Evan's first Christmas was all we could hope it would be. He was very good at family, church and with more family. You would think the three massive family gatherings in two days would have sent him over his threshold, but he was a very good little trooper. He showed off his mad crawling skills and newly found beginner's walking skills (he can walk when holding on to someone's hands).
I joked on Facebook that he got a 157 new toys. It's only a slight exaggeration. Some of the toys are a little too advanced for him and will be better suited when he gets a little older. So we have put those in a tub for now. His Aunt Noreen and Uncle Anthony bought him a blow up Penguin. The kind you can hit and it always pops back up. He was afraid of it at first, but seems to be doing well with it now. His favorite new toys are a new cell phone, a toy with a steering wheel that makes car noises and the "interactive zoo*."
*My public service announcement for the year - LISTEN to the sounds, songs and noises a toy makes before purchasing it. If you can't imagine being in the same room with those sounds going on OVER AND OVER AND OVER again, chances are the parents of the child you are buying it for also do not want to be stuck in a room with it. Granted, Brian and I get as much amusement out of it now as Evan does, making up alternative lyrics to some of the songs...
TOY SONG: "I'm a very friendly parrot, chatting out loud for all to hear."
LINDA's VERSION: "I'm a very scary parrot..." You all know my hatred/blind fear of birds. Let's face it. No parrot is friendly. Why teach a baby to approach something that could claw his face off and bite his fingers in two? Birds are SCARY!
TOY SONG: "I'm a big and tall giraffe, stretching so high I touch the sky!"
LINDA's VERSION: "I'm a big dumb tall giraffe..." It did actually sound like he said "dumb" instead of "and."
We also have dances for the songs. The one for the penguin goes "I'm a tiny little penguin, waddling here, waddling there." To which I waddle from side to side when listening to.
Evan is back to sleeping pretty well again, which is a relief since Brian and I have both been sick. He FIGHTS falling asleep, though. Yesterday, I incurred a wrath so great that it could have only come from someone related to me because Evan knew I was trying to get him to fall asleep and take a nap. He screamed bloody murder for a solid 45 minutes while I tried rocking him, jumping up and down, playing with him, walking around the house for him until my arms where about to fall off* and I just gave up and put him in his crib. He was asleep 5 minutes later.
*Evan was also sick this week and Brian took him to the doctor. He weighs 21 pounds, 3 ounces. Pick up a giant sack of potatoes and carry that around for a good 1/2 hour and see how your arms, shoulders and upper back feel. You also need to mechanize that sack of potatoes because Evan squirms, fights, wiggles and does everything in his power to try and get you to drop him (thank God I haven't done this!).
With naps, he also wakes up MAD. Like he's pissed that we would allow him to fall asleep. He wakes up screaming and it usually takes a good 2-3 minutes to let him know he's awake now and it's time to play.
Last night, I gave him his bottle. He was so tired he would lift his head up and then it would crash back down on my arm, but he still fought. As he lay in my arms in his room, he started this pathetic "AhhhhhUhahhhhhUhahhhhhh" moaning. It was as if he kept making noise, he couldn't fall asleep. To know if he is asleep you have to watch the hands. He keeps one up and as he drifts off, the hand comes down to rest on his tummy. It was like he had some kind of electric shock on his jammies that jolted him awake every time his hand came down.
Again, we fought. Again, it resulted in giving up and just putting him in his crib with him falling asleep before I got out of the room. I'm beginning to think that he just needs to be free to roll and flail about. If he can't move, he can't sleep. The other theory is that wrestling with me just wears him out so that when he does finally land on the crib mattress, he has no more energy to protest.
On occasion, he'll still try. He'll get up on all fours and crawl to the front of the crib, but it's like his neck can no longer support the weight of his head and he just collapses, rises, then collapses again in a deep sleep that will usually last for the next 11-12 hours. When he will rise for a new day of battling against the Evil Dr. Sleep. My poor little warrior just doesn't know that that's a battle he will lose every day.
In the photo below:
Evan is about to figure out the hazards of opening presents. This photo was snapped just before the box slid on the wood floor, causing little E to face plant. He was not happy. Brian took this photo and I was recording on the video camera. He face planted and I snapped the video camera shut and reached for the little boy, but Brian already had him. Regardless, we had a very Merry Christmas. One face plant in what, I'm sure will be thousands.
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