Christmas report

For the few weeks leading up to Christmas, Aria had a great time going around to the neighborhoods and looking at lights - she would exclaim "li-ights!" around every corner. She was really excited about them.

Unfortunately, she got really sick for the week before Christmas. She was running a really high fever - it reached 105 on occasion - and we were pretty scared by the whole ordeal. All that she would do for the whole week was just sit in Hosanna's lap (or Kathy's or my lap if Hosie wasn't around, though she definitely wanted Mommy more) and be held. She would cry if we put her down for even a second. Hosanna ended up taking the whole week off work and just staying home with her. Luckily she started feeling better a couple days before Christmas, and by Christmas Eve she was back to her usual happy self. (It would be a few more days before Hosie and I would really recover from it, though - I think we were more traumatized than Aria was.)

Hosanna crocheted her a hat and matching mittens, and she likes putting them on (although they usually come off pretty quickly afterwards).


When Christmas Eve came around, Aria got pretty excited about the tree - although at first she didn't understand that there was stuff inside the presents. She just wanted to play with the packages, bows, wrapping paper, etc.


I was very grateful to be home for a week. I bonded with Aria a lot during this time - probably even more after the hectic holiday stuff was over, but it already started on Christmas Eve. :)


For Christmas Eve dinner Kathy brought out her mother's handpainted china, and flexed her catering muscles with a kickass dinner: crepes with mushroom sauce, beet salad, and nutloaf. Manny contributed a squash soup that we all agreed was the best we have ever had. And Hosanna made apple pie for dessert.



When Christmas day came, I think Aria started understanding the presents a little better, with help from Mommy and Tobin. Of course at times Tobin got a little overeager with helping her out... :)





Tobin took this picture - he's getting pretty good with the camera. It joins the legions of pictures taken of me at Christmas when I badly need a haircut.



I have never seen Manny look bad in a picture.



Gabriel and his friend Soshi (I'm not sure if I'm spelling that right) also joined us. She is from Shasta City and told us a lot of interesting things about the goings-on up there.



Looking good in a new sweater! (Thanks Nana!)



A cuddly polar bear was the other big hit for Aria.


After we opened presents at our house Christmas morning, we got packed up and left to go to San Jose. We forgot to bring our camera (grrrr) so there aren't any pictures for the trip, unfortunately.

Aria was really wiped out from the excitement. She slept in the car for the entire trip to San Jose, which is totally unheard of. We hung out with Grandma & Grandpa for a while before Lisa, Jason, Machen & Adamen arrived. We had a great dinner that my Mom made - quiche, chicken with cherries, rice, salad, and fancy wine. They had brought the English crackers - not snacks, but the little toys that you pull with the firecrackers in them. Each one had a little whistle that was tuned to a particular pitch. With the whole set we were able to sit around the table playing Christmas songs, each person doing one note. It was really fun.

Our trips to San Jose continue to get more fun for Aria - obviously everyone gives her lots of attention, but she especially enjoys playing with Machen and Adamen now.

She had a really hard time sleeping. Gee, wired up from all the presents and tons of activity during the day? Also she seemed to be scared of the pictures in my parents' spare room. We had to take them all down before she would go to sleep.

The day after Christmas, Lucas and Cyndi joined the rest of us for dinner, which featured Hosie-made fajitas. (I don't know how, but I didn't end up cooking anything this year. It just never came up. I was happy to have the time with Aria instead. :) We grilled them about their wedding plans. Turns out they are getting married on Lucas' birthday next July. We are intrigued by the idea of having your wedding anniversary on your birthday. Lucas said it was the best birthday present he could think of. Awwwwww....

The following day we drove up to Santa Rosa for Manny's birthday. We almost didn't go, because it seemed like Aria had totally reached her limit with so many scary strangers and just needed to go home. But in the car on the way home, she mellowed out and started laughing & having fun. We called Manny and found out that they were going to be gone for a whle before we got there, so we decided to go - we could relax for a little bit before she got mobbed by admirers again.

For the birthday celebration we went out to sushi at Manny's favorite place in Rohnert Park. There we discovered that Aria LOVES sushi. She ate a whole bunch of miso soup, udon noodles, tempura veggies, edamame, and even some of Hosanna's veggie roll. We were impressed.

We decided to risk it and drive home that night after dinner. We weren't sure how that would go over, and were prepared for her to cry a lot on the way home. But actually it worked really well. She played with some toys in the car for a little while, then fell fast asleep and didn't wake up until we got home. We were able to put her up to bed immediately without much fuss.

Ever more activity

What a difference a couple weeks makes. Just since Thanksgiving Aria has taken amazing strides in development.

• She's walking very fast now. Nearly running. I have this game I play with her where I get down on all fours and crawl after her, saying "Daddy's going to get you!" in a silly voice. It is now very difficult for me to keep up with her while I'm crawling.


• Tonight we saw her walk backwards.


• Her recognition vocabulary has jumped. She knows dozens of words now. She has started to say some of them repeatedly, such as "clock," "head," "eye," "hand," "nose," "ouch," "out," "light," and so on. And the other night, while we were reading Goodnight Moon, I pointed to the clock and named it. The next morning while we were in our room she pointed to the real clock, which is a digital clock that looks nothing like the analog one in the book, and said "clock."


• She learned how to ask to nurse by patting her chest and saying "num-nums." Now that she knows how to ask for it, she asks for it A LOT. It's as though she's feeling the power of asking for something and getting it.


• She's imitating our behavior more. For example, she saw me pat my lap to encourage Charlie to jump up on it, then she reached over and patted my lap while she was looking at Charlie. Then tonight while we were reading her "From Head To Toe" by Eric Carle, we got to the part about the gorilla thumping his chest, and she balled her hand into a fist and thumped her chest just like Hosanna did.


• She's starting to do some really funny things. Like walk around the house with the salad spinner on her head. Or offer you some food, then take it away and eat it herself. She gets a little twinkle in her eye and a mischievous grin.


• She's all but rejected baby food in favor of whatever we're eating. So we try to satisfy her as best as we can without giving her food that's too complex. So far what has worked is pretty much any bread/pasta carb you can think of (takes after Daddy, unfortunately), peas, rice cakes, banana, pears, strawberries, and occasionally proteins like tofu, fake hot dogs or little bits of garden burger. There are some foods she likes to just suck on and then spit out, like oranges.

Hosanna and I have had a super roller coastery month getting used to all these changes. As I said, it gets LOADS more fun when you can really interact with your kid. At least for me, I mean I always enjoyed holding her as an infant but there's a certain point where you look around and say "what the fuck do I do with her?" Now it's easy to answer: chase her around the house! Bang on tupperware! Play with the Muppet dolls! Whatever! Seeing the way she reacts and smiles and laughs and giggles and all that is just so awesome. So, those are the highs.

The down side is of course we're more worn out since she needs more physical energy. And Hosanna and I are also growing inside in our own ways and looking for how to compromise so we each get our own time. The push and pull of when we allow each other to take a break - or work up the nerve to ask for one for ourselves - is a seemingly never-ending stress.