Eamon had a great Christmas. True, he didn’t understand exactly what was going on, and in the true spirit of one year olds everywhere, thought it would be more fun to eat the wrapping paper than play with any of his presents. For a long time, he was sort of intrigued/frightened by the Christmas tree, but then his fear turned to all out desire to rip off the ornaments, therefore resulting in very little time actually around our Christmas tree.
We had our first Christmas on December 24 with my parents. My mom came over early in the morning to help me with the turkey (I made a turkey for Thanksgiving last year, and though it was pretty good, the skin wasn’t very crispy), then left and both my parents came back around 3:00. We had dinner around 4:00, then opened presents and played with said presents until Eamon’s bedtime.
The one picture where it looks like he is opening the presents.
On the morning of the 25th, real adventure began. We loaded up Eamon and a carful of stuff and then drove about 3 hours to our second Christmas in Severn, Maryland, with Aaron’s side of the family. In stark contrast to our December 24 Christmas (5 people, total), there were at least 30 folks wandering around this Christmas party (Aaron’s side of the family is BIG). Eamon LOVED playing with his cousin, Lucas, and various other second cousins (or whatever you call children of Aaron’s cousins). Unfortunately, he was very overstimulated by the time we left at 7PM, and screamed much of the drive to Ocean City.
Chillin' with cousin Lucas at Christmas
We drove to Ocean City because Aaron and his sister had this idea that in order to bring our children closer together, we should start doing Destination Christmases, where we go places and hang out together for several days. This year, we chose Ocean City because it wasn’t too far from anyone (about 3 hours from us and 3 hours from his sister’s family, the Molloys). We had a really cool 3 bedroom suite, complete with a full kitchen and two full baths. The unfortunate thing was that the rooms weren’t as big as the hotel had made them out to be, so our room was rather cramped with a queen sized bed and Eamon’s rented crib shoved up against the closet.
First foray into BIRTHDAY CAKE!
NEVERTHELESS—we had a GREAT time. The hotel resort had a fabulous lobby, complete with heated indoor pool and ice skating rink. More interesting than anything else, however, were Eamon’s cousins, Elise (age 3) and Lucas (15 months). Eamon LOVED having a surrogate brother and sister for the weekend. I don’t know whether Eamon will be a good big brother, but he would certainly make a great little brother.
Swimming with Lucas, Aunt Meredith, Daddy, and Oma
Even more fascinating were all the things that Eamon started doing while around Elise and Lucas. He started verbalizing even more, making more sounds. He also started “walking” when you hold his hands, instead of simply going all jelly-legs when you try to hold him up (he’s more than happy to stand on his own, but prefers to think he doesn’t need any help).
Oh the splashing you can do with THREE people in the tub!
He also had another big first step—literally. On his birthday, December 29, Eamon Wolfe took his first ever step without holding onto anything towards his Oma…and then fell flat on his face. He wasn’t hurt, and his Oma was right there to mostly catch him. Nevertheless, he was a bit startled and hasn’t tried it again since. He will, however, take steps between things now, as long as he knows there’s something to grab on the other side.
His latest endeavor, however, has been with making more sounds. For awhile (like, at least a couple of months), he’s been making the sounds, “Mamamamamamama.” But for the most part, they didn’t mean anything, and he did it all the time, whether I was around or not. But lately, he’s only been making his “Mamama” sounds when I am around. Then, on New Years Eve, as I was putting him to bed, he looked right at me and said, “Mama.” I still didn’t get too excited, until I was holding him and playing the Mama/Eamon Game (you know, where I point to me and say “Mama” and then I point to him and say “Eamon”, and be quiet, it’s a great game if you’re one year old). He took his bottle out of his mouth and also said, very clearly, “Eamon.”
Well, now. He had NEVER put those sounds together before. And I couldn’t help but think that it was far too much of a coincidence that he said his name DURING the Mama/Eamon Game. So, even though it’s been 2 days and he hasn’t said “Eamon” since, I am still deciding that he said his first words on December 31, 2009. I’m going with “Mama” as the first word, which means that all subsequent children will have a lot to live up to. Way to wreck the curve, Eamon!
Elise, Uncle Marty, Aunt Meredith, Opa, Elise, Oma, Mama, Daddy, and Eamon Wolfe
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