Tonight my family, about 20 of us, went carolling at a nursing home. This is a family tradition that we used to do in St. Louis when my cousins lived there. Several of their side of the family lived on the same street so we would carol on their street. Now that they live here they've carried on the tradition at a nursing home where many of the church members live. It was definitely an experience. There were some people who seemed very happy to see us, sang along and even followed us for a little while so they could enjoy the music. Some of the people I'm not sure even knew we were there. A couple of ladies enjoyed talking to Georgia and one old man gave my cousin's son kisses. My cousin's son is nearly in middle school but since his mom works at a nursing home, he wasn't bothered by the old man's kisses. Scott went around to all of the residents and shook their hands and if they couldn't shake hands on their own he gently picked up their hands and told them Merry Christmas. I was impressed by his maturity because I have to admit that I would not have been comfortable doing that. We saw my dad's aunt who we didn't know was living there, we saw the wife of the man my dad was named after and we saw a friend's grandfather. Ben and Georgia were sort of the caboose. While the rest of the group were several feet ahead singing, Ben and Georgia stopped at each door and waved to the residents. I know this wasn't something that Ben was looking forward to doing but I think the people appreciated us being there and thinking of them.
This Christmas season has come so quickly and we've been too busy to have time to enjoy it. I didn't put up a single Christmas decoration this year, not even our custom made stockings, and I didn't get any Christmas cards sent. I usually have time to take off in December to get these things done but work has been very busy and the evenings and weekends are the only time I have to get day-to-day errands, cleaning, etc done. We've received so many nice Christmas cards and letters and pictures and if you were wondering what happened to ours, if it got lost in the mail or if we took you off our list this year, please forgive and hopefully I'll be on the ball next year to get these done.
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Georgia's starting to show signs that she's ready for potty training. When I ask her if she needs a diaper, she either says "no!" or "poop" and runs into her bedroom. She pulls at her diaper through her clothes when it's wet and several times this week she has told me "poop" either a few minutes before she did the act or when she needed a diaper. She sat on the potty a few times this week but the big hole was a little scary so we bought a potty seat yesterday. She thought it was really fun to sit on this (when it was on the floor). Tonight we got an actual potty chair so we'll see if that gets things going.
Our babysitter told us that she'd like to start Georgia in her preschool program. She doesn't start kids until they are 2 1/2 but she said that Georgia is so curious about everything and enjoys learning that she wants to start her early. This week she called me at work to tell me that she'd been teaching the older kids "A, B, C". Georgia kept saying "A, A, A". The daycare lady said no, and wrote the letter A on a piece of paper to show Georgia. Later that afternoon Georgia went to the paper and said "A!". They're going to work on one letter every week. I don't expect her to learn the whole alphabet at this age but I like the idea of introducing her to it. She likes books so much and now sits and listens to us read a whole book to her. Sometimes I catch her pretending to read her books as if she's talking in long sentences like us.
Funny things:
Maximus, our 175 lb mastiff, was asleep in front of the baby gate that blocks the entrance to the kitchen. Georgia wanted in the kitchen so she put her foot against him and said "MOVE". I turned to Ben and said, "did she just say move?". Now that I think about it, I probably say that a lot b/c I can't get in the kitchen either when he blocks it.
Our babysitter told me that Georgia had been in her kitchen playing with Barbies and when she peeked back in to check on her, Georgia had a handful of dog food and was feeding their little dog one piece at a time. When she ran out she pointed at the dog and said "SIT", went over to the food bowl, grabbed another handful of food and went back to feeding the dog.
Georgia says "ow" when something hurts. What she doesn't quite get is that she should say it because she's hurt, not because she's hurting herself. She occassionally will pinch herself or us and say "ow".
New words: move, puppy, bath, ow, moon, sun.
2 comments:
I used to eat cat food out of the cat food bowl around this age so watch out ;) I'll be very impressed if Georgia starts to potty train soon. WOW!! Eli says "poo-poo" but only after we ask him if he "poo-pooed" (sometimes he did and sometimes he didn't). That's pretty cool about the preschool program. She's a smartie!! Have a great Christmas!
That's great that Georgia's babysitter does preschool too! I'm impressed by your cousin's son's maturity & sensitivity to that generation - it brought tears to my eyes!
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