DECEMBER 2006
Santa here, Santa there…
December started with Callum’s first Christmas party for 2006. It was a kids Christmas party arranged by the sports and social club at my work and was held on the 2nd December. Shaun was working, but I took Callum along with our Luke and Andy. It was actually a really good afternoon. When Santa came out, Callum was gobsmacked and in total awe of him! When his name was called, he went up for his present… he set off on his own ok at first, but then got a little shy so I stood with him. All-in-all though, he was ok and dutifully accepted his gifts and said thank you. Once he opened the pressie and saw it was a remote controlled mini, he was ecstatic… a lot of the other kids were jealous, they had great pressies too, but some of the boys wished that they has got Callum’s! From that point on, Callum realised that Santa was definitely a good guy!
The day after, I was playing with my new mobile phone and asked Callum to sing me a song so that I could video it. He decided to sing Humpty-Dumpty…. “Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall, All the kings horses and all the kings men, couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again”. At that point, I assumed he was finished and was just about to stop recording when he continued…. “so, they went to get some magic glue, ‘coz glue fixes things, even Humpty Dumpty too”!! It was so cute, I’m glad I got it on my phone. You have to see it to fully appreciate it… it is the conviction in his voice… glluuuuuueee and toooooooooo. It’s wonderful. We asked him where he learned it, and he said from me. Now I know it’s not me who has sung it like that with him. Nor was it his Daddy, his Grandparents or anyone else we know. We’re not aware of it being on any of the TV programmes he watches either. I asked at Bright Sparks, but the girl I spoke to said it was a new one on her! We are rather baffled, but love it all the same!
When I decided to put the Christmas Tree up, Callum was all too willing to help… much to everyone’s surprise (given how protective I am of my Christmas Tree), I was thrilled that he wanted to get involved. Callum found the boxes of decorations fascinating, and was running around the house with tinsel and trimmings trailing behind him. We got the tree itself up, and got the lights and tinsel on too. I then set about trimming up the mantelpiece. At this point, Callum had gone quiet, he was still mooching about, but he was no longer like a whirling dervish. When I turned around, I saw why… he had been getting baubles out of the box and systematically putting them on one side of the tree – bless him! He did very well for a first attempt and I left all of the one’s he put on in place, we then set about doing the rest together. Callum couldn’t wait to put the star on top of the tree, and when the moment came he had the honour of crowning our glory.
While at my folks one evening, we could hear the distant sounds of bells. I just know it had to be the Castleford Lions Charity Santa Drive… they drive Santa around in a chimney stack so that he can check on all the good boys and girls and they also raise funds for Charity. We waited patiently in the house for half an hour or so until the sound got louder, then we went out to find Santa (Me, my Mum and Callum). Callum was stunned; he couldn’t believe it was Santa waving at him! Thinking that was it, we tried heading back to my Mum and Dad’s house, but oh no, Callum was having none of that, he wanted to follow Santa! In the end, we decided to walk to the other side of the estate and catch up with Santa when he came back up the hill… but nope, still not good enough. When we got to the other side, Callum had us walking down the hill and round the bottom so that we could find Santa again (it would have been quicker to have just followed him in the first place!). As Santa went into all the little cul-de-sacs, Callum followed him waving and smiling…. The waited patiently for the vehicle to turn around before setting off to follow him to the next street. Even one of the charity helpers pointed at Callum and said that this is what Christmas is all about! Santa got so used to Callum following him he kept doing frantic two-handed waves to him. Although we carried Callum a little, he must have walked over half a mile that night. I just wish that Shaun had been there to see it, but he was at home.
The next time Callum saw Santa was at his pre-school Christmas party. Callum was so excited about going, especially as I had been telling him all morning that Santa would be there. Imaging our surprise when, while driving to school, Santa passed us driving a bus going in the opposite direction!!! Callum was so worried. “Santa’s going the wrong way Mummy… We have to follow him and get him to turn around”. Priceless. I explained that Santa was probably on his way to another party, and that he would catch up with Callum at Bright Sparks later… luckily, he trusted my answer. When I picked him up from the party he told me that Santa had made it there on time. We do have a picture of Callum with Santa at the party, but I’ve not scanned it in on the other PC yet… I will do it when I get chance at put it in the Photo Gallery.
