It's funny, thinking back over the past three years. I remember being pregnant and one of the things about parenthood I was most looking forward to was experiencing the holidays anew through the eyes of my kid(s). But the thing you don't really think about, as obvious as it is, when all you have to take care of is your baby bump is that it takes years for kids to develop the kind of long-term memory necessary to anticipate the arrival of a birthday or holiday. Anticipating birthdays and holidays is not, in fact, an innate thing.
That said, it seems for Elias at least, that once they get the idea of special days, they run with it. As I mentioned in my last post, while Elias still didn't seem too excited about dressing up and trick-or-treating (the candy he gets but why do we have to put on such a show in order to get it?), he was very into the idea of decorating, pumpkins, and special visits to our usual weekend spots. In fact, we had such a packed weekend, by the time Sunday evening trick-or-treating rolled around, I was sufficiently Halloween-ed out. The weekend started with our usual Friday "mommy day," which included music, to which Elias wore the hat and mittens from the puppy costume Grandpa Dale gave him last year (that he never had a chance to wear since our Halloween weekend visit was rescheduled, last minute, to Thanksgiving instead). After music we stopped at Michael's for some last-minute decorations and from there hit IHOP up for their free "scary face" pancake, which wasn't scary at all (unless candy and cookies on the biggest pancake ever is scary to you).
On Saturday, we attempted to get Elias into his official Halloween costume, this year going as the French comic book character, Tintin. The costume was simple enough: highwater khaki pants, white button down shirt, blue sweater. Key details included a plush version of Tintin's dog, Snowy, and the spiked 'do. Elias was fine with the clothes, and of course excited for a new stuffed animal, even with the added instructions to carry him around all day, but threw a tantrum when I tried to add product to his hair. Hair that we grew out especially for this costume (and hair that still hasn't been trimmed due to another tantrum...I'm hoping I can remedy that next weekend). I still think it was Tintin-esque, and I'm sure next year he'll have an opinion about his costume and so will hopefully be a little more enthusiastic about making it happen.
After throwing in the towel on the possibility of getting his hair to look anything like Tintin's, we went to Piedmont for their annual festivities along the main drag of shops and restaurants. We missed out on the free cartoons this year but headed straight to the special Saturday story-time (my favorite in the area), followed by a parade and trick-or-treating along Piedmont Avenue.
After a rare nap that afternoon we ambitiously set out to carve two of our three pumpkins.
I do believe the successful carving of the pumpkins was directly related to the fact that Elias, magically, napped that afternoon. Neal took a classic approach while I tried my hand at a spider web.
And then posed with the pumpkins.
We once again opted for the "plain clothes" modified puppy costume and spent several hours hitting up all the treat stations, riding the train, and enjoying a healthy lunch of corn dogs and nachos.
As I mentioned earlier by Sunday evening we were, well, kind of done with Halloween. We weren't sure what to expect in our new neighborhood and since Elias is still a bit young for trick-or-treating (we'll send him out on his own next year...just kidding!) we decided to call it a weekend. Turns out we had quite a few visitors and passed out our one huge bag of candy within the first hour. Next year I think we'll plan the weekend accordingly in order to save some of our energy for actual Halloween evening trick-or-treating.
In other news, they don't call them terrible 2s for nothing, do they?! In typical Elias fashion, the past few months, our first few months in our house, have been very two steps forward, one step back for Elias in a lot of ways but overall certain things have improved. Elias continues to nap very sporadically, even throwing in the occasional no-nap day at daycare where he usually sleeps for an hour and a half or two. He's napped better the past couple of weeks but for example right now he's singing away in his crib when he should be sleeping. As I told a friend recently, the afternoon nap ritual has become a bit like a sham marriage. We still structure our day around it and go through the motions even though we all know it probably won't happen. It's hard to officially throw in the towel. I'm really at a bit of a loss as to how to get through the long, long day with no afternoon break.
On the other hand, nighttime sleep (knock on wood) has improved. He still wakes up occasionally but overall I think it's safe to say the good nights outnumber the bad. For now. He had a particularly hellish stretch a few weeks ago before, during, and a bit after he was sick. The after part additionally morphed into a sudden wave of separation anxiety which included a week plus of daycare drop off sobbing. When will I learn that getting over an obstacle once doesn't mean we've conquered that particular challenge forever? With a long break over Thanksgiving I was worried this past week would be equally hellish but he seemed to be over his brief and unusual attachment to me and settled right back into his usual routine.
Needless to say, when people ask how old he is and respond with, "Oh, what a fun age!" I usually assume they either don't have kids or had them so long ago they don't remember what this age is like. But now I think what they're focusing on is the language and general personality development. Because that part is indeed pretty rad. Elias is such a little character. It's still hard to converse with him, as talkative as he is, but it's fun to listen to his constant chatter, to hear him singing bits and pieces of songs, or telling me about a book, or something we did together "last day" (his words for "yesterday," usually used to describe an event that happened weeks ago). Neal was helping him put his vest on a couple of weeks ago. He put his arms through so that the vest was over the front of him instead of over his back. When Neal commented that he had it on wrong he said, "not wrong, just different." Kids really do say the darnedest things, don't they?
1 comment:
I have a picture just like that of Mark about the same age, probably. One of my favorites. It won a prize at the county fairs way back!! Beautiful.
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