Christmas Day

Merry Christmas! We survived the day with only two major meltdowns from Nikko, and the kids made out like bandits. Last night I put together the Cars parking garage and put a box over it + wrapped it. I didn't realize a lot of other parents do this too, instead of just let the kid open the box and then spend the better part of the morning putting it together. This garage was much simpler than the one made from particle board I got two years ago: totally snap-in plastic, no screwdrivers needed. I don't know if it will last the year, especially if anyone tries to sit/climb on it, but I think it will be ok for a few months. I hope. Overall, the kids had a very good day and remained in good spirits, but here's the evolution of the meltdowns:

#1 - Ronin was very pleased to get Monster Truck Frightening McMean/Lightning McQueen from Santa and he played with it vigorously. I got Nikko the Monster Truck Tormentor/Mater so he could play side by side with Ronin. The only problem was that once Nikko saw McQueen, he wanted it. And that was it. Ronin was crying and trying to get away from a relentless Nikko, and I had Nikko locked in an anaconda grip trying to open other presents to redirect Nikko. Nikko was crying, yelling, pushing me away and struggling full force. I had a flashback to two Christmases ago when the boys fought over one fire truck for the longest time, and I almost wanted to start crying. I super-pleaded with Ronin to let Nikko play with McQueen, trying to give Ronin the Mater truck, and even though he refused for what seemed like the longest time, Ronin gave in and let Nikko take McQueen away. Nikko instantly calmed down while Ronin started ramping up the crying. But within a minute, Ronin resigned himself to Mater and was soon playing with other things. Within ten minutes of that episode, I saw that Nikko was content to carry around a plastic ice cream cone (Dairy Queen) that I had put in his stocking and also moved on. Crazy times.

#2 - We spent the afternoon at the Penepacker's house. At presents time, Ronin got the Wrastlin' Ring/Wrestling ring from Cars and Nikko saw that it came with a miniature McQueen. He started getting hyper about that. Of course, with all the new toys around Nikko was getting worked up internally, but I can never tell just from looking at him what he is going to get obsessed about. Then he unwrapped a gift from Pat & Anna, a Play Doh cake making set. Nikko was hooked. He whined and wailed to open it, and I resisted because I thought he would just get more upset once he saw that it was filled with canisters of play doh and not already put together as cakes. Nikko made quite a scene and Denis finally took our screaming son away from the room with the Play Doh. At first he changed Nikko's diaper, but ultimately they ended up in the basement and opened the box. It came with a round turntable to affix cake bases, and Nikko seemed content with this. Later on he was able to walk away from the cake stuff and focus on something else.

A lesson I learned here, and saw in practice, was that Nikko may want something from someone else, but he just needs some time to look at it or feel it or carry it around, and then he'll most likely give it up. This is a hard thing to describe to Ronin in the middle of a toy-fest, however.

And throughout the afternoon, my dear Audrey had the runniest nose and was getting tired and bratty. She wanted to be carried a lot and I couldn't oblige her every time. I will try to give her more patience tomorrow. :)