I just love the holiday season.  I helped Mommy hang some special blinking holiday lights and put up a menorah decal on the window in our house this past month. I’ve also had a grand time driving around town as a Christmas lights spectator.  I usually yell “yights!” and then Jack will yell “lights!” too, prompting me to complain “no shay my shed” (don’t say what I said!).  For being a fairly major copycat myself, I sure don’t like being on the receiving end of that behavior.

I’ve learned a lot of new tricks recently, too.  For example, I can tell you (very emphatically) that green means go, red means stop, and yellow means go slow!  I can also reliably navigate down the stairs on my own, which means our gates can finally come down from the staircase.  But perhaps the most exciting of these developments is the fact that I have started to ask to be taken to the potty to go pee pee.

I remain a bit of a finicky eater (sprinkles, but no ice cream … sandwich, but no crust …matzoh ball, but out of the soup).  My current favorite snack is a scoop of sun butter on a spoon, which I refer to as “peeeenut butter shkeewwp.”  Sun butter and dairy remain my primary protein sources, as I usually reject meat.  I did take a few bites of hot dog recently, but it was so thoroughly smothered in ketchup as to no longer be recognizable.

Current likes:  petting zoos!

Current dislikes:  people “shaying my shed”

December was a great month.  I’ve been making some real progress in terms of getting outside of my comfort zone.  I participated in the Honey Bee pre-school/pre-k sing- along for the first time this month (although I didn’t want to wear the Santa hat like the other kids … “I don’t do hats”).  I’ve also been doing a bit better with noise sensitivity, and my warm-up period in social situations seems greatly reduced.  I was enthusiastic about feeding animals at the petting zoo and running around like lunatics with my cousin with hardly any anxiety.

I loved my trip to Florida this month, especially playing in Papa and Yia Yia’s pool, playing games at a carnival with Daddy, mining for gems, and seeing lots of donkeys, goats, and sheep at the petting zoo.  I did, however, miss my kitty, and was glad to see her when we got home.

In the area of manual dexterity, I’ve finally learned how to draw “tadpole people,” those circle headed creatures that have stick arms and legs sticking directly out of their faces.  Mommy loves them!  I’ve also been making some strides in forming the letters of my name all by myself.  Being a lefty makes it a little difficult for me to do certain letters (my C’s are always backwards, for example), but I can definitely sign Jack in a way that is recognizable.

Current likes:  cookie decorating / cookie eating

Current dislikes:  the end of vacation

We’re getting in the holiday spirit around here, and Mommy and Daddy decided to host a holiday cookie decorating party at our house, so that we could invite our friends over to help frost Christmas and Hanukkah shaped cookies.  Daddy found the perfect shortbread recipe so that the cookies held their shape, and Mommy made us lots of different colors of icing, so our cookies sure were well-adorned!  If we’re being completely honest, though, very few of them were actually completed before being eaten.