Post Holiday Report

Ah, January. The end of the holiday season is here, and it's time to look back at all the fun we had. Instead of the typical boring holiday recap, I'll instead be using a report card format to grade how wonderful Christmas and New year were...and how Aidan reacted to the first Christmas he could *kind of* understand.

Decorating: A
Although we got the tree up a little bit late (ok, a lot late...like a week before Christmas) Aidan didn't rip a single ornament off. Actually, I don't think he noticed the tree at all, and if he did, I'm pretty sure it was only to wonder why the hell there was a tree inside the house. Furthermore, he showed a strong love of something very near and dear to my heart-- tacky Christmas decorations. In particular, he went nuts over the foot-and-a-half tall saxophone-playing Santa we have. There's a button on the base to push to hear him play 3 different song (and yes, he's animatroic too--bonus) that he pushed over and over with glee. I don't think we ever heard a full song though,l as he would get excited and press it again.

Holiday Spirit: B
Christmas lights are like CRACK to toddlers. Every night we would show him the lights outside, and he never got tired of it. It took him awhile, but he also managed to figure out that when someone handed him a present that there was probably something really good inside, and the most effective way to get to it was to tear large hunks of paper off. He gets bonus points for again displaying more interesting what was inside the package rather than the stupid wrapping paper....but he loses points for refusing to leave the Santa hat we got him on his head, and for making taking his holiday photo for our Christmas cards more difficult than wrestling a rhinoceros to give it an enema.

Stamina: A+
We drug the poor kid all over creation this year, and he every time he slept the whole way to our destinations in the car with nary a peep. The one time he did peep, it wasn't a "PEEEP! PEEP PEEP PEEP PEEEEEEEEEEEEP!", but more of a "Peep. Peep peep? Peep peep peep. (chuckle) Peep." He met a lot of new relatives (well, new to him) and was very unafraid of everyone, even the old ladies that cackled over him like he was a particularly succulent piece of peanut brittle.

Gift giving: C
Now don't get all pissy before you read the rest of this and accuse me of being ungrateful for the presents he gave me because he's too young to pick anything good. Because it's not true-- he gave awesome gifts. I got my first loud Christmas tie, and some nice bedtime apparel including a nice fluffy robe. Hell, the only thing he left out were the pipe and slippers. But he gave ONE gift, one truly HORRIBLE gift, and for that he loses a lot of points. Specifically, he wasn't feeling well, having caught a minor stomach bug. But true to form, he was still pretty chipper after the initial tiredness, and as such was roaming about, playing his usual games. One night he was in the kitchen, flicking the light switch on the humidifier on and off, when he decided to go that extra mile to give a truly unique gift. Yeah, that's right. He threw up INTO the humidifier fan. Can you say "messy"? I think you can. And he is well past the point where baby vomit doesn't offend-- this stuff was n-a-s-t-y. Thankfully, Mom turned the fan off right away so I didn't have to spend hours scraping chunks off the walls, ceiling, and cats, but still....not cool man, not cool. I had to disassemble the whole thing and clean the yark off of all the parts. At least he didn't manage to get any in the motor. But trust me when I say the smell of toddler puke and WD-40 is not really something I'd wear as cologne.

So there you have it....I think that makes his average a B+, but he made a good effort so I'm grading on a curve and knocking that up to a solid A+. All in all, it was a very successful holiday season, and we're looking forward to next year being even more fun.

And hopefully, less vomit-tastic.