week ending dec 17, 2006

Week ending December 17, 2006: This week the kids helped me make gingerbread cookies, I finished my Christmas shopping, and we went to another holiday party. Chloe said “Mom, something white” while pointing to a nativity silhouette in a neighbor’s yard, so I started to point out the baby Jesus, the star, and to explain that the roof was of a barn called a stable where baby Jesus was born. She said, “In Bethlehem?”. I said “oh, you’ve heard this story before”. She said “yes, in our angel book”. I think it is a Christmas story book that we probably haven’t read since shortly after Christmas last year. This week Alex and Chloe were each pushing baby dolls in toy strollers. Chloe’s baby doll was covered in a blanket and had a teddy bear and a bottle. Alex’s baby was naked and had a toy train and a conductor’s hat. I think each twin gave their respective babies what they thought would make the babies happy. I took the kids to Little Gym this week and they each learned how to do a forward roll. They also played a hilarious version of duck-duck-goose in which almost no one played by the rules, but everyone had fun. This month or so the twins have started learning games like hide-and-seek, tag, and duck-duck-goose. We always ask the kids to tell us about what happened in their days but lately Chloe has been responding “that’s special”. When a toy is a special toy, like their favorite toy for sleeping with, or a favorite present they just received, they don’t have to share it (everything else must be shared), so Chloe is telling us that the information about her day is “special” so she won’t have to share it with us. We’ve tried asking her why and she always says “don’t worry, its just until after Christmas”. I can understand her wanting to assert her independence by not sharing on command the details of her day, but I’m not sure what she thinks Christmas has to do with it, other than a stall tactic. This week I was walking past Alex and tousled his hair. He giggled and looked me straight in the eye and said “I love you Mom”, for no reason at all. It is truly the little moments like that which keep me going.