Milestones

Ooh-whee has it been busy around here. No preamble; let's hit some highlights.

My folks and our good friends Diane and Linda visited this past weekend. We hadn't seen each other in months and a great time was had by all. We spent a great afternoon sharing old family stories and catching up. Hannah seems to have passed the aunt and grandparent approval process with flying colors. Big milestone there; she can hold her head up tall.

And, in fact, she does now. Maybe we're so stinky from being new parents she can't bear to have her nose next to us any longer.  She's madly drawn to light fixtures and sunlight coming through the glass blocks in the bathroom (the little phototroph!).  Floor lamps are particularly fascinating.  Oddly, we have no photographs of this phenomenon!  I'm slipping.  Well, usually I'm holding her when this occurs, and Stephanie, momentarily able move about the house and use both arms, leaps into those fondly remembered pre-Hannah activities like running, baking, checking email, or sleeping.  None of which, sadly, involves taking photos of craning-neck-baby, enthralled by the nearest Philips Natural Light 50/100/150-watt three-way bulb.  I do so love the way she looks at things, so wide-eyed and, well, still a bit wobbly.

And speaking of wonders, Hannah is a bathing diva -- a fish.   Never was a baby happier than Hannah in a plastic tub of warm water, having a bath.  She loves bath time.  ...  Not much more to say about that: happy baby + happy Stephanie = happy house.  Really takes the edge off a bad, traffic-y hour-long commute home to come into a house full of cooing baby and impromptu singing.

So, to celebrate, and because it's That Time Of The Year, we found some people who killed a pine tree and paid them for it. Then we decorated its sweet-smelling corpse with happy, soft, felt cut-out snowmen, angels, penguins, ice skates, snowflakes, Santas, candy canes, and reindeer, wrapped it with brightly colored lights and plugged the whole thing into the wall.  It's actually quite lovely.  The guy at "Lone Star Evergreens" told me it was eight years old as he was strapping it to our truck's roof rack.  Poor, poor, dying tree.  I mean, it's one thing to be sawn in half, tied up, hauled across the continent by truck into the urban desert, and sold at market, but it's another to live out your dying days in a messy, messy house with fussy baby noises all day and night, and covered in penguins.

(I know what you're thinking: Hannah's going to grow up so... bent.)

Long ago, back when there were just four of us and we could so casually hop into the car and go places we purchased a stroller. (There are a few words about that somewhere below, if you're interested in this sort of drivel (and if you've read this far, I think that's self-evident).) And now that the doctors tell us her immune system is properly established, Stephanie has been taking Hannah on extensive walks. The large, bicycle tires allow for nearly trivial navigation of the neighborhood sidewalks, with their lumpity-bumpity constructions, potholes, and the odd fallen palm tree frond one must drive over periodically. So easy, in fact, that they regularly go four to six miles on these walks. Hannah seems to love the rocking motion and white noise and regularly sleeps through the entire Odyssey (I'm a sucker for sleeping in vehicles, too). So well does it work that tonight we strapped Hannah into the stroller, strapped the monsters to me, and the five of us went (some of us faster than other) merrily down the streets and byways of our lovely community. It was so nice, it was so nice... ("how nice was it?") I actually forgot there was a humiliated, mutilated pine tree in the living room.

(Were I Paul Harvey, here I'd say, "Paaaaaage two.")

Gosh, so much other stuff to talk about. Haven't covered taking Hannah to her first bar, or having her first Mexican food and BBQ (important milestones for any *ahem* native Texan), haven't posted photos of the recent visit, talked about how she's sleeping almost four hours at night ("it's a Christmas miracle!"), or even mentioned the DVDs! Those stories will have to wait. And there will be lots more happening here over the next weeks, too. So, have a great holiday, and stay tuned!