Today was a festive day. We
bought a Christmas tree from a guy who runs (ran?) a (now
condemned, I believe) motel. It was great. He came highly
recommended. We were looking at the five-foot trees and they
all looked so small! I started reminiscing about my childhood
trees… walking for a mile down a steep hill in three feet of
snow to cut a down an eight-foot tree, dragging it back up that
huge hill and into the living room, where we realized that
eight feet just doesn’t fit, so back out again to chop off the
top, then back in to see what we’ve got. Much more adventurous
than a motel parking lot. We settled on a nice five-foot
tree and then they wrapped it in string and Alan put it on the
top of the Subaru where it looked even tinier. I kept thinking
it was just way too small. But logic prevailed and when we
brought it in the house and unwrapped it, it was perfect! Alan
got it all nice and straight in the stand and we put lights on
and (for the first time ever) all of the ornaments we own. Lex
had fun with the extension cord we bought that has a big red
button on it. We plugged in the tree and the window lights and
he turned them on and off about a hundred times. The neighbors
must have thought we were insane. :) Lex was very helpful at taking
the ornaments out of the box, identifying them, and then
handing them to me to put on the tree. He got a little crazy
when we ran out of ornaments and started digging through the
boxes, throwing paper around, and then resorted to taking them
off the tree, identifying them and handing them back to me. I
think he was missing the point of our evening activity, but a
good time was had by all.

I took Lex over to the La
Sallete Christmas lights display tonight. For those of you not
in the know, this local La Sallete group (church? I’m not
really in the know either) puts up a huge Christmas display
each year. They have an entire hillside covered in lights,
mostly shapes and words like “peace” and “faith.” They also
have a big nativity scene and children’s activities on
weekends. We just went to check things out and Lex enjoyed the
many different shapes and colors of lights. We counted the blue
stars and Lex argued that the stars are supposed to be in the
sky :) Smart boy. It was a nice evening. He didn’t even
complain too much about the excessive bundling that marks the
beginning of winter.

I’ve also had the
chance today to reflect on how fortunate we are. I met with a
friend of mine this morning to be interviewed for an article
she is writing on the choices moms make regarding working
outside of the home. The conversation reminded me how lucky I
am that we are in a position that allows me to be home
full-time with Lex. While we aren’t financially well-off by any
means, we are certainly stable enough that we can prioritize
our child’s well being over money. Not enough people have that
option and I feel very lucky that we do. I also found out
recently that two women I know who are pregnant with their
second babies (both have kids about Lex’s age) are having
pregnancy complications. I feel very fortunate to be having yet
another smooth pregnancy and I can’t imagine, particularly at
this time of year, having to worry about the health and well
being of my little baby.

But enough of
that… Here are some pictures from the last few days. We went
down to visit Jim and Julie last weekend and Alan and Lex
enjoyed Jim’s video game setup. Lex also enjoyed Alan’s
breakfast the next morning. The bundled Lex pictures are from
La Sallete tonight.

Alan and Lex play hide-and-seek sometimes.
It’s quite entertaining. Lex likes to do whatever Alan is
doing, which doesn’t quite work with this game. Alan says “go
hide now” and puts his head down and starts counting. Lex sits
right next to Alan and puts his head down and starts counting.
So Alan will get up and go hide. Lex follows right behind him
saying “go Ide, go Ide.” Hehehe… someday he’ll figure out the
back-and-forth aspect of the game, but for now he loves
following Alan around and doing what he’s doing. It’s great
fun.

We had a busy day today. We planned on
getting lots of chores around the house done, but instead spent
2 hours at an OR Open House at the hospital (very interesting!)
and then a friend’s 40th birthday party.

My aunt organized the (first?) OR Open House at our fancy
hospital. I had no idea what to expect from it and it was
great. They had lots of different room (20 or so, I think) set
up with examples from different types of operations
(cardiovascular, open heart, eye, costmetic, etc.) Each room
had displays about that type of surgery and nurses everywhere
to explain procedures, fancy new replacement body parts, and
what the nurses and machines all do. They also had little
things for the kids to play with, demos of surgery tools, and a
display of their (new?) training dummy that has all the
appropriate vitals and responds to input and actions by the
staff. It was really neat. Lex was tired, but fascinated as we
walked around looking at everything. We met the grandparents,
Katie, and even a woman from my old A&P; class. She’s in the
surgery technician training program now and loving it. Great
job Katie!!

After Lex’s nap we headed
out to a friend’s party. There were lots of little boys and
their house is nice and big with a circle to run around. The
kids were thrilled. They also have a nice big staircase in the
corner (where it’s hard to see) so Lex took advantage of my
trying to be social and climbed up and down the stairs
(unaided) as much as possible. At one point I found him and a
3yr old little boy upstairs. I said, “Is anyone up here with
you?” He said, “No”. Me: “Ok, I’m going to take Lex down now. I
don’t want him upstairs unsupervised.” 3yr old: “It’s ok, I’m
watching him.” …. Hmmm… somehow that didn’t really reassure
me :) Lex loved running around with all of the older kids
though. Towards the end of the night I decided to just let it
be (I’d seen him successfully maneuver the stairs several times
by this point) and hope for the best. Cake was served. It got
late. I went to find Lex to start getting ready to head home. I
come around the corner to where the stairs are and find him
sitting in the dark, on a little mattress under the stairs,
watching TV and eating cake. Fork in one hand, chocolate
frosting all over his face :) It was hysterical! The kids had
set up a little cozy corner to watch a movie and eat their
cake. One by one they had left (went home, got a drink, etc.)
and Lex must have been left alone or happened across unguarded
cake. Either way, he was thrilled. When I walked in he gave me
a brief look of “Am I being good or bad?” but it didn’t last
long as I quickly burst out laughing. So he grinned a big cakey
grin. The kid cracks me up.

Maybe
tomorrow we will get some chores done around here. We’ll see.
The best news, of course, is that our Internet access came
back. Yay!! They are still a little confused in the billing
dept, but we can work on that. For now I’m just happy to be
back in the real world ;)