Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone! Things have been so busy, I've been getting behind on the updates! I'm trying a new format: send an update every two weeks, and post pictures online to the website when there's no update so there's something to look at every week. As always, I also post a couple of extra photos online when I post an update. We'll see how that goes! Hopefully once everything gets settled, I'll ramp back up to an update every week.

Christmas was great! He met Santa a couple of times (warily) and loves to hear us sing Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. We put the presents under the tree the day before to minimize "exploring" by Thomas. He didn't seem that interested in them in general but kept picking up one particular present and trying to open it. I suspect that Grandpa told him it was for him, piquing his interest! All in all, he did a great job of waiting until after Mom and Dad came over and we all had breakfast before attacking the presents. I would hand a present to someone and he would run over and rip off all the paper. Distracting him with his own presents didn't keep him away from everyone else's presents! It was a lot of fun to see! Things rolled merrily along until he opened up his present from "Auntie" Rose and "Auntie" Pam: a 6-car wooden train with about 50 blocks that stack onto it. Then all present-opening stopped and he became engrossed with the train. Putting him down for a nap was a challenge because we had to get him away from the train first! We even put off giving him his last present (a tricycle from Mom and Dad) so as not to disturb his concentration!

He's had a word explosion in the past two or three weeks: he learns new words everyday and can string two to four words together. I even hear him using possessive form: "Daddy's banana," "Baba's soup." He calls one of his hats the "toot-toot hat" because I told him it was his train hat to get him to wear it. Sometimes he says things like "Eat-eat? Apple juice? Tom-Tom?" and place his hand on his chest. He calls himself Tom-Tom because that is one of our nicknames for him! This morning he bumped his head on the couch and Matthew asked if he wanted Daddy to kiss it for him. Through the tears I heard, "Yes, please!" Usually he has to be prompted to use the P-word! He's only just now started to say the word "yes"-- until now he's been nodding or "m-hmm" or "oh yeah!" for yes. He learned that from one of the CDs we listen to in the car! On that same CD there's a song to the tune of "Revel" (the trumpet waking up the troops in the morning) where the lyrics for the first verse is "No no no no no no no" and the lyrics for the second verse is "Yes yes yes yes yes yes." When he requests the song, he says "nonono yesyesyes?" He also has just started saying "hi" and "bye-bye!" with a big wave.

Sophia is growing and growing. We call her "Miss Eye Contact" because she spends so much time gazing earnestly at us. Her hair is getting thinner on top, just like Thomas when he was that age. We've discovered that she likes to suck on a pacifier right before she falls asleep or when she's really fussy, and it's really great for us ... now to use that information for good and not for evil! The challenge will be to give her the pacifier only occasionally, when she really needs it. I think that will be hard! In related news, last night she went about five and a half hours between feedings! This means that I onlyget up once in the middle of the night to feed her. It's great! She's still kind of wonky with her awake times, so I'm very excited when I can feed her in the middle of the night and then immediately put her down, knowing that she's going to fall right back to sleep instead of being awake for an hour at five in the morning. We're making progress though! For the past few days I have actually gotten up with Matthew and Thomas at seven in the morning because I got enough sleep at night! This is perfect because Matthew is leaving for his trip on Monday. We had him for a month and a half!! Yay, parental leave! I'm not looking forward to figuring out the logistics of handling two kids by myself, but Mom and Dad are here, thank goodness. And on Thursday, Michelle, John and Dominic are coming for a few days on their way to their Disney cruise! Yaaaaaaay! So looking forward to it!!

Congratulations on a new year! May 2010 be even better than the ones before it!

Thomas 2 years, Sophia 4 weeks

Thomas 2 years, Sophia 3 weeks old

Just a short update this week. Matthew has been home for about one month out of his 6-week leave from work. Sometimes he looks so tired from waking up with Thomas in the middle of the night, I'm sure he's thinking good thoughts of a hotel room all to himself! He's still pretty much the primary caregiver for Thomas these days, so much so that when Thomas wakes up grumpy from a nap, he'll wail inconsolably for Daddy until Matthew comes in to give him a cuddle! I tell you, it feels pretty weird to play second fiddle! We only have a couple of weeks of his leave left, so I have to start learning how to take care of them both by myself! Or at least, get through the day until dinner time, when Mom and Dad arrive!

