Christmas shopping

Yesterday while we were picking up a few things I'd forgotten we needed for tomorrow, I asked Nate if he wanted to pick something out to go with what we're giving his cousins for Christmas. I wasn't going to let him run wild through the toy department; I directed him toward some simple, inexpensive options.

He picked out something cute and girly for Lauren (I did show him girly options for her) and a blue glittery bouncy ball with stars on it "for James," or so we said. He carried it all the way home, and I kept reminding him that we were going to give that to James. He agreed. Once we got home, before I could wrench it out of his hands, he promptly took a bite out of the ball, got it all muddy outside, and lost it.

This is not the way Christmas presents work, my dear.

our cute game

Nate and I have been playing a cute game. We look at a picture, and I ask him about who is in the picture, but I ask him about people who aren't there.

"Is it Gigi?"
"No! Coo-coo!" (That's Cookie Monster.)

"Is it Baba?"
"No! On Keer!" (Aunt Claire)

So he's sipping a Gerber Grabbers banana and blueberry thingy right now. He just took it out of his mouth and pointed at the picture on the front.

"Baba? No! Fwoot! Mama? No! Fwoot!" (That's fruit.)

here's hoping there's no such thing as jinxing

I am almost ready to say with certainty that we have come through Nate's sleep regression for real. At the worst, he was getting up several times a night and wouldn't go to bed awake. We were rocking him to sleep. At the time, we didn't care if it was spoiling him, we just wanted him to sleep! When B was 3 weeks old, we got Nate to fall asleep in bed on his own again. It was kind of like sleep training all over again. Three weeks later, he started sleeping through the night consistently. Life is beautiful again!