The holidays were really good this year. Grandma, Papa, and Uncle Jim came out to visit for a couple of weeks. This was the first time we'd seen Uncle Jim (known as Uncle Jimmy in some circles) in about four years, and it was the first time Penelope had ever met him. She can't really pronounce the hard "J" at the beginning of some words yet, so she called him "Uncle Dim" or "Uncle Dimmy". This was amusing, because in reality he is very bright. Even though we're well past the age of name-calling, it still tickled me a little bit more than it should have - he is my brother after all. And Uncle Jim thought it was funny too, so all is well. Both of the kids had a blast playing with all three of our visitors, and pretty much wore them out by the time they left.
Christmas morning was a lot of fun with the kids. We got up before they did (on most mornings, they wake us up) and waited downstairs for the older one to emerge. They picked that morning to sleep in, of course. Benjamin was still trying to wake up as he came down the stairs. He started to perk up a little bit when he saw that Santa had left him a bicycle and a helmet. He'd asked for both in his Christmas letter. But when he saw that there was also a bell for his bicycle, he woke up in a hurry.
Penelope was awake shortly after that. She doesn't quite "get" the idea of some jolly round elf trespassing in the middle of the night to distribute gifts to the world, so her reaction was more along the lines of "Hey.. where'd this stuff come from?" But she got into the spirit pretty quickly once we commenced with the part where everyone gets to rip paper. She did stall out a couple times, wanting to play with the things she found under the paper.
Oddly enough, the longest of these delays came when she unwrapped, not a toy, but one of the many books that she got this year - "Goldilicious". I have no idea what attracts her to this particular book, but it is the bedtime story of choice now. Every night. For 12 nights in a row. I don't quite have it memorized yet, but I've perfected the voices. "Oh Goldie! You shouldn't have done that on the floor!" Trust me, it is totally awesome when I read it out loud, and she loves it.
We've been reading the same book with Ben every night as well - "The Mouse and the Motorcycle". I say "with" Ben because although we're doing the reading out loud, he is reading along and he will correct you if you miss a word or attempt to re-phrase anything. We go through one chapter each evening. This was one of my favorites when I was little, and quite honestly, I am probably enjoying it even more now. Its a great book, and I love sharing it with my little boy. I didn't read it last night or the night before, and I feel like I need to go back and catch up on the stuff I missed.
We did a lot of other stuff in-between the holidays as well. Playing, mostly - riding bikes/trikes, baseball, frisbee, badminton, yo-yos, Wii, board games, card games, etc. We also did a little shopping and some home projects. Benjamin's room is now blue - he got to go to his paint store - Benjamin Moore - and pick the color himself (with a little nudging towards the center of the blue spectrum).
Penelope provided the soundtrack for the holidays. She loves to sing, and she was constantly breaking out with her renditions of "S-A-N-T-A" (Bingo) and the crowd pleaser "Dingle Bells". Meanwhile, Ben provided several nuggets of comedy gold to keep everyone entertained. My favorite was an evening where the adults were finishing up dinner and one of them (me) had taken a little too much on his plate. Ben was on the other side of the couch, playing Legos or something :
Mommy : "It's ok - you don't have to finish that if you are full. There are no rules here."
- two beats later, Ben pops up from behind the couch -
Benjamin : "Yes there are, Mommy. There's 'We don't climb on the arms of the couch', and there's 'Set a good example for your sister', and there's ...." He continued on for a while, but I was laughing too hard to remember the rest.
