houseofmulhern.com

Christmas 2009 has now come and gone so I figured I had better post some highlights. This is just a quick re-cap.

Christmas Eve which has always been hectic was even more so with a 1 year old. Our day started out around 11 when we headed to visit Meghan's Dad. Sydney resisted taking a nap until we were about half an hour away and then crashed hard in the car. Ed seemed very happy to see Sydney and we met a friend of his named Suzanne (who was also quite taken with Sydney). Sydney was a little trooper and showed no signs of being shy. She capped off the visit by reached to Ed to be picked up which was really cute.

From there we headed to Mee Mee and Papa's house. We were the first ones there at about 3pm. Unlike most years where we got to Meghan's Uncle Mike's first and head to Mee Mee's for desert, this year we altered the schedule and everyone agreed to come early to see Sydney. That's the only way we were going to be able to make 3 stops before Sydney wore out complete. Many thanks to them for humoring us on that one. At Mee Mee and Papa's Sydney got to play with her cousin Kendall a little bit. They opened gifts and each received a sled. Kendall took a lot of pride/joy in pulling Sydney around the house in the sled.

From there we headed to Uncle Mike's where we found a packed house. It was a this point when Sydney got really shy and didn't want to socialize. Part way through the visit, she discovered the stairs and happily climbed up and down them laughing and squealing all the way. At one point she also took a tumble down a few of them, but was at it again in no time. She also really like Niko the Gresk family dog... although she wasn't quite sure what to do with him. Sydney surprised us by reaching for Uncle Joe to pick her up (while she was still acting shy to everyone else). That was a nice treat. On the way out she really surprised us by letting Aunt Kathleen and Uncle Mike both hold her without a fuss. Somehow we went from being shy and ready to fall asleep to happy to be held. I didn't think Kathleen was going to give her back to us. It was pretty cute. Sydney was so tired when we left that she was asleep before we got off the first street. That was confirmation that a trip back to Mee Mee and Papa's couldn't have worked.

When we got home, Meghan opened up the house, turned on the required lights, and cleared a path to Sydney's room. I carefully unbuckled her, picked her up and carried her to bed. She barely woke up and didn't make a fuss when I laid her down.


Christmas Day involved a drive down to Litchfield where my parents and Jenny, Abe, & Cassie live. Our plan was to get up, pack, let Sydney get good and word out, and then hit the road at nap time. That pretty much worked aside from it taking about 6x longer to pack than expected. Sydney actually slept 2 1/2 hours out of the 4 hour trip. We managed to eek an additional 40 minutes or so out after she woke up but then stopped for lunch in Springfield so she could get out of the car for awhile. She seemed pretty appreciative. From that point on, Meghan sat in back with Sydney, and I drove on to Litchfield.

Once we got to my parent's house, Sydney made herself right at home. She immediately recognized my parents and spent the next few days running a muck. Jenny had brought over a play house of Cassie's earlier that she thought Sydney would like. She nailed that one. Sydney loved taking the mail out of the mail box and open/closing the door. She also discovered a set of old Charlie Brown encyclopedias that belonged to Jenny and I many years ago. Both seemed to be great fun.

Sydney also got to play with her older cousin Cassie. Sydney really liked Cassie. One peculiar thing to note was that she kept wanting Cassie to pick her up. Cassie is 3 and while physically larger than Sydney, such a feat would likely have ended in both of them on the floor. Cassie settled for giving Sydney big hugs.

Nanna (my mom) seemed to have endless patience and energy for playing with Sydney and Cassie. At one point they were marching around the house saying "march march march march march". At another point, they were playing hide and seek (yes, our 14 month old apparently plays hide and seek). The rest of the time they were running around playing with matchbox cars, the play house, barbies, etc. Sydney also enjoyed my old wooden rocking horse. We were really amazed at how well Sydney did at Christmas this year.

With respect to foods, we discovered that Sydney likes check mix but doesn't like pretzels or peanuts. ...she took them out of her mouth and handed them to us. She also didn't like oatmeal but at least tried it. The "yuck" facial expression was pretty priceless. Aside from that, she had a healthy appetite for apple sauce, cinnamon rolls, and bananas.

On our last day, we stayed until Sydney ran out of gas and needed a nap. Jenny, Abe, and Cassie made one last hike over to my parent's house to see us and say goodbye. Sydney was asleep before we hit Route 16 but unfortunately didn't sleep more than an hour or an hour and a half on the way back. That made for a pretty rough trip.

