Christmas activities at school and grandparent's

To me, day care has been a huge blessing. She has learned so many wonderful things, and it's a lot of fun for us to discover things that she knows. The other day, for example, she was taking her bath and somehow it came up for us to ask her to sing her ABCs. Next thing we know, we hear her singing with us "C, D, F, G, H, J... P, Q...V"

She also "sings" Jingle Bells (I figured it was the easiest Christmas song and in one of our home movies, when Caitlin is asked to sing her favorite song, which was supposed to be Little Bunny Foo Foo, she sang Jingle Bells instead). Sometimes she'll sing "Jingle Bells" but for the most part, whenever the song pauses for a break/breath, she'll shout "Hey!"

One of the activities at school is to have two kids or a child and adult sit down facing each other and hold hands and rock forward and back while singing Row Your Boat. She likes to sing this song and do a really aggressive rocking/rowing motion. She gets about every other word, and for the most part is actually in tune with the song, "Row Row... Boat, Down Stream, Merr Merr... Dream"

Juliana has a tendency to be sort of bossy by telling us to "Sit Down Mama", "sit down Dada", and dictating which seat we're supposed to be "sit down"-ing in. It was sort of funny when we were visiting Lolli and Pop when I was sitting in a seat next to her, but was up getting something ready for breakfast so Pop sat down in my seat to feed her cheese. She was so distracted that Pop was sitting in my seat, that she just kept bossing "sit down Mama, sit down Mama. Mama sit down." No offense to Pop! She just is into identifying how things are done. She will frequently give me a running commentary in the mornings of what is going on and what will happen. Or sometimes I think she's checking with me that things are happening the way they're supposed to happen, as in:
Juliana: Where Dada go?
Me: Dada's at work.
J: Oh. Dada home.
M: You want Dada at home?
J: Yeah.
M: Well Dada will be home when we get home from school, okay?
J: Kay. Dada buckle (as in, buckled like in the car)
M: I'm sure Dada is buckled.
J: All done!

This past weekend Brian and I were able to go on a date night to see the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra's Holiday POPS concert since Grandma and Bill came to stay with Juliana. We had a great time, and I absolutely love these sorts of "cultural" opportunities. Some of my fondest memories at Christmas time are when we went to Pigeon Forge and saw Louise Mandrell, Lee Greenwood, James Rogers at Music Mansion, plus the numerous Christmas shows inside the park at Dollywood. Not to mention the probably 10 years that I was an active participant in the annual Nutcracker ballet! Oh, and then all those band concerts in middle school, choir concerts in high school, and attending the annual Holiday Fest concert at JMU through college! I can't wait to take Juliana to these things when she's older!

We were definitely in the nosebleed section, but it was worth it to see the orchestra and Pittsburgh's Mendelssohn Choir, plus multiple (famous) soloist singers and Santa Claus!

This past weekend we went to Grandpap and Grandma Paula's house for an early Christmas celebration. Juliana was spoiled by all the love and gifts lavished on her by Great Aunt Kathy, Great Uncle Dean, Nanny, Grandpap, and Grandma Paula. She loved the baby doll stroller and baby doll (which came with it's own pacifier... She frequently says "oh no baby! paci baby!" Sometimes she'll pull the paci out of the baby's mouth just so she can put it back in again), so the other gifts for her were kind of overshadowed and she didn't show as much interest in them.

Fascinated by the candy canes on this package, more than the package itself

She loved the Mickey stuffed animal and thought his shiny button nose was an actual "button." She accompanies pushing it with a "Beep" sound effect. When we come downstairs in the morning, she'll say "Minnie!" which then I, on instinct, correct to "Mickey." This morning, she came to me with Mickey with a huge running nose remnant on Mickey's face (she wiped her runny nose on Mickey...), so we got Mickey a tissue to clean him up.

She loves this tea set from Nanny. She loves to put the lids on the tea pot and the sugar bowl. We've pretended with her pouring tea for me and Dada, and she insists that we "stir" between tea additions to our cups.

She was absolutely thrilled with this flannel nightgown. She opened the box, pulled it out, saw it was a dress and attempted to put it on her head. We let her wear it to bed that night and I was worried that she might attempt to take her diaper off (since it was easily accessible), and sure enough... Probably 30 minutes after I left her room, she started crying and Brian went in to see what was going on. He said he thought she was handing him Elly, until he realized it was her diaper. She said "Oh no Dada! Diapee!" She got a pair of pants then on top of her diaper... We're thinking she should wear this nightgown on Christmas morning. She also loves it because it has "Hi Kitty" on it.

She was thrilled when she got this pink knit hat (and matching gloves although they aren't shown in this picture). She pulled the hat out of the bag and immediately put it on her head. She also was lucky enough to get this new rocking chair from Grandma Paula and Grandpap. She loves it. It's bigger than the little rocker that used to be Aunt Caitlin and Mommy's. She'll climb into it and say "rock, rock, whee!"

Any box is great to climb into. We were surprised she didn't as for Dada to "Push it" with her in it!

At day care last night, they had a holiday social. It was such a special event. They had food for the parents and kids, a small table (as in a toddler sized table with chairs) set up to decorate sugar cookies, and another small table for a craft activity. Brian and I both were able to go. Juliana was a blueberry fiend, demanding "More be be!". Good news for Lolli, she didn't like the maraschino cherries (what?! I know, weird...). I had no idea she liked blueberries that much. I also recently discovered that she loves naval oranges. That's great news for Christmas time when we frequently have the delicious oranges, although bad news for me because I feel like I can never get the best oranges at the grocery store! I guess I don't know how to pick them!

