The Dickinson Boys: Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!! I know I'm terribly behind on the updates. The end of the year was pretty busy for us. And the further behind I got the more I put off updating because it seemed like it would be a big project. I finally decided it was time to just do it and try to condense a few months into one post. Our November and December were very busy for us. In fact, it's been a whirlwind since we got to Alabama! This is our first place where I don't have a regular babysitter and I'm fitting working for the law firm into early mornings, after kids are in bed and on weekends. David has been working on his Master's degree in Joint Warfare in the evenings after work. Add that to regular responsibilities, shuttling kids around and all of the other things we do on a regular basis- it's no wonder I'm months behind on the blog!

Anyway, in early December we went to the Prattville Christmas parade which was a lot of fun. Will remembered that they throw candy at parades but once he collected a few pieces he just wanted to sit back and eat it. He wasn't one of the kids racing around for more, more, more. He did stand up when Santa came by on a fire truck but he spent most of the parade in his camping chair with a small bag of candy. That week we also went to a friend's house to decorate Christmas cookies including gingerbread men and we went to a Children's Christmas music program at church. This year we visited Indiana earlier in the month. We were there for a little over a week in mid-December. The boys were good travelers and we even broke the rules and turned Luke's car seat around a bit early so he was more comfortable and had a better view. I'd been showing Will on his map the route to Indiana and he got pretty good and knowing that we go from Alabama to Tennessee to Kentucky to Indiana. We also drove further north near Terre Haute to visit great-grandma Crockett. Will took a liking to her dog, Rufus, and he's now named the toy dog that came with his Lincoln Logs "Rufus."

We spent a few days in Evansville where Will and Luke got to play with cousins Xander and Savannah. They also got to go to the mall and ride a small train and a carousel. Will keeps asking me if we can go to Evansville to go to the mall. We don't have a close mall to go to here and we didn't go to the one in Annapolis often so I'm not sure he realizes that there are malls closer than Evansville.

The highlight of the Indiana trip for the boys was going to French Lick to the Indiana Railway Museum where they got to ride the Polar Express. The Polar Express has always been one of Will's favorite movies. He's read the book numerous times and, of course, both of these guys are big train aficionados. The entire Polar Express experience was really wonderful and Will was so excited. There was a lot of activity going on inside the train but all Will wanted to do was stare out the window at the scenery going by. He was so excited to ride a "real train." He had a cookie and hot chocolate and got to see Santa. He actually didn't pay too much attention to Santa- Santa's no competition for the Polar Express.

After French Lick we spent a few days in Georgetown with Grandma and Grandpa Dickinson. Will got to visit Bass Pro Shop, his favorite store. He's now been to three- San Antonio, Prattville, AL and Clarksville, IN.

As we were coming back to AL boys were starting to come down with colds. Especially Luke was coughing a lot and had a very runny nose. We had some things planned for the few days before Christmas but we ended up just staying home. We did make it to church on Christmas Eve but we missed the Family Christmas dinner at church. We ended up have a really relaxing week at home, even though the kiddies were under the weather. I made gingerbread waffles, which Will kept calling his "gingerbread man waffles," and we had cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning. Will was excited about Christmas on Christmas Eve but when I went into his room on Christmas morning he seemed to have forgotten about it. After a little coaxing he came out and found the presents and a Polar Express electric train. They eventually opened all of their presents but the train really stole the show and they didn't want to do anything else for a while but watch it go around the tree. We went through four C batteries by Christmas afternoon. We didn't plan for that and David had to run out to CVS on Christmas Evening to avert a five-alarm meltdown from the boys. We actually had really severe weather that evening, including a tornado warning.

We're starting to get back into the swing of things now. The boys are healthy at the moment and all of their regular activities will start again this week. Will is going to Mom's Day Out twice a week this "semester." Lukie is still home with me but maybe he can start Mom's Day Out in the fall. Will's Gymnastics and our Wednesday night church programs start this week too.

Over the last couple of weeks Will has had a burst of new language skills. Suddenly he's answering and asking questions and he's more conversational than he used to be. Some of the things that come out of his mouth are really funny. "Gorgeous" is his new word. Everything he colors is "gorgeous." The only person he thinks is gorgeous, though, is himself! The other day I was asking who he loved and I went through the whole family. He kept saying he didn't love mommy or daddy or Lukie. I started to wonder if he knew what "love" meant and I asked, "who do you love?" and he said "girls." I asked what girls and he said, "girls in my class." Daddy's been trying to convince him that he needs to say he loves mommy too! One day he kept saying "the teachers have candles." I couldn't figure out why he was saying that and I finally asked him why he kept saying the teachers have candles. He said, "that means there is no class." I figured out that he'd heard me say that he didn't have gymnastics because the teachers had cancelled. He is much more chatty than he used to be and is speaking with more grammatically correct and complex sentences.