With about an hour to go, we stopped at a Burger King that had a kids play area hoping we could let Sydney burn off some energy. That didn't work so well. Upon getting out of the car we realized that her diaper had leaked and her pants were wet. ...perhaps that explains some of the fussiness. We also found that she was scared of the play area. We were the only ones in there but any time Meghan took her near the play area or tried to put her down she cried. While somewhat distressing, that was probably for the best. After a careful safety examination of the play area, it was clearly designed for children larger than Sydney, and I had visions of climbing through a series of steps and tunnels to retrieve a crying (and stuck) baby had we let her do more than go down the slide. I think Sydney is likely a good year or so away from playing safely there. Anyway, although we didn't play, Sydney did eat some Chicken out of Meghan's salad and had a few french fries.

I sat in the back with Sydney for the remainder of the trip and in all irony, she fell asleep when we got to the Touhy exit off 294 (which was 2 exits before ours). That gave her about 10 minutes to sleep before we got out of the car. She was her cute self though so we had survived 2 massive drives with our Wee Beastie.

Last night while trying to get settled, I assembled a slide that Mary got Sydney. Without any hesitation, Sydney climbed to the top and went down it a couple times. She was really drooping though so after a few times down the slide, it was time for bed. Our crazy baby had had enough.

A few other Christmas tidbits:

Sydney got to hear her Uncle Mike's Famous Penguin Story this Christmas. The penguin story goes as follows. A man is walking down the street with a penguin on a leash. His neighbor sees him and says, "You should take that penguin to the zoo." The next day, the neighbor sees the man with the penguin on a leash again. The neighbor says, "I thought you were taking that penguin to the zoo." The man says, "I took him to the zoo yesterday. Today I'm taking him to a ball game." *rim shot* Sydney let Uncle Mike hold her for this story and seemed totally enthralled by it. Actually, she may just have been entranced by his beard; she hasn't seen much facial hair.


When we stopped for lunch on the way down to Litchfield, we couldn't find any restaurants open, since it was Christmas Day. We had encountered this in previous years, but I was thinking that at least McDonald's would be open. No such luck. The only thing open was Denny's. It was crowded. The clientele included an entire family eating Christmas brunch while wearing reindeer antlers. I took Sydney into the ladies' room to change her diaper, but she had a total nuclear meltdown when I tried to put her down on the baby changing station. I really didn't blame her. The restroom was not the cleanest and it was crowded and noisy. I tried to take her back out to Mike so that I could use the restroom, but she wouldn't let him take her. She ended up having to stand in the stall while I used the facilities. I changed her diaper at our table. Normally, I wouldn't consider doing such an uncouth thing, but given the dirty restroom and the fact that when the restroom door opened, it would have conked any baby on the changing station in the head, I figured I was justified. We were discreet and I don't think anyone noticed me doing it. (And no, we didn't leave the wet diaper for the waiter. I took it with us and tossed in the trash can outside.)

We ordered Sydney some quesadillas with a side of Goldfish crackers off the Denny's kiddie menu. She liked the quesadillas, but the Goldfish were another story. They were Christmas Goldfish. Interspersed with the regular yellow Goldfish were red and green Goldfish. I had never seen that before, and apparently it was just too weird for Sydney. She picked all the yellow ones out and didn't touch the red and green. After she finished all the yellow ones, she did consent to eating a few red ones, but was obviously skeptical of them.

When we stopped at Burger King on the way home from Litchfield, my bad luck with baby changing facilities continued. The Burger King had NO baby changing station in the ladies' room. I was really surprised, since the restaurant had a play area and was obviously trying to cater to families. Sydney and I peeked in each stall to see if it was hidden somewhere, but there just wasn't one. I ended up doing a quick change with her standing up in the bathroom. That is fine for a 1 year old with a wet diaper, but for a littler baby or a poopy diaper, I'm not sure what you're supposed to do.

This morning (Wednesday December 30), Sydney went back to school for the first time in a week so that Mike and I could get a little work done. She was not too happy to be back at school. Sydney H was VERY excited to see her, but she didn't want to get down and play with her. She had a meltdown when I tried to leave her on the floor and go put her stuff away. Oh well. I'm sure she will get back into the swing of things quickly. And soon she will start making the transition to the toddler room. Throughout the month of January, she and Sydney H will spend more and more time across the hall in the toddler room, until they are there fulltime the first week in February. Sydney has already started getting ready for the toddler room, where no bottles are allowed and there is only 1 nap per day. As of Christmas Day, she has not had a single bottle or breastfed at all. She has also been experimenting with the one nap schedule. That works well as long as the nap is at least 2 hours. Our little girl is growing up!