Merry Christmas, Jocelyn

Sure, technically last Christmas was Jocelyn's first. And she even opened up a bunch of her gifts last year. But she was far more interested in the paper than the toys, especially when still in boxes. This year, however, she was a champ about the presents and loved playing with her toys and reading her new books.

I imagine that the whole Christmas thing is pretty confusing. We put the gifts under the tree as they got wrapped, which was probably weird for her. She got to open occasional gifts - like when we went home for pre-Christmas, and when her daycare teacher gave her a present. But she didn't get to open the ones under the tree when there were sitting right there. We told her that she had to wait for Christmas, but what does that mean to a 17 month old? Not much!

When she did open them, she enjoyed the opening process quite a lot. But then she immediately wanted to play with whatever it was that she opened. Her first gift was a book, and we had to read that book to her about half a dozen times before anybody opened anything else. Her second gift was a toy, which she played with for about 20 minutes while Mike and I opened some of our gifts. After that, she was kind of over unwrapping gifts for a while, but when we unwrapped something for her she was excited to play with it. We had a few of our gifts left at the end, and Jocelyn was very interested in helping open those, which was cute. It was like she finally got the hang of it!

We got to spend some time on Google video chat with Mike's family, so they got to see Jocelyn open some of her gifts. I think that Jocelyn kind of got what was happening. When we asked her to show something to Grandma she brought it over to the computer and held it up. It was really cute. And really cool.

Jocelyn loves Christmas stuff. She loves the tree, the lights, the lights in the neighborhood, etc. She points out the different ornaments on the tree. When she points to them, we tell them what they are. When we tell her Santa, she says, "ho ho." At one point she started pointing up at the tree and saying "um." It sounded like she was trying to say something, but we didn't know what. When we picked her up, she pointed at one of the M&M ornaments and repeated "um." She was trying to say M! That was so cool! After that, she got her little M&M Easter stuffed animal and called it "M" as well. I love watching her make connections and learn stuff.

She's getting really good at identifying body parts, too. A month ago she knew nose. Now she also knows eyes, mouth, ears, head, hair, belly, hands and feet. It's pretty amazing. She can't say the words, but she can point to them on command. And when we put on lotion (Jocelyn LOVES lotion), she knows what body parts to put it on, and whose I am directing her to put it on (rub it on Jocelyn's feet. Rub it on Mommy's belly. Etc.). Again, it's just so cool to watch her learn and grow.

Daycare is going really well, overall. She has stopped crying at drop offs, and no longer seems to be holding a grudge when we pick her up at night. She's just happy to see us. They say that she is a good helper, and that she is very compliant - they don't have to chase her down for diaper changes, for example. I believe that she is a good helper, she loves to help around here. But she is not really a very compliant baby. In fact, I would typically describe her as defiant when it comes to the necessary tasks of the day. But that's fine.

They did pay her a very nice compliment - she is evidently a very good influence on the other children in her class. Jocelyn likes to sort and gather things. She is good at making connections, and puts 'like with like,', so to speak. So all of the balls get gathered together. The ducks get gathered together. The cars get gathered together. You get the idea. The other children do that now as well. So that's really cute.

Daycare is also teaching Jocelyn a few lessons, some of which we wish she wasn't so strict about. I guess they don't get to walk around with drinks there (which is good, when the drink is milk or something else that spoils quickly). They need to be seated to drink. I agree with that most of the time, but not when it comes to water. Jocelyn is encouraged to drink water anywhere and everywhere, since it doesn't go bad or rot her teeth and stays securely in the sippy cup or sports bottle. But these past few days she only wants to drink in her high chair. Which is in the kitchen. And makes us stay in the kitchen and watch her drink. The cute thing is that she can climb into the high chair. This is a double-edge sword, of course. The kitchen floor is slate. Hard, cold slate. So if she were to fall she could get very hurt. But since I shouldn't be lifting a 25 lb. toddler up into a high chair, it's cute when she can do it herself. Today she climbed in while Mike and I were both in the living room. She disappeared into the kitchen for not even a minute, babbling the whole time, and when I turned to look to see what she was up to, she was sitting in her high chair trying to buckle in. We laughed so hard!

The biggest problem with daycare is that the poor baby is constantly sick! It's normal, germs pass around daycare, it's a fact of life. And after a year she should be totally clear and have an iron-clad immune system. But for now it's really rough. She hasn't even been there for a week since we had Christmas and I took this week off, and we are still having trouble getting her healthy. It gets better then worse again.

But I have gotten very far away from the original topic of Christmas. Jocelyn loves it. And I know there will be trouble when we decide to take down the tree. She really likes it. It was bad enough to take down the Halloween decorations, I can only imagine how much worse this will be.