out of Kadesh

6:45-8:30am – Rise and shine! If you’re wondering what woke you, that’s the sound of your baby babbling (on a good day) or whining (on a bad day). Or it might have been the sudden realization that your young one was trying to launch himself off the bed. And if that doesn’t peel your eyelids back, he’ll try hitting you over the head with your own cell phone next. Try not to swear.

For about 15 minutes, pretend that you’re single again, and if you hit the alarm, you can drift back off into peaceful nothingness for just a little bit longer. When the whining starts in earnest, you have to just sit up. It’s the only way to force yourself out of bed, I’ve learned. You just have to DO it. You’ll get the same feeling you have when you’re nauseous after a long night of drinking and you know you should eat a piece of toast to sop up all the leftover vodka but your brain is screaming NO! NO TOAST! But as soon as you force that first bite, you feel a little bit better. When you make your protesting body sit up for a second, you realize you really can do it. The desire for singleness might not go away until after your first cup of coffee, but don’t worry; that’s perfectly normal.

Pick up your toddler and, squinting against the light of day, haul your tired ass into the nursery to change that soaking wet diaper. That poor kid does not want to stay in it for one more second, and can you blame him? There’s like 12 hours worth of piss in that thing. At this point, it weighs more than he does, and it renders him unable to walk without dragging his butt along the floor.

Breakfast time! You’ll feel SO much better after a frozen waffle and a banana, and a steaming mug of hot coffee. Promise. You’ll even be able to watch your son throw scrambled egg and blueberries at the dog without even an eye roll. Just keep drinkin’ that coffee, ma’am.

He signs “all done” (which bears a stunning resemblance to jazz hands) long before you’re finished, and you’re 99% sure he’s only eaten one bite of that egg you cooked him, since the rest of it is on the floor, rapidly being consumed by the dog (whose food you buy at the local holistic pet store for $40 a bag) (but finding the silver lining in any cloud, you think hey, at least you won’t have to sweep this shit up). You put your kid on the floor and wipe up his hands and face and he sees his jungle gym out of the corner of his eye. With a point of his chubby little finger and a demanding “eh!” from his lips, you know your morning will be spent picking him up and putting him back at the top of the slide, then clapping like you’ve never seen any performance as stunning in all your born days as his bum slides that whole foot and a half down to the bottom.

You realize at some point that you have a lot to do today, and you feel a little guilty for making a list in your head while, were you a better person, you’d be fully present as your son slides down the bus slide, giggling, for the 19th time in three minutes. You wonder what it would be like if you could live in the present, constantly aware of your surroundings and what is happening in the moment.

Time to get busy. You put a load of laundry in the wash, you start to vacuum, you pick your toddler up, you let him “help” you push the vacuum around, you put him back down. You clean the kitchen. You realize just on time that your baby, who has been “helping” you load the dishwasher, is reaching for the handle of a gigantic knife. You ask him to “help” you close the dishwasher. You praise him as he does so. You pull down the bread machine and you throw all the ingredients in for whole wheat bread. You give your kid a little of the flour to play in, thinking he will LOVE it. He’s mildly amused for about 20 seconds. He wants to be picked up again. You finish the bread one-handed. One-handed, you put the clothes into the dryer. One-handed, you try and finish loading the dishwasher. Your baby wants down again (he sees that shiny knife). You start the dishwasher.

While you’re holding your toddler, you notice him yawn. You see him rub his eyes. You look at the clock and realize it’s been about three hours, which means it for sure is nap time.

HOORAY! Nap time is wonderful. You gently close the door to his room after gazing lovingly at his sleeping form for a couple of seconds, and you return to the living room. Breathe deeply, girl. That silence is the sound of an hour and a half of whatever YOU want to do. You could take a nap (which sounds amazing, since you damn near rocked yourself to sleep just now), mop the floor, take a shower, sew something, do some yoga, read a book, write a novel, end starvation, build a city. No lie, you are, for the next hour and a half, the queen of the universe. You have to plan wisely. It’s the only break you get today. You think about how you’ll spend it, then decide to watch Hulu while you fold diapers. It’s deliciously decadent, and you sip your leftover morning coffee while you watch The Office.

