Christmas-Cooper

What a difference one year makes: Last year Cooper wasn't aware of anything with Christmas...this year it's a whole different story!!

* The sitter told Cooper about Christmas and Santa, so he's learned a lot about what Santa will do in a few days and that he will come to Cooper's house...we hope he still understands when we are at Mimi and Pop Pop's. The family has a train that goes around the tree that Cooper is obsessed with (big surprise). Along with the train, there is a nativity scene that sits under the tree that the train goes around, so Cooper calls it the train station. Despite my many attempts to explain that is a manger and baby Jesus was born there I kept waiting for him to put baby Jesus on the train for a ride. However, that won't happen because the son, Dani, gave Cooper the train set. Now we need to go find a train station like at Ragaa's house...We also have 4 different train sets in our house!! And 2 different "train rooms" The Christmas train room and the Thomas train room......we've also found our new favorite place to buy Thomas products: Ross. We found a item that sells for $70 at toy stores for $17!!!

* Monday we were at Walmart where there was a Christmas tree decorated in the corner. Under the tree are presents that Cooper went over to open!! Needless to say, all of his presents are hidden away because they would all be opened (hint, hint Mimi and Pop Pop).

* Out of nowhere as we are driving past a shopping center Cooper starts saying "Candles like Hannukah". I was not sure what he said at first...it actually took me a few days of driving by the center to know what he was saying. I hadn't told him about Hannukah, so I couldn't imagine where he learned it. Then after week of hearing "Candles like Hannukah" everytime we drove by, he saw a candle that was burned out and said "find candle like Agent Oso" (Agent Oso is a Disney tv show). I was so excited to know where he learned it from. More and more I am convinced that tv is a great teaching tool when watching the right shows!!

* We've taught him 2 holiday songs: Jingle Bells and the Dreidel Song (since he knows what Hannukah is). These are the only 2 songs he's ever sung on his own (besides the alphabet song and the clean up song)

* This morning we get to the sitter's and just like every morning since Thanksgiving, Cooper has asked to go see the train station (manger). This morning he looks at the train from a different doorway, sees a 3 holder candleabra and says "Hannukah" over and over. Ragaa gave him the candle holder and he proceeded to ask for candles. Once he got the candles that was all he played with for the day taking the candles in and out. Tonight I decided to read him one of the Hannukah books we have and immediately when he saw the dreidel, he knew what is was and started singing "dreidel, dreidel, dreidel...you mama" so I could finish the song! My surprise was that I haven't showed him a dreidel before. I realized that he has only seen the tv show once, so he really took a lot from it!! So proud of my boy and how much well he is retaining what he sees on tv!!