A Visual Catch-Up Guide

To help you cope with my usual delinquency, I have created a visual catch-up guide of the recent history of the Cummings family, covering our three Christmases, and into the new year. 

On the first third of Christmas, I achieved, on the 15th shutter release, a nearly-focused snapshot of my three miniature men about to open their Georgia-based gifts. 

What followed this shot was a verrry leisurely opening, inspecting, assembling and playing of new toys. We took pleasure in the non-carnage of the event. Hours after commencement, gifts sat unopened, as each toy was thoroughly appreciated, leaving our nervous materialism alarms unsprung. P.s. When, and if, I find those evil little loss-prevention gnomes, with their nubby, nimble little fingers meticulously binding toys to hidden crevasses of their packaging, there'd better be some gnome-loss prevention yetis nearby to bind *my* limbs.

Next, we continue to BJs Wholesale Club, where we "wrapped up" some last-minute shopping, and I shrunk Ian back down to pocket-sized.

Everyone, meet Gene Gnome, Dad's birthday Father's Day Christmas present. My free time has made itself somewhat scarce lately.

Finally, the Wednesday before Christmas, Elijah started walking, so in retribution, I packed the car, strapped him  (and his brothers) in the van and drove to Florida.

Everyone began feeling properly spoiled. Isaac and Aunt Ashley pressed cheeks.

Uncle Jack grinned from ear to ear.

Elijah and Grammy shielded their eyes from the glorious Christmas inferno. According to Ian, this is appropriate Christmas decoration, in contrast to my "Christmas shrine" - a table top tree with a token handful of ornaments, stuffed into a corner of the living room. I agree.

On the second third of Christmas, Aunt Ashley and Uncle Adam amuse themselves trying to stuff Elijah into his Santa suit. Elijah amuses himself by masterfully resisting.

Oooh! Dada a do! Do doo!

Starting stocking stuffers.

Grandpa Jim is so funny!

Elijah's first wrapping paper party.

On the third third of Christmas, Ian and Grandpa saw some meat.

Elijah narrates the festivities.

Mr. Isaac looking handsome in his Frosty vest.

Ian rings in the New Year.

Statler and Waldorf give their condiments to the chef.

Chef Boyardee does it again! Perfect pancakes, served with a smile! 

Aunt Kelly reels in amazement as Captain Isaac, Space Ranger, launches to the moon in his new Fatheronium-powered rocket.

Whew. Christmasing is hard work.

 Ian sporting a handsome chocolate 'stache.

 Just a Georgia boy enjoying some old-fashioned Florida orange-pickin'.

 We enjoyed an evening of weenie-roasting and toasting s'mores at grandma's fire pit.

 Catching a movie (and some Zs) with Grammy.

We enjoyed the sweater weather, but Florida quickly lost its coolness.

Meanwhile, the Toys exercised a bit of passive-aggressiveness.

We decided to give Elijah an early birthday party, complete with the traditional birthday pumpkin pie.

 Returning home from two thirds of Christmas requires super-human packing abilities and a long history of Tetris playing.

 On the way home we stopped to admire the manatees and the smoking area.

We returned home just in time to be iced in for the week.

 By the end of the week, we were amusing ourselves by sliding sheets of ice off the "New Van."

 Brian discovered ice petals sliding off of the bushes.

Elijah enjoyed his first snow day, Tupperware-sledding in the back yard.

 During our drive back to Georgia, I tried to play a new book on disk and discovered that our car CD "changer" wasn't working, but it made cents. Twelve cents, to be exact. (Thanks Ian)

After getting somewhat settled at home, the boys went to play with their friend, Luke. They wanted to decorate gingerbread cookies. That lasted about a cookie and a half, leaving mom to do the remaining dozen or so. My impatient grip, paired with a makeshift sandwich-baggie piping bag, resulted in one unsuspecting gingerbread man succumbing to a sweet, red tsunami. In an effort to clean up, most of the gingerbread men ended up with rosy sweaters, crimson jogging suits and bloodshot eyes. That got boring in short order, so I mixed it up a little with the occasional ginger cow and ginger business man.

To bring us up to date, I regret that I have no photo evidence, but I will conclude with today's highlight: Brian applying glue stick to Isaac's lips.