Lunch time! Baby’s awake, and you have to scrounge for something to eat. Lunch time really sucks, to be perfectly honest. You finished with breakfast, and at some point you’ll have to make dinner, and you feel sorry for yourself as you haul out leftovers, sandwich stuff, salad stuff, and frozen burritos. You’d much rather eat at the Silly Goose or Marche, but you know you shouldn’t spend the money. And if that doesn’t solidify your decision to eat at home, all you need to do is remember the last time you took your food-throwing wild man out to lunch, and you’ll perk right up. You may even start to whistle as you slather a slice bread with some all-natural, refrigerated, HARD AS A ROCK peanut butter. You’ll tear the shit out of that bread, but you’ll still be happy as a clam because today? Today your son will not smear his avocadoed hands all over the innocent patrons at nearby tables.

After lunch (and subsequent clean-up of child and child’s eating area), you have a plethora of opportunities in front of you. Would you like to go out? For a walk? Shopping? Maybe you have a coffee date. Getting the kid out of the house is a good idea, because he gets real bored with those same lame-ass toys he got for Christmas nearly a MONTH ago. He’ll look at you with such disappointment as you set him down in front of his basket of toys that you’ll feel obligated to get him dressed, put his coat on, put his shoes on, and strap him into his car seat (all activities he hates) so that you can take him to Border’s and chase him around for a couple of stimulating hours.

When you come back home, it’s play time. Play time is so awesome. Your son likes to wrestle you to the ground and climb all over you while covering you with drooly kiss-bites. He wants you to read four words out of a dozen books. He wants you to beat up pieces of furniture with his drumsticks. He wants you to zoom his car all over the floor. He wants you to chase him around and around and around the dining room table. (He wants you to hug him for a second when he slams into the corner of the dining room table.) He wants you to ask “Where’s Daddy?” or “Where’s Lucy?” and follow him around from room to room while he peeks inside looking for them. He wants to zombie-walk all over the house, stopping at intervals to dance to whatever Pandora station you’re listening to.

You need to start on dinner. Even though you’re exhausted from your outing with a one-year-old and from the marathon play-session. Your throat is hoarse from growling “I’m gonna GEEET you!” Your knees are sore from crawling all over the floor. Your back is sore from throwing your kid up in the air. Before you can face the kitchen, you need a coffee break. And your kid needs a throw-more-blueberries-on-the-floor-and-do-the-sign-for-more-cheese break.

Dog eats fallen food. Kid signs all-done. Wash kid’s hands and face. You know the drill by now.

So it’s time to start on dinner, and you’re halfway through chopping one pepper when your toddler decides he’s a) tired and b) bored. He doesn’t understand why you aren’t playing with him anymore. He becomes clingier than Saran Wrap. You can do so many things one-handed these days, but chopping vegetables is not one of them. You do everything you can one-handed, then wait for your hubbs to get off work. (Alternately: you stomp into your hubbs’ office and passive-aggressively wonder out loud when the heck he plans to get off work so he can help you out around here, for crying out loud. It’s HIS dinner you’re trying to make. What is this, the 50s or something?)

The hubbs takes the boy and plays with him while you finish making dinner. You drink a glass of wine and talk to your hubbs about his day. Which doesn’t take very long, since he works from home and you pretty much know how his day went already. The hubbs also wants to hear about your day, and you launch into a giggly diatribe about your play-laugh-session, which the hubbs jealously heard from his office while he tried to code so that your family could have money for a house in which to hold long, loud, play-laugh sessions. He tries to recreate the wrestling with your son, who loves the idea of a Round 2, and he slams his huge pumpkin head into your husband’s nose.

Your kid cries, and you rush over to comfort him while your hubbs runs to the bathroom to get some tissue to sop up his own bloody nose.

Dinner time! You tried a new recipe you found on a food blog (at least one new one per week). Your hubbs praises your culinary skill, and your kid eats several bites before he begins throwing it all on the floor for the dog. It’s a hit! You make a mental note to make it a regular meal in your house. Then you promptly forget about it forever, because you made a “mental” note, and you know perfectly well you have no room in there for any notes. Next time? Write it down.

After the cleaning of the kid and the surrounding area, it’s time for some gentle play. Gentle, because if you get him all riled up again, it will be hours before he goes to sleep. You could take a walk if it’s nice outside. You could open several books for him to see. He points to the pictures. You label the objects to which he is pointing. “Hat.” “Pajamas.” “Lynx.” “Piano.” “Weird purple alien-animal thing.”

Bath time is awesome, because your kid LOVES bath time. Bath time means toys which he never gets to see outside of the tub. He splashes around and plays while you wash him off. You and your hubbs’ teamwork allows you to pick your toddler out of the tub and wrap a hooded towel around him without him slipping out of your grasp or making yourself too soaked.

