The holidays when you're 2.5

Here's the long description of Christmas Eve and Christmas morning...

Christmas Eve we were out at Grandma and Papa's until late, not getting home until around 10pm. We were really tired, but had to put out cookies for Santa and Heidi carefully selected 4 cookies to put on her "Cookies for Santa" plate. I filled the mug with milk and we set everything on the table, got into our Dora jammies, and read Twas the Night Before Christmas and some other random Christmas book (Heidi has to have 2 stories every night).

Amazingly, she slept until 7:23. It's only amazing because she's almost always awake by 6:30 and especially when she's been up really late. Some reverse clock thing that I don't understand.

At the first cries of "Mama! Mama!" Josh and I bolted out of bed, I went to preheat the oven for cinnamon rolls and he went to find his glasses. We got Heidi out of bed and I told her to go in the kitchen and see if Santa ate her cookies. He did. She wasn't really happy about it. I made her feel better by telling her that he probably gave us presents in exchange for the cookies. We all wandered down the stairs to see and I directed her attention to her stocking. She could see some candy sticking out. She took one for herself and then started handing the others to Josh and I: "Daddy this for you!" "Mama, this for you!" We tried to explain we had our own stockings from Santa. She sat down on the floor to rummage through the stocking. Santa wrapped all of the "non-food" gifts and Heidi tossed them all to Josh, again saying they were for him. Finally, we convinced her to open them. The slippers were the biggest hit for sure. She's worn them almost non-stop since opening them.

Then we moved to the presents under the tree. She loved the mini-laptop that Santa brought. Wanting to play with it immediately (she could have given up on all presents right then). She opened Dora memory and wanted to play a little bit with that (giving me time to pop the cinnamon rolls in the oven). She opened up a few other things and finally it was time to direct her attention to the ginormous gift in the back corner of the family room. She did this strange battle cry thing and ran back to it, lifting the paper from the bottom and peeling it off before finally telling Josh "Daddy, take this off!" And she went to work. She ran and got her pizza to cook and served Josh and I pizza several times. She loves to wash her hands in the sink and put the pizza in and out of the oven. I'm still working on convincing her to "clean" her kitchen when she's done playing.

The verdict so far on Christmas gifts, according to Heidi's rankings would probably be:

1) VTech mini laptop

2) Slippers

3) Kitchen

4) Pillow Pet

She also loves her Minnie Doll she got from Grandma and Papa and the flashlight that projects princess images on the wall.

Favorite age so far!

"Aww" Inspriring

The other morning, while searching for gift bags, I bonked my head really hard on the shelf in the closet. Of course my mini me was standing close-by and I was proud to keep it PG with a "son-of-a-gun!"

Heidi: Mama, what happened?

Me: I hit my head on the shelf.

Heidi: I kiss it? [Pauses] I can't reach!

I bend over and she plops a big ol' wet one right on my forehead. Just what I needed.

At dinner the other night: "Mama, you cooked a nice supper!"

[She didn't eat any of it, but at least the sentiment was there.]

Well, when you put it that way...

Conversation on the way home tonight...

H: The sun is going down!

M: Yep, it's going down!

H: It's dark out!

M: Well, it's starting to get dark out, it'll be dark when the sun goes down.

H: I like Monsters.

M: You do? Me too! Do you think Daddy likes monsters?

H: Yeah, Daddy likes monsters. I like daddy.

M: Me too!

H: No! I like daddy!

M: I like daddy too.

H: No! I like daddy first!

M: We can both like daddy. Daddy and I both like you.

H: [Pause] Oh.

Imagine a week of this...

Response upon entering Heidi's room this morning to wake her up: "No, Mom, I'm still sleeping!"

Geez, Louise, when did you turn 13?

Response upon picking Heidi up from daycare at De's house several days in the last few weeks: "Nooooo, don't take me! Don't take me!"

I've asked De to remind me of this in the fall when we're getting back into the daycare routine.

Conversation on the way home yesterday:
H: I wanna go home!
Me: We have to go to the grocery store first, we have no food!
H: Mama, you're mean!
Me: Heidi, that hurts Mama's feelings. Mama is sad.
H: Mama, you're not sad.
Commences bawling.

Why she started bawling, I have no idea. Apparently she was sad that I said I was sad. Which left me feeling like I actually was mean.

In the bathtub last night, getting her hair washed: "Mama, my eye not broken!"

I commence rinsing the shampoo out of her hair and alas a drop of water nears her eye: "Mama! My eye broken!"

Lesson: For a broken eye, just add water.

Number of things Heidi talked me into buying at the grocery store: 3
Number of things we bought that had Dora on the packaging: 2
Number of things we bought that had a reindeer on: 1

The real meaning of Christmas fail:

Heidi is having a long conversation about the CareBears that she saw at daycare and how she wants a pink one and a yellow one and an orange one and a blue one. I told her that she should put them on her Christmas list...

H: Christmas is over!

M: Christmas is over? Don't you want your presents? [commence feeling bad for always talking about presents.] Heidi, did you know Christmas is Jesus' birthday?

H: No! My birthday FIRST!