Christmas Trip

Okay, I have to post on our Christmas trip to see the family. It's been kinda hanging over my head and I want to write about other stuff like how Frances learned to turn on and off a light switch.

The trip as a whole was good. Blah blah blah... But what I want to talk about Frances' interactions with the other children she met.

When we were staying at my parents house, Arial, Frances and I went out with my high school friends. Toward the end of the evening, we went to one of their houses. Another friend had brought his daughter (who is only a little bit younger than Frances). I was quite pleased because the two of them ran around and played together. I don't think that Frances had actually played with a child roughly her age before. They were both kinda tired and that seemed to make them best friends. That was really cool. Unfortunately, they live many hours apart by car.

When we were in Arial's home town, Frances got to play with her cousins on that side. They are older, like 8 and 5 (roughly). They were really great with her. They played with her a lot and she seemed to like them too. It got to the point where she would actually ask her older cousin to be pick her up. Occasionally, they seemed a little too much in her face but Frances didn't seem to mind all that much.

Oh, and I can't forget to mention that the older cousin gave Frances a stuffed bear that she had gotten from her other grandma (who I guess gives them lots of stuffed animals). I thought that was really sweat that she gave one of her own things to Frances.

Finally, we stopped at my brothers to watch the Iowa bowl game (which didn't turn out so well). He doesn't get ESPN so we had to go to a bowling alley (they were the only thing open that early in the morning). My sister in law was kind enough to watch Frances for us while we were away. They have two children near Frances' age (both a little older). I hear that she got along famously with the younger of the two. Apparently, he was hilarious to Frances. He had her laughing a lot. They played peekaboo together (which Frances loves) and lots of other fun things. She had a really good time (and we did to other than the outcome of the game).

Well, that's that. Frances road in the car very well. She occasionally got a little fussy but that's to be expected for the amount of time she had to sit in her car seat. Even with run-around breaks every two hours, it's a lot of sitting.

mwz