The Copass Chronicles: Christmastime is Here!!

The tree is up, the decorations are up, it's snowing outside, the Christmas music is on...and we actually put some lights up outside this year. I will start my Christmas shopping with a friend tonight, although Dustin and I bought Lara her present already. I don't think we're going to get her anything else, since this was pretty expensive, but I will probably individually wrap some of the accessories so she has presents to unwrap. A long time ago, Dustin and I found a Lego set that was on sale for a ridiculous price, so we bought it, thinking we'd surely find someone to give it to on the holidays. We never did, so it's been hanging out in our Christmas decoration boxes, wrapped and ready to go. When we unpacked the boxes this year, Lara found the present and unwrapped it in 2 seconds, before I even knew what was happening. So Lara got her first Star Wars Lego set, and she and daddy worked on putting it together. Dustin grew up on Legos so he had the set put together in about 5 minutes. Lara will get it out every day and ask me to play with her. Since I never did the Lego thing, she has to tell me where all the little pieces are supposed to go. Anyway, suffice to say, Lara will enjoy unwrapping this year.

I bought Lara a snowsuit. She and I both went through growth spurts this week. She went up and I went out. Over night, it seemed, Lara stopped fitting into her sweaters, and I stopped fitting into my jeans. Needless to say, some serious clothes shopping needs to happen for us. I was big with Lara during the summer, so I have NO warm maternity clothes. Lara tried on the snowsuit before I bought it.

Lara was casted for tall braces yesterday, and she didn't cry and scream this time. It is not a painful process at all, if anything it probably tickles a little, but Lara just gets scared. When she realized it wasn't bad, she just smiled and watched the process curiously. Unfortunately, we will not have PT or the braces for a month!! In the meantime, I take Lara to Wal-Mart every day so she can just walk around (and I have been instructed to walk every day also for 45 minutes). You will never see a toddler get as much attention as Lara does in one shopping trip. Praises and compliments stream behind us like a white banner, as everyone watches Lara navigate her walker up and down the aisles.

It has been truly beneficial to have Macy and Lucas over a couple times a week. The combination of this and Lara's age has shown a lot of good work in Lara's interaction with other children. You don't get this quite as well with playdates because you are busy talking with the other moms. But when you do childcare, you can spend time on the floor teaching your children how to play nicely and talk nicely. Lara will use expressions like "sorry" and "excuse me" now on her own when necessary, and we don't have any issues anymore with her pushing Lucas. I used to be so concerned because I didn't feel that Lara did well around other children, and she really didn't. But she has grown out of that, and it's a relief. When she was getting her 2yr pictures taken, I allowed her to play with some older children unsupervised while I ordered pictures across the room. I would check on her from time to time and see her smiling and sharing her blocks and the older girls seemed to enjoy her company. Thank goodness. Several months ago, she would have been screaming and fussing the whole time.