I had my BIG exam on Thursday December 10. Talk about stress! I'm super busy at work so I can't study there, and with the kids at home my only study time would be from 8:30 to 10 at night. Oh yea, that's a prime time to study complex mathematical equations! So on Thursdays I would take the kids into daycare for 4 or 5 hours to study! YUCK. And then, because we wanted to take an extra couple of days off work (and I have NO leave) even the weeks AFTER Dec. 10 I had to go to work on Thursdays to make up for lost time. Sigh. So I was so unbelievably stressed.
Plus, you know me, never one to know her limits, I was determined to celebrate Christmas in style! So we still had the Christmas photos to take, the Christmas letter to write, and 60 cards to stuff, address and send. (I didn't get cards from Mary or Babs…did they not send cards or am I not on the list? Snort) Actually, once my exam what over it was like suddenly coming up for air after hours under water. So that very Sat. we had some friends over to help us decorate our tree. I had a big crock pot of spiced apple cider going, and it ended up being a rousing success. Kathleen was 9 months pregnant at the time so she and her husband were quite content to hang out with our children. We built a big fire and hung out for several hours.
The following weekend I baked gosh knows how many dozen (yes, we're talking like 5 or 6 DOZEN) cookies! JD 'helped', mainly by making a huge mess. Then JD and I decorated bags for the cookies! Finally JD, Katie and I all dressed up in our matching Christmas Santa sweatshirts made by JoAnn and went around our cul-de-sac Christmas caroling and handing out cookies. (And exactly 3 days later we received Christmas cards from each and every neighbor that had not yet sent us one. J ) JD can sing the first line of Jingle Bells - which consists of only those two words, and that is what we sang. Of course, my ever present shadows Amanda and Kenny were out & about and totally enthralled with this idea, so they joined us. There I was, baby in my arms, Amanda pulling JD in the wagon full of decorated cookie bags, and Kenny tagging along for luck. You should have seen the look on people's faces when they opened their doors and saw us there! So that was a TOTAL blast and I am already looking forward to that next year. I do love the Christmas season!
Lots of fun over the Christmas holiday. Without a doubt the coolest toy we got is this large yellow thing John & I call "The wiggle worm" It's a big yellow. . .guy? Anyway, it's got a big ole happy face on it and when you squeeze the left hand it starts to vibrate and make this hysterical laughing sound. Katie totally loves it! LOVES it! The look of rapture on her face when it starts to laugh is unbelievable! So, wiggle worm is like a tickle me elmo for infants. She grabs it, all smiles, and hugs it. I would never have guessed she would love this toy in a million years.
Lets see, you both still owe me pages and pages of praise for my family tree. Where you surprised? You guys were supposed to get it at the baptism but I didn't get it done in time (imagine that!) Can I just tell you how stressed I was about this damn thing? I did so want it to be this amazing gift, and I set my expectations so high about what it would look like that it was impossible to reach it - and then I get stressed and annoyed! I really wanted the whole thing to be in color - but color copies are 78 cents, and there is 112 pages in the document. Also, I promised all the Mollerans copies - so that's 10 booklets for a total cost (not including binding or cool paper) of $873.60. It ended up that I basically used a work day to print out the family tree and make double sided copies of it. For the color pages, I did those by hand (What an enormous pain!) This was on Monday, and on Tuesday we were leaving for Pittsburgh for Christmas. That night I took all my copies to our local Staples (who I hate, but they are my local option) Anyway, it was a good thing I made the copies - which are too dark, but again that was the only copier I had access to that made double sided copies - because both their color and black and white printer were down. SO, I tell this guy that I want each of these 10 booklets bound. He didn't seem really bright, but he was like, "go away, come back at 10 and they'll be done". Note, I am usually asleep by 9:30. So, at 9:30 I staggered back to staples. I walk up to the counter and say, I'm here to pick up the booklets. And the woman looks at me with much trepidation and says (I quote) "Oh. They're your books." Ack! What have you done!! So then she says, "There's been a little problem, see, the technician screwed up. . . " Honest to god I started to cry!! I'm like - "No! you don't understand! It took me 6 hours today to create those! I'm leaving in another 7 hours!" Well, to make a long story short (not my specialty) the guy had only screwed up one book and it wasn't yours which had the last chapter all in color. But for about 5 minutes I had the beginnings of a massive stress headache. So, it turns out, after all this I STILL don't have my own version of this booklet. Which I suppose is no big deal since I can always make myself a copy. But its funny how totally stressed I got about this, when it wasn't a big deal. Hey - I can truthfully say that I think about you every day!! And I mean it! Believe it or not, now that my exams are over I can play with it during the single hour of free time I have each day when the kids' naps overlap. So I'm writing a virtual novel about myself! I mean - what is interesting about me? It's hard to put in perspective. . . anything at all about Grandma Engelhard I would want to know just to know it. . .so who knows? Maybe my grandchildren will want to know everything in the world about me? (Stranger things have happened!)
