"I Made a Golf!"

This afternoon we took Nicholas to the nearby indoor mini-golf course (just before closing time when it was less crowded). We figured it would be a fun way for him to let off some steam, and if he played a little golf, so much the better.

He had a blast, and it turns out he's figured out quite a bit since we last took him six months ago. We had to work with him a little on how to hold the putter properly (and he still only sort of has it, and then only some of the time), and he struggled to let the ball stop wherever it wanted to.

From 2011 December

And he frequently would pick up the ball and move it close to the hole and then hit it in from there.

From 2011 December

But he kept his focus for seventeen of the eighteen holes, trying only to play each hole multiple times. And he really had a lot of control with the putter, figuring out that he should hit the ball more softly when it was close to the hole. Most fun of all though, was that each time he sank a putt he proclaimed, "I made a golf!"

From 2011 December

There are a few more photos in the December 2011 album.

It's an expensive outing, but now that we know it's something he enjoys so much, we're already planning our next visit.

Potty Prayer

Tonight Nicholas began his prayer with, "Thank you God for me going pee in the potty."

More on potty training later . . . maybe.

Family Game Night

One side effect of Christmas that I'd forgotten about is the way major gift holidays cause Nicholas to take a developmental leap forward. That sounds silly so let me explain. At Christmas and his birthday Nicholas gets a bunch of toys that either meet him where he is or are things we and others anticipate him wanting or being ready for soon. These replace a bunch of toys that he has outgrown or have ceased to interest or challenge him. For example, in making room for his new Christmas toys I packed away a bunch of toys he got at 9-12 months that he was still enjoying as of our move this summer but that look so incredibly infantile when compared to his new toys. And he quickly rises to the new challenges presented by his new toys.

With his current batch of new toys this growth falls into two big categories:
imagination

From 2011 December

and playing games.

From 2011 December

He had played Candyland before, but with no concept of the object of the game or winning. He would move his piece to a color that matched the card he pulled and sometimes go in the right direction, but that was it. Fast forward 3 weeks and a bunch of new games for Christmas and tonight we had a family game night playing multiple games with (close to) real rules and with good sportsmanship.

His favorite new game is Preschool Uno (which he calls the "barn game" because it involves pushing animals into a barn to discard) and over the past 3 days he had progressed from just matching animals and colors to understanding the objective of getting rid of all of your pieces to wanting to win and getting upset when he lost to being willing to take turns on who goes first to accepting that you only win sometimes. I'm actually thinking that it might be time already to add in the wild cards and "draw two" skunks that I took out initially. Hiding pieces and saying "uno" may wait a little longer, though.

We have also played Memory some and I don't know why I'm surprised that he is so good at it, but I am. His strategy is severely lacking (he always picks for his first pick something he knows even if he has no idea where the other one is), but he remembers where he has seen an object before better than I do.

I'm curious to test my theory by pulling out Candyland tomorrow. I want to see if I'm right that the new games have pushed him to grasp the concept of game playing more thoroughly or if he has just been learning these specific games.

Christmas 2011

We had a delightful Christmas, which really lasted for the 5 days my parents were here visiting. We baked tons of cookies, as well as tamales and a yummy pork tenderloin.

From 2011 December

From 2011 December

On Christmas Day we spread the process of opening presents out over the entire day. This was somewhat intentional, as we decided to only do Santa stockings before church to not be rushed and then leave presents from relatives we were going to Skype with for while we were talking to them in the late afternoon.


But we didn't count on it taking 2 hours to open presents between the 5 of us who were here. But we tried not to pressure Nicholas and let him play with presents as he opened them if he wanted. In general I think this was a good idea, although at one point after both Joe and my Dad fell asleep while Nicholas played with his pretend vegetables (you can cut them and velcro them back together!), we did prompt him (unsuccessfully the first few times) to move on.

From 2011 December

And we ended up leaving his big present from us until the very end of the evening just because there wasn't time before then.

I enjoyed Christmas more this year than I have in probably 15 years and it had absolutely nothing to do with presents I got. As we put Nicholas' pretend kitchen together on Christmas Eve and waited for Santa to come, I realized that I was giddy with excitement and anticipation.

2 is such a great age for Christmas because Nicholas was old enough to really enjoy all elements of it and yet didn't yet have expectations. With each new set of presents he was surprised and would have been happy with only a small fraction of what he got. He was so excited about each present that he just wanted to stop and play with it, with no attention to the pile of presents still waiting. He was thrilled on Christmas Eve that Santa was coming but it was because Santa is like a celebrity from his perspective and he couldn't believe Santa would come to his house!

Here are some of my favorite Christmas pictures (with more of course in the Gallery):

From 2011 December

From 2011 December

From 2011 December

Merry Christmas!

From 2011 December

Ready for Santa

From 2011 December

From 2011 December

Learning to Give

We decided that this year Nicholas needed to be involved in the process of giving gifts. I was realizing that in Nicholas' experience presents are things given to him. Not only has he not given gifts to others (at least not actively, even though gifts have sometimes been given in his name), but thanks to being the only kid around at family events, he gets more gifts than anyone else (okay, often than everyone else combined).

So we decided that this year gifts from Nicholas would really and truly be from Nicholas. But if we really wanted to let him take ownership of them and pick whatever he wanted, I wanted to limit the financial damage. So we took him to the dollar store and let him loose.

And he did a great job. He picked things for each of his aunts and uncles and then wanted to keep going. So he picked things for his teachers and for Mommy and Daddy. And then he wanted to pick more things for his aunts and uncles. He was on a roll. But we stopped him at that point. I'm all about the lesson of giving, but we were going to have to pay to ship all of these things across the country (or planet in the case of my brothers).

Nicholas then helped us wrap all the presents when we got home and he was very particular about who got what. I'll wait to share what some of the gems were that he chose until after Christmas so his aunts and uncles can be surprised, but it was pretty awesome.

So, fair warning to the aunts and uncles reading this blog, be prepared for the randomness when you open your presents. But Nicholas picked that item specifically for you.

We also took him to a place where you can paint plaster figurines and let him paint some magnets and ornaments. He actually really loved this (so much so that we went twice!) but mostly he just wanted to get as many different colors of paint as possible and put a little of each color on each piece. But he was so proud of himself for the things he painted and so excited to mail them off to relatives.

What I'm most impressed by is that throughout this process Nicholas was all about the idea that these presents were all for other people. At the dollar store he never once asked for something for himself. Not even the balloon he always gets when we go there. He was so focused on gifts for other people that it didn't even occur to him to try to get something for himself. And some of the gifts he chose were things he'd love and I expected him to try to open them when we got home, but he was insistent that they get mailed. I even offered to let him keep one of the ornaments he had painted because he was so proud of it and wanted to hang it up on our tree. But as I started to seal the envelope without it he yelled at me to stop because he had to send the ornament to x!

If any aunts and uncles or grandparents want to volunteer to wait to open their presents from him until Christmas afternoon or evening, we can do it over Skype. Then he can see the last stage of the process, to make more concrete what it meant when we mailed them to you. Let us know and we can set times.