Xmas In Da House
2006-12-04, 16:26

Holiday d�cor is in full swing in the house. We slew our tree on Sunday and it now stands in the ICU corner of our living room on full tap water drip, having started with a few units of hot water plus a half-cup of sugar to get the sap flowing. I've nixed the Net-recommended pennies this year, as I've really not noticed a difference between using and not using. And using bleach just seems... wrong somehow. Maybe I'll try it, but just using hot water and a little sweet (at first) seems to make our tree last long enough without torturing the poor thing with chemicals. Too many chemicals and it might become a true undead and come after us in the night; really, we just don't need that in our lives right now.

I have to say (followed by vigorous knocking on wood - no pun intended) that this was the easiest tree get and set up ever. The Girl was appreciatively spared the trip, as she was staying over at a friend's overnight, so it was H and I and The Boy and Laurana. The Boy actually helped with the cutting down of the tree this time, thus taking one more step toward manhood. Because, as we all know, cutting down a tree is a manly rite. We got ourselves a beauty of a white pine (H's preferred holiday conifer) this time, not too tall and full, with nary a bare patch and a relatively straight trunk. It took me all of five minutes to get it in the stand, standing up and straightened. Record time, to be sure. Soon the lights will be on and the baby will be happy.

Laurana loves twinkly lights. So much that she feels a need to sneak off and try and plug them in on her own. Not good; we've double-checked the presence of plastic plug covers, and I'm considering putting in some of those full cap contraptions they make for the trouble spots. Since we have our tree in a new location this year and will be plugged into the wall switch, we don't have to mess with having a loose tree light plug, at least. The last thing we need this season is a cooked toddler.

Oh, how Laurana is blossoming into the Loki-esque child I accidentally wished for. Last night after putting her down for the night, I heard her tussling around in her room, so I peaked in to see what she was up to. She was sitting up in her bed and was, when I walked in, smiling brightly and rapidly running her fingernails back and forth across, the cloth mesh of her guard rail (installed after her falling out of bed incident†), making 'voopah voopah' noises. I walk up to the edge of the bed, look down at my busy girl and ask her, "Aren't you supposed to be sleeping? What're you doing?" She smiles up to me and says, "Doing... stuff!" and giggles. We are so very in trouble with this one. She has such a sense of humor and a huge independent spirit; I just hope we can keep them alive and active into her adulthood without the two of us going bonkers. Ah, the pleasures of parenthood.

We're still addicted to the Shirley Temple sing-along tape. I know most of the songs by heart now, which would be bad if the songs were bad or annoying. I don't mind having some catchy tunes from the 30's floating around in my head, though - for now, at least. There's a good night song at the end that I've started singing to her when I get a chance to rock her to sleep. She also keeps saying she wants to learn to tap dance. I think we'll try gymnastics first and go from there.

We went to J. C. Penny on Saturday to get some updated pictures taken of the kids together, and it was nearly a disaster. We managed to get Laurana up from her nap at a good enough hour that she wasn't groggy when we got there, and all three were dressed up. Laurana got to wear her 'pretty shoes' and her new dress. Not surprisingly, she was feeling quite fidgety, being a two year old and all, and it was something of a challenge to get her to stay in position for more than two seconds. Then The Boy and The Girl each took turns not looking at the camera when we were snapping. Consequently, literally none of the pics that were taken turned out to be tolerable enough to print. We got some runaround from the girls working there, but we managed to convince them that we needed to retake them that day. So we waited for a very long half an hour or so (why do they schedule shoots at ten minute intervals? impossible!) and managed to get in another sitting at the end of the studio's day. Luckily, the second time through worked much better, so we'll be getting some new pro photos on the 17th.

Afterward, as a bonus for being patient and not forcing us to kill them for lack of photogenic cooperation, we went to Chipotle for dinner. It was crazy busy as usual, but we managed to get a table. While there, a guy stands up and asks for everyone's attention, then proceeds to propose to his girlfriend (now fianc�e) right there and then. While it was a nice moment and we all cheered for them, we couldn't help but wonder if a Chipotle in a bust chopping area wasn't the best locale for a marriage proposal. H mused that perhaps they'd spent part of their first date there. But then, at least he didn't have to wait for his girl to come back from looking at naked people to get the proposal out (ask me again later, if you don't know the story).

† Laurana seems to be instinctively carrying on the tradition of oral history, as she frequently recants the list and causes of her various boo boos she's accrued over the last year or so, like the falling out of bed incident (fall... bed... head... boo boo) and the leg stuck between rails of her crib incident (leg... boo boo... stuck... mommy daddy... push push push!), and even when the guy at the renaissance faire fell off his horse (on purpose) during a jousting demonstration. I can picture her as an old woman sitting by a fire and telling her grandchildren the story of her injuries over the years. I swear, I don't think she forgets anything... she just chooses to ignore some things at her convenience.

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