social Dennis

Our agenda was full again today. Dennis enjoyed playing in his room this morning while we were getting ready to leave the house. He had a nightmare last night and cried a good bit around 1:00 a.m., and after waiting several minutes to see if he'd go back to sleep, I had to go in and check on him. When I turned on the light, he grabbed his pacifier and inserted it but then sat there clutching his frog and whimpering. I felt bad for the little guy, so I brought him into our bed (I will never learn!). He went right to sleep, and did very well. He spent half the night plastered to my back and half plastered to David's side, but he slept until 7:30. He usually wakes up for a few minutes at this time and then goes back to sleep, but he discovered that he was in bed with Mommy and Daddy when his eyes opened, so then it was playtime! He climbed over us for a while, then we took him to his crib. He slept another hour and a half without even a whimper when we put him down.

Dennis accompanied us to the eye doctor today, and he enjoyed flirting with the opticians and trying to pull out the neat metal drawers where they store the contacts. He learned to say "eyes" while we were waiting the very short while before our appointments. We forgot to bring his stroller, so he sat in a shopping cart while we were there. We went to the walk-in vision center at Wal-Mart, and we both liked the optometrist very much. I have soft contact lenses now, and they are so much more comfortable than my hard lenses were! We spent an embarrassingly large amount of money on two exams, one pair of glasses, one order of contacts, and that's not all, because my lenses are trial lenses, and I go back in a week to actually place the order if I like them. It is nice to see, though, and when I caught a look at myself in the mirror with the new lenses in, I decided it was time to visit the makeup aisle, and that I was in serious need of eyebrow maintenance. Wow.

Today is Chloe's first birthday, and we had a very nice time at her party. It was the first time Dennis had been around 3 other children his age, and I am proud that he was mostly well behaved. We did discover that we might have to buy an Elmo, and possibly find one of those hideous plastic toy cars that kids ride in, that kind we've always hated. Chloe got a really cute pink and purple one for her birthday, and we had the hardest time keeping Dennis out of it. I don't think he'll be getting pink and purple, though, and I hope he won't be too disappointed. All the kids had a fit over Elmo, though. And Dennis was so cute walking around and saying "Ehmo" and "Elmo". Chloe has a really awesome ball pit/ball crawl, almost 4 feet by 4 feet, and all 4 toddlers were having the best time wallowing around in it. I think Dennis and Chloe are learning to be a little possessive over things, because Dennis tried to push Chloe out of her car when she climbed in and tried to push him out. And he was very excited about Elmo when he came out of the gift bag, and he ran over to investigate, much to Chloe's dismay. Ellen told him to please stay away from Elmo because she feared for anyone who got too close! He tried to sample every sippy cup at the party, and he played with all the toys. He watched closely, and when the other children were all distracted, he grabbed the toy rotary phone (remember those?) and ran like he had a treasure! For the most part, he was very sweet about sharing, and we're very glad.

He ate his fill of several good meals today, and he got to play and walk around a lot. We can't get him to sleep tonight, though, because he keeps waking up. Too much stimulation today? Maybe. He's playing sweetly with his Noah's ark set now and drinking some milk. He'll be sharing a room with us at the lake house tonight, so I hope he gets his rest. Tomorrow, we'll be riding on the boat some. He'll have a fun day, especially if he lets us get some rest tonight!