Julie and Andrew sent the boys the popular “Elf on the Shelf” as part of their Christmas presents this year.  We put it in use as soon as it arrived (over a week ago), and we named him Elfie.  We read the book with the boys initially so they would understand what the Elf is and that it will watch them to see if they are being naughty or nice.  The elf will fly home and report to Santa each night, and will return and land at a different spot every morning.  The boys also learned not to touch the elf so that he will not lose his magic and not able to fly back to Santa.  Every night, Stuart and I will have to move Elfie to a different spot, and in the morning, the boys will look for him which they get very excited.  Logan prefers to find him first before Connor does.  Connor has a good memory; once he finds him, he will point to the new spot and then to the spot where he was yesterday.  The third morning since Elfie arrived, I realized we forgot to move him, so I just moved him while carrying Connor, Connor was very shocked staring at what I was doing.  I guess I should not have underestimated how much Connor understands.

     Stuart and I occasionally use Elfie to encourage Logan to do the right things, and it usually works quite well.  Logan has been asking for one specific thing repeatedly lately, so we suggested for him to write a letter to Santa to ask for it.  Logan and I wrote the letter together, folded it up and asked Elfie to bring the letter back to Santa.  The next morning after Logan found Elfie in the new spot, he remembered and told me that “the mail is gone”.  We will now see if Logan has been naughty or nice by the time Christmas arrives.

     Today was not a day of sharing for Connor.  Maybe because he was still recovering from his cold… Connor got mad easily, cried when he did not get what he wanted and he often tried to take things from Logan. 

     Since it was sunny and nice, we went to a local park in the afternoon.  The two boys played in a small playhouse at the playground for awhile, and they enjoyed it greatly, going in and out of it.  A 2-year old boy came over to play at the house too, but Connor did not share well, kept refusing to let him in.  The boy finally got inside while Connor was stepping out.  Connor disliked that and he reached out in attempt to pull his hand to get him out; fortunately I was able to stop that before it happened.  Then shortly after, Connor tried to close the door on him to stop him from coming in.  As a result, Connor got slapped on the face by that boy.  The crying broke up the party.  The mother immediately apologized and grabbed her son to take him to another side of the playground, but I did tell her that Connor had started the fight.  Another girl came along, and this time, Connor just held the door so tight not letting her in.  Before I could convince Connor, the mother decided to take the girl to play elsewhere as well.  I hope Connor is not this way at school.

     It was a pajama day for the boys at school today, and they both dressed for the event.  I was told that they were served some pancakes; Logan actually tried it and enjoyed it.  On our way out, the big screen TV in the office was showing the pictures taken from today.  There were some group pictures from each classroom.  Connor had a huge smile while being sat in the middle of the group.  Logan was on the very edge of his crowd, sitting next to his buddy Rohan, and he was making funny faces on each photo.

    Robyn called me after work to tell me about her visit at school with Peyton today.  They were walking in the courtyard, and Logan went up to them to greet them.  He did not address them by names, but he was being friendly and said hi.  He even talked with Robyn about his PJ.  Then as Robyn and Peyton were walking toward a classroom, there was a noise that caught Robyn’s attention.  It turned out to be Connor yelling out “ah” to them.  Connor just saw them last week, and must have remembered them.  Robyn asked Connor if he was trying to say hi to them, Connor smiled and waved at her.  But when Robyn tried to talk more with him, Connor got shy and hid behind the structure where he was.  It is always nice to hear about what the kids do at school; thanks to Robyn for sharing this with me.

     Connor started coughing again on Monday, and it became worse by Wednesday.  It sounded quite deep, and he was coughing overnight too.  He got woken up by the coughs at 11:45pm on Wednesday night.  We gave him a dose of Tylenol to make him more comfortable.  Connor continued to not staying down very long; by then, I decided to give him a few puffs of albuterol MDI for the cough.  His breathing or cough did not seem to change much after that.  I sat with him for awhile at the rocking chair, then attempted to have him sleep with me in our bed.  But Connor only laid down for a few minutes at a time, and kept wanting to crawl off the bed.  I finally gave up trying to contain him; he got down from the bed, and walked up and down the hallway on his own.  He just did not seem to be tired at all, and once, he even pointed to a book and rubbed his chest "please" to ask me to read.  I finally just returned him to the crib and let him cried.  After some crying and finally at 1:30am, he went down to sleep again.  Unfortunately, he was up at 5:45am the next morning.