You take him to his room and set him on his changing table (which is also the top of the chest-of-drawers and it’s getting kind of dangerous and you wonder how much longer you’ll be able to use it as a changing-station) and he instantly starts reaching for everything you have sitting up there. The wipes warmer, which he opens. He grabs the wipes, throws them to the floor. Now the touch-lamp. He touches it once, it goes dark in the room. Again, and it’s very dim. Again, and you can see again. You quickly grab a diaper and fasten it to his bum as he touches the lamp again, and the room becomes fairly bright again before *touch* one last time and darkness falls once more. You brush his hair. You rub teething gel on his sore gums. You massage lavender sleep balm into his temples. You laboriously pull his arms and legs into pajamas. Of course, to accomplish this you have to stop him from touching the lamp or throwing the wipes or grabbing the diaper creme or whatever else he’s trying to do, and that makes him mad. This is how you know he will go to sleep easily.

One last story, which you ask him to pick out and which he zombie-carries (walking is hard in his huge nighttime diaper) over to his Daddy. His Daddy picks him up and sets him in his lap, and together they read/violently turn the pages of/point and identify pictures in some story you’ve read a hundred times and could recite in your sleep, like Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar or Sandra Boynton’s The Going to Bed Book.

Your kid reaches out to you, you pick him up off your husband’s lap, and your husband stands up and gives him a goodnight kiss. It’s dark and quiet in the room now, with the soft white noise of the heater and the humidifier filling the air. You rock and nurse and sing and soon he is asleep. You transfer him to his crib and cover him with his blanket. He stirs for a minute and you hold your breath, but then he settles with one arm over his head and one hand in his mouth, and you tiptoe out of the room and close the door.

Breathe the sweet free air, girlfriend. You and your hubbs swap stories about how cute and wonderful your kid is, and after the dishes are cleared away you sit on the couch and pick up your book or watch your Netflix or discuss dessert options, and before you know it it’s 10:00 and you need to get in bed before your toddler wakes up with sore teeth or gas or because he misses you or because he’s thirsty/hungry/being a little shit/take your pick. You don’t mind anymore though, because you love cuddling him at night when the house is quiet and the cat is curled up at your feet. You don’t love waking up with his giant noggin resting on your arm and making it go to sleep, but you shift him around and it’s ok. You keep hearing all these things you “should” do to help him sleep on his own at night, but you have decided that until he is ready, you’re just going to keep doing what you’re doing and trying to maximize the sleep that happens in your own house, because you know in just a couple of hours, it will be morning, and you’ll have to start all over again.

But that’s really ok. Because you love your life. You love being a Stay-at-Home-Mom. And you love that bread you baked yesterday, too, and ooo! That’s what you’ll have for breakfast!

Noah’s been walking for about a week now, on his own and everywhere. The only time he crawls is when I’m chasing him and he gets so worked up he drops to his hands and knees to scurry away from me.

So yesterday, we’re out at Ugly Mugs, and the little flirt toddles over to these three ladies sitting on a couch in the back of the coffee shop. And sure enough, he starts flirting it up, smiling all big with his five teeth and turning profile side so it looks like he’s playing hard to get or like he’s shy. And he starts swinging his arm back and forth, grinning at these ladies, and he’s like putting his hand in his pocket! And after about five minutes of this, when I guess he figures he’s warmed them up enough, he lifts up his shirt so his little belly pokes out!

No lie, y’all, my son just flashed a bunch of girls.

And I’m all, Ok! Show time’s over! You’re grounded until you’re out of diapers, you little Casanova.

Dear Noah,

The ironic thing is, you’re so busy I never have time to blog anymore, which means I can’t keep track of all your busyness. In other words, your activity keeps me from recording your activity. And then when you do take a nap or something, Mommy is so tired that cognizant thought becomes impossible. In a few months your letters are just going to be my failing stream of consciousness, and they’ll be three weeks late. So enjoy this while you can, Bubbs. OR, better yet, start sleeping and I promise I’ll do better. In fact, I might be so full of energy I’ll start doing all kinds of cool things, like building you a playhouse out of the stray branches in our back yard. Wouldn’t you like that? Wouldn’t you??

Sleeping: does not compute. I never dreamed you’d be over a year old and you never would have slept through the night, but that’s how you roll. You take one nap every day, you go to bed around 8, and you sleep till about 11, and after I put you back to sleep I know I have about an hour before you’re up again, wondering why you aren’t in our bed. Everyone tells me it’s because you’re so “bright” and “smart” and you’re just so “stimulated.” That’s all code for: SUCKS TO BE YOU, MAN. Not that I’m not grateful that you’re too smart for your own good, I just think a little slumber might help your brain function even better. I know Mommy’s brain sure would.

