On Love

I have loved a lot of things, and I have loved a few people along the way as well.

I love my mother, because she's my mother, and we are the best of friends.

I love my father, because he's my dad and he's wacky and we're quite a lot alike, and I appreciate his curious mind and the fact that he's usually willing to drop everything to help me out with whatever stupid problem I've got, as long as it's not too mushy in nature.

I love my brother, because I've only got the one sibling and he's a pretty neat guy. He's become a man I'm proud to know.

I love my grandmother, because she's awesome, quite simply. I have a pretty great family all around.

I of course love my husband, because I picked him. He is really quite loveable. We are on this trip together and he's my right-hand man.

And I love Rosie and Sasha, the dog and the cat. There was a time not long ago when Rosie was the baby of the family, and we showered her with it and spoiled her rotten. I loved Loki a whole lot too, as noted in the pages of this blog and on the tattoo on my arm. Loki was sort of my first-born, the first being I was ever solely responsible for.

Not to diminish the love I feel for any of the above people, who are all very important and all in my top ten, but I never really knew what 'love' meant until Nora came along.

Every day I go to bed thinking "well, I loved her more today than I did yesterday." I didn't think it possible but every day there's more. Often I look at her and think "whoops, there I go again" and I'm in deeper and deeper. I never knew what it was to love someone so much that you want to envelope them, to put them in your mouth and carry them around or something. She's like a part of my body, only cuter and I love her more. The intensity of my feelings makes me incredibly vulnerable, as now everything's got way heavier consequences. The pressure to do the best I can by her is immense. Everyone and everything else is getting the shaft because of the love I feel for this 13-pound little girl.

Sometimes she gives me the gears - today for example, she wanted to eat every two hours. It's exhausting but it makes her grow so I do it cheerfully. Over the Christmas celebrations of the past few days she was cranky as all get out, and wailed all evening long for a couple of nights there, including my big Christmas eve dinner. But I don't hold it against her - instead I worry about her wellbeing, and the dinner party can go to hell. I find most babies look kind of repellent when they cry but not Nora, I even find her beautiful when she's bawling. Today she scratched me up in the face with her sharp little talons but I didn't care, I just cheerfully clipped them next time I got a chance. My fault.

She has tiny feet that I love. I put them in my mouth whenever I can. I kiss the back of her neck just because it's warm in there and I can feel her whispy newborn hair tickle my nose. When I change her diaper, I always give her a kiss on the belly, because when her umbilical cord fell off on day seven, the most perfect little bellybutton formed under there. When I carry her to the bathtub I like to stop and take a look at her little butt in the mirror - it is so tiny it fits in my hand. She's the only person alive whose bare ass I like to put in my hand. It is the cutest ever. When she cries, I like to kiss her tears away, because they are warm and salty and they make me sad when they're on her face.

So there it is. I am raw. Sorry for the sentimental post but I am feeling the warm fuzzies tonight.

Now I will go to bed, and tomorrow I will love her even more.

Santa's Sweatshop 2010

This year I told myself that I would take it easy for Christmas. After all, I have the perfect excuse to rest on my laurels; a four-month-old baby makes it hard to do any heavy-duty crafting or cooking.

However, I am not one to rest on my laurels, and the ambition-creep happened again. I started out with the fact that my husband's family are joining us this Christmas - four older German people - and so that means that Christmas Eve Fun-due is expanded to now accommodate 8. I think it's cheaty to eat store-boughten desserts at Christmas if you have the skills, so right now I've got a pot of blackberry/cassis sauce bubbling on the stove, to top off a plain cheesecake.

Then onto the gifts. I thought I might make my brother-in-law a pair of Christmassy socks, since I had the wool kicking around. Well I had most of the wool kicking around, because I had to have my grandmother send me an emergency stash towards the end of the second sock, which was a production on her end because she had to unwind the ball of yarn to fit it into the mailing envelope. Phew. Then I decided that if he gets a pair of socks, I ought to make my sister-in-law something as well, so I randomly picked a wacky felted hat, since she is kind of wacky (in the best possible way). I have, however, never felted before, so I made it all up as I went along. It ended up being way too big, so my mom had to come over and perform emergency surgery on it. It turned out beautifully and I think she will love it, but phew.

