Signing Santa

Friday night we drove down to Lacey to see Signing Santa. We wanted to get there right at 6:30 because we figured it might be a little crowded. This was a grevious error. We should have gotten there at 5:30. The place was packed. Apparently people come from all over the state to let their Deaf and HoH kids see a Santa Claus that speaks their language.

Toys for Tots was also there, and they had filled several tables with all sorts of great toys for the kids. There were clowns, people dressed in various Christmas costumes (frosty, rudolph, Mrs. Claus, etc) and a nice buffet table as well. All in all it was a pretty well put together event, though as I said before, it was really, really crowded.

Connor, slightly overwhelmed by all the noise and bustle, spent a good portion of the wait in line with his head buried in my shoulder. He only perked up when someone started playing with a laser pointer on the ceiling. We use two of these in our home therapy with Connor to help with tracking-- we call them "Fairy Bugs" and Connor loves them. He spent the next ten minutes or so after it disappeared signing "more light?" and looking hopefully at the ceiling. When he finally figured out that no amount of asking was going to make it reappear, he went into pouty mode, and was still there when it was time to sit on Santa's lap. Thus we have a picture of a happy, smiling Santa, and a little boy who looks like we just took his ice cream cone away and stomped on it.

Oh well.

Despite the fact that Santa made him Very Sad, or perhaps because of it, Connor made out like a bandit at the Toys for Tots table. After eyeing his pathetically cute expression, the lady manning the tables decided he needed the biggest Elmo doll I have ever seen in my entire life. This Elmo has eyeballs the size of my fist. His head is the size of Connor's torso. He's got to be at least three feet tall. It's a good thing that Connor is over his Elmo phobia, or this move could have had disastrous consequences. He didn't act scared, but proved completely indifferent to Elmo's red fuzzy charms, and was almost asleep in his carseat by the time we got home.

Maybe he'll have a better time next year.

That Elmo doll is sort of creeping me out, though. Every time I go in Connor's room at night, I can see these huge white eyeballs staring at me...

~Jess