You know, remarkably, Sophie’s doing great. I had thought that the Christmas hubbub would have her whipped into a frenzy, but really she’s been a good kid. Saturday was Jim’s Dad’s Christmas party. I was a little uncertain as get togethers with Jim’s peeps can go really good or really bad… just depends on the flow of alcohol… and considering that Jim and I really don’t drink (I don’t count the occasional glass of wine with dinner, or apertif, or social sip… “drinking” in this context means drinking to oblivion) it can get uncomfortable fairly quickly if the booze are flowing fast. I’ll save a review of the get together for a different blog, but for the most part things were ok… little more drinking than I felt appropriate for having kids there (particularly since near the end the boys were literally afraid of their newly met “uncle” who they had adored earlier in the evening), but nothing so bad as say Soph’s 2nd bday.
Anyway… Sophie was very involved with everyone and I think behaved really well. There were a few issues, but those weren’t behavioural (more digestive, since she was eating foods that normally I wouldn’t give her). I think so far this season we’ve been able to stretch out the anticipation so that she’s not going to crashing into Christmas morning. She’s asked for 3 specific things for Christmas. She got one of those Saturday morning. The other two she’ll get tomorrow. There are some other toys and things mixed in as well and then there are some things that are for all the kids. We decided last night to give them one of their “all together” presents… it’s a spinning see-saw (I wrote about it on the main blog) and they’ve totally enjoyed it!
See, I’ve read both online, in books and have been told by parents of other atypical kids that they really need a safe way to bleed off excess energy. So far this seems to be doing the trick without hyping her up at the same time. A trampoline doesn’t bleed off as much energy as it ends up creating… yes, she gets tired, but she gets “high” off of the experience. The see-saw seems to be much more calming and it’s forcing her to interact with someone else in a pleasing manner as you just can’t see-saw by yourself. She’s taken to singing whenever she’s playing on it and since I guess she has the time and the focused mindset, she’s getting the words more correct. If she sings when she’s just running through the house then she’ll totally mangle them so long as the rhythm and tune is correct, but on the seesaw she’s been much more careful with the actual words. I have video of her singing Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (Sp???) and the first time she’s totally rushing it and screwing up the words. Her subsequent performances have been somewhat calmer and she’s getting the words better each time. Maybe it’s a small thing… but I’m impressed 
I’ll update tomorrow again after the kids crash… I’m hoping it’s a good day for us all 
