The Baranko Family: Meet "Elf" our Elf on the Shelf

Many of you may have heard of the new-ish phenomenon of the Elf on the Shelf. Our little elf came to us last year as a Christmas gift from Katie and Joe to Luke. Here's how it works - the elf watches the children in the house all day long and then reports back to Santa every night whether or not the children were naughty or nice. Then each morning the elf returns and keeps watch in a different spot. The kids are supposed to name "their" elf a special and unique name. Luke chose to name his elf "Elf". Hmmm, the creativity wasn't really demonstrated in that naming. Even when pressed he insisted that his elf's name was "Elf". So there we have it, Elf it is. Luke is very concerned that Elf is watching his every move. He has really been smart about thinking through this whole thing. When we remind him that Elf is watching so he can't be naughty he's quick to say "Elf is in the family room, not in MY room, so he can't see me being naughty right now." Another time when he tried that line and we told him again that the Elf sees everything that goes on in the whole house, he became very disconcerted and finally said, "Why don't we move the elf OUTside so he can't see me throwing toys or playing with the ornaments?" (two things he had been chastised for doing already that evening). Finally, if he does something he's not supposed to he'll quickly say to us "Don't tell the elf!!!"

That little elf finds ingenious places to appear every morning! Luke loves to run and look for where he moved when he wakes up.

Luke wrote a letter to Santa (helped along by Isolene) and helpfully cut out and taped to the letter everything he saw in catalogs that he wanted for Christmas. The "letter" was four pages long. We have been trying to set expectations about how many things Santa actually brings to kids (1-2). The one consistent thing that he's been asking Santa for is a pogo stick. Strange thing to ask for, in my opinion, and I'm not really sure how he's going to actually play with this thing - but that is what he wants.

Considering his options in a toy catalog.

This week St. Nick came to our house, too. I was talking to Kristin about this, but trying to explain the difference between St. Nick and Santa is very difficult. After a sort of long, vague description Luke had a takeaway that St. Nick brings treats and Santa brings real presents. Hmmm, not sure if that was what I was trying to communicate, but even at this very moment I don't know what else I should have said. This was the first year Luke was into it, and Matt and I learned that we had different traditions growing up when it came to St. Nick. I had my stocking filled, and he had his shoe filled. Apparently the shoe thing is a Chicagoland tradition, because my friends at work all do the shoe too. I tried to tell Luke that St. Nick brought him gifts in his stocking and his shoe (also probably didn't help with the confusion factor), and he really hooked on to this shoe idea and ran to put Matt's shoe by the fireplace because it was bigger than his shoe. So St. Nick brought him a few things, and hands down his favorite thing was the dum-dums. We could have just had a couple dum-dums in there and he would have been in heaven.

In Claire news, she is doing funny stuff lately like the dropsie game. This game involves her dropping her sippy cup again and again off of her high chair, laughing each time she does it, peering over the edge of her tray to see her handiwork. She also has been making tons of silly sounds by doing some funny tongue actions while "talking". These tongue actions are pretty amazing. We actually asked the pediatrician about it because we didn't think it was normal how she could turn her tongue perpendicular to her lips, seriously it is sideways! (The ped thought it was fine, and confessed that she too could turn her tongue that way. She didn't show us, though, so I guess we have to take her word for it.) We think Claire is doing that with her tongue because she is in the middle of getting her first tooth! It is coming in on the bottom in the middle, so she must be moving her tongue over it again and again to feel it. There's not been any more real walking happening, but her crawling speed is increasing rapidly. You put her down and the next second she's down the hall and around the corner. Babyproofing is back into full effect. She is sleeping through the night now, I'm not sure if I've mentioned that. She'll sleep from around 8pm to around 6:30am, it is a wonderful change. Now I don't have an excuse for why I'm not working out in the mornings, though! I need to get back on the workout horse. Lastly, we had our first real snow this weekend and Claire loved watching the snow fall, she laughed and giggled at it. She really enjoyed it when we took her for a walk outside in it.

Claire is crawling up stairs, and even walking up this step stool, using the oven bar to steady herself.

Getting in some light reading

I haven't talked about work for a while, but I'm happy to report that it seems like I finally have a handle on this working Mom thing again. It has been a very emotionally trying 6 months trying to learn how to do my new(ish) job that comes with so much more responsibility, while balancing the two kids and not wanting to become a workaholic in a corporate environment where it is almost expected that you're "on" 24/7. Knock on wood (I hope it isn't a phase!), I finally feel like I have a good routine going, where I'm proud of the work I'm doing when I'm at work, and totally focused on the kids and Matt when I'm at home. I've set boundaries at work that my boss and peers seem to respect, so I'm going to continue on with this schedule as long as possible. I'm soooo lucky that I have such a supportive and helpful hubby. Despite his full workload with his properties and gig at his old job, he's always doing things to help the household run smoothly like grocery shopping or running errands, and he gets home on time every night to let Isolene go so I don't have to be stressed about it. I'm very grateful! My opinion on this subject changes like the wind, but for today at least, I can say that I like what I do and I don't feel like I'm sacrificing seeing my kids grow up in the process.

Anywho, on that note, here are some pictures from the week.