Happy New Year and Happy News

We had a wonderful albeit very busy month of December. Jaida enjoyed all the preparations for Christmas very much. She was quite intrigued with all the hoopla this year. She helped us pick out the perfect tree, she did a bit of decorating, watched Polar Express MANY times and drank A LOT of hot chocolate. She really got into the magic of Santa Claus this year and made many visits to talk to him. She never sat on his lap but by the last visit she would walk right up to him and tell him what she wanted for Christmas .... usually involved asking for some boys because she likes them (much to her daddy's dismay) along with some books and puzzles. She really enjoyed the ritual of putting a new Christmas Ornament on her Christmas tree advent calander every day first thing in the morning. I think it really helped clear up how many days were left until Christmas for her. She also loved all of the Christmas cards. We exchange greetings with many friends so we usually end up with well over 70 cards ... mostly picture cards of everyone's kiddos. This was a highlight of just about every single day. We would pull into the drive after work and Jaida would request that we stop and grab the mail. I would hand Jaida all the cards and she had a ball opening them and oohing and ahhing over all the kiddos. She had A LOT of fun getting together with her best friend Caleb and playing with him also. They are at such a great age and really enjoy playing together now ... it is fun to watch how different they are.

As the month progressed we were very busy. We did lots of fun Christmas related outings. The week of Christmas Jaida and myself made a road trip to Brooklyn to visit my friend and her twin boys. We stayed overnight and Jaida had a total blast playing with O & T and now considers them her boyfriends. ;) The whole group of us then went to NJ the next day to see a bunch more friends. We had a lot of fun. Christmas Eve we spent most of the day relaxing and then in the evening we met up with our friend's and their son downtown. We spent a few hours walking around the National and Capitol trees and theother lights about town. It was the perfect thing to do on Christmas Eve and we plan to do this as a group every year ... a little family tradition if you will. Then we came home and Jaida arranged some cookies on a platter and put a nice cold glass of milk with it for Santa. We opened a couple of presents each. Jaida opened her new Christmas penguin PJ's and The Winter Tale pop-up book. Joe and I each opened our new Christmas PJ's. Jaida went upstaris for a warm relaxing bath and then she put her new PJ's on and we read the Christmas book to her. She went to sleep and had sweet dreams of her upcoming Santa visit.

Santa came some time during the night and when Jaida FINALLY woke up in the morning we all went downstairs to find the tree all lit up and Christmas carols playing. Santa had eaten all the cookies and drank all the milk ... Jaida was thrilled beyond anything to see this. Santa did leave a scrap of cookie behind and Jaida decided it really shouldn't go to waste so she ate it right up. :) After a minute or so she noticed the beautiful dollhouse Santa left her. She played with it all morning. She took quite a while to get through all the little presents in her stocking and then we had some breakfast. It took Jaida most of the next 4 days to open the rest of her pressents. She really wasn't all that interested in the opening process but did appreciate every single gift. Some of her favorites are a Dora bedtime doll from her Aunt Noa. She saw the Dora text and started vibrating with happiness before she even saw the doll. She also loved the dollhouse although it has a lot of small pieces so often she gets a little frustrated but she will grow into it. She LOVES her doctor's set and comes at us with the syringe many times a day saying "I docor Jaida this will only hurt for a minute" with an evil smile on her face. She also loves a pink cd player and cd of music specially recorded with songs about Jaida on it. This came from Grandma Lylah and Grandpa Don. Every morning she wakes up and first thing she does is push the play button on her cd player so she can hear the "Wake Up Jaida song". It kind of freaks the dog's out a bit ... they recognize her name and think a stranger is in the house with us. Like I said she loves all of her gifts ... those are just the most played with ones right now. My sister Noa and her guy Charlie came over and spent the middle part of Christmas day with us. Jaida really enjoyed seeing her Aunt and Chachie (as she calls him) again. We lost power late in the day on Christmas Day so we postponed our Christmas dinner until Monday which was very nice for Joe and myself. It was quite relaxing. Overall, we had a relaxed and fun Christmas filled with friends, love and laughter ... which is the best kind.

Some funny Jaida things from lately. When Jaida is tired of watching a particular program on Noggin she will tell us "this is not a great show let's turn it off". She dances like a maniac and it is the funniest thing ever to watch. She has a new yoga for kids dvd that she LOVES and she does yoga every single day. It is pretty hillarious to watch. She tells me all the time that her hair is soft and long and that she is beautiful. Not vain at all. ;) She speaks like an adult now but sometimes uses the wrong word so she is just a hoot to talk to and talk she does ... just about constantly. She loves to talk on the phone now and talks to mom and dad while they are at work, to her Aunt Noa and her Grandma Lylah. Jaida is in the process of potty training and has pooped and peed on the potty now. We are just working to make it all happen more regularly at this point.

Happily, Jaida has been cold free so far this winter. I am quite happy about this after last winter. I guess it helps that she now is completely and utterly addicted to purell for her hands. That's our germ-o-phobe girl! ;) Her ears seem to be doing well also. She hasn't had any infections that we know about even though she is getting her last two two-year molars right now and they are giving her a great deal of grief. She goes back to the ENT doctor on Tuesday for a re-check. We are hoping for clean and healthy ears.

Some happy news is that Jaida is going to be a BIG sister! Her new sister or brother http://2006firecracker.blogspot.com/ will be here right around July 4th. We really didn't mention any of this to Jaida but she is an amazingly perceptive child and apparently picked up on the fact that a baby is coming just from some rather cryptic conversations Joe and I were having. The kids at daycare likely mentioned it to her also. One day she suddenly announced she wanted a baby boy. We figured at that point we should prabably talk to her a bit about all of this. Since I started showing really early this time around and we have been listening to the new baby's heart using our doppler it didn't take Jaida long to figure out the baby (or at the very least the baby's heart) is in my tummy. She now loves to tell everyone that the baby is in the baby holder in mama's tummy. Then she promptly whips up her shirt to show the person that there is a baby in her fat tummy also. :) She does seem to love it when we listen to the baby's heartbeat using the doppler but especially loves to listen to her own heart with the doppler. She completely knows how to operate the thing all by herself. Anyhow, this is just another happy addition to our already VERY happy existence. :)

Due to some minor annoyances I might have to password protect this site along with the new baby's site. If this happens just send me a quick email requesting the username and password. My email address is on my main site at gia@gialamela.com.