Wow, we had a great Christmas, did you?  We are lucky (and I do mean that) in that both my husband’s family and my family both live here…about 10 minutes away from each other!  So it does make it nice to not travel during the holidays.  Of course it can make for busy days…going from one family to the other.  Now that our kids are out of infancy and toddler-hood, it’s a lot easier to move about with them, too.  Fortunately, this year, we were able to all spend Christmas day together…all 20 of us…at my in-law’s house.  It was a nice day.

The one issue that we have time and time again is Emma’s over-stimulation.  I don’t know if we think it will just go away, or that she’ll start getting used to crowds, but our daughter gets over-stimulated so easily.  She doesn’t act out or have temper tantrums, fortunately.  She becomes very clingy to Brett or me, not wanting to talk to anyone, meet anyone, or interact.  It takes her awhile to warm up.  Her cousins (ages 13, 10, and can almost always help the situation.  But if it’s too much, usually a quiet room with a book or video will help her decompress.

She’s been like this since birth…always sensitive to “busy situations”.  And we’ve all dealt.  But still…I keep thinking she’ll get used to it and it will disappear.  On the positive side, she recognizes when she gets over-stimulated and will go into a back room by herself with a book.  And she’s cool with us not being there with her.  In fact, she prefers it.

I know that there are many kids without special needs that get over-stimulated quickly.  Do you have a child like this?  What do you do to help the situation?

*I will post Christmas pictures…I just haven’t even uploaded them to the computer!  Sunday is all about putting away the Christmas decorations until next year!

Emma on the Polar Express...a little over-stimulated!

(Pre-post post-edit: I’m easily distractible in this post.  I’m not sure why.  Sorry.)

Today Emma and I went to see Ballet Arizona’s Nutcracker performance.  It makes me miss my ballet days…just a little!  Namely, I wish I could have a ballerina’s body and dance in pretty tutus.  Anyway.   So it was a wonderful performance today…6th row (thanks, Libby!) and pretty close to center stage!  The music was great and this ballet held Emma’s attention for the FULL 2 hours.  Seriously.

Now, anyone who has a child with any behavioral/medical issues (or a “typical” child who’s 5 and under, really), might be a bit nervous to take them to such a performance.  Or they might be a bit nervous to take them out in any public situation.  Let’s just be honest!  And I was the same way for the longest time.  If there was any chance of a meltdown and then eyes on us during/after the ordeal, I pretty much avoided it.  Who would subject themselves to that kind of experience?  Not me!

I’m trying to think of when I started venturing out.  I think maybe it was just this summer.  Mason had just turned 3 and Emma was 5 1/2 (you know the 1/2 can make it or break it, right?).  I attempted some movies in the theater.  I went to the first showing of the day, and got there SUPER early to scope out our seats.  The kids had their own popcorn and drink, and if need be we could bolt and run.  The first time or two Emma got pretty antsy.  And there was at least one movie that was scary (Astro Boy….won’t see that again).  Mason got antsy too…only in a 3-year-old-boy kind of antsy.  But we kept going.  And we never had to leave a theater early (thank God!).  We stuck it out.  I think they’ve probably been to the theater about 5 times since the start of the summer!  In fact, on Wednesday I will take them to see The Frog And The Princess (or is it The Princess And The Frog? you know what I mean).

Okay so my point is that it’s a trial and error thing.  You have to get them out there to experience these things.  And you need to let them know up front what your expectations are of them.  I’m not saying it will work the first time.  I’m saying practice makes perfect (or somewhere close to that).  It’s like traveling.  I have friends who are nervous about taking their kids on trips.  Well, just do it!  They need to experience that stuff! Our kids are awesome on 7 hour car trips, or 4 hour flights back east.  They’ve got it!

Again, back to the beginning.  The Nutcracker was awesome!  I highly recommend it!  The costumes were beautiful, as was the stage and backdrops.

We’ll be going back next year.

Do you have a scary out-in-public story?

What did YOU do this weekend?

Clara in the Nutcracker