Happy New Year! Hooray!
Hello everyone!
Ho ho who put this on me?!
Boy, I had every intention of continuing to blog over the last couple of weeks, but I have been DEATHLY TRAGICALLY HORRIBLY ILL like you wouldn’t believe. Seriously, I spent a couple of those nights lying in bed (you know, unable to sleep because I couldn’t breathe, as you do), wondering if I’d somehow contrived to get mono a third time, and whether my sinuses would ever work again, and how someone managed to fill my entire head with cement, and where one might have acquired your average Mutant Space Super-Flu of Death.
Innocent face
Yes, poor little bear was sick for a few days, too (he started it!), but like the brave little trouper he is, he recovered in time for Christmas, whereas I went on to be ill for WEEEEEEEEEKS.
Oh, I am not a stoic sick person. If I do not feel well, EVERYONE WILL KNOW. It’s not that I want everyone to suffer with me—in fact, I’d much prefer you didn’t, so you can take care of me. Except nowadays “taking care of me” actually means “taking care of the baby”, so THANK GOODNESS for all the family who arrived for Christmas and did a wonderful job entertaining him while I flopped around horking and snoffling and glorming and being generally about as pleasant company as a dying mop.
Aw, poor Mamama. So anyway, on to the presents for MEEEE!
But it was still a wonderful first Christmas for Jonah! Family! Dogs (EVERYWHERE!)! Presents! Toys! FOOD!
And apparently silly hats! No one warned me about the silly hats!
Jonah’s first Christmas present:
A BAG! I LOVE bags! And TISSUE PAPER! You shouldn’t have! I could spend all DAY tearing this up!
Oh, there’s something inside. Well, that’s nice, too.
His grandmama made him a fabulous stocking…
…filled with new bath toys! (Because a certain small white dog who is certainly not Sunshine ATE half of them last time he was here!)
PIRATE DUCKS! ARRRR! Shiver me feathers!
And then there were glorious presents from everyone, including this fabulous book from Aunt Kari and Uncle Steve:
which has oodles of wonderful things to push and pull and touch, and it’s super-cute, and Jonah loves it immensely!
So allllll of these shiny packages are for me, yes?
For our gift to Jonah from the World Wildlife Fund, after much debate, I ended up settling on a tiger.
I got a WHAT?
Well, his is the snuggly kind, but it’s also the kind that helps save other, actual tigers, so hooray!
Me and my tiger, my tiger and me…
He also got a thrilling instrument from his wonderful Japanese family, which he immediately adored:
I am totally the boss of this instrument!
And speaking of instruments, my parents gave him my old Casio (the one I learned to play the piano on!), so we’re pretty sure he’ll be composing symphonies by, say, March. Although so far his favorite move is hitting the “Demo” button over and over and transporting us all back to the lovely days of 1984 electronic music. I’m sure THAT’S never going to get annoying. 😉
I got some wonderful things, too! Such as:
A giant map of the world!
Huzzah! Well, are you really surprised that a Jeopardy! geek would love this? Hilariously, it also dates from the time of my childhood, so we may have to update it before Jonah goes to school and starts asking where the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia have disappeared to in his textbooks. But for the first few years at least, I can point out New Zealand and Ireland and Paraguay, and he can look at me like, “You realize this concept is entirely too abstract for toddlers, right?” Fun!
I also love this:
My baby’s tiny footprint!
Awww! Amazing! How cute is that? I love it SO much! Although of course it does raise the question of how Uncle Steve was able to run off with my baby’s foot long enough to ink it up without me noticing. Hrmmmm! Potentially dubious parenting afoot! (ha ha! see what I did there?) 🙂
Other favorite present:
Tiny jade dragon! From actual China!
My parents brought this back from China for me, to inspire the dragon books I’ll be writing all this year, and it’s seriously the coolest, most perfect thing ever. Beautiful tiny jade dragon muse! Yay! 🙂
From my excellent and most wise husband
This is to save me from spending half an hour searching for quotes on the Internet at the end of every blog. Now I can spend half an hour getting sucked into reading lots of hilarious quotes in this book instead! Woo hoo! :-) It is just what I wanted, and so if my quotes in the future get all obscure and erudite, well, now you know why. 🙂
THRILLING BOOKS TO READ!
Have I mentioned how excited I am that Laura Hillenbrand, the author of Seabiscuit (one of my favorite books ever), has a new book out? It’s like, I don’t know what to do; I don’t want to waste it by reading it all at once right now, but…but…but I WANT TO READ IT ALL AT ONCE RIGHT NOW! So I keep circling it and then making myself go back to my book club book instead. But soon! Soon I will give in to temptation! Or maybe I will make myself wait and have it be the reward when I finish the manuscript I’m working on but ACK TOO FAR AWAY NOT STRONG ENOUGH! Hmmmm.
Sparkly!
I also got beauuuuutiful sweaters and jewelry from everyone, including this sparkletastic bracelet handmade by my sparkletastic sister! Yay sparkly! :-) :-) :-) And I know I’m forgetting all kinds of important things—things I can’t take photos of right now because people are sleeping in the rooms where the things are—not to mention Jonah’s AWESOME Hanukkah presents which I never posted either, which he LOVES—but everything was wonderful and everyone being here was wonderful and I so very much appreciate everyone putting up with my floppy woefulness and snuggling with young Master Pants and making his first Christmas totally spectacular.
Sparkly WRAPPING PAPER! Best gift ever!
Can we do it again tomorrow?
Happy New Year, everyone! I have not been able to wrap my (cement-filled) head around resolutions and shiny new year thoughts yet, but maybe next week! Either that, or (more likely) I will blog about new TV, since (a) my current TV crush will be back (Neal Caffrey on White Collar—lightweight show, super-cute star!), (b) Top Chef All-Stars is killing me with the girls they’ve sent home so far, and (c) I’m afraid I have to watch Off the Map, even though Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice lost me a while ago…but Matt Saracen! And Jaye Tyler from Wonderfalls! In the same show! I am powerless to resist!
Er, yes, and other such deep insightful thoughts, indeed. ;-) I hope you all had a wonderful (and much more healthy than mine!) holiday! Hooray for 2011!
Quote of the Day: “A New Year’s resolution is something that goes in one year and out the other.” — Anonymous