Merry Christmas!

We had a damn nice Christmas this year. :) It was much busier than we had anticipated, but I think that made the day turn out better. Our little early bird woke us, as always, around 6:30am. I made a big breakfast, we lounged and watched the morning news, I sewed new buttons on Isaiah's overalls (damn baby is almost as tall as me), gave Isaiah a bath, etc. And then...the clock suddenly said 10:15 and we wondered where the time had gone. Mark and I both had to shower, dress, primp, round up the dogs, warm up the car, and pack baby shit (an attempt to not be as ill prepared as usual...though we were still ill prepared, as usual).

We arrived at my parent's house shortly after 11AM and I was impressed with how quickly we managed to get our shit together at the last minute. The 3 of us had lunch with my mom and dad and followed that up with Isaiah's First Christmas/Gift Opening Extravaganza. He got books and puzzles and a crazy rocking giraffe (as in rocking horse that looks like a giraffe). Among the many gifts from grandma and grandpa were a baby V-Tech laptop (Mark's favorite) and a musical gym. We put the gym together on the spot to see if Isaiah had any interest. My expectation was that it would take him a few days to figure it out...I was so wrong. He was entranced immediately. This continues to reinforce my belief that Isaiah will have a strong love of music. I was starting to believe this for the following reasons:

1. Only a few weeks ago we started playing a lullabies CD from the Putamayo Kids series during Isaiah's bedtime (the focus is world music in various languages from Swahili to Spanish). He sleeps so much better with a little quiet music playing.
2. He typically enjoys playtime more when music is playing. For instance, if he is in his jumperoo, he is more likely to jump about if we have the musical toys playing.
3. When he is upset I can usually calm him down with a sing song type voice (although I think this is probably true of all babies).
4. Isaiah threw a tantrum at a friend's house the other day. We both did everything we could think of to calm his cries...none of my usual tricks worked. Then Maya had the idea to play her favorite Thai music for him. He was immediately interested. The tears stopped about as quickly as they started. I was impressed! Now I will forever be armed with a CD...another tool in my bag of tricks.
5. Isaiah clearly has a preference for certain music. He prefers island-style songs, Jack Johnson, and world music with a softness to it. This is so exciting to me since I am completely devoid of any musical talent. If it turns out that Isaiah has musical abilities similar to my own, at least he will have grown up with an appreciate for music from other cultures. This will be wonderful in itself since Mark and I would like to expose our children to as many cultures as possible during their childhood. Clearly, music is an important part of every culture. (I could go on and on about the importance of cultural diversity, but I will save it for another day)

Ok...can I go off on a tangent or what?! So as I was saying we had a nice, albeit busy, Christmas day. We spent the afternoon at my parents, followed by an evening at Mark's best friend's house. He has 2 little boys around 6 and 8 years old. When I walked in the door I was completely speechless. The toy carnage was unbelievable. Thems some spoiled little boys. My son will never see a Christmas like this...even if we strike it rich. That's about all I'm going to say about that.

I know Aunt Jen is dying to see more footage of her nephew...I'm sure the rest of you will finding this unnecessarily boring.