It's been interesting to learn more about his personality now that he's speaking more. He has always been a happy guy but he does have a serious side that comes out every now and then. When he gets into his serious moods sometimes he seems about ten years older than he is. I've noticed now that he's talking more that he is very logical and literal. He has a vivid imagination when he's playing but when you ask him questions, he doesn't make up stories or play along with stories. I'm often looking for ways to get him talking more and sometimes when we're outside and see and airplane I'll ask him where he thinks the airplane is going. Sometimes I say "maybe it's going to Florida" or something like that. Then I'll ask him what he thinks and he'll look at me and say "it's going to the airport." Can't argue with that. When I ask him the name of his toy animals it's usually names of animals he's met in real life. His two horses that go in his horse trailer are named Willy and Willy, after the giraffe at the zoo. And then there's Rufus the dog. A stuffed animal he has he named Luke and another toy dog he's named Zoe. Sometimes when he draws on a blank piece of paper and I ask what it is he says "it's a picture." He's a pretty literal guy. I'm not sure yet if that's just the age or if it is due to his personality. I'm also very aware that he's still really young and his personality will likely change and evolve over time, but it's fun to hear more what he's thinking.

One benefit of his logical personality is that he does like to have rules for things. I was worried he'd get upset when we took down the Christmas tree. I started sneakily taking some of the Christmas decorations off the walls. He caught on and asked what I was doing. I said I was taking down our Christmas stuff because Christmas was over. Once he understood that Christmas was over, it became his mission to take all of the Christmas decorations down immediately. I felt like I could see a little switch in his head like Christmas is over=all Christmas stuff must come down!! He went over and turned the tree lights off and started taking ornaments off. I had to slow him down because I wasn't ready to do the tree yet.

Another chatty guy in our house is little Luke! He knows so many words I can't keep track anymore. He knows words like vacuum, reindeer and chocolate. When he takes an orange out of the fridge he hands it to me and says "peel." He is starting to speak in short sentences like "there's a puppy" and, after dropping a crayon, "get that." I was impressed the other day when reading him a Thomas the Train book that he pointed to the steam coming out of the train and said "hot." He loves to babble and more and more I can understand what he says. He usually only has to hear a word once or twice before he can say it. He like looking at the letter magnets on the fridge and will point to them like he knows what they are, but he usually says either "A," "O" or "E" for all of the letters. He's memorized parts of his favorite books and can repeat them on the right pages. On a related note, I'm pretty sure David and I have read "Go, Dog. Go!" about 500 times over the last three years.

Luke had his 18-month appointment in Dec. and is still a tall and skinny guy. He's 22 lbs, 1 oz. He's down to the 10th percentile for weight but is 81st percentile for height. He's been eating a lot over the last few days but his favorite things to eat- oranges, carrots, strawberries and cheese- are probably not going to help him pack on the pounds. He seems to be growing well height-wise so I'm not too worried.

Lukie is a social little guy and loves to tell everyone "hi" several times a day. He says it until he gets a response so we often hear "hi, Will...hi, Will...hi, Will...hi, Will..." until we make Will respond. Will is usually playing somewhere and not paying attention. Luke is also going through a clingy phase. He wants to be picked up over and over. He wants to eat his meals sitting on my lap and he won't allow me to do anything productive while he's around. He's also a bit of a toddler- throwing little tantrums when he doesn't get his way. Like he only got two chocolate chip cookies last night after dinner and that was apparently unacceptable. It's also harder to juggle the two of them out in public as Luke thinks he should be able to walk unhindered anywhere he wants to go. I usually have about 5-10 minutes in a store before Luke starts screaming to get out of the cart. I've resorted to bringing suckers to keep them busy for longer. Add to that Will's new trick of asking to go to the bathroom halfway through the store (which I can't ignore even though it's getting to be pretty routine) and our routine grocery trips have become a bit of a nightmare. I'm counting on it being a phase for both of them. But there's no denying that Luke is a full-fledged toddler now!