Out with the Old

(Round One of The Great 2011 Clean Out. It took up a good bit of our front porch. By way of nothing else than the title...)

I know, I know. It's been more than a month and I've been totally and completely absent. I certainly hope I haven't disappointed my vast audience (does six people qualify as "vast?"). We're finally on the other side of what appears to have been the real winter of our discontent, with three of the four of us on two fun rounds of antibiotics and a case of jolly old strep for me worked in the middle of it all. I have to say that the end of 2010 wasn't exactly our best stretch of months there.

I was, in addition to being ill for a little while, a regular old Scrooge when it came to Christmas this year. We didn't even get our tree up until the Saturday before Christmas and that was only because Santa Claus was visiting Cincinnati the following morning. (Haven't you heard? He comes to Cincinnati earlier than everywhere else for some reason.) But he came, he saw, and he even left a few presents.

Will got a kitchen and some play food, a few games and other odds and ends, in addition to the real stars of his Christmas show, a few sets of train tracks to expand his Geotrax empire. (I will say, even though he's mine and I know I'm a little bit biased, he's actually pretty impressive with his track-building. I'm glad that spatial ability appears not to be totally dependent on maternal genetics, as I am woefully incompetent in such matters.) He spends long stretches of time constructing elaborate track setups and then watching quite seriously as his train makes its rounds. So Santa's new additions have obviously aided in his quest to conquer the Geotrax world. (They really are good train tracks, completely indestructible with lots and lots of expansion opportunities and tunnels and accessories and the like. Will gives them an enthusiastic two thumbs up.)

Laura, as all babies tend to do, enjoyed the wrapping paper and ribbons just as much as her actual gifts (books, puffs and a few new toys, in case you wanted to know). The entire video of Will coming out to discover his loot, unwrap gifts, and play with these gifts features Laura breastfeeding in the background, so concerned with Santa's gifts was she. She was pretty jolly for the festivities afterwards but really perked up when we put her in her high chair for her puffs. I find it a little hard to comprehend that her first Christmas has already come and gone.




Santa visit: check. Kitchen played with: check. Gifts unwrapped: check. Hand eaten: check.



Puffs are the cream in her coffee.

Every time I look at Laura in this picture, I think of rainbows and sunshine and laughter. Every time I look at Will in this picture, I think of  this:

All he needs is a pitchfork. And a solemn farm wife.

I'll end here for now. I promise it won't be another month before you hear from us again. Barring more sickness and additional bottles of amoxicillin in the fridge-a-dater, that is.