Isaac approached Brian with an opened glue stick, conveniently tinted purple for gluing accuracy, and asked him to put it on his cheek. Brian says, "Don't you mean your lips?" and proceeds to apply it to Isaac's lips. Then, Brian decides to find and inspect the "chap stick" lid and discovers it's glue.I think he missed a fabulous opportunity. In fact, maybe I'll give the "chap stick" trick a crack next time it starts to get a little wild in the house.

Approaching the Holidaze

I totally need to get more creative with my "veggie hiding" when cooking for the boys.  Ian saw a picture of green beans in a book yesterday and said, "green bean casserole!" Well, what can I say.  Putting them on a plate and calling them Super Green Power Rods only garnered enough interest for them to emit a few sound effects and launch them one-by-one to the floor.

Santa was generous enough to swing by our subdivision one evening.  We made a deal of it, tossing the boys in the car and letting them cruise, unbuckled, through the neighborhood as we searched for Christmas decorations. Several houses had the sidewalks lined with glowing candy canes.  The boys cheered for the candy canes, as if they had planted their own sweet selves in nearly-straight rows.  When we arrived at the clubhouse, Ian celebrates, "Yay!  We're at the North Pole!"  He shoots out of the car and up to the door, and once inside, squiggles through the throng to get a not-too-close peek.  Satisfied with the sighting, he raids the dessert table, chugs some hot chocolate and starts jumping and dancing and diving under the table.  Neither of our kids have any interest in getting close to Santa, so Ian hollers "Goodbye!" to Santa, who is busy grinning for a camera, and he prances back to the car. For the next couple of hours, he asks to go see Santa again, but it's late and we have lots of sugar to burn before bedtime.

It's probably time to start wrapping presents. We're going to have a GA Christmas and a FL Christmas. I've done an inordinate amount of Christmas shopping online this year, so hopefully the deliveries will be rolling in soon. After his drawn-out birthday and the approaching drawn-out Christmas, we're going to have to enroll Ian in a 12-Step program for gift addiction recovery.  On the first day of Christmas, I admit I'm obsessed with wrapping paper...

I'm excited to say Ian is probably officially potty-trained.  I haven't looked up the official Certified Research Academy of Potty Training guidelines, but he hasn't had any accidents, he's randomly decided he's willing to go on "big" potties (even in public places!), and only gets 'suggestions' from us right before bed or long road trips.  I'm not sure what has occurred in the blur of the last month to make all this possible. We really have done nothing but let him figure out his own body and provide choices of what undergarment he'd like to wear and where/how/if he wants to "go."

At some point we got all tangled up in our own frustration of trying to "make" it happen, so we just gave up trying, really. We'd usually describe his behavior to him and help him try to link that with what his body was telling him (You're dancing.  Your body is telling you it wants to pee.  There's your potty if you want to pee.).  We didn't think he had attachment issues with his poop/pee, but we explained that it's just parts of food he ate and other 'trash' his body doesn't want anymore.   We pointed out how when his belly grumbles, his body is telling him it wants food and he eats. When his mouth is dry, he drinks. When his nose tickles, he sneezes, and so forth, and then pointed out the potty signals. After that, we turned it over to him. No more reminders to go or anything. Maybe he just needed the time and space to figure it out himself.

Ian's been enjoying a steady trickle of gifts and cards mailed from relatives.  On his actual birthday, he got a motorized Cars racetrack that came with Lightning McQueen. He was so excited.  After playing a while, he came to me and said, "We need to go to the store and get Mater." Oh dear, he's got it figured out already. When he took a break, Isaac was turning the track on. Ian told him "No noise, baby. It hurts my ears" and turned it off. Isaac turned it on again. Ian said, "Baby, I know you want to play with it, but no more noise. It hurts my ears" and turned it off again and asked me to put it away. It's good to see he also practices tactics from those times when Mommy isn't a beast.

Isaac woke up on one of those rare occasions when Ian and I were already up, and got out of bed and walked out -- not sitting in bed crying (also rare) -- toddled past me (another rarity), inquiring, "Ian?" He found Ian in the kitchen and threw his arms around him and Ian hugged him back (getting rarer yet).  It's the cutest thing ever when they hug! Usually one is offering and the other wants nothing to do with it. Sometimes the sibling stars align, and...cute cute cute!!!