But I think you don’t care so much about that. You just need me to walk you around the house all day like a zombie anyway: around the coffee table, into the office to visit Daddy, over to the sofa to pat the kitty on the head, through the kitchen, plink a couple of keys on the piano, into the dining room, down a slide on the bus, into the bedroom, over the dog bed, into the bathroom, turn around, back through the dining room, plink plink goes the little piano, and now we’re rounding the coffee table again.

Not that you can’t walk by yourself. You CAN! You took your first steps on Christmas day, and you walk here and there every so often. One day at Ugly Mugs, you walked back and forth and back and forth between our table and the front door. You CAN walk by yourself; you just prefer not to. Who needs it? As long as you’re holding on to someone’s finger, walking goes from scary new chore to fun game! And you don’t really care whose finger it is either; one day you reached up and grabbed some passing lady’s finger at Starbucks, and when you looked up to see who you had a hold of, you didn’t even seem to care that you didn’t know her. You just smiled and started pulling her along.

You are like that all the time, Bubba. You have no “Stranger-Danger” at all. You love everyone. You reach out for strangers to hold you, you smile at new people, you hold out your hands to them… the other day our neighbor came by for a play date and you wanted to sit in her lap the entire time. I got a little jealous, so I tried to hold her son, but he didn’t want me to. So you were both just contentedly sitting in her lap and cuddling with her, and Mommy tried not to pout. Because even though I truly LOVE how friendly you are, I’m still secretly sad you can give me up so easily.

I know I should count my blessings. You could be super clingy and that would drive me crazy I guess. (Hmph.)

I really do think you’re the best little boy I’ve ever met. I mean even though you’re already starting to throw little mini-tantrums, which I guess is just another way to prove how advanced you are (“terrible twos,” are they? You’ll show ‘em. I’ve coined your age the “woeful ones”), you are still so sweet, and funny, and charming, and smart. You’re learning lots of words now, and phrases. You know how to get a book off the shelf at bedtime so Daddy can read it to you (although you still prefer the speed-reading style of story time: read two words and on to the next book), you know what a lot of your toys are called, you make a “vroooom” sound for anything with wheels, and you can sign “all done,” “more,” and “please” (although that last one doesn’t suit you very much. It’s too submissive. If you yell at people, doesn’t that get you the same result?).

You’ve also started mimicking me, which makes Mommy realize I’ll really have to start watching what I say and do around you, little man. You like to walk around (holding someone’s finger, preferably) with a cell phone pressed to your ear, saying “eh! eh! eh!” into the mouthpiece. You also like to fake laugh, which makes me wonder what I must sound like when I laugh around here. I don’t say “no” to you very often, only if you’re doing something especially dangerous like chewing on the end of a cord that’s plugged in. Instead I usually say “uh-uh, not for Noah,” and I shake my head at you. I didn’t actually know I was doing that until one day, when I was standing in your way, you looked up at me, shook your head, and said “uh-uh-uh.” Yep, you’ve got quite a little ‘tude already, Bubbs. But it’s so cute and I can’t help but laugh.

This month Mommy started working a part-time job again, and the first couple of times I worked I just worried about you the whole time: were you eating good? Were you taking your bottle? Were you going to sleep? How were you coping with me being gone? But I think you got used to it, because now you barely fight Daddy at all anymore at bedtime. But I still miss you every time we’re not together, like I tore my arms off and left them at home for the evening. And even though I can’t wait till you’re sleeping like a real person, I am so glad to have a reason to give you kisses and cuddles in the middle of the night. You should know I never take you for granted; I always think about it when we’re playing together, or when you want me to hold you or even walk you around the house for the umptimillionth time, that I should cherish each of these moments while they last. I love you, sweetheart.

Love,

Mommy

In this rare moment of peace, I’m sitting here looking out my window at the snow falling in my front yard. In Tennessee. For the third day in a row. The Bubbs is asleep, the Hubbs is working, the house is semi-clean, all the laundry is folded and put away, and the dishwasher is running in that swoosh, swoosh, swoosh way it has. And I only half want to take a nap, which is really saying something. I could get used to this. I’m such a homebody that the prospect of being snowed in is always exciting for me, although I still wonder if I could convince Lance to snow-boot it up with me and walk down to Eastland to get some lunch later.

I hate making lunch.

