What Child Is This?

Monday night Mark and I invited ourselves and our child to tag along with his sister's in-laws (her hubby's fam) to the LHM Christmas Sing-a-long at the Energy Solutions Arena. I had very solid expectations that Janie's behavior would be very similar to church - sits and plays for about 5 to 10 minutes and then is just all over the place like all normal children her age. She was kind of like that while we were sitting there waiting for it to start but was still very manageable. Laura (Mark's lovely sister) and her little girl Ella (Janie's cousin just two weeks older than her) kept her pretty entertained. Once it started I made sure Janie was well positioned on my lap so she could see and we were both comfortable and started counting down the minutes until she wanted off. So a little more than an hour and a half later, there she still sat having hardly moved a muscle the entire time. I was shocked! The most she did for over 90 minutes was glance over at Mark, Laura, or Ella if they were doing something interesting or up at me with kind of a "We're still good, right mom?" kind of look on her face. After a while I would grab her hands and make her clap but she didn't really want to which was surprising because she claps ALL the time. So she just sat there and soaked it all in. That little girl LOVES music so I guess I shouldn't be overly surprised but I was sure wondering who swapped out Janie with such a mellow little girl.

Us parents had a good time too. They handed out a bunch of free stuff which we sure couldn't complain about. The singing was usually in a very high key so we either sang an octave lower or kind of goofed off. And my favorite part was Ella. The last time we saw her (lives in Indiana) she was cutting about half of all her teeth at the same time so she wasn't the happiest camper but she's making up for it this trip out here. She was so funny! She bounced between her parents a few times so when she was with her mommy sitting next to us she would try to get Janie's attention and point around a little bit. And then she would bust out her big smiles and would giggle so I couldn't help but try to get her to do it some more. She's still not very familiar with me since I haven't had a lot of time to hang out at the in-laws lately, but I think we became friends that night. It's always fun doing that make your own kid laugh and smile but there's something about being able to do that with other people's kids - like it's a self esteem booster that some other little kid likes you besides your own since they're not morally obligated to like you. :o)

We've had a few other fun outings this holiday season too. Mark and I went with a couple of friends to the Mo-Tab Christmas concert which was really fun. I had only been once before a long long time ago. We had my family Christmas party last week which was fun. They decided to do a hayride through the neighborhood with us caroling. We didn't have much success in the neighborhood so we went through the parking lots of Home Depot, Target, and Kohls instead which was far more entertaining in my opinion. We haven't made it out to see the lights downtown yet since it's either been bitter cold or really smoggy, so maybe some time this next week. But I must say, I think the Christmas season is growing on me more and more each year now that I'm married with a wonderful husband and cute little child to share it with. And with fun things to go do, it only helps in my conversion.

Two last updates. First, Janie is now up to 5 teeth with number 6 knocking on the door. And second, after all this talk of wanting Janie to walk, we have finally made some progress. Janie can definitely walk, she just doesn't do it unless she thinks it's a game - like walking back and forth between mom and dad with lots of cheers and smiles. If she's just standing in spot A and wants to move to spot B that's just a few feet away she'll still squat down, crawl over, and pull herself back up. But between mom and dad she's done up to about 20 feet a few times. I think she'll catch on that walking is more than just for entertainment purposes here soon. But at least she's doing it now!

And since I don't currently have access to our pictures and videos, my next post will have a decent amount of them. 'Til then, Merry Christmas!!!