The Rankin Zoo 

Coral enjoyed her second Christmas but it was a bit of a long day for her. We started the day pretty early by opening gifts at home - just the three of us. Coral’s interest in opening presents comes and goes - sometimes she’s into, other times she doesn’t really care.

After a brief Christmas morning at home we packed up the car (dogs and all… long story) and headed into DC to spend some time with B’s family. We opened some more gifts. Coral enjoyed the gifts and liked exploring. After a while she decided she really wanted to go up stairs - we’re not sure why.

Around 11:30 Coral was getting tired and we headed out of DC over to Annapolis to hang out with the Williams/Rankin clan. Coral slept for about 30 minutes in the car. We had hopes of keeping her asleep once we got there but Coral had other ideas.

She woke up right before we arrived and we tried getting her to sleep but with all the noise and people downstairs she wasn’t interested in sleeping. So, we got her up and she enjoyed everyone’s company. At one point there was a bit of an accident and Coral managed to put her bottom teeth into her bottom lip. This, of course, was upsetting to her. There was a decent amount of blood, and screaming, and worry. At the time she was eating a carrot and it took a few seconds to figure out what was floating around in her mouth after she started screaming (turned out to be bits of carrot). Anyway, she was okay but she got a fat lip and I’m sure it didn’t feel good. She was a trooper and was calmed down pretty quickly.

We ate dinner, opened a bunch of presents, and generally soaked up the mayhem that is Christmas. I’m not even sure what time it was went we left - maybe around 7pm. Poor Coral was very tired at that point and I think her mouth hurt. She was able to sleep in the car some on the way home but once we got home she was awake again and pretty unhappy. She cried for about an hour and I think it was a combination of being way over tired and having a swollen lip that hurt. She eventually got to sleep and slept well all night. The next morning she was in much better spirits and her lip was already starting to get better.

So, overall it was a fun and full Christmas day. It was a bit exhausting and probably too much for Coral but we got to see a lot of family, all in one day, which is fun.

(I’m backdating this one because it took me so long to post!)

Today B, Coral, and I were driving to the store and Coral started yelling “Nina! Nina! Nina!” She thought we were going to visit Adena and Eva and was very excited. After chanting “Nina” for a while she started yelling for “Va” but alas we were just going to the store.

It’s nice to see that Coral enjoys spending time with Adena and Eva. We did end up getting dinner with Eva and family which Coral thoroughly enjoyed. She’s also starting to come around on Uncle Brian - she still gives him some funny looks sometimes but overall she seems excited to hang out with him.

Coral was a little banged up after our Christmas tree expedition. In her excitement to say “Hi” to everyone she wiped out and scraped up her face pretty good. She’s healing up quickly but still isn’t ready for her Christmas photo shoot.

This is a picture of her wearing one of my Redskins hats - you can see her boo-boo under her nose. She doesn’t seem to mind or notice though, so that’s good.

Coral thinks the Christmas tree is great. She loves taking things off of it. We’re still trying to convince her that it looks better with the ornaments on the tree - she’s not convinced. The ornaments are kind of migrating up the tree though so she’s having fewer opportunities to yank things off.

I have posted Christmas lists for our family (Coral, B, me) and you can find them here: www.rankinzoo.com/xmas2005

They will probably/hopefully be updated in the next few days - sorry about providing this a bit on the late side. In reality, we can get by without getting any gifts - so don’t worry about it too much!