The things we do for our mothers

A, my mom and I went to visit Santa last night. (As you can see.) A wanted nothing to do with Santa. Every time I tried to pick him up and set him on Santa's lap, he started crying. But my mom thought it would be really cool to get a photo and send it to some of our relatives. So guess who else got to take a picture with Santa? I thought my days of sitting on Santa's lap were over, so this was quite a laugh!

As I'm writing this, I'm realizing that I haven't posted an update on A in a long time. So, here you go.

His favorite things are the moment are:
- running down the hallway to his bedroom and then running back to the kitchen for someone to chase him.
- eating bananas, which he calls "ba bas." In fact, when I hand him a banana first thing in the morning, he gives it a nice long hug before letting me peel it.
- playing with his new pop-up toy - you remember the kind with five doors and a different switch on each one? When the animals open, he wants everyone in the room to kiss them. It makes for a pretty slobbery toy.
- kissing the Christmas ornaments on our tree. Big, dramatic, loud kisses.
- anyone's cell phone. We've moved pass the Fisher Price phone. He only wants to real-deal these days.

Things A doesn't like include:
- Santa.
- sitting still to get dressed. (That's where the real cell phone comes in handy. You can do almost anything once he's holding onto one of those.)
- having his face washed at anytime, although it's better if you explain to him first what you're going to do.
- snow boots. He refuses to walk in them. He'll just stand there looking at you like, "What I am supposed to do with these?" and then get on his hands and knees and crawl. We've already sent the first pair back, and we've ordered number two. We can't make it through an Ithaca winter without snow boots!

He's pretty darn cute these days, though. Don't ya think?

PS - I just gave this photo a good look again. Don't I look kind of possessed? It's the teddy bear behind the camera. Mesmerizing.