January is a great month. I used to hate it, because the holidays were over and suddenly you have the entire year standing in front of you like a great big wall, and you wonder how you’ll ever get over it, but I have reconsidered. It’s a month of beginnings. Of resolutions. Of endless possibilities. The old behind you, the new in front of you, like a breath of fresh air. On December 31, you can put down all the baggage you carried with you all year, and take your first step without it all weighing down on your back. A clean slate.

It feels nice.

And even though Spring seems so dreadfully far away, right now I’m looking at a cardinal hopping around on a blanket of fluffy snow and it seems symbolic somehow, like all the baptist hymns I grew up with that talk of being washed in the blood of the Lamb and being made white as snow.

I made resolutions this year. I don’t do it every year because they are usually just another source of guilt-ridden anxiety for me, and I feel like I have enough of that already, but this year I made some. And now you’re all, “God, PLEASE don’t tell me your resolutions, lady.” Believe me, I TOTALLY get you. Being an avid blog reader, my eyes are tired of rolling around in their sockets every time I read how someone else vows to lose 25 pounds and their 3-step goal program to get there. Good. Do it. Seize the day and all that. I won’t tell you all my goals, so you can move your mouse away from the “X” at the top of this tab.

There is just one thing, though. I have resolved to chronicle the Great Crisis of Faith 2010. It’s possibly the most important leg of my Faith j0urney so far, and even though I haven’t quite reached the end, I hope writing it all down will help me get to that elusive light at the end of the proverbial tunnel.

And while you chew on that, oh Faithful Reader, here’s some more food for thought. As Lance and I drank cocktails last Sunday afternoon we stumbled upon a most interesting question that has been haunting me ever since. Last weekend I was out in Green Hills, which I hate because it’s full of yuppies and their yuppie cars, when suddenly a tall, gorgeous woman walked by and, after my obvious double-take and spluttering of the coffee I had just sipped, I realized it was Nicole Kidman! I love her! I tried really hard not to gawk at her, which is impossible given her breathtaking beauty, and I elbowed Lance and kicked my friend Kelly and whisper-shrieked that NICOLEKIDMANISRIGHTBEHINDYOUOHMYGOD! Later, when I was recounting (in vivid detail) how Nicole Kidman, emitting an inhuman glow, had been three feet away from me reading a newspaper and talking to her husband (Keith Whatshisname) in her purring Australian accent, my dad asked me if I had gotten her autograph. “Are you kidding?! No way! I can’t go up to her!” My dad scoffed at me but then I asked him if he’d have seen her, would he have gone up and asked for an autograph? He paused a second in thought and then laughed, “No, probably not.” Yeah. BECAUSE SHE’S TOO AWESOME, and like, WHO AM I?

So while Lance and I were talking about this for the millionth time (or maybe I should say, when I was talking about it for the millionth time and Lance was listening) (or maybe I should say, pretending to listen) (it’s not his fault; how many times can you feign interest in the same sentence that begins “Can you BELIEVE we saw…” or even “Would you at least CONSIDER a threesome with…?”), I asked him who he would be completely floored to see sitting in a coffee shop? And he answered, Morgan Freeman.

And I’m like, Uh, YEAH, because Morgan Freeman is like, God.

And for anyone who has seen (or even HEARD of) Bruce Almighty or Evan Almighty, you know I mean that he played God in a couple of movies, but that statement made my brain do a back flip, and I thought of a new question. The haunting one, y’all.

If you were to walk into your favorite coffee shop today and see Jesus sitting there, sipping a latte and reading the paper (or finger-scrolling on the screen of His Holy iPad, if you’re a poser and that’s your thing), what would you do? If you’re not a believer this probably won’t mean as much to you, but feel free to ponder nonetheless. If you are a believer, seriously, think for a second what you would do.

Response 1

You would run up to Him and bow your face to the floor. You would pull a Mary M and start weeping and wipe off His feet with your hair.

Response 2

You would walk up and give Him a hug or a high-five. You’d say, “Hey.”

Response 3

You’d say, “Jesus! Comrade! Can I get you a refill? Buy you a muffin?”

Response 4

You’d bring your kid up to Him and humbly ask for His blessing. Or if you didn’t like your kid you’d be like, “Suffer this one, if you CAN.”

Response 5

“OMG JESUUUS! I love your work in Matthew 5! Will you sign my NIV, which I carry with me at all times?”

Response 6

You would put your hand over your brow so He wouldn’t see you, nudge your version of Lance, be all, “Oh my GOD it’s… GOD,” and scurry out of His line of vision, before He caught you pretending not to stare.

