the holiday photos, which were mostly terrible pictures anyway.

We spent December 23rd and Christmas Eve at my parent's. My sister and her family were visiting from Ohio so we capitalized on that and got the cousins together for 2 full days of playtime. Cole and his cousin Lisa really love playing together and this visit Cole and cousin Walt had a lot of fun together too.

December 23rd


Walt and Cole climbing in a bush




Cole got stuck in this bush. I was proud he didn't panic.

King of the Mountain!



Some hot cocoa after playing outside

 

December 24th

Henry reading with boyfriend Dan. He demanded to read books after receiving them.



Asleep in the car after a wild Christmas Eve

 

December 25th

Everything setup for the boys. I thought it actually seemed a little light this year. Sorry guys. Kristin and I built the dollhouse.

Cole investigating the leftover Santa cookie.



Aftermath of toy explosion

Dancing with Auntie Barber (Barb but Cole calls her Barber, which is too cute to not include)

 

Ready for battle.

Getting logs for the fire with Uncle B

Eating cookies with GG.




Tired after an exciting Christmas Day (Grammy DJ crossed his legs). Henry stayed awake on the drive home on both Christmas Eve and Christmas.

I think the boys both really enjoyed all the holiday celebrations. Cole especially loved driving around to see Christmas lights which we did many weekend nights leading up to Christmas. We went to Country Springs, Candy Cane Lane, Miller Valley, Cathedral Square and then we stuffed Grammy DJ and Uncle B in the back of the minivan on Christmas night to go see 2 houses that were written up in the newspaper. Unfortunately for them the boys fell asleep while we were stuck in a traffic jam to see house #2...so we were all sweating in the car, stuck waiting to see Christmas lights and the boys were snoring.

Scare Tactics

Obviously kids don't always listen, or mostly don't listen. Now that Cole is understanding more about Christmas and Santa Claus, Kristin has been playing the Santa Claus card. A lot. Okay, I pull it out too. I'm worried it's becoming too much of a go to. Just this morning, Kristin told Cole that Santa wouldn't come if he didn't get dressed. So, how often can you threaten Santa not coming until it becomes inappropriate? Will your kid become super naughty once he or she realizes some truths about Santa? Or worse, if you threaten enough, do you really have to follow through and skip Santa altogether?

Considering these questions, I started thinking about other scare tactics and levels of appropriateness. For example, is it okay to tell Cole that the store won't let him in if he isn't dressed? How about telling the kids that they will be arrested by the Police if they don't get dressed. I think Kristin and I will need to talk more on discipline and scare tactics, and maybe do some Googling.

And some random pictures...

Gatorade mustache

 

High fashion over here - undies over onesies

 

 

Cole's First Field Trip & School Christmas Program

Today I went with Cole on his school field trip. We rode the City bus into downtown, walked 3 blocks and went to see the Holiday Junction display at the BMO Harris Bank. Riding the City bus made me want to barf so next time Nick will be taking off work and going in my place. I get car sick easily and all the jerking and stopping of the bus put me over the edge. Cole was super excited to ride the bus and loved to point out the window and chatter about who was getting on/off the bus and what they were doing. We sat next to his friend Julia and her Mom and thankfully her Mom was feeling better than me and sang songs with the kids.

Once at the bank we walked around with his friends and talked about the trees, the automated animals and mostly the train the kids could climb. It was kind of interesting, the display is in the lobby of the bank and it was business as usual...with about 20+ preschool kids and parents running about. I have been feeling a little extra paranoid lately and did look around for a safe place to hide/run with Cole if a crazed gunman were to appear. Thankfully that wasn't necessary and we enjoyed the display and playing with classmates.


Cole wasn't the only one who beelined for the presents, one little girl tore the wrapping paper!

 

Cole is looking down at a little boy who looked a bit like Henry, he later ran up to him, yelled "Henry!" and gave him a hug. Luckily Chase and his grandma were okay with Cole's affection. I think we both missed Henry a little bit.



Tuckered out; ready to head back to school for cocoa and cookies

After the field trip the plan was to head back to school (another long bus ride) for cookies, cocoa and some singing by the kids. The party was held in the 3-4 classroom (Cole is in 2-3) and Cole only wanted to play with their cool big-kid toys. So he ate no cookies. When it was time for his class to gather at the front and sing...Cole wanted cookies and threw himself on the ground and moaned when his teacher asked him to come sing. So that was awesome. I even packed our video camera, all for naught. I did do some taping of Cole's class singing and ringing bells and then panned to the opposite side of the room where Cole was happily riding a plastic airplane.

After the Christmas program (if you can call it that) the kids were to give their handmade presents to their parents. They all lined up, got the gift and then with prompting from their teacher they were supposed to give it to us and say "Merry Christmas!"I got lucky, Cole followed directions and was happy and proud to give me our present. He was the only one. One Mom got hers thrown at her with no comment and most others just handed it over silently. After this last scheduled activity most of the kids lost it.  It was a long morning (for everyone!), nothing was as expected with a lot of new experiences. There was lots of crying and yelling and Mom's rolling their eyes and heaving exasperated sighs. I did a lot of sweating trying to get Cole out of school and into the car.



Putting our present under the tree

After the field trip we were supposed to go pick up Henry from Grandma's house but we both needed some time to chill. Cole got to eat a cupcake for lunch while watching TV. Best 30 minutes of the day.

 

So that was our field trip day. Not only was it Cole's first field trip and City bus ride, it was also my first field trip day as a parent and my first City bus ride. So a big day for both of us! 

Terrible 3's Continued...

Since turning three, as we mentioned, Cole has been exhibiting some difficult behaviors. In addition to our struggles with getting dressed (which has improved a lot with the addition of the "treasure box," as Cole calls it) we also struggle with bedtime. Failing at bedtime is a huge bummer for us because up until this point bedtime was smooth sailing. Down at 7pm and up at 7:30am pretty much without any hiccups.

