Week in review

The report from skating is that Bennett *can* stand up on his own, but that he doesn't like to.  He has much more fun just sliding around on the ice, and then using his teacher to stand up.  He also can march, and if pushed, he can glide.  Woo hoo!  Way to go, Bennett!  And this was the first week that I was able to hand him off to a teacher without him clinging to me.  Looks like we're making progress and that he's having fun.  He also has been saying "ice" (pronounced I-sh, with a long I) but we're not sure if that is due to his enjoyment skating or his love of the ice dispenser on our fridge.

It seems that every year or so I decide to try to make latkes.  And every time, they are a failure.  I think more often than not, they are overcooked on the outside and raw on the inside.  I believe I've narrowed down the problems to not getting enough moisture out of the potatoes, not using a binder, and not having enough oil.  This year I remedied all of those problems and we had success!  And the bigger success was that Bennett ate them.  (Ok, he maybe ate half of one.)  They had them the next day at school as well and Bennett ate another half latke there as well.  So now he eats latkes and french fries.  Won't touch mashed potatoes and not really a fan of roasted either.

Last night we had tortellini for dinner.  He ate a couple of pieces and spit others out, so we're not really sure if he liked them or not.  But for the ones he didn't spit out, we're counting it as a win.

With the Christmas tree set up, we had to clear Bennett's train table out of the room.  One night this week I set up a bit of track going around the tree.  It's not the easiest to use being so close to the bookcase and the tree skirt makes the track a bit bumpy, but I think Bennett liked it.  But then after having been set up for about 5 days, last night Bennett decided to take it all apart and put the track away in the bin with all the other track pieces.  I guess he didn't think it belonged on the floor?

Friday night we made cinnamon ornaments.  I realized I am a major control freak.  In theory I'm ok with Bennett getting messy and doing things his way, but in practicality I hardly ever let him play with play-dough or paint or things like that.  And with this project I guess I kept thinking that he was doing it "wrong".  Maybe people would prefer to get ornaments of misshapen blobs rather than hearts, stars, or elephants?  Hey, I did let him exercise his creativity with the elephant and bunny cookie cutters, although I did veto the turkey.

Saturday after skating we went to Brunch with Santa at Mimi's.  She just called me to tell me that everyone is telling her how handsome Bennett is and that he's so smile-y and happy.  Which for the most part is true- until you have him take a picture with Santa.  I tried to put him on Santa's knee and he was not having that at all!

It was a cold but fun night when we went to Christmas by Candlelight.  We had originally planned to go on Sunday night but after looking at the weather forecast (mix of rain, snow, sleet, etc) we decided to change our tickets for Saturday night.  All of the buildings in the center of the village were open with a variety of entertainments: music, mulled cider, traditional fruitcake, dioramas, etc.  There also were carolers outside the bank, musical groups at the Center Meetinghouse, and various recitations, a magic show, and a Punch & Judy show.  So much to see and do that we couldn't see it all.  Plus the crowds in some of the buildings where music was taking place made it impossible to get inside.  And we didn't want to get stuck inside a building and then have Bennett wanting to get away, so we skipped a few things that might have been interesting.  Santa Claus was there (the line was way too long so didn't visit with him) as well as Father Christmas, who is pictured below.

We had yet another visit with Santa.  I've lost count of how many times Bennett has seen Santa.  But this weekend we taught Bennett that Santa says, "ho ho ho".  So now Bennett goes around saying , "Tanta- oh oh oh."  Anyway, the outfit that Bennett wore for our holiday cards was just screaming out to be worn in a photo with Santa.  We were going to do it last week when we were at the mall having the pictures taken for our cards, but Santa wasn't going to show up for another hour so we decided to skip it.  So I brought Bennett on Sunday.  We got in line about 15 minutes before Santa arrived.  We were maybe 3rd or 4th in line, which shouldn't have been too bad.  Except there were only 2 out of 5 other employees working there.  2 people had called in sick and 1 had been fired the day before.  Needless to say, the two remaining employees were a bit frazzled.  I commented that someone would have to mess up pretty bad to get fired this close to Christmas and was told that she had given away $100+ of photos for free since she couldn't figure out the (idiot proof) computer system.  For being so close to the start of the line it took me about 20 minutes to get through once they got started.  Definitely shouldn't have taken that long.  I feel bad for all of the people who were further back in line.

I hope to be able to share the photos once most people receive their cards.  Those were mailed out today, so hopefully I can share something later in the week.