Isaac is sitting on the floor now in a pile of books. I just heard him close one and proclaim, "Great Tory!" His word combos are getting longer. Probably the best yet was when he stuck his toe up and said, "Kiss toe. Nay  bip-per hurt me (nail clipper)." Not to change topics, but I'm pretty impressed with his soccer skills too. He loves to run behind a ball and seems to have a knack for kicking.  So far I have a mechanic/engineer and an athlete/diplomat.

I've stalled long enough.  Time to go attack the Godzilla-sized pile of laundry.  :(

In Our Sleighday

I have approximately 8 weeks of pregnancy left. Yikes. I'm so anxious to meet our new little guy, but I keep reminding myself not to wish time away, because life is much simpler with him in my belly. Plus I'm trying to cram as much playtime in with the boys as I can before I face the excitement and guilt of caring for a newborn while feeling like a complete traitor to the other two.

I think it's a sick joke that during these last couple months, when I want to boost my reserves, I'm destined to flop around in bed all night like a spooked moose, trying to find comfort.  Listen here, my little womb-mate. I know what I'm up against. You, on the other hand, will like me much better when rested.

This morning, I gave up trying to sleep about an hour early, lit a fire and tackled some of the Thanksgiving aftermath in the kitchen.  Within 30 or 40 minutes, everyone else was up and we lazied our way through breakfast, showers and more tidying up.  I had the idea that we'd go to a mall and window shop for Christmas gift ideas, and maybe snag a few bonus sales. We piled into what Ian calls the "new van" -- a Ford Flex we picked up in August -- and headed to a mall I remembered seeing about 40 minutes away. Thirty-five minutes and two sleeping boys later, my mommy brain reset and I realized that the place I was thinking of was actually 45 minutes in the other direction. We circled the nearby shopping plaza, only to find that they were the exact same stores we had - maybe slightly bigger. Since the boys were still sleeping, we decided to head back to stores near town.

We ate some ultimo-delicious Five Guys burgers and fries and squeaked in some totally fruitless shopping that looked more like two frazzled adults dancing around a hot toddler hive, clumsily trying to untangle kid leashes from one end of the mall to the other. At one point, Ian and I broke free of Dillard's, and while waiting outside for Brian and Isaac to emerge, Santa walked by and stopped at a cluster of kids. Ian asked me where his sleigh was. I told him I wasn't sure, but he could go ask Santa. He seemed to think that was a good idea so we walked over to Santa, very, very cautiously, of course. Santa said hi and handed Ian a small toy. I prompted Ian to ask his question. He murmured "Where's the sleigh?" and Santa said it was at the North Pole getting ready for Christmas. Always the skeptic, my brain launched into self-dialogue, demanding to know how he got here without his sleigh, but my prefrontal cortex managed to keep my lips closed. Ian asked Santa if he'd found Marty's truck [One of Ian's favorite books is Santa's Peppermint Rescue. Marty is the delivery mouse for Santa's candy]. Silly Santa thought Ian was asking for a truck. Is that how Santa deals with his primary candy supplier -- feigning ignorance? Or...do we have an impostor on our hands?

As Santa walked off, up trots a horse pulling a fancy Cinderella-looking carriage. Ian tries to hop on. I try to rein him in as I crane my neck to see if the guys have made it out yet. Just in time, Brian and Isaac walk up and we all climb on the carriage and under a blanket for our complimentary ride around the parking lot. The boys love it.

Back home, Ian dashes to the refrigerator for a snack. A couple weeks ago, he ripped the child lock off, and has since enjoyed his unfettered access to Snackland. He pulled out the egg carton and begged for an egg. Brian hands him an egg. Ian holds the egg at arm length and announces, "Now a chicken's going to pop out. Bawk bawk. [Sniffs] It smells like an egg." Then he gets a look in his eye and starts to dash after Isaac. Brian swoops in to rescue the egg and cooks up a snack for the boys. Ian repeatedly asked for ketchup, honey and peanut butter on his eggs. I resist on moral grounds. He begs some more. Sigh, who am I to tell the boy what he likes.