Thomas met Santa at the Mom's Club Christmas Party the other day. He was pretty wary, accepting Santa's present by stretching his arm and body to the utmost from the maximum possible distance. And then we put up our Christmas tree yesterday. Thomas loves the lights and was pretty interested at first about putting ornaments on the tree. He hung several ornaments on the same branch, so we had clumps of ornaments in a ring a couple of feet off the ground. He rapidly lost interest after that, though. He is much more interested in the inflatable snowman family in our next door neighbor's yard, so we often take him outside to check on them. Then we check on our other neighbor's inflatable Santa and his reindeer and polar bear made of Christmas lights.

Sophia is growing a lot. She's already outgrown a couple of her smallest onesies! She's also having longer periods of wakefulness, and her voice is getting stronger and stronger. She's had her first bath, and she only complained once, I think because I let her get a bit cold. What a patient, mellow girl! I remembered Thomas' first bath as I had Sophia in the tub, and what a difference! He did not like it at all and did not hesitate to tell us so. Ahh, good times!

"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Orlando International Airport. Current temperature in Orlando is 86 degrees."

"I though YOU knew how to get there!"

Thomas 2 years, Sophia 2 weeks old

Helping Mommy clean up marker from the carpet and table

Exploring sand for the first time at Warren Park -- just across the road!

We just put a real bed in Thomas' room in addition to his crib to make his transition a little easier. His sleep issues still haunt us. Today he didn't take a nap at all; it was two hours of me walking him back to his bed. On the other hand, it meant that tucking him into bed tonight was a breeze. Other times, his nap is fine but it takes him two hours to fall asleep at night! Or I wake up at 4am and find the playroom light on, and Thomas about to start playtime! What is happening? Are we transitioning to no nap at all? Or is this just a reaction to moving house and new baby? To be fair, it all started a week before the move date, and has been going on for about a month now. It's pretty awful sometimes, especially when we're all short on sleep. He's also started transitioning to full-blown toddlerhood. We've had a lot more crying outbursts when things don't go his way, the old going limp act and yelling "no no, no no!" response when he doesn't want to do something. On the other hand, he appears more confident and social these days. Nowadays he is much more open, playing with our friends and talking to them after only a short warming-up period, follows along with the motions to the songs at Rhyme Time at the Library, and interacts and "talks" with the other kids in his playgroup. I swear he also put on a few pounds during the two nights he spent at Mom and Dad's house when we were at the hospital!

He still likes the new baby. He pats her gently on the blanket, pointing out her hands or eyes or comes to tell me when she's crying. I watch him like a hawk just in case he gets a little too energetic like he still does with Chloe (pulling tails, etc).

Sophia is doing well! Tomorrow is her two-week checkup with the pediatrician. She is nursing easily (mostly), and sleeps well, especially when she's being held by someone. I think that's how I'm getting so much sleep at night! After a nighttime feeding, I hold her upright for a while against me to get rid of any air bubbles, and I usually fall asleep accidentally in the recliner, sometimes for hours! The new "nursing recliner" has more than paid for itself in the past two weeks! In fact, she sleeps so well, it's a bit of a worry! Can it really be this easy? The mind will always find something to worry about, I guess!

Mom and Dad have been a lifesaver (again!!), making dinner every night that they aren't dancing, babysitting Thomas so Matthew and I can take naps and get things done around the house, restocking our refrigerator, and generally being very supportive. Also, Matthew has been very supportive too, taking care of Thomas so I can have a nap or feed the baby, getting the house fixed up, making breakfast, putting together new furniture, etc! Thank you to Mom, Dad and Matthew! I couldn't do it without you!

Thomas 2 years, Sophia 1 week old