Christmas Day

I was going to write all about Christmas Day with Perrin, but now that Trey's started a blog, he kind of took care of that already (http://blogalogadingdang.blogspot.com/2010/12/so-christmas.html). I thought that mildly amusing blog posts on our child's antics was MY territory, but whatever. His blog post is actually really good. Probably better than whatever I would have written. So I'm directing all of my faithful followers to his post to get the low-down on Christmas day.

But I couldn't resist posting a picture of Perrin unwrapping a present. He got the hang of wrapping paper pretty quickly. He'd rip off a big piece, then look at us guiltily as if he knew he'd just destroyed something and wasn't sure if we'd be happy about it. Then he'd shred more paper as we tried to get him excited about the actual present. Presents, shmesents--who cares about them when there's paper and ribbons and tape and boxes to play with?

Mr. Mischief

One of my favorite things to do in the evening is soak in a hot bubble bath and read a magazine. It's a luxurious, 20-minute break from being a mommy. Tonight, I decided I needed my 20-minutes of "me time." Trey agreed to be on baby duty, so I started running the water and getting the bath all ready.

While I was in the bedroom waiting for the tub to fill, I noticed Perrin crawling into the bathroom. "Hey, Trey," I yelled, "Can you get Perrin?"

He called for him like a dog: "Here, Perrin. Come here." Surprise, surprise--that didn't work.

Oh well. I could see him well enough from the bedroom to make sure he wasn't diving into the bathtub. So I figured it was no big deal. Unfortunately, I couldn't see him well enough to realize what he was doing. He was digging through the bathroom trash and methodically throwing bits and pieces into my bath water. By the time I got there, huge gobs of toilet paper and other unidentifiable things were floating around.

Trey came and got Perrin, and I began draining the tub and cleaning up the mess. The toilet paper gobbed up the drain, so the tub took FOREVER to empty. But I was determined to make the best of things, so I began running another bath. Unfortunately, there was some toilet paper stuck to the sides of the tub that I hadn't seen. And since I had already run one bath, I ran out of hot water part of the way through. So I ended up with about an inch of lukewarm, toilet paper infested water. Seriously NOT what I had in mind.

I guess I might have to start taking my baths after Perrin goes to sleep for the evening. And perhaps take out the bathroom trash more regularly.

First Christmas

Before Trey and I were even thinking about having Perrin, we talked about how we didn't want Christmas for our family to be all about presents. We wanted to focus on the significance of the birth of Christ and on spending time together as a family.

Now, here we are--Perrin's first Christmas. Will we hold true to our convictions? Here's a snapshot into our life as a family this season:

Me: (While walking around with Trey in WalMart) "It's not like Perrin's going to remember this Christmas anyway, so I don't think we need to go crazy with presents."

Trey: "I agree. Just a couple things. He'll be more interested in playing with the wrapping paper anyway."

Me: "Yep, so just a couple little things. We'll hardly spend any money at--OH MY GOSH! Look, it's a robot bunny that plays hide and seek with you! That is SO cool!"

Trey: "Ooh, and here's a submarine he can play with in the bathtub. We HAVE to get that."

Jayna: "And one of these baby laptops. Maybe now he'll stay away from mine."

Trey: "And don't forget we have to get stuff to fill up his stocking."

So... score 10 points for the commercialization of Christmas, zero so far for our hopes of injecting the true meaning of Christmas into our son's young life. I never thought it would be so hard to keep from spoiling him. I do have a child-friendly nativity that I'm going to set up and let him play with, and we'll read some Christmas books and sing Christmas carols that will be meaningful (or at least would be if he could understand them). Hopefully we'll end up with a good balance in the end.