Post Holidays
Well, the holidays are over, thank goodness. We’re hoping that things can get back to normal now. It really was a lovely Christmas season, even if my work was crazy busy the whole time and our shopping was entirely too condensed and frantic. Thanks to some money from Mueller Properties, we didn’t go too much into debt this year, though I haven’t done the whole tally yet. Honestly, I probably won’t ever do it.
Lucas is currently off with Grandma VoVo—hopefully asleep at her house. I should be proofreading a book about global human rights, instead of writing this. Today is Ian’s first day back to work after having a week off. It was wonderful having him home. Lucas is happiest when we’re both here. His relatively few behavior problems are much reduced when both of his parents are around to give him the attention and boundaries he needs. In fact, it’s possibly premature to say it, but it seems that we’ve come through some of the icky behavior problems that started in August and went into November. The worst ones were his rejection of and hitting and hostility toward his dad. His level of jealously seems lower and he’s seeming more secure and able to entertain himself. Probably all of this is just perfectly normal. But it was rather difficult to see my little angel boy turn into a tantruming toddler at 28 months old. Now he’s 32 months old, and he is more and more the little boy now.
Santa Claus was really wonderful to us this year. Lucas got something like 14 new train cars/engines for Christmas. He also got Duplos, Little People play sets and characters, tools, a tool belt with suspenders from Papa, a hand-knit sweater from Lisa, a train table from Santa, picture tiles, several books, a wooden tractor, from me and Ian, clothes from RoRo and Nana, Little Engine that Could board books, a Christmas Story anthology from Grandpa Glen, a Thomas the Tank Engine loader toy-thingy from Jonathan, and more and more and more. The Thomas trains and Little People are by far his favorites. He’s played with them exclusively since Christmas. Fortunately, most of our friends did not load us down with gifts for Lucas. I am planning to pack up several toys to send to Anne and Mario’s house, so that when we visit there, Lucas has some stuff to play with.
We observed Advent nearly every day. Chris and Kelly made Lucas a neat Advent calendar that was a wall-hanging with 24 little boxes. He got to open one box per day, and they contained little items and toys. We had a pretty Waldorf-style Advent calendar that slowly revealed a beautiful picture. And we lit Advent candles nearly every night. It was a lot of ritual! Lucas seemed to enjoy it all, especially when he got to carry a lit candle.
Tomorrow Lucas goes back to preschool after having had a two-week vacation. He sounds enthusiastic about going back, but we’ll see.
