We are all done with present opening and breakfast eating and a little bit of cleaning up has been done. And, as I was heading upstairs to think about getting dressed, I stopped briefly to watch Jake and Kai playing with Kai's Christmas gifts. As I walked up it occurred to me that I am the proud owner of just the life I hoped for. Kai was a baby who was waited on for a long time and I am incredibly happy to be celebrating his third Christmas today. There is nothing wrapped in paper that can compete with the sweet noises that I hear coming from our living room. I am completely overwhelmed with love for my family and so very thankful. I thought that I would quickly stop to share and get it down so that I can revisit this later. Merry Christmas.

Christmas eve.

We just wrapped up a Christmas gathering with my sister, her kids and my mom and her fiance. We exchanged gifts, played with new toys and ate dinner together. It was a really nice evening. Kai was really excited about a castle toy that my mom and Dan gave to him. He and Riley played up and down the stairs with a Bumblebee transformers helmet number. He is super worn out and winding down with a little quiet Daddy playtime. The most fantastic things about the day were that he was more excited to give Riley his Transformers gift than to open his own presents (though not by much) and that he said to his departing family members, "See you later! Leave me alone!" So socially unacceptable, but I am sure just how he was feeling and really, let's be serious, hilarious. Jake had a conversation with him concerning the phrase "leave me alone" and how it can hurt the feelings of others. So, hopefully it is a one time only hilariously uncouth statement.

Photo post to follow after all Christmas celebrations have occurred and the photos downloaded.

The last week.

I just realized that I was doing a great job updating the blog and keeping far flung relatives and friends informed for a couple of weeks, then suddenly, this week was over and I hadn't posted at all. Actually, this whole month is slipping away from me at an alarming rate. And by month, I think that I might mean year. We managed to get our Christmas tree and decorate it this week. Most of our Christmas shopping is completed. I didn't do any cookie baking or card sending for the second year in a row. Last year, I had a stellar excuse, which was that we had just moved into our new house. This year my only excuse is that most days I can hardly keep us together enough to get basic life stuff done: household work, groceries, library trips, playdates...that sort of just muddling through stuff. I cannot put my finger on what is making life feel so challenging lately. I am counting on it being holiday stress and maybe a little winter blues. Kai is also transitioning out of naps, which means that many days he is up and active all day long from 6am to about 6pm. So, the feeling of being just barely in control could be due to that major change in our daily schedule.

Kai has been having a pretty good week though. We picked up a chart to have a visual of the things that we would like him to work on being consistent with. I initially thought that just putting a magnet on the day would be incentive enough to want to do things like pick up toys, brush teeth without a hassle, etc. I am trying to think of a small reward for filling up a whole day of magnets and something a little more substantial for having the whole week full. I wish that he was more interested in stickers, but not so much. I was thinking about putting slips of paper with rewards like playing a computer game, making cookies, playing with the water table, etc in a bucket for him to choose if he fills a day. I am ironing out the details of this in my head currently.

There are things that Kai has been stubborn about learning. He can identify a lot of colors and if I give him paint chips with three shades of colors he is able to put them in order of dark to light. He can identify a few letters and numbers if in the right mood to do so. He is able to put together puzzles with up to 24 pieces. He is able to lace beads and pour water from one cup into another neatly. All pretty awesome...you know, from my completely unbiased view. While he has accomplished these amazing feats, he has refused to count out loud to us. He tell us that there are two or three of something from time to time and generally he is right, but he doesn't say "1, 2, 3..." On Friday night, we were reading stories before bed and he counted three wheels in a book. Out loud. While pointing at them. I threw a party. I thought about it for awhile and decided that it was probably more advanced than repeating back a memorized string of numbers. Perhaps he just isn't down with memorization? Or maybe it is that he doesn't like to recite things to us? Who knows? Not me. I do know that my child is pretty amazing. Again, from my completely unbiased view point.

We spent the day yesterday at my sister's house. Kai and his cousins played together, mostly nicley, all late morning into the early afternoon. The were outside for over an hour playing in the snow together. When I was helping Kai to get his snow gear on I was thinking that they would be back in the house in ten or fifteen minutes. I was shocked that they were out for so long. They have really hit a place where they are able to play together well. Riley and Kai especially. Since they will be moving to Virginia soon and I have been thankful for the low key time that they have been able to spend together over the last year and in the past couple of months. After they are living far away it will be back to visiting a few times a year. Which is awesome that we are able to have that time, but visiting always has a different sort of feel.

And now for some photos:

Kai models the Santa hat that he requested that I make.

Our Christmas tree!

Kai's chart...the areas that are posing a challenge to get magnets daily are
"no teasing" and "keep your hands to yourself"
The "share" row is a pretty easy one for him, he needs encouragement to share some items but does a pretty stellar job in general. In his very literal way...everyday he looks at that tile and says, "I want to share my baseball with you."

