Fuller fell down the stairs twice today. And at dinner he got so worked up over something silly he tipped over his kiddie table, falling with it to the ground.

I am thankful I am ending 2007 without a trip to the ER for anyone in my family.

I just did a retrospective post on my personal blog, and I have to post here a similar statement: 2007 was awesome for our family.

When I quit my job in January life really turned around. I was able to focus, find a groove, and really got closer to Fuller and Damon in the process. I have tons of good family memories from 2007 from traveling to more moments just being together.

As for accomplishments, we did some more work on our house (the porch!) and Fuller is potty trained. Big accomplishments in my book.

Happy New Year everyone, see you in 2008 when we are making it great!

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We have moved from vacation mode to survival mode with Fuller in Ohio. I have to admit I poured myself a bit of wine (ok, a lot of wine) after I put Fuller to bed. There was a bit of relief that the day was over and an overwhelming sense of survival as I shut the door.

~Yesterday Fuller told my mom to “Shut up!” and a collective gasp went through the household. Well, I guess it did. I was in the bathroom. My mom came and told me about the behavior later, explaining the time out and tears from Fuller. Later I gave him a spanking and small lecture (rude boys are bad boys).

But the entire episode left us all wondering, “Where did he hear that?” We don’t tell each other to shut up. And I started wondering about the evil TV… when my little sister figured it out. We tell the dogs to shut up all. the. time. Oops. I guess it isn’t just words we use toward other people we have to be careful about- it is all words. Duh.

~Church with Fuller was a nightmare today. He just wouldn’t sit still and kept demanding to be held when we were standing. Prayer time was his cue to start reading the bulletin and repeating, “Holy, holy, holy” over and over. I took him out of the sanctuary to spank him once, but felt truly defeated. I was never so thankful for Children’s Church.

~Tonight he was asking to go to Ohio and I told him we were in Ohio. Finally he said, “I wanna go HOME.”

I was able to follow up with a geography lesson on Ohio versus Tennessee. He looked at me confused. Then I told him we would go home on Thursday. He was placated and went to bed.

Maybe tomorrow he will be running a little bit slower than 90 miles per hour.

Fuller could use pedometers to count the many steps he took today. He was insistent on running me into the ground!

My parents made sure there was a CD player in Fuller’s room so when he slept, he could listen to music to help relax. We used to do this for Fuller when he was younger but stopped when his CD player quit working. I guess Fuller doesn’t remember falling asleep to the sounds of Mozart, Enya, or Israel Kamakawiwo’ole because he was really interested in the machine as Damon set up the CD to play. The indiglo display acted like a night light and the numbers excited Fuller who called out, “Look Mommy! A number one! One!”

On our third night here we transferred Fuller to our room due to heat distribution in the house. Fuller’s room didn’t get enough of it and we had a space heater in ours. (My parents live in an older home. Gorgeous but drafty.)

When we brought Fuller into the room, we also brought the CD player. Fuller has figured out how to press the correct button to start the music, so we made it part of the nightly bed time routine.

In a fun parenting twist, the CD player has also served as an interesting wake up call for us. In the mornings, when Fuller has decided he is no longer sleeping, he reaches over and turns on the music. This lets us know Fuller is up and ready for the day.

Back in Chattanooga, Fuller just stays in bed and hollers for us to come open his door. I think I might be replacing his CD player to see if maybe, music can replace the morning demands. And if the music helps Fuller relax at night, I might be able to relax more in the morning.

When we purchased our 10 dollar tickets on Skybus to come to Ohio for Christmas, we didn’t purchase return tickets for Fuller and me. Instead we got one for Damon so he could return to work in a timely fashion while Fuller and I spent more time with my folks.

We knew it would be a week apart from Damon, but I didn’t realize how difficult it would be.

I already miss my friend and Fuller misses his wrestling buddy (Tio is a good close second). We sent Daddy home so he could go to work (and keep our dogs from developing separation anxiety disorders worse than they already have).

We will meet up again one week from today… see you soon, Damon!

Damon flew home, but we will drive home later. The car my sister has doesn’t have a car spoiler to help us with speed, but it runs just fine, thank you!

Tomorrow our extended family will dress in Vieja-approved clothing and attempt once again a family picture. This year we have a three month old little girl to add to the mix. Fuller is usually a pill an angel during the family photo shoot, so it should be interesting.

Fuller’s first Christmas we tried several times (over two days) to get a family picture with a Happy Fuller and ended up with this:

When we attempted the same thing in December 2006, all the pictures feature Fuller sitting on his father’s shoulders eating a cookie. Just so he would sit still and be quiet.

It’s just another fun family tradition and we are all looking forward to it.

It has been stated before- we are not teaching Fuller about Santa. And as mentioned before, I grew up with a notion of a never real Santa, but somehow my parents sneaked in Santa-centric traditions into our Christmas celebrations.

One such tradition is the cookies and milk left by the Christmas tree. (Somewhere along the way we started leaving a beer instead of milk.) With the cookies and milk we also left some sort of letter, and the letter always had a reply on it the next morning.

All in the name of fun, but never of belief of the man with the bag.

This year we played along and gave the letter writing responsibilities to Fuller. He played along well and composed this fun correspondence:

Dear Santa,

You rogue! Borrowing a page from the Devil?s ?greatest trick? and making people think you don?t exist was pure genius. We can only marvel at how completely you?ve fooled most of the world. In this modern era of Big Brother, it is truly amazing how anyone, let alone a morbidly obese senior-citizen with a penchant for dressing as a 16th century ponce, can retain such anonymity. Compound this with your annual obsessive compulsion for trespass and unbidden philanthropy and one could even consider you ?the bon vivant of spectacle and daring.?

Finding ourselves once more the subjects of your good natured neurosis, we bid you a hardy ?Merry Christmas? and wish you continued freedom from governmental oversight and judicial prosecution.

Love,

B. ?Fuller? Crumley

BFC:dcc

(Signed, but not read)

and on behalf of:

Damon, Alicia, Austina, Nathaniel, Sarah-Ginny, and Genevieve

Fuller might have employed a ghost writer of some sort.