Our routine has not changed at all, after bath, teeth brushing, and what we call "head and face" (i.e. Aquaphor on face and scar cream on forehead) Cole gets three books (usually ends up being four or five when I put him to bed because I am a sucker, unlike Mommy), we sing him one song and he gets put in his crib. Right around the time of turning three, Cole started saying that he is "not ready yet." This gets repeated several times in a VERY whiny voice. Then he starts saying, "I just don't want to." Sometimes after that he will start talking about how he doesn't like his bed or that he needs water. At times he will want to change his pajamas because he is hot, or he needs a band aid on an invisible injury. Basically, he starts giving every excuse he can think of to stay out of his crib.

Kristin and I are trying to be tough. We have scaled back the bedtime routine somewhat. We are careful to countdown the books and remind him that it is almost time for his crib. No excuses. Sadly this leads to about one hour of crying and screaming, often waking up Henry. It is pretty amazing how resistant Cole is when it comes to bedtime. After an hour we will go in his room to just calm him down. He is exhausted and sweaty at this point from screaming for an hour but he is super stubborn and just won't quit.

Sometimes after calming him down he will go to sleep. Other times, another 30 minute or hour long screaming and crying session will ensue. Then he will usually fall asleep. Many nights this is not even the end because in the middle of the night he will wake up all in a tiz and want out of his crib...back to screaming and crying. A few nights, after making sure he was okay of course, we wore ear plugs.

We have talked this to death and just can't really figure out what we could do differently. We definitely don't want to get in the habit of letting him sleep with us so I guess it is screaming for now! To those without kids, you are welcome for the free birth control.

This was during a nap in the "big bed" with Mom

 

All scrubbed up and ready for books...and in Cole's case screaming

 

Happenings...

As if you didn't get enough updates, here are are some more.


We have started watching Christmas movies with the boys some nights before bed - we have had fun taping the old school classics from our youth, like Frosty the Snowman and Charlie Brown's Christmas. Crazy how both boys will sit and watch and not move a muscle! Cole has started asking "why" a lot - equally crazy is how little we know about why St. Nick comes and why people decorate their houses with lights.

 

We are trying to get Henry to identify himself in the mirror...every time he points, then he gets excited and shouts, "Cole!"

Cole has been getting better at getting himself undressed but shirts are tough - we have fun watching him try. Usually he ends up shimmying out of the neck

 

 

 

Cole's swearing is much better. He now says "oh shuck!" which is better than it starting with an F

 

It took him awhile to realize that the gifts in the stocking could be removed from the stocking. At first he just glanced at it and wanted to hang it back up with all the stuff still inside.

Cole loved decorating the tree. You can see most of the decorations are concentrated in one area, at his height. Last Christmas, because we had crawling Henry, we bought a bunch of kid friendly ornaments like plastic glitter snowflakes and bows . Seems Hen is even worse this year. The little monster enjoys ripping the ornaments off the tree and either snapping them in half or taking a big bite out of them. We even caught him trying to snack on the lights.

 

 



Terrible 3's

Cole has been three for 11 days now. It's been the hardest 11 days of my life. Well, it at least feels like it after the weekend. On Sunday, Cole and I got into four huge fights. I thought three, but when I was talking to Cole about all our fights and talking about what we could have done differently, he corrected me and said it was four fights. He lies a lot but this time I actually believe him.

Our first fight was about getting dressed. This is a regular, daily fight for Kristin and/or me. It is horrible. He doesn't want to get dressed. Doesn't like any of his clothes. Always wants to wear shorts and short sleeves. He kicks. Screams. Tears his clothes off. The works. I don't have the words to even describe how difficult and horrible it is getting this little three year old dressed.

We also got in a fight in the car on the way to Grandma and Grandpa's. After talking about, and agreeing, that he would start listening better, I asked him a question and he refused to answer. Infuriating behavior, so I snatched his computer. He cried and I wanted to too.

We had similar big and small blowouts throughout the day and evening. Not fun. Kristin has come up with a new system to try and modify this behavior. He gets a reward box. Yep, for being a little S-O-B he gets a box with a bunch of cool stuff in it that he can have when he does something he should just do anyway. Hmm. Hopefully it will work, and we do plan to really make him earn his rewards. For example, if he gets dressed everyday without much fuss he gets a sticker on a chart. At the end of the week, if he has 5 stickers, he can have something from the box. I'm hoping this isn't too soft of a parenting method. I am doubtful anything will work, so I guess it makes sense to try the reward box instead of going straight to face punches. Obviously Henry is clearly my favorite child now.

I will give Cole credit for his behavior once we are out of the house. He is usually a very good boy. He accompanied me to a work party on Saturday because Kristin got sick. We were all set with babysitters, plans to go to this work party and then to meet people out afterwards and Kristin goes and gets sick. She sucks. I don't like going places alone, so I took Cole just because he is easier to deal with at places than Henry (due to age). Cole seemed to have a lot of fun at the party. He met a four year old boy, Andrew, and they were running around the basement most of the time. They also started to hold hands and embrace in a hug here and there. This did not make me happy, and sadly I even saw Cole initiate a couple hugs. Cole also got to stick fight a little bit (my boss is a stick fighter, seriously). I felt like a bad parent though. As Cole was stick fighting with the basement pole, I heard Andrew's mother in the background yell, "Andrew! Don't touch the sticks!" In addition to having fun with Andrew, Cole enjoyed eating snacks and was a great party helper - getting me and my coworkers beers from the cooler.

Check out that stick speed!

And you can see he won at getting dressed this day - short sleeves

And then he looks like this and all is forgiven