Dreams.

I think that Kai has fairly vivid dreams. He wakes up at night sometimes talking about them. I sort of think that Campbell was initially a dream; he hasn't talked about him much this week at all. Last night, I was on my way upstairs to settle in for the night and right as I got to Kai's door it opened and he was standing there. Kai followed me around while I dropped off the things I was bringing upstairs and into the bathroom mostly silently. Then, Jake took him back to bed and Kai was telling him all about a dream he had about a giant cookie in his room. A giant cookie and he was going to bite it.

Pictures!

Gas pump built by Mama!

624's snow removal team in action after a huge storm on Tuesday night.

Word substitutions.

Kai has a handful of words that he says other, similar words in place of the proper word. Jake and I were talking about this at lunch and I thought that I would share them and also make note so that I can look back on them in the future.

proper word = replacement word

elevator = alligator
pool = cool
belt = clipper
knit = knead
surprise = a prize

When he is speaking quickly he says "smow" in place of "snow" and "glubs" instead of "gloves."

He has been carrying around a Playmobil catalog for weeks and he call it "my picture book."

There are more but I can't think of them now that I am trying so hard. I will update as I remember.

Was just reminded today that he calls an old calculator his "C.B.S" and uses it to "send messages".

Yesterday.

Kai carried around an old box that sunglasses came in for part of the day. Inside he put a tin of shoe polish, a broken book light, a small container of Play-doh and a few stickers. He insisted that we take it to our morning playdate and got it out to show his friend, Ella, at snack time.

While we were at the playdate, Kai stepped up on to this awesome thing they have in their playroom: Rocking Boat/Stair Step. Once at the top, he told a story that went something like, "Once upon a time, there was a girl who went for a walk." He told this story or a version of it a few times and afterward he would say, "thank you."

We have an Advent calendar from Playmobil. It is full of awesome little toys to make a woodland Christmas scene. The first few days, Kai was cool with the procedure of opening one box and then putting it away. Then he figured out that there were animals behind the doors. It became his mission to save the animals. He has successfully gotten the box down from two different locations. One rescue attempt involved moving his Learning Tower into the dining room and using a yard stick to fish it off the top of our built-in. So, yesterday, we opened every door and checked on the animals and I let him take out whichever animals he wanted to "rescue." He has checked on them several times since. Mostly he is happy to leave many of them in the box; it just seems that he was concerned about them being trapped in there.

Surprise visit from Nana.

On Friday we had new friends over to play and while we were enjoying our mid-playdate snack I received a phone call. From Nana Wendy. Who was in Kentucky on her way to Minnesota by way of Wisconsin! We were so excited to be getting a visit from her. We were able to play for awhile, have a yummy pizza dinner and she read Kai's bedtime stories. Unfortunately, I was exhausted from an early wake up time that morning and fell asleep when Kai did. I missed chatting sans nearly three year old sized distractions. Next time.

Photos from the visit:

No picture...again.

Yesterday, my mom took Kai and me to lunch at a place near our house. While we were there Kai was eating two of his current loved foods: edamame beans and egg rolls. My mom remembered how to make kid friendly chopsticks with the wrapper and a rubber band from our Nakashima of Japan days and Kai mastered them immediately. He started picking up edamame beans and putting them in his own mouth and was then feeding them to me too. It was pretty darn impressive. I am sure that even those not blinded by motherly pride would agree.

Kai on dinner.

A couple of days ago I made a pan of lasagne; a food which was formerly a big winner with Kai. He tried it and declared that he did not like his dinner. Fine. So, tonight when I heated left-overs for Jake and I for dinner, I heated up some broccoli and a few chicken nuggets for Kai. As we were enjoying our dinner, Kai said, while waving his hand back and forth between my and Jake's plate, "Both of your food is disgusting." He used his sweetest possible tone to make this declaration.

In Campbell news, last night he stayed up in Kai's room while we were all downstairs playing. Kai said he (no longer a girl giraffe) was upstairs eating leaves out the window. Leaves...and a man. Perhaps the man was feeding him...I did not press for further information.

In other Kai news...

I think that Kai may have an imaginary friend. Named Campbell. She came on the scene last night, was afraid of Woody (I think Kai's Woody doll?) and needed Kai to turn on the light and watch Toy Story for about 5 minutes. Then, this afternoon, Campbell was back and afraid of the dark in Kai's room. I asked if Campbell was in the room and Kai told me yes, she was in the closet. I asked him more about Campbell and he told me that she is big like a table and is a giraffe. It will be interesting to see if Campbell sticks around.

Kai on popcorn.

