handsome boy

Tonight was Will's first Christmas Eve service at our new church, and it was also his dedication ceremony, which is the Unitarian Universalist baptism analog. So my mom sent him some fancy clothes, and he loved them. You could see the pride in his eyes as soon as Matt put the tie on him. I'm not sure how he knew he looked so handsome, but I guess he just did. And he did great at his ceremony, giving the minister a fine "what the hell are you doing?" look when she touched his head, eyes, and mouth with a white carnation. And he farted nice and loudly as soon as we got back to our seats, making his Uncle Jon very proud. Now Will is in bed and I get to put his presents under the tree, which I've been looking forward to for a very long time. Will was way too little to appreciate anything about Christmas last year, so although this isn't his first Christmas, it's the first time that we get to get excited about it as parents to a little kid.

We had a very, very busy week with lots of company. Chris, Helen, and Catherine visited for most of last week, which was wonderful since we only get to see them a couple of times a year. And Chris did pretty much all of the cooking, so we ate better than we have since before Will was born. And on Saturday Jess, Robbie, and Henry arrived en route to Princeton for Christmas. We waited for the babies to go to bed Saturday night and then we had a nice festive holiday dinner, which was sort of like Thanksgiving in Santa Barbara, except that it was Christmas, the Thrill was not there and thus did not bring wine, and Robbie did not wear bright orange expandable pants. But otherwise it was really similar. And then on Sunday Jenny, Chris, and Rorie came for lunch. It was neat to see Rorie now that she is walking and talking, a lot like Will. The last time we saw her was last March when they were little babies!

Tomorrow we are off to Allentown to have Christmas with Matt's family, and the next day we continue on to New York to spend a few days with my family. Merry Christmas, everyone!

the cure

For those of you wondering about my miserable cold, worry no longer. Today I went to the doctor and was officially diagnosed with a sinus infection (since I am a fake doctor I already diagnosed myself using information from WebMD, but I didn't bring that up during my appointment). And I'm already starting to feel better. It seems weird that one dose of antibiotic would make such a difference, but I'm not complaining.

This past weekend we went to Falls Church, VA to visit all three of my sisters. It was a good time. We ate baked ziti and lasagna. We were going to go to the zoo, but I wasn't feeling up to it. So we slept in, got on the road during the late morning and basically hung around Meagan's apartment, ate, and then got back on the road. Will slept for about an hour and a half on the way home, which seemed good at the time but was a disaster later that evening. He just wasn't tired enough to stay asleep once he went to bed, so he was up crying for hours, until around 11:00. Since his newborn days just weren't that long ago I still seize up with fear every time I hear his voice in the middle of the night, so convinced am I that we're all going to be up for hours and hours and hours. And hours. And I will never sleep again. But that rarely happens these days because when he wakes up in the middle of the night he generally falls right back asleep. But not Saturday night. Matt spent forty-five minutes or so reading to him in his room to calm him back down to go back to sleep, but he started crying again as soon as his head hit the mattress. And he cried for quite a while. And then he fell asleep again until Matt went back into his room to cover him up with a blanket and he woke up again. And cried again. For a very long time. But Sunday night he slept a solid twelve hours and then another hour and a half this afternoon. His maximum nap length is usually a half hour, so I guess he really needed to catch up on sleep. In any case, I know of babies Will's age who still don't sleep through the night so we're lucky he's been doing it for so long, but I've gotten spoiled during these last several months of uninterrupted full nights of sleep.

the Christmas season starts

Last weekend we put up our Christmas tree. I wanted to do it early because I knew we'd be busy most of the remaining weekends in December, and I wanted plenty of time to enjoy it. It turns out that we have enough non-breakable ornaments that the bottom three feet of the tree don't look as stupidly bare as I feared they would. Will had fun helping us decorate, though he seems to prefer removing ornaments from the tree and putting them in the litter box.

Today it is snowing for real and there's actually some white stuff on the ground. Too bad Will and I are stuck inside with miserable colds. Actually it's my cold that is miserable. I think he'd be fine going outside and playing in the snow, but just thinking about it makes my ears hurt.

Fall in Delaware

This picture is a couple of weeks old, but it gives you an idea of what Will looks like standing at the bottom of a slide in Delaware during the fall. I meant to post it earlier, but then I got caught up with Thanksgiving preparations and not feeling like getting pictures off of the camera. The usual stuff.