A year in review

My blogroll this morning was full of posts thinking about the past year, appropriate for the day. So here goes some of my year.

This was a big year for us. Buying house and having a baby are some of the biggest events in people's lives, and we did both!

I went from being a complete virgin as a doula to being one who has a birth under her belt, two if you count my own.

I went from being a complete recluse, with a social life entirely conducted online, to acknowledging my social needs and fulfilling them, forming new friendships with like-minded moms in my area. My social life is now conducted about 50% in person. :)

I went from being completely out of shape, unable to walk even a few blocks without exhaustion (although some of that was because of gestational changes), to regularly walking the mile or so to the nearest "downtown" area without thought, even with an increasingly heavy baby strapped to me.

My baby went from this:



a twenty-two week bump in my belly;

to this:



seven months old today and loving french fries and pickles. (I've invited Gran to write the story of the pickles, and I'll post it when she sends it to me.)

Things I want to do in 2009 include posting here every day (as I mentioned yesterday) and growing my doula business (and oh the social things I'll have to do for that... not fun for this introvert). I also want to stop thinking of myself as an overgrown teenager who's just faking this adult stuff (I'm 32 years old and a mother now! way past time to work through that), and to see if I can't get my teeth fixed. Lesser goal include going to the Sock Summit and working on growing my hair out.

2009, here I come!

Some videos

First off, some videos of the Infanta. You can see all the videos we've taken and edited of her here, but for those who don't have time to check them all out, here're a couple of my favorites.





Secondly, I realized the other day that (duh) I could find bellydancing videos on yootoob, so I did a search, and found some great stuff. First up is a video of "superstar" Rachel Brice doing her thing (with a couple of friends, ultimately):



And here's a dressing-room interview of her talking about an incredibly inspiring moment she had watching another dancer:



My New Year's resolution is to post here every day in 2009!

Christmas

Yup, we had it. My folks traveled up from the Bay Area by train; my dad stayed with my brother and SIL, and my mom stayed with us. Due to the snow and there only being one car (seating four adults and one baby) between two households and seven people, we didn't get together nearly as much as we'd intended, which was a bit sad, but we'll do better another time.

We did get a chance to get together both Christmas Eve (over at my brother's place) and Christmas Day (our house); the picture above is the Infanta giving the Nom of Approval to the tag of one of her presents. She loves the present itself, too, but you know babies and tags...

There has been Knitting! But I'm saving that for another post. :)

Fun stuff

I promise a baby news post in a bit, but first, something completely different.

My friend Bethany is a writer... and like many writers, she's in a writing group. Well, one of the other members is about to be published!! And she's holding a contest on her blog. Linky below!

I mentioned it's cold, right?

I mean, this is the Willamette Valley. It's supposed to rain a lot, get frosty now and then, maybe have a light dusting of snow in late winter. Right now, there's a pretty thick blanket of snow on the ground, enough that a little while ago Josh and I saw a couple going up the street on skis! This photo is of my front yard right now - that's snow up to the top of our bottom step. Incidentally, we had rain overnight, so that this was bare ground this morning. Right now? Freezing rain. What's going on, are we turning into Canada or something?

Baby, it's cold outside!

First of all, I apologize for having lied on Sinterklaas. I really did mean to come back and post that recipe and such... What can I say, it's reeeeeeelly easy to get sucked into not being able to do much besides chasing the Infanta (who's at the on-all-fours-and-rocking stage of learning to crawl - I would not be surprised at some real crawling by Christmas!). I promise, I'll post it sometime soon!

Now then, for the members of the audience who don't live near me, this was the view out my front door at noon today:



Notice the white stuff? We had a couple inches of it fall yesterday afternoon and evening. It had melted/settled a bit by the time I took that picture; now it's preparing to get verrry icy overnight. Go go down comforter!

Save Handmade!

A few of my readers may have heard about the law going into effect this February that will basically make it impossible for anyone but big manufacturers to sell items that come in contact with children. It seems reasonable in theory - protecting kids from lead - but it basically requires everything that goes into any item that's going to be used with or for children to be tested for lead. Every part of every item. This will absolutely kill the WAHM (work at home mom, for those not internet-acronym-savvy) industry, as well as many others, including all small craftspeople that make kid's toys.

This particularly hits home for me, since I was hoping to soon start a small sideline in things like soakers, just to have a little coming into the family budget from me.

At any rate, I've put a button in the sidebar that will take you to a site with more information, including details on the Act and contact information and sample letters to nag your politicos with. I strongly encourage you to do this!!!

Sinterklaas

First, a gratuitous baby shot, taken just moments ago:



Today is Sinterklaas. Now, I'm not Dutch, but my SIL is, and we thought this was such a good idea that we've adopted it ourselves. I have a few gifts for our immediate party - Josh and Lina and me, and my brother and his wife (we'll be celebrating at their place tonight) - and I can't show you pictures because that would spoil the surprise, now wouldn't it? Tomorrow, I promise. :)



I also have cookies - at least, cookies in progress. It's kinda hard to make cookies late in the evening with a tired baby and no daddy to take his shift... Nonetheless, I did manage to make half a batch of Dutch Letter Cookies (thanks to Norma for sharing the recipe!), with the rest to make this afternoon, and I have the dough chilled for Pepparkakor. Yay for ethnic European spice cookies! I would post the recipe, but I have a sleepy baby in my lap, and getting up to get it would disturb her. Again, tomorrow, I promise!

Reality Check.

My mom had a cancerous tumor removed yesterday. It was, as these things go, a minor deal - a melanoma "in situ", meaning it was just in that spot, nothing extending elsewhere, not even all the layers of skin - but is cancer ever a minor deal, really? And, to pound it home even more firmly, I just read a post about another blogger's mom's cancer, and now I'm getting pretty upset about it all. I mean, I can't even go be with her right now, because we're hundreds of miles apart. She's planning to come visit for Christmas, but I'd like to be with her now, sharing Lina's toothless laughter in person and helping with her recovery.

I think I'll start keeping enough room on a credit card for an emergency train trip.