Cookies and Crayons

It’s that time of year again — buying Christmas presents, singing Christmas carols, and making the annual trek to glare suspiciously at Santa Claus. With Mum and Connie off on their own shopping expedition (and Connie still a wee bit young for Santa), Dougie put on his new Merry Christ-Moose sweater and made the trek with Dad to the mall.

Longtime readers will remember Dougie’s previous run-ins with Santa in 2007 (age 1) and 2008 (age 2). But I had high hopes this year. Dougie has been way more into Christmas this year (as demonstrated by the tree decorating and gingerbread train making in previous posts — still need to capture his “carols” on video — including his rousing rendition of “Jingie All The Why”). He has a decent understanding of Santa, knows his name, and generally thinks he’s an all-around jolly dude.

When we got in line, I pointed to the big chair and Dougie excitedly said “SANTA!” I told him that he had to tell Santa what he wanted for Christmas. He wasn’t sure on this front but he had some ideas (Clifford, trains, Pokey Little Puppy…) and generally seemed OK.

Then — when it was Dougie’s turn — we got “Stone Face Dougie”. No smiles, no giggling, no nothing. Couldn’t even get him to say “cheese” for the camera (which works on him now — though sometimes we need to modify this to “grilled cheese”).

So — the nice folks in Santa’s workshop got a picture of Santa reading “Twas The Night Before Christmas” to Dougie.

Not bad this year — next year, we’re keeping our fingers cross for an actual smile!

Little Connie continues to do well. We can’t believe how fast she is growing. She is adjusting so well to life as a Sharabura. So far, she has no signs of allergies or reflux which is a huge relief to all of us.

Dougie continues to love on her constantly. If he is around, he is almost definitely immediately beside her.

We have been so busy getting ready for Christmas and the move we haven’t shared a lot of pictures so we wanted to take some time to share some.

Some outtakes of Connie’s passport picture.

Hanging in the Chair

Zombie Baby

We wanted to do a special Christmas craft with Dougie. We had bought a gingerbread house last year but never got around to building it. This year, we decided that we would try something Dougie was a bit more interested in – trains!

So, I bought this kit.

And Scott and Dougie went to town building it.

First, they had to break apart the pieces

Dougie couldn’t understand why he could just eat the cookies and be done

We won’t get into how many were tasted but Scott did manage to get the train assembled

Dougie was then in charge of the decorating. They started with the roof (Dougie was very serious about the entire thing).

Then we moved on to applying the “wheels”

Dougie didn’t really get where the “wheels” should go – so he put them everywhere

If Scott didn’t have a piece ready for Dougie, he applied more candy to the roof – we had to add more icing to hold all the candy that was put up there.

After some instruction from Dad (he did those straight ones in the front), Dougie tried a different type of candy

He even tried to apply some icing himself

Remember, this is how it’s supposed to look

And here is our finished product

My little family.

It really doesn’t get better than these guys.

It’s hard to believe that Dougie is 3 already. He had a fabulous birthday!! We started the day off with an Occupational Therapy evaluation. Dougie had a great time with it and he doesn’t need therapy – so it was good news all around. His speech therapist then decided to take him early so we could get out of there. We spent the day doing some special things Dougie loves and opened a few presents between activities. It was a lot of fun!

Dougie had cake

“I’m Three!”

Dougie did a lot better opening presents this year. He really understood what was going on.

Reading one of his new books

We went to Chili’s for dinner (Dougie’s favorite restaurant) and they sang him happy birthday. All in all, it was a perfect day.

To help get Dougie into the Christmas spirit, we decided to let Dougie help decorate the tree. We divided the ornaments into breakable and “not breakable” (apparently, a toddler can break just about anything) and let Dougie hang the not breakable ornaments.

It started off well, he picked mostly ones he felt were “pokey little puppies.” He needed a few lessons on how to work the hooks but he caught on fast enough. What he didn’t seem to get was that ornaments would look pretty all over the tree rather than just in that single location.

Once Dougie went to bed, we managed to add a few more to fill out the tree. There is still a very dense area where Dougie worked his toddler magic. He has since started the process of removing ornaments.

We were told at the hospital that you’re not allowed to give your child a bath until their umbilical cord falls off and has healed. Connie’s took a little while because it got caught early and fell off prematurely. The doctor applied some silver nitrate to help make sure it didn’t bleed but it started the healing process again. So, Connie’s first bath was delayed a little but she’s all healed now and was ready to get clean.

Daddy did the serious work while Mummy snapped some pictures

Connie was surprisingly calm. We expected her to be a bit upset but she didn’t really cry at all.

Clean little feet

This was the first year we threw Dougie an actual birthday party. Though I have desires to be super mom, having a bunch of people and children to the house within a month of having a baby was not going to happen. So instead, we threw a soccer party!

The party was run through SoccerTots who did the soccer classes Dougie used to take. He absolutely loved it!!

Coming through the tunnel

Watch it or I’ll get you with the noodle

Grandpa showing the kids his moves

Dougie getting ready with the ball

Coach working with Dougie

Dougie’s cake (until this party, he though “Thomas” was just a train, someone told him about it at the party though and now he knows exactly who “Thomas” is)

Trying to blow out the candles

Some help from Daddy (I’m pretty sure some of the other kids at the table helped as well). Dougie is pulling some icing bits off the cake to start eating them.

Dougie and all the kids there had a fabulous time. We were so excited that it turned out so well. I’m not sure how much Dougie will remember of it but he definitely had a great time!

Two years ago, we brought Dougie to have a pancake breakfast with Santa. We weren’t able to make it last year but this year, we made a special effort to get ourselves out there. We even managed to get there just a few minutes before the helicopters arrived with Santa and Mrs. Claus.

Waiting for the helicopters

Connie came too though she wasn’t as into it

Watching the helicopter land

LOOK! Santa!!

Mrs. Claus and Santa walking to the firehall

Warming up with some pancakes and sausage

Dancing the Christmas polka while waiting to see the helicopter

Checking out the helicopter

Dougie was so excited about the helicopters that he was completely overwhelmed when he got to get in one. Currently, Dougie’s favorite books are the Budgie the Little Helicopter series so he decided he was meeting Budgie himself. He did repeated ask where “Pippa” was (the plane in the books). The helicopters were a huge hit. Apparently, Dougie has no idea who Santa is though.

On Tuesday, Dougie’s speech therapist mentioned to us that she felt Dougie should have an orthodic evaluation. There were a few things about the way he walked that caused her some concern and she had asked one of the physical therapists to have a quick look at him and she had suggested the evaluation. We managed to get an appointment for today.

After watching Dougie walk around, stand and checking his joint flexibility, she determined that he has low muscle tone. We were aware that Dougie had low tone in his mouth but we were a bit surprised to hear that he had it in his legs as well. The therapist pointed out his toe walking, frequently falling, locked knees and extreme joint flexibility as indicators of the condition.

Fortunately, Dougie is still quite young so the condition can be easily corrected with orthodics. We ordered a pair today and hope to get them in a few weeks. They can be worn with regular shoes and will straighten his ankle which will force him to better develop his leg muscles so he can correctly balance. The therapist thought he’d likely need to wear them for 9-12 months and then he should be fine. She also believed that he wouldn’t likely need physical therapy.

These are the orthodics Dougie will be getting (his will have jungle animals on them):

There is a lot of great information on the company’s website (SureStep) if you’re interested in seeing a bit more about them.