XMas Cookie Marathon

Well, the yearly marathon started last night as Kirky, (kiekre), made up 2 batches of dough. Today she's managed to bake about 800 cookies total with 6 different flavors. Tomorrow will include 3 more types for a final count of over 1000. What's really amazing is she does it without baking a sweat while her father and I sit in the livingroom watching TV, occasionally going into the kitchen to wash all the dishes so she can reuse things for another batch.

It's been an interesting challenge with Will, (wkdelong), around our feet. Jim took him to get a haircut this morning for a while, then he had his morning nap right when he got back. Before lunch, another long walk with the dogs, a hearty lunch, another nap and a trip to the library so mom could drop off library books. But between those distractions he was ALL OVER the place. All he really wanted to do once he got a taste from the "broken cookie tray" is get his hands on another cookie.

So we kept moving them back from the edge of the table, pushed the chairs in etc. We'd continually catch him climbing up on a chair and trying to nab one. At one point when we were all distracted and sitting in the livingroom, he comes strolling in incredibly non-chalantly with a Snickerdoodle Swirl and I swear he looked right at us deadpan until we recognized what he had done. Then he barely raised an eyebrow, stumbled back a foot or so and proceeded to shove the whole thing in his mouth - or as much as he could get in there before the cookie crumbled and the dogs did cleanup. This is an 18 month-old...just 1.5 yrs old. Man.

I really should have taken him to the park today to run around but it's been so cold and for some reason I've been really tired lately so I've kicked back more than I should. The rest of the day was a bit of a "No" fest. I'd personally rather distract him with something else than say no but 1) he's really very determined now 2) He's getting better with his "performance". The first few times he'll pretend he didn't hear me. Then he'll wait about 5 seconds and try again. After the final, more firm "NO" he'll crumple to his knees on the floor, lip starts to tremble and he squeezes out a thimble worth of tears over his reddening cheeks. This is all accompanied by a brief slow, stuttering cry that stops pretty quickly once he realizes we're not falling for it.

So tomorrow is more cookies, a Costco run, I'm going to try my hand at a holiday letter, (take *that* Bill O'Reilly), and perhaps do a few things for work. I need to help Kirky make a batch of her Kielbasa Corn Pudding for my ARC DAT Team Holiday Party this Monday night and maybe I'll try to get outside with the man for a bit - if I can brave the cold.