(By the way, I think somebody forgot to inform Jennifer "Cameltoe" Lopez that onesies are still only acceptable fashion for babies, if you know what I mean. She showed up in some VERY strange gear for her performance at the ball-drop in NY city over the New Year.
Klassy, with a capital K.)
Anyhoo, here we are, back to the future, looking and feeling exactly the same as ever, give or take the 30+ pounds we gained over the holidays. And when I say we, I mean I. It's VERY bad. We are at orange on the terrorist-holiday-weight-gain-o-meter, and may possibly be travelling very soon into the red zone, depending on the availablity of funds for glazed Starbucks' donuts this weekend. I'll keep you posted.
So my Christmas, in a nutshell:
Christmas Eve I posted about the snow, and then Bikki arrived for Christmas! Yay! We jawed for hours and then went to sleep....ha ha ha. Nikki went to sleep and I proceeded to stay up ALL NIGHT LONG. Why? Because Jeff, in a fit of genius, decided to volunteer for all night duty on Christmas Eve so that he could have it guaranteed that next Christmas he will be off-duty. It's a work-one-year, get-next-year-off sort of deal with holidays at his new company.
The reason this kept me up all night is because we have sort of unusual sleeping arrangements at our house...every living being in it sleeps on the same King-sized bed. Jeff acts as a sort of human barrier against the onslaughts of Dillon in the night, so that he doesn't squash Zoe accidentally. It sounds prehistoric and uncivilized, but it really works quite well, usually. Except when YOUR HUSBAND DECIDES TO BE GONE ALL NIGHT CHRISTMAS EVE LIKE SANTA AND THEN YOU'RE STUCK FENDING OFF THE TODDLER AS HE LUNGES AT YOU, IN INTERVALS, ALL NIGHT LONG. Whew! Got that out of my system. Excuse me.
Oh but seriously, I really was up all night. Dilly has this fixation for....I was going to say cuddling, but it's really a whole new world BEYOND cuddling....more like smooshing. He has to be smooshed up against a parent at all times or his interal 'smooshing' alarm goes off and he wakes up. So I ended up checking on Jeff at about 3 hour intervals all night long, to ensure he was ok...he was worried about being able to keep it together on the job all night long. He did great, and we got through Christmas day ok too...Jeff took a little nap and I ran on vast amounts of coffee and sugar all day long. We had Richard and Sunny over for the dinner as well, which was nice...it's always more festive when you have guests.
Then, on the 26th, hot on the heels of Nikka, Paula (MIL) came with Jeff's nephew Bradley to spend about 2 weeks! FUN! We packed a lot into those 2 weeks, it seems...I think it was because it was the first real 'vacation' we've had since Jeff lost his job, and although we went places together as a family while he was unemployed, and had fun doing it, it was tres stressful, and we really couldn't relax or "vacay" the way you want to. Stressing over how much money you spend is not relaxing. So Jeff got all this time off (the first time since we've been married that he's been able to take time off at this time of year...thank you Atmos Energy!) and we went to all sorts of places with Paula & Bradley: a science museum, which was TERRIFIC for kids, every room just filled with interactive play & learning stuff for young children. We were very impressed and will surely take the kids back there. It's funny...it's a terrific place for young kids, but if you're older and are going there to actually learn about science, it's really not so informative. Example: there's this super-high end room full of displays of these life-sized dwellings from hundreds of years ago, people that lived in the Waco area. Wax figures, you name it. And you go up to this neato full-sized grass hut they built, and the sign under it says something like: "Women traditionally built these huts while the men went out hunting." Aha. Women. Which women? English women? American Indian? Martian, perhaps? There is no indication at all. They spent all this money on the displays and not very much on the explanations. Ha.
Funny story: at the very end of the museum displays, there's this one that shows (people) dummies dressed in all sorts of different gear for different jobs, like fireman, police man, nurse, etc, and the display is showing how people do these jobs. Well Bradley (5) looks at these and exclaims with horror: "Look, they killed these people and dressed them up & put them here!" He thought because some of the animals in the other displays were stuffed, that they had done the same to the people.
What else? Jeff and I got to go out together (thanks, Paula!) to dinner and a movie on New Year's Eve. We saw Avatar, which was awesome...totally worth it, and a must-see on the big screen, in my opinion. We ate at this little Mexican place and I had...wait for it...a MARGARITA! Stop laughing, Adrianne. While YOU may drink alcohol with a dinner out without batting a false eyelash, I haven't been able to do it for years....I've been pregnant or nursing for over 4 years now. Like a moo-cow. Just call me Bessie.
But back to my story...we ended up just having a wonderful time with Paula, doing some shopping, eating out, going to parks with the kids, etc. And on the last day she was here we celebrated Dillon's 2nd birthday 2 days early, but who's counting when you're that young, right? We went to Chuck E Cheese, of course, and had the place all to ourselves cuz it was a week day. Then we went home and set things up while Dilly napped and when he woke up we did cake & presents... said presents mostly of the ball game variety, as Dilly is very into balls. He got a small plastic basket ball set, a kid's soccer goal & ball, and a few other sundries from his parents, and Grandma got him his first tricycle! A good haul. He's growing up so fast.
So thanks for visiting Paula & Becca, we loved seeing you! Next on the visiting roster: Christopher & Sarah! Horray! Will update when they come.
Wow, this is a long post. You have to understand that I've been writing this post for over a week, because I had a lot to say and NO BLOODY TIME for anything anymore. That's what happens when your baby is 5 months old and not sleeping as much anymore, and everyone wants a piece of you every minute of the day. And yet, it's funny, I find myself increasingly content with my lot right now, with the realisation that it won't last forever and I may miss this time when they're cute and cuddly and sweet...probably in about 10 years when they're teens. I love my little family so much, and I've been thinking recently that many of my childhood dreams have come true for me already in my life. And if that doesn't make me lucky, I don't know what does.
I will leave you now with entertainment from the little people:
Noah:
Recently he found this thing...it's a part of one of their toys, I can't really describe it, just a long plastic thing. He holds it up like the statue of liberty and says, VERY SERIOUSLY and with much gravitas:
"The fortunes are stachiels* and the ones that show proudly, and wisely, like a king. Also prancing. " And he proceeded to prance around still holding up his plastic thingie. Proudly and wisely, like a king.
*statues
He's begun saying and doing some seriously cute things, but this is the only one I can think of right now: We often listen to christian music, specifically this one song that starts:
"We fall down, we lay our crowns,
At the feet of Jesus".
Well, this song is somewhat of a favorite with the boys, and they both have sung it in their own special ways. Noah once sang it:
"We fall down, we lay around.....
At the feet of Jesus."
And Dilly recently sang only the first line over and over in his little falsetto, thusly:
"We fall down,
We lay we's self"
Zoe:
She, obviously, isn't talking yet, but is getting very fat and adorkable. She enjoys growling and sometimes does it for minutes at a time, entertaining her little self. Like a little bear or something. Also, she's a big finger sucker and will, when she's nursing, bring her little hand up to her face, and the fingers creep up to her mouth, and then she proceeds to stealthily insert a finger in with the booje, and see if she can suck both at the same time. Then, of course, the boob falls out of her mouth, and she looks at it with surprise and dismay. So I put it back in and she starts all over again. Nobel prize, here we come!
Have a great day, folks. This is a great day for us...old and painful things are passed and over, and we can get on with our lives.
Bless.
