Looking forward to Christmas

Sara is learning to leave the Christmas tree alone but it's taken a bit of convincing. I gave her plush ornaments to play with and she's done a good job only playing with those. She was asking me about the "good" ornaments today and why they were special. I think I got her to understand that they were not for her to play with but she still probably thinks the Christmas tree is a big toy. This year I'm putting my glass ornaments at least 4 feet up, so the top 2 feet of the tree will be decorated but most of the rest of it will be the non-breakable ones or bare.

She was also really interested to watch me wrap presents. She wanted to help out so she watched me wrap Daddy's presents, handed me tape, and stuck bows on. Then when he got home, she started to describe to him what we were wrapping. I knew that was going to happen so I didn't tell her what the present was called. Luckily she didn't know what it was, so all she could do was talk about the pictures that were on the outside of the box, which really confused Dan, secret safe.

I've been trying to explain things to her more in depth now that she can understand and she asks a lot of questions. I recently tried explained why we go to music class and I think it helped her see that we were there so she could learn to play piano music like Daddy. When we ask her to practice what the music teacher said to practice sometimes she says, "I don't know how". I think it helped her understand that we're try to teach her how to play and that it's OK to not know how to di it because she's learning how.

I still struggle to spend time with her during the day. Luckily Brennan is happier to sit with us and read books, so at least I'm able to read to her a little more. He also likes to sit in her room and watch her play or watch her do crafts or beads at the table. I really have to supervise them though, I'm worried she'll hand him something he could choke on. Luckily she hasn't tried to hand him anything yet and I've tried to explain to her what choking is but I think the best thing is just lots of parental supervision and not leaving them along too long together.

I'm really excited for her to see her Christmas presents, she is going to love them. I got her a calendar of her own so she can watch each day for Christmas to come and for when Nanna comes for a visit.

I'm so happy with the way she's been helping with Brennan. I let her hold his bottle when I really need to do something and she does a pretty good job, although she gets distracted and sometimes walks away. She really likes talking to him and entertaining him and she always has hugs for him at night. Tonight she squeezed him so tight that he grunted and I told her to be careful not to squeeze the juice out of him, she thought that was funny.

I just hope they like each other while they are growing up, it would make life a lot easier.

Dan finally showed me how to access this photo on my computer, it's a great pic of her. She is growing fast too, she already looks older than when this was taken a few months ago.



Here is one of her wearing her glow-in-the-dark Thomas shirt.