Saturday, January 12, 2008

January Doldrums

Ever wish some of the excitement from November and December would spill into January? I don't really mean more parties or presents, just some of the thrill, the excitement, the anticipation. What is there to look forward to in January? More snow, ice storms, freezing temps. Spring in Michigan is a long way off, so it's best not to even think that far ahead yet. All of our normal activities stopped around Thanksgiving and haven't started back up yet. Thankfully story time is starting Thursday.

We try to find fun where we can. Last weekend the kids and I went to a concert by the Watoto Children's Choir from Africa. Every single child was an orphan, most due to the AIDS epidemic. Each child has a family made up of 7 other children and a mother. Each family has a house and the houses are set up as villages. It's amazing and really sad to think that there are that many kids that nobody can take care of. Right now there are 2 choirs touring the USA. One up north and one in the south. Both kids liked the concert. It was a bit loud for Alison though, so she covered her ears for most of it. Ian was transfixed. His attention didn't waver till the grown ups started talking about 3/4 of the way through. As soon as the kids started singing again he was ok.

Yesterday we went to the mall. Alison has a little Christmas money to spend and she is on the hunt for party shoes. Never mind that the Christmas parties are over and that most of the birthday parties we go to are casual affairs. She is a girl and girls need proper shoes and that includes party shoes. (at least according to her)

Ian on the other hand has become entranced with gravity and defying it. He has discovered that throwing toys over the baby gate and down the stairs is a very satisfying past-time. He finds great pleasure in the thump, thump, thump, thwack of the toys as they fall down the stairs and hit the door at the bottom. (the door used to be open, but now it's only open a crack to keep all the balls from being lost forever under the desk at the bottom of the stairs. We have taken all his toys away that could get broken or that are just too big and heavy for him to throw overboard. We also put a lot of his toys into the pack n play so that he can play with some but we don't have to worry about them flying down the stairs either. The funniest bit of all of this is the laugh that he does as something is thudding down step after step. His defying gravity stunts include standing on his rocking horse without holding on. His other is using his new zebra ride on toy as a step stool for climbing onto the couches (which up till this point he had been too short to get onto). He has no sense of danger as he scrambles up and then stands on the couches way too close to the edge for anyone's comfort except his own. He even fell off the other day. Alison was almost crying because she was so worried for him. Ian, well he didn't utter a peep. He just got up, looked at the couch, looked at his zebra and climbed up again. He loves to stand on the couch and when we tell him to sit, he throws himself back into the cushions and slides down to the seat. I'll try to get a video, but that kind of distracts him. I'll see what we can do.

Well, Ian is waking up from his nap so I have to go. I really need to figure out how to hook up the new camera to the computer so I can add some pictures. It should be easy, I just have to remember to do it.

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