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Wow: the holidays came and went really fast. We had a great end of the year, even if we did not go anywhere…or maybe BECAUSE we did not go anywhere. After all, we did not have to fight the crowds at the airport, or face delays, extreme weather or enhanced security. And we could simply have fun in our beautiful, warm city. Keegan’s daycare closed on the 23rd of December till after the new year: good thing it was the same time I had off.

He had a great last day:  they organized a Secret Santa gift exchange, and he got a great firetruck, with lights and three different sounds from MacKenzie, together with some candies. He was excited and played with it non stop for the following days. We did a few last minute errands: post office, visiting the neighbors, checking out holidays displays…

Christmas eve was a flurry of activities, mainly more last minute errands for me: Matt had the day off, so we spent some time together as a family. We went to see the Christmas lights again, and after putting Keegan to bed, we got to work: I had Keegan’s gifts to wrap and Matt had a tricycle to build (plus wrapping Tizi’s gifts). We tuned in to the 24 Christmas Story Marathon and morphed into little elves.

ready, set, go!!!!

The hardest part was to decide what gifts to give him: I did not want to overwhelm him with too much stuff, especially since he still had lots of new toys to play with from his birthday. So we settled on the Little Talking Broom, two emergency vehicles (we saved the firetruck for later), the magnetic Let’s Build Book (to get him used to the idea of construction), the Tickle Monster Book Set, two books from Italy, (the alphabet book, and a puzzle book), and of course the tricycle.

Matt is almost done with the tricycle

I went to bed by midnight, and Matt did not make it to bed till 1.30…This is the life of procrastinating parents.

All the gifts, minus Tizi’s (still to be wrapped)

Keegan woke up bright and early, as usual, but he did not quite realized it was Christmas morning, so we got our usual cuddling time before dashing to the living room by 6.30am. It was so much fun: Keegan was so excited about the presents, and loved to open them and distribute them to us. He liked everything, and immediately started playing with the new toys.

Hopefully he will like sweeping long enough to b able to help us clean

It all happened so fast we did not have the time to take many pictures. By 7.30 it was all done….and Tizi went back to bed: a most welcome Christmas gift.When I woke up, Matt went to take a short nap, and I called my parents. Keegan wished them Merry Christmas and Buon Natale via Skype and we had our digital family get together. I cooked (!!!) breakfast, and we all had brunch together. After Keegan’s nap, we went to Mission Bay for a bike ride since it was a beautiful sunny afternoon. Again, we rode about 15 minutes, then Keegan wanted to play, i.e. run up and down the grassy hills,then we rode back. It was wonderful.

When we got back, we opened our stockings: Keegan did not get any sweets, since he does not really crave them yet, but we got an awesome bootie. He did get a couple of little play things, including a screaming monkey, a tambourine and his favorite Twinkle Twinkle Little Star book, that mom had to sing over, and over and over again.

We did not quite make it to have a big dinner together, so when Keegan was sleeping, we had our own adult dinner and crashed pretty early. What a great Christmas. My Christmas of course, was not over yet, as I still had to finish wrapping the gifts for Italy, and write the New Year cards, and ship everything…for the new year.

The calendar really helped out this year: because of Christmas being on a Friday, as well as January 1, Matt had two long weekends and we had plenty of time to spend together. We had a mellow weekend: we played with the new toys, we tested out the new wheels, and we played at different parks. Now he mainly likes to kick the ball or play in the sand, so it does not really matter where he is, so the Clairemont community parks will do.

first tricycle ride

The following days were heavily scheduled: mom was really worried that Keegan would get bored, driving the both of us crazy. As a first thing we got the bouncie back from storage: it has been  a big hit on Keegan’s birthday, so we figured it would have been entertaining him more on his days off. And we were right: he has been bouncing in that thing quite a bit, alone or with his buddies. Fortunately it fits in the sun room, so we don’t have to drag it in and out.

We started the week by visiting the New Children Museum. We had discounted tickets, and we spent a couple of hours there. Keegan had fun jumping on the inflatable horses, and playing around the Rain House and inside the Trojan horse. He was so tired he fell asleep in the car.

On Tuesday morning we met with MacKenzie at the park: he was so excited he squealed when he saw her. They played, and run, and climbed, and aside form one little meltdown and a couple of sand throwing episodes from both parts, they had a blast. Once again, he was so tired, he fell asleep in the car and slept 3 full hours. I finally got to ship my gifts: let’s hope they will arrive.

On Wednesday morning, Tizi got a belated Christmas gift: a morning off. Our wonderful sitter came over, so Tizi could enjoy some ME time. As an added bonus, Keegan did not cry at all when she left, so no guilt trip there. I went to the movies and checked out Up In The Air: i really liked it, and it was a great distraction. In the afternoon, my old college buddy Lidia stopped by: we have not seen each other in at least 4 years, so it was great to see her. Keegan got to do one of his favorite activities: grocery shopping! Matt got home early and met us at the store, so it was an easy trip.

And just like that, it was New Year’s Eve: Matt got home at lunch, and we spent the last few hours of the year getting ready for our play-date/ New Year’s Eve dinner.

2009 has been sometimes challenging, but definitely never boring: we are looking forward to a new year full of excitement and new adventures with our fiery little guy.

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