Christmas Eve

This is the first time in four years that I'll be spending Christmas Eve with Joshua instead of at work with sick babies and their heartsick families. I've never been that upset about having to work on Christmas - I feel very selfish once I walk into the hospital missing my healthy happy family at home and am smacked in the face gently reminded that here are so many people living out their worst nightmares over the holiday season. But of course I'm thrilled to be able to go to Christmas Eve service at our own church and enjoy a Christmas morning that doesn't start with me in scrubs (it ends with me in scrubs, since I am working tomorrow night, but our sweet healthy girl will be already be off to bed with visions of sugarplums dancing in her head. What are sugarplums? I think we need some).

Joshua and I have talked so much about how we want to create the mystery and excitement of Christmas for Matilda in the upcoming years. This year, I think she is overwhelmed enough by ornaments that are just out of reach, her beautifully illustrated board book of the Christmas story, and the satisfying crunch of brown paper packages tied up with string.

We took that song (and our commitment to not wasting tons of paper) seriously, so here we have Trader Joes bags turned inside out to wrap up our gifts. I think this is exactly what Julie Andrews had in mind, right?

We always sleep in front of the tree on the first night that we put it up. We've been doing this since the first year we were married and it's my favorite silly holiday tradition that Joshua and I created ourselves. We grew up with different family ideas on Santa (him: in moderation, me: in absentia), and we aren't sure how we will present jolly old St Nick to Matilda. I don't know anyone who is particularly scarred in their adult life by either the inclusion or exclusion of Mr Claus in the Christmas magic that their parents weaved for them. But we are most concerned that Matilda realizes that waking up in front of glittery trees and unwrapping gifts are not the only way, and not at all the reason, that we celebrate this holiday. We want her to grow into a generous giver, thankful for her redemption, inspired by the Christ in Christmas.

We are wishing everyone a very very Merry Christmas.

O Holy Night! The stars are brightly shining. 
It is the night of our dear Saviour's birth. 
Long lay the world in sin and error pining
'Til He appear'd and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.

Fall on your knees! O hear the angels' voices!
O night divine, O night when Christ was born;
O night divine, O night, O night Divine.

Remember when I used to blog? And we had that roly-poly baby with wispy hair who was just starting to eat solid food and a dog who was cancer free and a cat who mistook Matilda's flowery curtains for her own litterbox? That was fun, wasn't it?

I'm really not sure why I stopped writing here - it's partly that the perfectionist in me finds writing consistently and well a tricky matter, and partly that I like to use naptimes to either clean up my house or my DVR - but I'm back. Time doesn't stand still even for the laziest of bloggers so while I left you hanging right about here:

Both this stupidly hot September weekend in Minneapolis and all those sweet baby arm rolls have come and gone. We sat Matilda down to take her picture in the sculpture gardens and after a lifetime of near verbal silence, she suddenly burst out with her very first bababa and dadada. Six hours later she was burning up with her first fever and our drive home the next day was 7 hours of the saddest babbling I have ever heard from a child. Also, screaming. And crying (it was me!). Then suddenly it was fall, and then Thanksgiving and now it's the week before Christmas and we have a baby who looks more like this:

Oh HI! (Matilda would say if her verbal skills were anywhere near as advanced as her physical skills). Welcome to my room! Why yes, I do think I can stand and walk on my own and what? I just faceplanted? Not a problem, I'm extremely experienced in this area.

What else has happened besides the inevitable passing of time, the changing of the seasons, the rush of holidays, and the mind-numbing wind up to an election year? So much, and also not much. Here is the so much: Matilda slowly transitioned from her spastic forward wiggle to a decent army crawl and then suddenly perfected a wickedly quick momentum - no one was more frustrated by her plodding pace than Matilda herself and the second she pulled her coordination together she started darting out of sight in seconds. Within a few weeks there was excellent pulling up and standing, and inching along inanimate objects (and other unfortunate, animate objects - the animals hide now when she sets her sights on them). Now we have an almost-eleven month old who wants no help with anything, ever, still refuses to say mama but says "TA-dee-DA!" when she's proud of herself, and wolfs down things like fish and quinoa and pancakes. She loves other babies, waves at pictures of people, loves to belly laugh and play peekaboo, yet remains about as cuddly as a porcupine who is feeling threatened.

This is about as "snuggly" as our independent child ever gets. I am equally parts proud and terrified of her strong-willed self. It's all fun and games until there is talking and running and then I hear (from my mother), that it's just about keeping everyone alive until those higher cognizance areas of the brain kick in and elevate the child mind out of what is basically the animal realm. I googled it, and this happens in the late teens. So! Merry Christmas!

So much more to come now that I've revived the blog but I will leave you with this...

Just to keep things real.