My singing

I love to sing! I love a good night of karaoke fun and change the radio station if I don't know the song since I can't sing along then. Problem is, some say, I'm not a good singer. Of course,I disagree. Singing is not all about tone, you know. There is something to be said for rhythm and personality, which I have. I am delighted that my darling daughter loves my singing. I sometimes sing to her as we nurse. When I finish a song, she pulls her arms around to clap for me and then signs for more while flashing me a smile.

Just one more reason to love this girl!

Reflections on toy rotation

The toy rotation is going well. Caroline gets excited about the "new" toys when we bring them out, and I don't have as much to pick up since there are a limited number of toys accessible. We've outgrown the boxes on the bookshelf, though, thanks to push toys and ride-on toys, so I put those in Caroline's closet. That is not working so well. Caroline discovers these "new" toys every time she gets dressed now, and insists on playing with them. I'll have to carve out some time next week to reorganize a more hidden closet to house the off-duty big toys.

Being Santa

Twas the afternoon of Christmas and warm in the house, the toddler is napping, quiet as a mouse.

Now I can reflect on the fun of being Santa. I really enjoyed planning the gifts for Caroline, making decisions on how to give them (to wrap or not), and setting out her gifts last night. I have quite a list of toys I want for Caroline, but I put several items on hold until her second birthday when she can more enjoy them. I decided to wait on the play kitchen and basketball goal until she is bigger, and I'm happy with the choices I made for her. She was truly excited about each gift!

I decided to forego wrapping to save the preparation time and clean-up time. Caroline is too little to enjoy unwrapping anyway. Christmas Eve, after Caroline was asleep, I enjoyed a glass of wine and the sugar cookie we left out for Santa as I put out Caroline's gifts, stuffed her stocking, and set up her train set.

When she awoke this morning, I had John get ready with the camera to catch her expression as she walked into the living room. She went directly to her train set and played with it for a moment until she spotted her vacuum cleaner. She turned it on (she's played with one before) and vacuumed a bit, and then she went back to the train set. I showed her the aquadoodle, but since it was not opened, she didn't care much about it. She did play with it later in the morning, though. Then I pulled out her stocking and coaxed her to see what was inside. She pulled out a book, Once Upon a Potty and read it, then played with her Jack in the Box and cars and ball a bit before returning, again, to the train set which, at this point, looked as if it had been hit by Hurricane Caroline.

Next, we moved on to wrapped gifts. Caroline had a necklace from a friend of her grandparents and a stuffed dog and The Lady and the Tramp video from Aunt Carlye and Uncle Marc. She opened her gift from mommy and daddy (wrapped since it was not from Santa, you see) -- a Tupperware shape-sorter ball. She dumped out the shapes and arranged them on the aquadoodle box.

The wrapping and packaging are put away now, and we'll spend the rest of the day playing with our new toys and spending time with GramPatty, Tom, Grandma B, Ann, and Chris.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!

FRUSTRATION!!

I am not pleased with Blogger Beta. I am upset that Hello no longer works with Bloggerbot. I do not like BlogThis (because I can't get it to work.) I do not like posting images directly from blogger.com.

Weekly W: Which ornament has traveled the farthest?

I like to bring home a souvenir ornament from our vacations, which can be difficult when traveling during the summer. I didn't have a very hard time finding this Santa climbing the Eiffel Tour in Paris since we vacationed there between Christmas and New Year's in 2003-4. This is my most-distance-traveled ornament.