It's been awhile I know...the holidays are insanely busy by nature, which tends to wipe me out on a good year, much less a more challenging one.  Considering my grandfather passed a way the week before Christmas RIGHT after the Cookie's strabismus correction surgery, and this has definitely been one of the latter, harder ones.  Grief and celebration are strange bedfellows who never seem to fit comfortably under the same blanket - and so the holiday and the new year were an odd mix of parties and tears.  Gifts were exchanged along with a lot of memories and the result was somehow exhausting, comforting and bittersweet all at once.  That said, Cookie's walking now ( :P )  and life, as always, goes on.

On the subject of baking...

anyone out there have some favorite holiday foods to recommend?  I'll take virtually anything as long as it doesn't  involve shellfish! (Itch Itch Itch).

Called on account of rain...

Well the Cookie's surgery got delayed for a week...she woke yesterday morning with a fever and what turned out to be a bad case of tonsilitis.  She was pretty miserable for awhile but seems to be doing better with lots of juice, cuddles and Motrin.  They rescheduled her for next wednesday, assuming she's fully recovered by then.  I just hope the weather's better the next ride into town.

Speaking of the weather it's get really cold here in the TC...plus slippery outside, in the somewhat dangerous sense.  It's making being mobile interesting - K's wiggly enough already that I worry about keeping a solid grip on her in transit to and from our apartment parking lot without adding concerns about my own stable footing.  As it is, both D and I have fallen more than once when NOT carrying her, despite decent attempts by the maintenance people at icing.  I keep joking with D he needs to get an ice pick tip for his cane. That won;t work for me though.  Time to restart a few old reliable joint strengthening exercises again to see if I can de-gumby myself a bit.

Just resting up tonight...

Before the Cookie has her Strabismus Correction  surgery tomorrow morning. (On just her left eye). I'm a little nervous about it I admit, but not as much as I was before they sedated her for an MRI several months ago.  She made it through that just fine, so I don't have the newcomers paranoia she's going to react to to the anaestesia badly I might have otherwise been plagued with... Recovery will take a few days of course but the Opthomologist seems pretty optimistic about how it'll go.

Christmas is getting closer and closer.  It's fun to see the munchkin really NOTICE all the trappings of it this year.  She loves all the lights and Christmas carols her parents keep singing.  The biggest challenge I think will to be to keep her and the cats off the christmas tree.  Well that and not drink too much eggnog!

We are trying to be fiscally responsible this season, which means I'm trying to be creative but not cheesy with Christmas presents. I'm making a bunch of ornaments in the evening when K (Cookie) is asleep to give to D's more extended paternal family.  I hope they like the result...it's a new kind of challenge for me.

Just For Fun....

If anyone out there is actually reading this, drop a hello or something okay?  And feel free to make comments or ask questions.  Without the curiousity of my readers I'm more or less babbling for lack of better to say... :)

Hey Ya'll!

Well Thanksgiving is come and gone, with all the habitual craziness attached.  I had a great time even if I was a bit exhausted and prone to falling asleep over the dinner table.  My family split up the cooking duties for the meal, which made things much less stressful for all involved.  The Cookie seems to be over 90 percent of her prior stranger anxiety...she had a great time playing with her Aunts/Uncles/Grandparents/Cousins, and totally gobbled up the offered apple pie, green beans and turkey. :) She doesn't seem to like potatoes in any form though, which is weird because her Daddy and I would eat them 3 meals a day, 365 days a year if we weren't trying so hard to be healthy. -shrugs-

I really need to start figuring out what to get her for Christmas, but I think right now I'll hold off until after her eye correction surgery this upcoming week. Between that and her new glasses prescription the whole world seems to be opening up for her.

Did I mention I'll be ten weeks pregnant as of tomorrow yet? We're still waiting to hear the gender.  D's crossing his fingers for a boy, as for me I don't care either way as long as the peanut is healthy, and he/she and I make it to delivery in one reasonably sane piece.  :-P

Well I didn't see that one coming....

Here again.  And we're all doing just fine.  Better than fine inf act, as we recently put in an offer on a beautiful house. (Crosses fingers while we wait for an answer from the bank.)  The Cookie is doing well after a brief fight with pneumonia (MN is not kind in the fall, as is evidenced by the fact that Daddy and Mom ALSO got colds and then in mom's case, a sinus infection right along with her!)  Ten days on antibiotics and she's back to her old self...eating anything we'll let her and cruising along the couch in her orthotics...she's also standing independantly  more often these days, to the degree that I'm betting she'll be taking her first steps by Christmas...

On a totally separate subject, D and I got a HUGE surprise of an entirely different kind recently...  despite our being led to believe such things were physically all but impossible without  help (IE - Clomid was how the Cookie arrived, after 4 plus years of trying) it appears we're about to become a family of four come next June.

I'm pretty gobsmacked by the news at the moment, and still processing, though for the record unexpected, even with all the potential complications we now know to worry about, does not equal unwelcome. :)