So another Christmas is over. Mark's parents left this morning for Scottsdale, and our house seems empty. Particularly sad is that Liam has been looking for them all morning, even though he kissed them and waved goodbye as they drove off. I suppose after two weeks he had adopted them as a permanent part of the household. The last two weeks were quite fun; it doesn't hurt to have Christmas right there in the middle, of course. Quite a lot happened that was interesting or funny (at least I think so), so here's a few disconnected holiday sound bites to catch you all up to date.
Liam got quite a few gifts. His two favorite things to do are to ride things and to push buttons, and, since many of his gifts incorporated those things, he's been having quite a good time lately. Except when he opened the little yellow truck pictured below.
Since Liam had some ride-on toys already, he assumed that the little truck was ride-in. It took us forever to figure out what he wanted; he kept sticking his foot in through the door and crying. Poor little guy took that truck to each of us, one at a time, saying (in babble) something like, "Can't you help me get in and drive this truck?" We had to hide it for a couple of days until he gave up.
My father gave Liam a train set for Christmas, of the Thomas the tank engine sort, which Liam loves. However, it makes quite a mess and our house was already full, so we played with it for a while and put it back in the box. Liam found the box and dumped it out. We played with if for a while, put it back in the box, and hid the box. Liam found the box and dumped it out. We hid it again. Liam found it again. One night, Liam got such a firm grip on one of the little train cars and wouldn't let go that we had to put him to bed like that. He slept with it all night without complaint.
Last week we packed a picnic lunch and went to the Wildlights at the Denver zoo. It's a beautiful sight: they cover a good portion of the zoo with holiday lights, many of which are shaped like wild animals. Quite a good show, although few of the real animals showed up for it. Must have been too cold for them to come out, although it was too dark to see them anyway. You can imagine the zoo people trying to figure out how to get people to visit when it is cold out and dark to boot.
Anyway, we packed up Mary and Neil's minivan with a full dinner for five, a motorized wheel chair, and a large Radio Flyer wagon (their gift to Liam), and headed off. Remember how Liam tried to climb into every wagon he saw last time we went to the zoo? And remember how Liam was so afraid of the dark at Halloween that we couldn't put him down? Well, the fear of the dark won out over the love of the wagon. We carried him most of the time. Too cold and dark to eat, we ended up at Red Robin. It was worth it though; the lights are really beautiful.
Anyway, the tree is gone and all the decorations are away now. Liam was so good about the tree the whole time and gently helped us take the ornaments off. Later we found him re-decorating our little fake tree (we also had a full sized real one, in case you were wondering).
I hope you all had a great holiday and have a happy new year!