Guess which one I am.

While I was sitting there, cocktail poised in the air, paralyzed with the weight of realization at how I would react to seeing the Savior in Ugly Mugs, I thought of something else. You know how you have 500 friends on Facebook, but only like 20 are ACTUALLY friends? When I first moved to Nashville, I had the unhappy experience of seeing an acquaintance from high school at the movies, and I literally stopped in my tracks, turned, and started walking the other way to avoid having to have an awkward conversation with her. She’s my friend on Facebook, y’all. Sometimes I even comment on her pictures. But she’s not a friend, obviously. A friend you greet with enthusiasm when you see her unexpectedly, right?

So then, is Jesus is my Facebook friend? An acquaintance I wouldn’t know what to say to if I saw Him in my coffee shop? One I’d avoid until He left, when I’d finally feel at ease again?

I don’t want that, y’all.

I’m not sure how I identify myself anymore in matters of Faith, as I will delve into later in the Chronicling of the Great Crisis of Faith 2010, but I knew, in that frozen moment, that’s not who I want Jesus to be in my life. So in finding my way toward the end of what has been a very long, arduous road throughout the past year, I guess I’ll start there. This one thing I’m sure of. I want more out of my relationship with Christ than a casual, awkward acquaintanceship.

I started my new job on Friday, and when I got home I was telling Lance about the people I met. And I know I tend to exaggerate when it comes to little details, but when Lance doubted me I was all, Babe, I SWEAR I’m not playing it up. And he was all, Really, the blonde girl said “like” before everything? Really. I so believe you. And I was all, Like, TOTALLY!

And I go, “For serious, everyone I meet is like a caricature of real life people. Especially when I’m telling you about that person later. I don’t know why that happens.”

And Lance said, “But isn’t everyone like that though? When you first meet them, they seem like a caricature, until you get to know them a little better?”

And I go, “What would my caricature be, then? Or yours?”

Lance: “Well, mine would be like your stereotypical nerdy guy, probably. With what I hope is a better fashion sense.”

Me: “Yeah, a better fashion sense after you met me, you mean. Cause when I first met you… you were just a stereotypical nerdy guy.”

Lance: “Whatever, cargo pants are cool. AND, functional.”

Me: “Yeah, uh-huh, and pants that zip off at the knee and become shorts are also cool and functional.”

Lance: “Hey, yeah! Whatever happened to those? I’m definitely buying some more.”

Noah had three Christmases. THREE. I’m still recovering. I’m sure it’s not actually January yet. I think the calendar is lying. I need more time to organize all these toys. In fact, we’ve decided to convert the dining room into a play room. Seriously. There are so many toys that we are giving up our eating space for a playing space, and I’m happy about it.

Family Christmases

My brother got Noah this monkey that is EXACTLY the same size as he is. They’re friends. They climb trees together. Also they fling their poo.

The queen mother of all the gifts: this ginormous bus. It doesn’t fit in our house, which is why it’s a good, sacrificial gift. Can anyone help me figure out where the heck to put this thing? Anyone? Can I store it at your house?

Whoa. Nice career move, Bubbs.

A really loud, ADD-inducing ball-spitter-outer. It plays Monty Python tunes! Complete with phallic mushroom on the side.

A very needy little toy that tells Noah “I LOVE you!” and “You’re WONderful!” and asks him “Will you HUG me?” Lance and I aren’t sure, but we think maybe this toy was abandoned as a child.

All us sibs. I love this picture.

(Thanks to everyone for all Noah’s gifts… he is in toy heaven over here.)

Christmas Morning

Piano!

This is the face I was hoping for.

The most annoying toy on God’s earth. This laptop encourages Noah to “Keep going! It’ll be fun!” And asks him to choose between “Math Exthplorer!” and “Thuper Thporth!” It also tells him to “Go to an island of FUN!” which I’m pretty sure he is NOT old enough for.

Christmas carnage. Our living room still looks like this.

I’ve learned one thing about photography, and that is you can’t get a good shot of your one-year-old. Period. And don’t even THINK about trying to get a close-up of those precious cheeks. It’s not possible. They are too active, and your camera will not be able to capture the moment you want unless you don’t mind blurry photos. This photo is called getting a really great close-up shot of his face for the first time in months in the brilliance of the freshly-fallen snow on Christmas morning. It was a beautiful thing, y’all.

So you see why it can’t be January already. I’m still putting toys away.