This morning Kai asked for hot chocolate. Okay. Done. Then, he asked for popcorn. While not a traditional breakfast food I was pretty sure he would eat a muffin later. So, I made popcorn. Got it all ready and Kai had a small bowl. Took one popped kernel and then told me, "I don't like this. Popcorn is not tasty." I am pretty sure he had this popcorn in mind:

It is his favorite. Looking for a Christmas idea for the little mister? How about a case.

Kai said....

I am going to trail a new type of blog entry. Kai said. He says a lot of funny/cute/precocious things, so I should have plenty of material to get at least one entry per week down. Here goes...

Kai has been sick with a cold and having mild fevers at night. Last night he called out to me a couple of times and around midnight I went in and laid down by him. I could tell that he wasn't sleeping deeply. Then he said, "Leave me. Please get out." I first thought he was talking to me and then thought that he was probably dreaming. Shortly after that, he woke fully and said to me, "This room is not for us tonight; it is for ghosties. Let's go in the other room." He was serious. We went into our room and he snuggled in for the night and slept fairly well. I have to admit that I was a little weirded out by the whole thing. I got over it though before the turtle turned off.

This blog.

So, I have been thinking a lot lately about how it has been difficult for me to remember to blog. I have a hard time thinking about what to blog. Not that Kai is not endlessly exciting. I am just not sure what I am going to do about this. In the mean time, here are some photos...

Super star headband.

Knitting and movies with Mom.

Chocolate cake making.

Wooden raft and water play in the kitchen.

Grape Monster

Cheese and Pickles with Dad

Kai and Mama go on a trip.

Friday and Saturday were the La Leche League of Wisconsin continuing education days near Milwaukee. Kai and I headed down on Thursday with a co-leader and my sister joined us later that evening. Kai did reasonably well on Friday during the conference. Most of the sessions that I really wanted to hear were that day, so I was a little disappointed to miss two of them and was only able to devote all of my attention to about 40 total minutes of the day. I really thought that Kai would quietly watch movies, read, work on puzzles and so on if I explained to him that it was important that he be very quiet. He really tried, but he is so talkative and curious right now that I could tell that it was going to be impossible. My mom came down Friday night and I was able to attend a dessert Q&A session that evening and all of Saturday. I learned a lot and am looking forward to attending again next year. Who did I learn from you ask? Well, breastfeeding rock star geniuses Dr Jack Newman and Dr Thomas Hale.

Sitting at the conference aside, there were some fantastic moments during the weekend. Kai was pronouncing elevator as "alligator" and pool as "cool." So, we went in the alligator to swim at the cool. When we got into the cool it was super super warm and Kai said, "This cool is like a big bathtub?" He also would say, "Let's go back to our rooms." Also pretty darn cute. We went out for sushi and Kai ate a ton of edamame, played with Adria, owner of Mom and Pop Place turning everything into helicopters and then got his head stuck in the high chair. Adria threatened to take a picture and I kind of wish she had because although the situation was definitely very intense for him (and when I wasn't sure I was going to be able to get him out without a saw - me), it was also very funny. He slid out the bottom of the classic restaurant style high chair and his head became lodged sideways between the bar and the seat. That night when I was putting him to bed he told me, "I am having a fun trip." Which melted my mommy heart because I was afraid that he was being tortured by the whole experience. I forget sometimes that pretty much anything, including sitting in a conference room trying to be quiet, is new and potentially awesome for him.

Yesterday, while I was at the conference, Kai went to the Milwaukee Zoo with my mom and I got a picture by text during the early part of the conference of Kai riding a pony. Seeing that really allowed me to relax knowing that Kai was having a special morning with my mom. They rode the zoo train and the carousel and saw most of the animals before heading to my aunt's home for Kai's cousin Addison's birthday party. So, a pretty fantastic day for Mr. Kai...a zoo trip and a birthday cake party!

The weather yesterday was unusually warm for November in Wisconsin and it carried on over into today. We spent the morning at a neighborhood park, looking at the river and discussing being able to see the moon and playing a sort of I-Spy game. This afternoon we are headed to the library and then over to another nearby park to soak up some more fall sunshine while it lasts. As demonstrated by my lack of posts, Kai is keeping me very busy the last part of his third year in our lives, but it is the most amazing, challenging and rewarding time with him yet. I hope that I can get some more time soon to share more of what we have been up to lately!

What have we been up to?

I forgot to take my camera on two snapshot worthy occasions in the past couple of weeks. Doh! We went to pick apples with our friends Kristin and Eva. Eva is also two and she and Kai picked nearly 30 pounds of apples by themselves while the mommies snacked on apples and watched/directed the picking. We will be going again since all of the apples were used up in mere days. I made applesauce and a giant pan of apple crisp and that was the end of the apples. I have a new plan for the next picking. I am going to get some of the lower priced, less than perfect apples for applesauce and small pans of apple crisp to put into the freezer. Then, I found a great plan for storing apples through the winter that I think will work well in our basement. It involves wrapping the apples individually in newspaper but I think it will be worth it to have awesome apples around this winter. Especially since Kai really likes to eat them.

