Post-holiday catch-up

I am so behind on these posts that when I sit down to write one, I don't know where to start. We have been so busy these past few months, and the kids are growing so much and doing so many cute things. I'm trying hard to remember it all to write it down.

We just got back from our annual Christmas visit to my parents' house in the Bay Area. It is a long drive but so worth it for the kids to spend the holiday with their grandparents. One silver lining about having friends move away from San Diego is that sometimes they move to Northern California, and we get to see them when we are in town to see my folks. It has become a nice tradition for us to get together with the beautiful Kelly and her boys each year. We celebrated Hanukkah with another friend who recently moved to the area.

When Jack was much younger, it always seemed that he would hit some significant milestones right after a big trip like that. Violet is following suit. While we were up there, she really started increasing the number of full sentences that she says. It's mostly things like, "I (don't) want it!" or "I (don't) like it!" My current favorite is when she's calling for someone: "Jack-Jack! Where are you?"

She has also started to show interest in using the toilet. Unfortunately, after I strip her down, she invariably puts her belly up to the toilet because she wants to pee standing up like her brother. She has yet to actually produce anything while she is on the toilet, but she always says and signs "Potty!" when she sees either of us in the bathroom. And she's become really good about telling me herself when she needs her diaper changed. We shall see. I'm not in a hurry to potty train her at all. The entire process is such a hassle, and the transition period is so messy and cumbersome. I'm happy to wait until summer when at least she will be wearing lighter clothes.

She's also really getting hip to a lot of our family rituals. Every evening when dinner is about to be served, Jack will call up to me, "Mommy! Dinner's ready!" Now, I know it's time to start heading downstairs because I'll hear Violet yell, "Ready!"

We hold hands while we say grace before dinner, and now Violet will say, "Hand! Hand!" and reach for us before she starts to eat. Jack will usually be the one to say the grace, and she'll attempt to follow along and end it with an emphatic "Amen!"

Speaking of praying, Jack has been really into his kids Bible lately. Really into it. Tom admitted, and I have to agree, that this is probably the most we've ever read of the Bible. And we both went to parochial school! The thing about the Bible, even the kids version, is that there are some tough stories in there. Lots of smiting and pride goeth-ing before the fall type stuff. It gets a little difficult to explain to Jack why God would, for example, kill all the firstborn sons in Egypt just because their pharaoh was being mean. Or why God cares if someone prays to a statue instead of him. It's especially difficult because I'm not entirely sure what I really believe, so it's hard to couch the stories in terms that are both understandable and not frightening to a small child.

This interest in the Bible has, in turn, spawned an interest in kings and royalty in general. Jack told us that he wants his next birthday party to be a "king party." There are a lot of kings in the Bible, unfortunately many of them pretty badly behaved. Jack has always been more interested in the less nice characters in any given story, so I wonder if this is what initially sparked his interest in the kings. There are, however, a few good kings in the Bible, and Jack really likes those ones as well. In fact, he was one of the Three Kings in our church's Christmas pageant this year.

As part of one of the Christmas activities at his preschool, they had the kids cut crowns out of crepe paper. That was the first of many paper crowns Jack has since fashioned and worn over the past couple weeks. He's also made crowns for "Queen Violet," "Knight Tom," and "Knight Janis." Unfortunately, Queen Violet hasn't taken as keen an interest in haberdashery as her brother and has carelessly ripped several of his creations for her.

Today is the last day of the holiday break, and it will be back to the real world tomorrow. We still have our Christmas tree up, though. It is our first traditional Christmas tree, and we got it so late in the season that Jack wants to keep it up just a little while longer. In honor of the Three Kings, I think we will leave it up until January 6.