I had talked that morning about how she was going to decorate cookies, which meant that then she wanted "Cookie?" right at that moment. So she settled for two Nilla wafers (which are cookies in her book). Right when we were decorating her cookie, she had wandered into the kitchen area of her room and discovered she could reach the tray of cream puffs, so she helped herself to one. Then when I was icing her cookie, she used her cream puff to dip into the icing on the cookie. I helped her gently apply green and red sprinkles to her iced cookie.

 And then she proceeded to lick all the icing off of her cookie and didn't even eat the cookie part. Surprisingly, she was the only child in the room who did this. All the other parents and teachers were howling with laughter. She was definitely putting on a show! She kept asking for more "ice" aka more icing.

The craft was to decorate jingle bells to look like snowmen or santa claus'. Juliana thought the glue sticks were like chapstick, so there are a couple of sticks that have teeth marks from when she tried to apply it to her lips... Yeah, they got taken away pretty quickly from her...

We also got to hear what an impression Juliana has had on other kids and parents. Jo Jo's mom says Jonah talks about Juliana all the time, and he calls her "Nina". They are definitely pals (and the older two in the class now). At one point Jo Jo was running back and forth from the room to the door, and Juliana was following him. Juliana also said "Jo Jo sit down" when it came time to start decorating their cookies. One of the father's of a younger girl in the room said that Juliana always said "bye bye!" to him when he would drop his daughter off in the mornings in the baby room. When we got home, Brian said he had no idea that Juliana had such a "reputation"

When we left the party, we were sent home with one small gift for us, and one gift for Juliana from her three teachers. We opened them when we got home. Juliana got a mini Lady Bug pillow pet, which was a HUGE hit. "Lady Bug!", but she doesn't like it when it's opened, when Brian showed her how it opened up into a pillow she immediately wanted it "close?"-d again. Our small package was a clear, glass ball ornament with reindeer thumbprints around it with a note that said she made the reindeer with her thumb so we would always remember when she was one. Brian almost cried, which says a lot. I put it on the very top of the Christmas tree so to avoid any toddler impulsive potential disasters.

This morning, she wore a new outfit (which is 24 mo/2T so still a little big on her, but I like it a little bit better than her 18 mo clothes since the pants come down around her ankles more, and the sleeves come down around her wrists more) that had a ballerina on it. She was thrilled. Kept calling it "be-rina". When she went to see the Sugar Plum, she learned some bits of a dance and she'll do those little bits now. She'll put her hands on her shoulders with her elbows out and spin (staring at the floor, so she doesn't spin for very long since she gets pretty dizzy!), and she'll point her toes out and "tap" them. Or sometimes she'll kick her one leg up to about 90 degrees and hold it there. I hope she keeps this flexibility as she grows up!

When I dropped her off at school, we got there about an hour earlier than we normally do (she was up an hour earlier), one of her "friends" who had moved up to the older toddler room a few months ago was there (they mix the older and younger toddlers together in the morning until enough older toddlers come to head into their own room). Juliana pointed Mira out with a big smile, so I put Juliana down on the carpet where Mira was. Juliana went right over and gave Mira a big hug and said "hi Mira!" As I was unpacking Juliana's things over the next 5 minutes or so, Juliana was basically a cling on to Mira, kept telling her hi, giving her hugs, pressing cheeks together, leaning on her, etc. It was so sweet. It looked almost like two siblings who've missed each other while at school during the day. Thankfully Mira was extremely patient with Juliana being so clingy (sometimes with toddlers, you tend to have pushing and shouting when one gets into the other's personal space, although Mira was the one who used to give Juliana hugs when Juliana started attending the young toddler's room...).

In other news, Brian is so excited (and me too!) because he will be picking up his new hearing aid tonight. Last year around this time he had surgery on his right ear to replace his stapes bone with a titanium rod. The results immediately after the surgery where huge. He almost cried with joy at how much more he could hear, however over the next few months, his hearing went back to where it was before. Basically, he has conductive hearing loss because there is extreme ossification of the bones in his ear. The medical term is otosclerosis. So if the sound is amplified (by about 40 decibels!), he has 96% clarity of the conversation/sound. He has a little bit of the otosclerosis in his left ear, but it's not to the point where it needs assistance yet. So, unlike the hearing loss caused by nerve damage which is irreversible and hearing aids can only do so much to help, hearing aids will help Brian immensely.

For myself, I am working hard at school trying to wrap things up. I'm stressed out about all sorts of things (at home and at work), but Brian has been amazing at helping me out when I (frequently) become overwhelmed with my "responsibilities." My adviser has never said anything contrary to graduating in April, but I think realistically my graduation date will most likely be summer (because to technically graduate in the spring I will need to have my dissertation defended and in final form and submitted by April 4th). I am hoping, though, that this means I can defend my dissertation before our planned trip to Hawaii at the end of May in celebration of the graduation and completion of the dissertation that I was sure would be done by then... If this is the case, I'm hopeful they'll let me walk early in commencement in April, and then official graduation by August. I have started a great collaboration with a girl in my lab who is a few years behind me in her graduate studies. She is helping me out by doing experimentation, and I am able to do most of my work on the computer (which is what I much prefer), and so I'm hopeful that we will be able to get what we need very quickly over the next 4 weeks or so before writing the last paper I need before working on the dissertation.

We are headed to Abingdon for Christmas this year (again, I guess, since this will be my 27th Christmas at Nana and Papa's house), so hopefully I'll have a chance to post about Christmas and Santa's highly anticipated visit soon! Hope everyone has a great holiday!