You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch

Every December since I've been an adult I have to fight to keep the grinch inside me at bay.  I try to remember the real reason that we celebrate Christmas, because most of the things that we do (exchanging gifts, eating junk, decorating) have nothing to do with the real purpose.  What I do enjoy about Christmas is getting together with family and friends.  I am almost finished with the part of Christmas I hate most: shopping.  Then I will follow that up with the part I hate second most: wrapping.  Hopefully I can get this all done by Saturday without losing too much sleep.  As if this is how Jesus wants us to celebrate his birthday.

So we had a rough time with sleep ever since Emmett turned one.  He started waking up at night again, usually just once but sometimes twice a night.  We are not sure why.  It could have been any number of things: being away from home for 4 nights over Thanksgiving, having a cold shortly after, then getting shots, all in the course of less than 2 weeks.  But, knock on wood, he has slept through the night 4 nights in a row now.  He doesn't always fall asleep easily either.  A few times he fussed and cried so much while I was attempting to rock him that I had to just put him in the crib and leave.  He did go to sleep on his own those nights without too much trouble.  But I still prefer to rock him to sleep and then lay him down so that I know he is asleep.  I hate the waiting and listening and worrying that he isn't going to go to sleep on his own.  He still naps like a champ, one in the morning and one in the afternoon for between 1.5 and 2 hours each.  He shows no signs of giving up his morning nap, and that's fine with me.  I like having that time to myself every day.

Emmett is getting quite good on his feet.  Sometime he walks around the living room fast enough that I could almost call it running.  He still falls sometimes, but not nearly as much as he used to.  He's getting used to walking in shoes too.  On warmer days we go outside in the afternoons and just walk around for a little while.  He walks up and down the drive way and we go down the sidwalk a ways.  He always gets sidetracked and wants to go up other people's driveways and in their yards and out into the street.  Luckily we live near the far end of our neighborhood where there's almost no traffic so I don't have to worry.  I am always right there with him anyway, trying to make sure he doesn't faceplant on the pavement.  He loves being outside.  Poor kid was born the wrong time of year.  As soon as he learns to walk its too cold to play outside most days.

He's not saying too many words yet.  He will say "Mamamama" when he wants me to pick him up or pull him up on the couch with me.  And he says "Dadadada" when Chris gets home every evening.  Of course whenever he says "Mama" it sounds like whining but when he says "Dada" it sounds happy.  We got him to say "Go go go" a while back but he won't do it anymore.  He babbles all the time though, using all kinds of different sounds that I'm sure make sense to him.  I just talk right back to him as if I totally understand every word.  I'm working on teaching him body parts, but its not taking just yet.  However, if I hold up a sock, he holds his foot out.  When I put one of his arms through his sleeve, he immediately moves whatever is in his hand to the other hand so I can do the other sleeve.  And when I hold his coat out he will put his arm through the first sleeve and then reach behind him for the second sleeve.  All that is really helpful, so who cares if he doesn't know where his nose is, right?

Despite the grinchiness, I'm still excited about watching Emmett open his presents this year.  He did a pretty good job of ripping and tearing open his birthday presents so I'm sure he will know what to do with his Christmas presents.  Last year he was only a few weeks old at Christmas.  He was sleeping for about 3 or 4 hour stretches then, so I think he got up around 7:00 after his 3:00 or 4:00 AM feeding.  We took him downstairs and started pulling presents out of his stocking.  After about 30 minutes he fell asleep.  So Chris and I opened our presents to each other until he woke up so he could finish his.  He mostly stared blankly at us and smiled a few times.  Its amazing how far he's come since then.

Here he is Christmas morning 2009 with his stocking stuffers.

And here he is in his Christmas outfit just after arriving at his Nana and PawPaws' house.