Healthwise, Callum has been a little up and down… the cold he had last month seems to be really lingering. One minute he was up, the next he was down. He got so congested that even his tear ducts blocked up and so his eyes were all sticky and gooey… we had to bathe them open each morning. Oh, he did cry. It was terrible seeing him like that… and as for the eye drops, he didn’t like them at all. After a week or so though, his eyes improved and it was just the lingering sniffles and cough again.
We had Christmas Dinner at our house, with my Mum, Dad and our Andy. In fact, Andy stayed over at ours on Christmas Eve. This pleased Callum no end, and when I was trying to wake him up to tell him Santa had been and he had left lots of pressies, Callum was more interested to know whether Uncle Andy was still here… Santa may be good and nice, but he’s not a patch on Uncle Andy it seems!!
Dinner went well, although Callum did end up being sick after his… before you go blaming my cooking, it was just down to the congestion and cough! He soon perked up afterwards though.
Callum got to see his Nanna at tea-time, she had been at Shaun’s brothers’ house for Christmas Dinner, but Shaun went and picked her up and brought here to ours for an hour or so before taking her home. I was so pleased that Callum got to spend some time with her on the day.
One thing that did disappoint us was that Callum was so tired by the evening, what with him being a little off colour and Christmas Day being such a hectic long day, we didn’t make it over to see Melanie, Ian, James and Rachel… although we had been to theirs the night before, it just wasn’t the same. Every year we go over on Christmas Eve night (that stems from the days of helping them get ready for Christmas morning once the kids were in bed) and we also go over on Christmas Day evening. We made a point of not letting these traditions slip once they moved from next door. It bothered me more than I thought it would when we didn’t make it over.
Boxing Day was spent round at Andy’s with Luke and my folks… we had a great day, and it lasted well into the evening. Admittedly, Callum brought his dinner back up again due to the coughing, but he was fine after that. He loved spending time playing and laughing with Luke. Callum would follow Luke anywhere, he loves him to bits.
The rest of Christmas was quite quiet. With Callum having been ‘off-it’, we decided to spend plenty of time at home. We did pop out every now and again, but mostly we just made the most of the time we had with all three of us together with no-one having to rush off to work etc. Callum loved the attention, he’s much happier when he can have his group hugs!
We did have a nice surprise during the week though... Anna and Paul came up to see us from Milton Keynes (Shaun’s niece and her husband). Callum soon set them on building a huge track for his wooden Thomas and all the other wooden engines he has! IT was great to see them. We all spent some time together, then Callum went to see his Grandma and Grandad for a few hours so that the fours of us could go out to a Chinese restaurant. We had a good night, and I was sorry to see Anna and Paul go home. We do get on so well, I wish we lived closer to one another.
New Year’s Eve was spent at my Mum & Dad’s, with Luke, Andy, My Auntie Jo and Uncle John. Callum was on top form, doing his usual thing of tickling everyone and telling them to “Laugh!! Laugh!!”. We all chatted, played games and enjoyed ourselves. Auntie Jo and Uncle John left before midnight as they were tired. Callum tried to make it, but with only 15 minutes to go, he fell asleep on his Dad’s lap – as the New Year came in, Callum could be seen blowing bubbles and frothing at the mouth… and as for the snoring….!!
Well, that’s another year done. My New Year’s Resolution should be to keep up with this diary a little better! It can be hard finding the time sometimes, and I think the content sometimes suffers for it as I forget the little things that seemed so cute or made us laugh at the time etc. I will try harder!
Maybe another New Year Resolution should be to get more photo’s of Callum with me and Shaun… we seem to be so busy having fun, we forget to take the pictures to capture the moment!! We are good at remembering to take pics with everyone other than ourselves!
Oh, talking of photo’s… just before Christmas we picked up our photo’s from the session we did at Venture… they are FANTASTIC! OK, so they are expensive, but they are so worth it. They have captured us all really well. We had a hard time narrowing them down to just a few. In the end we decided to all buy smaller 10”x8” and 7”x5” shots just so that we could have a bigger selection of photo’s. We all got different ones, so in order to see the whole collection you would have to visit us all. We have 14 pics altogether. Unfortunately, I cannot reproduce any of the images on here due to copyright… but I am considering getting in touch to ask for their permission to put one or two up, you never know if you don’t try.
Right, Happy New Year to everyone as we look forward to seeing what 2007 brings!
‘til next time,
Amanda xXx