Enough about me, since I'm no longer the apple of your eyes. On to the stars of the show: my precious children. JD is growing in leaps in bounds! Not so much physically, but mentally. He talks and talks and talks - he'll be playing by himself and carrying on detailed on-sided conversations. It's really funny. Also, he is amazingly particular! Everything must be just so! If he sees a lid off a container it just drives him batty until you put the lid on (this from the child that can have blocks in every corner of my house!) Things must go back in the refrigerator, the cats aren't allowed on the table. . . etc. "Kitty off da table! Wash da spoon! Lid-on Lid-on! Put baby down, give baby dada, put baby hopper" What a little dictator! (the hopper is an "excersauser", and we always call it the hopper because babies use it to bounce up and down)
JD just loves to help too. John recently was re-caulking our bathrooms. So both John and JD are in the bathtub working away at the old caulk; John with a real screwdriver and JD 'helping' with his plastic one. (Note: this would have been an awesome photo, as John doesn't fit by himself in a tub, much less with JD) And then when John was hanging up new curtain rods - there is JD one step below him on the stepladder, arms above his head (just like dada) with his screwdriver outreached. He helps me in the laundry room carrying clothes from the washer to the dryer. Oh yeah, when he was in the tub with Daddy he'd climb up on this bar we have to help you out of the tub, and as he did he'd say, "JD climb like a monkey" Oh Lord it was too cute.
I have to say the highlight of JD's little life (besides going to McDonalds every Sunday mornings) is washing dishes. This is a bit of a nightmare for me since he gets water everywhere! I've got beach towels on the floor, rags all along the side of the sinks, and towels where he usually spills. I have to take most of his clothes off - at the very least his shirt - and away he goes. The positive is this can keep him busy for upwards of an hour.
Katie is still an absolute gem. She has got to be the most laid back, content baby alive. She almost never makes an unhappy sound. She's now in the chatter phase and ga-gas constantly, so there is indeed plenty of happy noises from that tiny mouth. The light of her life is John. She absolutely adores him. She gets a fire in her eyes for her daddy like for no one else. It's beautiful to see. She totally adores JD too. (I think she likes me as well - but boy does she adore her father! Unbelievable) JD likes Katie back pretty well too, which is both wonderful and surprising. We haven't had too many problems (yet) with the toy situation. At this point everything Katie likes JD takes away at will and says it's his. However, this doesn't yet bother Katie in the least as she considers any interaction with JD to be fabulous. Nonetheless, John and I are gently trying to break in the concept of 'alternate ownership' to JD.
I gave Katie her first taste of real food on Jan. 1, 1999. I have to tell you was I worried about how she would take it. She's been so very particular about the bottle issue - so unlike JD as to make me wonder if they're related! - that I was concerned she would also be a royal pain in the butt about solids as well. To my delight/surprise, she really seems to enjoy food! I think she's been ready for solids for a while now. When I eat, she stares at me intently and watches the food go from plate to mouth. So, when I gave it to her she really seemed to know what to do! She'd open her mouth wide and got most of the food in the proper place - as compared to her hair, the ceiling, etc. Maybe I'm a bit more skilled as a baby feeder, too. Funny thing, she really seems to enjoy eating with us at dinner! Isn't that weird! She gets all fussy and even though she is tired she won't fall asleep. So I'll stick her in the high chair, pull her up next to me and give her cereal as we eat. She seems to really enjoy it. (JD sits next to daddy, so John gets to control him. I didn't realize that for the last 2 years JD has been sitting next to John until recently. Not that it will kill him or anything.)
Well, I'm running out of space, and now JD is up so if I don't print now this won't get sent. A final note, I want to mention that Katie can sit up now. The reason I mention it is that she gets carried around a lot and consequently most people don't ever see her sit up. During Christmas, JoAnn saw Katie for 4 days and it wasn't until the final day that she saw Katie in a seated position. Until that time Katie was in someone's arms! (Note, JoAnn and My dad actually got into an "argument" over who got to hold her during breakfast one day (Pap pap won) which was hysterical)
