glimpse into my future

Today is Friday and I am home by myself with A.  Yes, most of America is off to honor the new year, but B is at work.  This will hopefully be my life at least 3 days a week after the baby is born.  Well, certain aspects of it; the waking up at 5:15 am can go.  I looked at the clock at 8:15 to decide if it was OK to call my friend yet and realized how much we already had accomplished.  We had

• eaten breakfast- A had 2 breakfasts- cereal with daddy and then grapefruit and peanut butter toast with me
• watched a lovely episode of "The Fresh Beat Band" where Twist is a robot, I believe this might have been the 20th time that we watched this "new one"
• folded and put away laundry
• taken all of the pillow cases off of the bed to build a pillow fort
• called Daddy 3 times at A's insistence (1. say good morning 2. tell him to clean the fan or throw it away because it might make our pillow fort dirty and 3. to apologize for ripping his magazine)  I'm sure he'll be happy to have us home more too hehe
• taken showers
• gotten dressed
• played with some toys

Some of the most important decisions

• pink or white lotion after our shower
• blue or yellow cup for breakfast
• pee pee in mommy or A's bathroom
• doggy or robot Fresh Beat Band

That was all 5 hours before writing this blog.  What an exhausting, random, yet beautiful life. In the words of our favorite show-- it was a great day, a perfect way, to spend some time together.

calming chocolate

Though I feel that Christmas is the best time of year, it is definitely a busy busy time.  We're all running around shopping, wrapping, and visiting.  A and I have definitely been doing all of these things to get ready for the big day.  However, today was also the first snow of the year.  Yes, it was less than an inch, but it was magical to our little 2 year old.  She put on her snow pants and dove in the snow.  Her favorite part was eating it... not my idea of fun but then again neither is watching the same Freshbeat Band episode daily.  After about 25 minutes when her little face was as red as could be and my legs were frozen thanks to the lack of warm maternity pants to fit over this huge baby belly, we came inside.  We warmed up with her first mug of hot chocolate.  For about 5 minutes, we both sat by the tree and fire place listening to Christmas music and enjoying each other.  Truly beautiful.  Now, if only it lasted longer than 5 minutes before ornaments were being torn from the tree, Baby Bella the cabbage patch had to have her diaper changed, and the requests for Fresh Beat Band were coming.

st. nick's day

I've been having a hard time deciding what to do about Santa in our house.  On one hand, Santa is fun and full of tradition.  I remember waking up on Christmas morning, waiting at the top of the stairs for my dad to turn on the lights and music and then trying to beat my brother down the stairs to find the one unwrapped present that he left for me.  This was always our "big" present.  I remember a cabbage patch play pen, and well, that's actually the only one that I remember.  On the other hand, I don't know how to find the balance between celebrating the birth of Jesus vs. a big jolly elf living in the north pole.  I don't think I ever questioned "doing" Santa until my sister-in-law said that her family didn't do it.  I guess I never thought it was an option.  Now that I know she grew up happy and Santa free it really made me question separating the focus from Jesus and turning it to Santa.  I think the final kicker, besides the fact that my husband looked at me like I was completely nuts when asking what he thought, was that I don't want my kid to be the one telling everyone else that Santa is just a legend.

My answer, was to start a new family tradition on Dec. 6.  Dec. 6 is actually St. Nick's day, celebrated because it was the day that St. Nick passed away.  The original Santa was the son of a bishop and a minister himself.  There are several stories of his secret generosity and its impact on the lives of others. In one story, St. Nick gave bags of gold to a home with 3 daughters.  The father was unable to provide dowries for his girls narrowing their options for husbands and probably leading them into lives of slavery.  The gold landed in their stockings (hence the stockings and old traditions of giving oranges to represent gold). 

So, we had our favorite neighbors over for a St. Nicks party.  We made a dinner of pork and potatoes and cookies found at www.stnicholascenter.org, read a book about him, and gave out gold coins and chocolate.  I would have put them in shoes at the door as the tradition says but our dogs don't really care about tradition. I know that A and our neighbor G.  didn't really get it now, but as time goes on, maybe they will understand the generosity vs. consumerism that is becoming Christmas.  I loved it!   

another run for parents of the year

B and I were in the room right next to A's talking about our painting project.  A is nicely playing with her dolls.  She does a great job putting them to bed, changing their diapers etc.  It got really quiet which is usually the first sign that something is wrong; a well known fact that we ignored.  A few minutes later, I peeled myself away from the very important discussion of the size of polka dots to put on A's new big sister walls.  This is what I found....

The worst part is she then decided that baby needed a bath and proceeded to go turn on the water by herself.  Don't worry, we joined her quickly. 

Another highlight... at dinner A told her daddy, "puppy is my favorite friend.  Don't worry, you are  my friend too, Daddy."  Gotta love being second to a stuffed animal!