Football

- On Sunday we occasionally throw soft mini-footballs around the living room. Jack brings one out and we start throwing it back and forth. When he catches it, he looks as proud as you can imagine. Kate sees us, and also wants to play. So we bring out a second one, and get her involved. And then Emily comes over. This can continue for about 10 minutes or so. It's kind of nice.

- Jack drew me a picture of a guy with a 4 on his shirt. (Even though the 4 is backward.) "I drew a picture of Brett Favre for you, Daddy."

- Last night I was working and he brought me in small picture he drew. It's a football, with a little guy drawn on it. Wearing a 4 jersey. If that doesn't ease the pain of watching a heartbreaking overtime loss on TV, I don't know what does.

Present Stuff

A quick rundown of some present stories....

- Jack and Kate played "Elefun," a game with an Elephant shooting butterflies into the air for kids to catch with nets. Emily: "Jack, why do you have all the butterflies and Kate doesn't have any?" Jack: "Because I'm REALLY GOOD AT IT!" Later, Jack lets Kate catch some, which is usually them landing on the floor and her bending down, picking one up, and placing it in her net. "My GOT it, Daddy! My GOT one!" They continue to catch them, noting the colors each time. "I got a red one!" "Green! Green!" Later in the afternoon, Kate said "Elefun! Elefun!" on more than one occasion.

- Kate played with her dollhouse while a few feet away, Jack set up the Mousetrap game. Jack sang "Jingle Bell Rock" throughout. This continued for a while. Emily and I wept with stunned happiness.

- I walked into Jack's room yesterday morning and he was modeling his superhero cape over his pajamas.

- I changed Kate's diaper and as we went to leave the room she said, "My dog! My dog!" We collected her stuffed dog off the shelf. "MY dog!"

- Kate busies herself at her kitchen. At the sink: "I wash mah hands," she explains. She brings me a cup of water. Over and over again.

- Kate and Jack both got K-Nex sets from Aunt Robin. One is age appropriate for Kate, the other for Jack. Of course, she likes his set, which makes dinosaurs. This morning we made some, and she continued trying with his set again this afternoon. It was very frustrating to her though. After dinner I was in the kitchen washing dishes and heard her alone in the living room (Emily and Jack were upstairs) saying, "I can't DO this. I can't DO it." I walked out there, and she sat in the midst of a pile of green dinosaur blocks. I helped her, and she made me a waffle in her kitchen.

Christmas Eve, Christmas

Christmas Eve

Dropped the kids off at school. Kate often wants to get her waffle or yogurt out of her lunch herself. ("Me do it. ME do it!") Jack quickly disappears amongst his friends in his room, playing superheroes or somesuch.

Picked the kids up at school. (half day) They were singing -- well, Jack's class was, and apparently Jack was shaking bells -- but there was nowhere to park and I dropped Emily off but got there too late myself. Will leave earlier in the future.

Went home and put the last sticker on Jack's advent calendar, the Christmas tree. Gave them lunch, put Kate down for her nap. Wrapped some presents. Got Jack's help making tags for Grandma, Grandpa, and cousins. Nana and Baba showed up. Aunt Linda and Grandma showed up. Jack and Kate are quite fond of Aunt Linda. They played with musical instruments and read books.

Jack and I wrote a note to Santa. Jack drew a picture of Santa on the note.

We all went to church. Kate wore a beautiful red Christmas dress, Jack in a nice red sweater. Jack sat with his cousins, Kate sat with me. For a while she was fine drawing in a pad, then she wanted me to draw. "Make face," she says. "Make face, Daddy." So I drew faces for a bit. When I stood, she sat at first, then stood on the seat, then I held her. It was past her bedtime so there was a point when I thought she'd sleep; she clung to me and was very heavy in my arms. But then she'd see someone she recognized and get interested, or hear music, and talk a little, and wake up.

The kids were called up for the children's sermon. Jack headed up and I was told that he'd take Kate up, but he was already gone when I put her down, so Emily walked her up. All the kids sat up front and listened. I could just see Kate, and she'd stand up and wave every so often. Sit down again. Then, big smile, stand up, wave. Pretty funny. Jack raised his hand to respond to a question about Christmas. I didn't catch the question, but his answer was "presents."

At the end we lit candles. Kate was intrigued. Jack wanted to hold one, then didn't. I said it was OK.

We went home. It was late and I didn't read Jack stories, just lay down and we talked about Santa coming. Emily had found noradsanta online, which tracks Santa's sleigh as it travels across the world. Jack enjoyed it; they checked it again right before bed. He had just been to Ireland!

Christmas

Kate woke up making noise at 5 a.m. We put her to bed an hour late, she wakes up an hour earlier. It's bizarre. Jack also woke up, we heard him go in the bathroom, not exactly being quiet. At 6 a.m. he came in, I think Kate slept off and on, he probably watched his clock.

We made coffee and finally let the kids go downstairs. Got a lot of "Wows" from Kate as she saw her Fisher-Price kitchen. (Kate-size.) And Jack's Hot Wheels Dinosaur Trick Track. (There were Wows from Baba and Daddy too.) We played with it for a bit, then opened stockings. And then Jack noticed his Bionicle, and Bakugan, and showed me how to play with them. We opened more presents. Jack had breakfast at some point, once we reminded him.

At some point he went up to his room with some new toys to play. Didn't want Kate playing with them too, I think. Granted some of the new toys he brought up were hers.

