Baby's Best Friend X 2

Little A had the time of her life chasing my parents' dog around over Christmas. He's the perfect baby dog since he's sweet, old, and very experienced with kids (having gone through Little A's four cousins' assault). Every morning she would wander around looking for the dog calling "woof, woof" (well, minus the "f") and excitedly point at him over and over, shouting "dog" (minus the "g") when she found him. I'm kind of sad for her now that she doesn't get to see him every day anymore, but not sad enough to go out and buy a dog or anything. Here she is rocking her new party dress with the old guy.


Her other best friend chose her. Here she is:

Cousin L, my brother's three-year-old, spent a lot of time following Little A around, hugging her and speaking to her in a high-pitched voice that I'm guessing some older folks couldn't even hear. Actually, I'm kind of looking forward to being too old to hear it myself. She was a very attentive cousin and very sweet and Little A endured well the invasion of her personal space. In fact Little A's eyes lit up when we saw this picture and she said something sort of almost approximating Cousin L's name.

Little A also got in some playtime with Cousin K, who is only 6 months older than her, though they did not quite become best friends due to their competition. Maybe next time.

Solstice Again

I swear it is always winter solstice. Okay, not really. Only on winter solstice do I feel that it is always winter solstice. In fact, I was sure that I had posted a winter solstice blog for every year I have been blogging; that's how sure I was that solstice was omnipresent. It turns out I only referred to it twice since 2004 and only once did it have its own post. In both posts I referred to it as a "hopeful" time, I think in order to convince myself. Otherwise I would probably call it Depression Awareness Day. But, I am completely okay with saying things are cool in order to convince myself that things are indeed cool. How about:

1. "Fake it til you make it"
2. "Be the change you want to see in the world"
3. "Smile and the whole world smiles with you"
4. "Hope is believing despite the evidence and watching the evidence change"

Snappy as they are I like these quotes because they give you something to do when it seems everything's gone to hell. Hey, at least there's more sunlight every day now. Bonus points if you know who said any of these without googling.

And now . . . Christmas!

See you guys on the plane. We will be the ones with the screaming baby. Would you like to borrow my ipod loaded up with the top 25 songs of the year, via All Songs Considered? Sorry, dude, that's as loud as it goes.

LCD's Rock and Roll Show!

This post is empty because I wasn't there, due to illness. Boo hiss.

Flashback December

So the other day, the baby and I were listening to my "It's a Cool, Cool Christmas" cd and this song--of all songs--made me tear up:

Everything's Gonna Be Cool This Christmas by Eels (This link is weird, but I'm too lazy to find a better one)

(By the way, hyperemotionality is apparently a side effect of having babies. And of getting older. So, it's not my fault that "E" really got to me.)

Let's just say last Christmas with our wonderful/fussy/sleepless newborn was tough. I can certainly imagine tougher Christmases, but for us it was hard enough that we declared December 26th a do-over Christmas day as we had not managed to do a single thing to celebrate Christmas on the 25th. Later that week we found out little A had acid reflux and colic (whatever that is) and it all started to make sense.

December, so far, has been the month of flashbacks for me. I'm remembering the beauty of my precious newborn and I'm remembering how agonizing that first month was. But, also, it was kind of sacred in a way. I feel like my whole being was carved out from the inside to make room for this new mommy person.

Anyway, this Christmas is gonna rock.

Also, LCD wants me to share this song with my many readers as well:

Cakeface

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We survived the year!

I felt like today was a little microcosm of the last year. Maybe that's not the right way to explain it. But anyway, our lovely babe's behaviors and experiences seemed to follow the pattern of the last twelve months all in one day. Words are failing me because I'm tired and I have no blogging pride.

The first couple hours today were rough. The poor baby has a cold, has been constipated for a couple days and is cutting some new teeth. She spent a lot of the time crying in the morning. It was reminiscent of the newborn Little A. Except for the part where I skillfully met her needs, distracted her when possible, and held her calmly when there was nothing else to do. I have a year of round-the-clock experience, so--you know--I'm pretty good now.

By the end of the day she was having so much fun. It turns out she L-O-V-E loves cake. She absolutely destroyed her piece and experienced her first sugar high, which--I'll be honest--is not that different than her normal everyday behavior. She kept crawling up and down the stairs and then returning to the living room to open each of her gifts, walking like Frankenstein across the floor from the stairs (it's hilarious). She was totally into the decorations and balloons (new word alert: balloon = boo) and she got very excited about one of her toys:



In case you missed it, she really really really likes dogs. Good pick, person that is not me. Man she is so cute. I love her so much. In case you care I am planning to post some pics and videos later after I get them all uploaded and such.

Yes, we had an anniversary

Since I already posted the mushy stuff and wrote a 4 page letter re: the details of how we met for LCD (since his memory of such things is for crap), I think I can keep it simple and say that I feel ridiculously lucky that I am in one of those marriages that actually got even better after the baby was born. I foresee year four continuing the trend of getting better all the time*.

I am thrilled that I get to keep him forever.


* It occurs to me that year two of dating was sort of excruciating at times (when it felt like all our foibles were under a microscope) and that may be why marriage has been so awesome.