Thank god for the internet and my new laptop, because this year, the UPS man brought my Christmas gifts (he is a smart UPS man, who keeps dog cookies in his pockets). Christmas 2010 is brought to you by Land's End, LL Bean, Amazon, and Lee Valley Tools. I bought maybe five small things in actual bricks-and-mortar stores, mostly Loblaws. I did a little bit of local shopping but I feel that I did badly by the local economy this year. I promise to do better in 2011. Maybe next year I will vow to ONLY shop locally and make things for Christmas.

So now, my gifts are all made, bought, and wrapped, and I've made three kinds of cookies: maple shortbread cookies, sticky toffee bars, and hazlenut lace cookies. I still want to make lemon poppyseed cookies and that may happen tomorrow. Maybe. I have also made a batch of dog cookies, for Rosie to give to her brother. The broth and blackberry sauce are made for Christmas Eve, and I still want to pre-make the crust for the cheesecake, the dipping sauces, and pre-grate the cheese for the appetizer cheese fondue. I also want to whip up a batch of cashew/coconut brittle for my neighbor who can't eat dairy, which must be mucho depressing at Christmas. I made some piney country-style decorations for our entrance this week, and yesterday I went and bought a 10-foot tree which will be erected (hee hee) and decorated this weekend, about which I am very excited. Nora has never seen our giant Christmas tree, and we've set up the jolly jumper nearby so she can bounce away and fill her wee eyeballs with sparkly things.

Why all this psychotic Christmas spirit? Well, for a couple of reasons: number one, it is Nora's first Christmas, and while I am quite certain she will remember none of it, I will and I will tell her about it. Also, I haven't got a lot else going on to fill up my days, so I can focus on/obsess over it. I have also been listening to Christmas music pretty much 24/7 for the past two weeks which really does help. I continue to listen just because I want to hear Band-Aid's Do They Know it's Christmas, which is one of my all-time favorite songs period. I hear it about once every two days - a teaser - but I forget that I actually have it on CD somewhere and so I continue to wade through all the crappy Taylor Swift and the Christmas shoes. It all distracts me from the fact that my truck is very sick and needs many dollars' worth of repairs, I am getting very little sleep, I am still hooked up to the milking machine, and there's something still not-quite-right with my body somehow. But yay! Christmas music!

We have a family cocktail party this coming Sunday and I am on deck to make my famous (not actually mine, The Food Whore's) cheesy artichoke/jalapeno hot dip, and a crudite platter. Then it's on to Christmas Eve. Food food food! Fun-due Christmas eve, then the next morning we go to my mom and dad's for gifties and breakfast, then back there in the evening for turkey dinner. On the 27th we wake up nice and early and drive five hours to my Oma's place for Rietveld family Christmas, which is just the best. Several of my relatives have not yet met Nora so I am excited to make those introductions. I am planning all of her little Christmas outfits like a crazy person. She looks good in red so she's got lots to choose from.

Phew. Once this is over, we will have a few days to spend with the still-visiting Germans, then we settle in for the loooong rest of the winter. We've already bought our ski passes, and we intend to have a once-weekly date night on the slopes (thanks to my mom for babysitting)! I didn't get to ski at all last year so I am really excited, especially since we've already got almost a foot of snow on the ground. Nice fluffy stuff, and it keeps falling and falling. I have to focus on the skiing and not on the fact that Nora hates her snowsuit, so going for walks is no longer fun and hence Rosie spends her days mooning around the house waiting for daddy to come home. Either that or I have to endure the screaming and go for a wintery walk every day.

So Merry Christmas to you and yours, and I hope you are all being very moderate this year. I heard somewhere that people spend on average $600 a person on Christmas, and I wondered who the heck these people are? I think I've spent that much in total, likely less. I like to remind myself that expensive gifts lose their appeal as quickly as cheap gifts, and if I over-spend, the hangover will be tough to deal with. Stay moderate people! I keep pushing for home-made Christmas but that's a lot to ask of the other folks in my clan. Anyway, enjoy yourselves, eat too much, drink your fill (if you're not driving), and tuck in for the rest of this snowy season. My very best to you.

Nora and I have to go watch Elf now.