Then, this week we went hiking with our camping friends, plus another mom and toddler, Heather and Gracie Jean, from the Attachment Parenting group. Snoopy came along and I was surprised by the trail that was chosen but Kai and Snoopy both did fantastic. Up and down hills, over rocks, near shears...it was impressive. During the hike, Gracie Jean was less than thrilled with the activity early on and sat down to express that feeling. Kai heard her crying and told me, "I want to hug her!" and "help her feel better", then took off back up the trail to where she was sitting. He gave her a hug and helped her mom to encourage her to get back on the trail. They all came down holding hands. Was this mama ever proud! I am not sure that there could be anything better than such a sweet display of empathy from a nearly three (!) year old boy. There are definitely time that people close to us have questioned our parenting choices and have labeled us as "over-protective" for helping Kai to work through situations that arise when playing with others. That is a moment that helped me to realize that we are absolutely doing the right things (you know...most of the time...). Back on the trail lots of racing and stick finding and a little tousling among the little boys occurred. We had a picnic after the hike and then played at a playground until it was declared time to head home. Kai was a champ at pushing a merry-go-round and jumping on while it was spinning. A pretty impressive feat if you ask me. And a skill that will be hard to show off as I am pretty sure that is one of the handful of merry-go-grounds still in existence. We will definitely have to head back to High Cliff for a fall family hike and to show Jake his merry-go-round prowess.

Sorry for no pictures. Rest assured that Kai and his friends were adorable and at times dirty. I may be able to update with some pictures later since other moms do not have the same slacker tendencies in the camera department.

Back to my old lazy blogging habits.

I realized today (and by today, I mean a week ago when I started this post) that it has been awhile. I am not sure what we have been up to, but clearly...we have been busy. Here are some pictures from Jake's and Kai's day at Quarry Quest. I missed out on the fun to help out at a La Leche League fundraising endeavor. It seems to me that the outing was pretty well suited to a father-son activity.

Snoopy got a haircut!

Kai said: "He got small!"

Labor Day at the lake.

We headed to the family cabin for the holiday weekend. We were able to do some swimming and boating and built a fantastic fort. Oh, and brought home a dog. Here are some photos from the weekend:

A new addition to our family!

Meet Snoopy!

This weekend we added a member to the family. Snoopy was living with our cabin neighbors. They are an older couple and the gentleman is in poor health, making it difficult for them to manage Snoopy's care. After much convincing, Jake got on board with moving Snoopy to the city. He was too seemingly perfect to pass up. We already knew that he did well with Kai and other kids and that he got along great with my mom's dogs. My sister is in love with him also, so he has somewhere to go if we happen to go on vacation or away for a weekend or even a day. He passed all of my sister's tests of his temperament; which were numerous and a little funny. So far he seems to be adjusting well to our home. He has taken well to walking on a leash and has had no potty accidents. The cats are seriously annoyed, but I think they will adjust in about six months or so. You know how cats are...

More on Snoopy later I am sure! We are thinking of giving him a new name...any suggestions?

First camping trip.

This weekend Kai had his very first camping adventure. Kai and I headed north with two other families with two year old boys. The forecast when we left said that the weather would be chilly with a bit of rain on Friday and then nice for Saturday and Sunday. It was off by about 24 hours. It was rain for Friday and all of Saturday with beautiful weather to signal our departure on Sunday. Despite the miserable weather, Kai and the other little boys fared quite well. The mamas? At times not so much, but I think we did a good job of making the best of a situation. Sticky times ensued when we needed to errect tarp overhangs on Friday to protect some of the areas of the campsite from the rain and also Kai and my tent as it seemed to be on the verge of taking on some water. But, toddlers slept well, even allowing for some adult campfire time. They played well together with only intermittent acts of two year old boy violence with one another. Mostly these scuffles involved coveted toys and were easily solved. They threw many rocks into the water, they went on many walks on the campground trails through the wooded areas, they played with trucks and got very very dirty. Good times. It was definitely an experience that will help me to remember to go outside even when the weather is foul.

Naked rock throwing.

Fun times bundled up in the constant misty rain at the campsite.

On one of many exploratory walks around the campgrounds,
lake and trail.

One of several attempts to get a shot with all the boys, on the dock, looking at the camera.

When we woke up on Sunday morning, the sun was out!
The boys enjoyed playing in the lake and otherwise running amok.

Kai and friends enjoying hot cocoa.
Kai's very first experience with it...he really enjoyed it!

All warm and cleaned up from the morning lake play
watching movies in the tent and laughing like crazy.

Kai sat with Baby Micha for a bike ride that lasted just over an hour.
He reported that he took good care of him.
And also that if he had a baby, it would be a sister.