Christmas Cheer

Happy birthday month to Ethan! Evan's month of celebration sort of fell apart, and I'm guessing that Ethan's will too, what with sharing it with Baby Jesus and all. But today, so far, has been a lot of fun. We ran tons of errands and both boys were great li'l shoppers. I asked Ethan if he wanted to go out to lunch and he answered enthusiastically: "Oh yeah, Mom! Can we have Chinese?!" That's my boy.

We have been listening to Christmas music and putting up decorations. Well, some of us put up the decorations, others just carry them around. Let me just say that stepping on a wise man while stumbling to the bathroom in the dark does not fill one with Christmas spirit. Yesterday we made egg yolk cookies and tonight we got sugar cookie dough in the fridge to roll out tomorrow. I had the brilliant idea of making lots of batches to have some ready in the freezer but it turns out that the number of cookies I make = number of cookies eaten. Oh darn, we'll just have to keep baking.

Ethan was being pretty rotten to Evan yesterday- grabbing toys, knocking him down, not sharing, etc. After countless timeouts and separations, I finally overheard him using his sweet little nurturing voice. "Here you go, baby, do you want a bite of cookie dough? I will share with you. OK. You are such a nice widdle baby," he was saying. Without turning around, I silently congratulated myself on my excellant parenting skills and the quality relationship I was fostering between my children. Then I saw him tenderly holding the little plastic Baby Jesus from the Veggie Tales nativity scene, putting small bites of dough on its face. Okay, quality relationship with and concern for inanimate plastic objects: check.