I went into his room and saw him playing with this little windup monkey. He was sitting watching it spin in circles, and he'd wind it up and do it over again.

The next morning, this morning, I heard him wake up around 6, go to the bathroom, go back in his room. Then we heard him playing with his toys. Then the voice of Optimus Prime, and the WooWooWoo of the siren. Around the third time, I said, OK, that's got to stop. I went in. Jack was there, just blissfully happy, playing with his new toys. Optimus Prime, the little train cars that spelled out "Jack", the Bakugan. Happy.

Big Brother Jack

More and more these days, Kate wants to play with her big brother. She can say it now: "Big brudder Jack!" In the mornings she sees him and lights up: "Hi, Jack!"

This afternoon Jack came home from school, where he'd had a Christmas party, and received a Secret Santa gift. He opened it and it was a bunch of Tonka cars and trucks. He sat down to play with them.

I looked up and there was Kate struggling over to Jack with his big Digger, a truck about as large as she was. "Here, Jack!" she said, proudly, hopefully. "Here, Jack! Play with diggers!"

Heartbreakingly beautiful

Cleaning up Jack's room a bit this morning I saw a little decoration he'd made that I hadn't noticed before. A happy, cheerful Santa face he'd drawn, cut out, and glued to a Popsicle stick. Something about the little faces he draws; so sweet. On the tree, later on, I noticed a star ornament he'd apparently cut out and colored -- maybe Kate colored it. That got me choked up too. Must be the holidays.

Kate was playing with laundry this morning. She walked out into the kitchen with a washcloth around her waist. "Ma dress!" she said happily. "Ma dress!"

I can barely take it sometimes.

Friday blog

Jack puts on music. "I like No. 8." It's the "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" track from Charlie Brown Christmas.

Kate holds the Baby Jesus from the Playmobil Nativity scene. She bounces him up and down on the arm of the couch and looks at me, big smile on her face. "Baby Jeebus dancing!" she says.

Kate picks up a marker. I say to her, only color on the board, Kate. Not on your hand. Jack adds, "Or your stomach," something she did once recently. I say, that's right. Jack adds, "Or your forehead." Then: "Wait a minute, we don't have foreheads." I tell him they do. He says, "Why is it called a forehead? Maybe it's because you can put four fingers on your head." He proceeds to illustrate. Hmm, maybe.

Jack asks for water and a napkin, because he has hiccups. I say, Oh-kayy.......

I use a rag to wipe up spilled water.

Kate rips pages out of her Backyardigans coloring book.

"Can I have my second breakfast?" says Jack, which interestingly enough coincides with me wanting to have my first breakfast.

Kate comes up to me, dancing to the music. "I'm dancing! I'm dancing."

A minute later, she holds up the stuffed Molly doll. "Molly dancing! Molly dancing. Doo, doo, doo!"

I hang another Christmas decoration. Admiring it, I say, Merry Christmas. Kate: "Mewwy critmas!"

We make a Gingerbread train. Jack and I make it, while I do my best to keep Kate from destroying it and Jack from eating too much icing, which is the glue that holds the train together. We manage, although the picture on the box suggests a lot cleaner job than what we come up with. We're pleased. Jack eats more icing.

Education

We turned Jack's calendar page to December, and it was a character he didn't know - Martian Manhunter. I don't know the character all that well myself, but I know more than Jack does so I could pretty much say anything. Plus I knew he could fly and was strong and had some kind of beams from his eyes and came from Mars....OK, yeah, I know a little bit about him.

Anyway, Jack asked me to tell me more about superheroes he didn't know. So as I was putting him to bed I told him about a few. And then HE started telling me about Transformers, which I guess Teddy (from school) knows a lot about. And he went on to tell me about Power Rangers, which somebody else knows a lot about, and how the red guy can make fire or whatever to attack bad guys. It was all very interesting.

This part was funny.

"The Transformer Bumblebee can turn into a car....he's big, but he's slower than the littler Transformers." Pause. "Which is funny, because I'M bigger than Kate is, but I'm faster than her, too."

He stopped to reflect on this for a minute. I just laughed.

Gah, it's been 9 days!

Sorry about that. Maybe I'll blog about Thanksgiving at some point....

Kate's talking a lot these days. When I get her out of the crib, it's "Ma Fends! Ma Fends!" And I have to get all of her Backyardigan friends out of the crib. And then: "Bunny!" And, "Boofish!" (Bridgeport Bluefish.) And, "Elmo!"

We read books, and she keeps me up to date on what's happening in the pictures. Family sitting at a table: "Dinner time!" Monkey on a bed: "Monkey SLEEPING!" And big smiles at the news she's given me.

Kate dances in the kitchen like the letter Y, with both arms in the air and her feet together, smiling and swaying back and forth.

She carries a stuffed snowman around these days that Jack allowed her to have. "Thangyu, Jack!" She likes to hold him up, bend the brim of his hat back so his eyes are more fully exposed, and say, "See me! He see me, Daddy."

She sings along with me when I put her to sleep. "Take....out....Ball....GAME!...." And, "Misser Moon....MOON......pease.......down......me......HIDING.....na......TREE!"

I got her and Jack matching Christmas pajamas with monkeys in Santa hats on them. They love them, of course. Kate sleeps in a sleeper over her pajamas, but the other morning as soon as she saw Jack she remembered that she, too, had monkey pajamas on. So she said,

"Sleeper OFF, Daddy......See ma Monkeys!!!!!"