     Yesterday afternoon, I received a call from his teacher telling me that his cough was still quite bad.  He was coughing throughout his lunch, nap and snack time.  He even gave up eating his snack as the cough kept interfering.  After the call, I decided to take him in to see the doctor at 5pm.  During the appointment, Connor got scared and started crying, but did calm down quickly for the doctor to listen to his chest.  Fortunately, his chest sounded clear, no wheezing.  The doctor diagnosed him with bronchiolitis, and swabbed him to test for RSV which came back negative fortunately.  Last evening his cough was slightly improved, and he slept through the night again, but woke up early though.

     Logan started to have a runny nose and a mild cough as of yesterday.  Hope both boys will shake this cold off soon.

     There were many birthday parties this weekend.  We had planned to attend Logan’s buddy Ian’s party on Saturday, another buddy Jaime’s party on Sunday afternoon and Michelle’s birthday dinner tonight.  We were not able to make to Logan’s classmate Ashley’s party due to conflicting hours. 

    Ian’s party was at Pump It Up at 1:30pm on Saturday, and Logan was able to catch a powernap while driving over there.  Logan was quite excited about the jumpy houses, but once the party started, he did not really care to go inside.  He was just walking around and checking out the different playhouses.  He finally went into a few of them with his buddy Rohan.  He kept waiting for an open spot for the canon balls which finally opened up few minutes before switching rooms.  He did not hesitate to wear the goggle, climbed inside quickly and had a blast shooting.  At the next room, most of his classroom mates spent lots of times in the giant slide, but Logan was not interested to try that at all.  He and some kids played with one of the dads in a big stadium jumpy house for a little while, and he played a game of ice hockey with Rohan.  Logan seemed to have a great time overall, and had fun having a snack and goofing around with Rohan afterward.  Logan actually stayed awake for the drive home.  But unfortunately, the combination of pizza, cake, jumping and maybe the way I drove, Logan threw up a lot when we were just few minutes from home.  He did well staying still until Stuart rescued him from the mess.  After cleaning up and a bath, it was past 4pm and seemed too late for him to go down for a nap.  So we just decided to call it an earlier bedtime for everyone, both kids were down before 7:30pm.

    On Sunday, Jaime’s party ended up being postponed until next week since he was sick.  So we just did some Christmas shopping and grocery shopping in the morning.  Before heading over to Michelle’s birthday dinner, I changed Connor to a button-up shirt, and Stuart happened to wear one as well.  When we told Logan to get going, he asked “what about me?  a nice shirt for me?”  So I gave him a button up shirt to change into too.  Everyone met up at a Caribbean restaurant in Palo Alto. Before the food arrived, Logan was drawing on a coloring book while Connor was already a bit antsy, not wanting to go into a highchair, but he was fine sitting with me on the long bench.  Most of the kids were very content being entertained on their phones.  It was quite busy once foods arrived.  Everyone tried to taste the different dishes while feeding their kids.  Both Logan and Connor ate a decent meal.  After eating, Connor just wanted to walk around; I finally gave in and he was happy walking a few steps back and forth from me.  After singing birthday song, eating desserts, we did a quick Christmas gift exchanges for the kids, then it was time to part as it is a school day tomorrow.  As we were walking back to the parking lot, Logan said “it was fun today, we should do it again”.  Both boys were still excited, playing with their flashlights and with each other all the way home.

     On a side note, Logan helped me make some gingerbread cookies yesterday.  He has been talking about making some cookies for Santa, so we did a practice run.  Both boys enjoyed eating them at night too.

     I got a call yesterday from school that Connor had a fall.  He was in the courtyard pushing a pushcart.  He fell and his teeth cut into his lower lip.  It was bleeding, but fortunately it was somewhat superficial, so did not require medical attention.  The teacher said Connor was fine, but appeared shocked by the injury as he spent some times afterward just sitting down and watching other kids play instead.  By lunchtime, he was eating all his lunch without any problems. 

    Another teacher told me today that when all the kids were getting ready to go outside to play, she was staying behind to clean their playroom.  As she was putting away the toys, Connor walked back over, picked up a toy, stared at her, then put it away.  He picked up another toy and looked at her again.  The teacher then asked Connor if he wanted to help cleaned up, and Connor actually nodded, then proceeded to help her finished up.  Connor is a good helper.

     Connor starts to like reading.  Started a few days ago, he will go find a book and bring it to us.  He is still not talking, so he just makes some noise to get our attention and hand over the book.  Once we agree to read or take the book from him, he will sit down next to us, smile or giggle to show his excitement.  He now has enough attention to read an entire short book sometimes.  As soon as the book is finished, he will clap with joy.  When I picked him up today from school, he had a book in his hand.  The teacher told me how he likes to read too.