Best Christmas Ever!

I have the bestest hubby in the whole country. No, the whole world. No, the whole universe.
Because my sweet, wonderful hubby got me one of these wonderful things for Christmas!



It's an iPod Touch, and I can't stop using it. I find it to be especially helpful when Gracie is so tired that she nearly falls asleep while eating her supper, but when put in her bed just cries and cries and cries until she finally falls asleep. Drowns out that crying real nice, and helps to keep Mommy sane!

Tomorrow, we'll see how much Gracie likes riding in Mommy's jogging stroller while Mommy ignores her because she's listening to her iPod!

Hope everybody had a wonderful Christmas!

One small step for Gracie…

Gracie walked! We have a walking girl! She left the safety of the coffee table and walked four steps over to get me, four times in a row!

Actually, "walked" isn't exactly the right word. It was more like running and then diving when she got near me. But she was doing it unassisted, and so I remain steadfast in my excitement over this new development.

Do I have a picture to post? Um, no. But I will, just as soon as I can get her to do it while someone else is in the room. What a wonderful, wonderful Christmas.

Merry Christmas everybody! Hope you have a wonderful day too.

I can do it MYSELF!

I've been up to my eyeballs these past couple of weeks. Up to my eyeballs in design work, Christmas shopping, Christmas wrapping and laundry. Oh, the never-ending laundry.

But I had to take a couple minutes to tell you about yesterday, which I am now calling "Gracie's Super-Duper I Can Do It MYSELF Day!!!"

Usually, Gracie is quite happy to let Mommy do everything for her. Insistent, in fact. But yesterday, she decided that lots of things that Mommy does were things she could do all by herself thank you very much, and she just took over.

When we had our morning bottle, she held it all by herself. When it was breakfast time she wanted to eat all by herself, so I just put all the stuff I was going to feed her on her little highchair tray and let her have at it.

Later, we were doing some walking around (still assisted by me, but we're down to holding onto just one of my hands!) and she decided she needed a soother. So she walked me over to the little box on the coffee table where I keep them, grabbed the box, turned it over so all the soothers fell out, grabbed one and stuck it right in her mouth à la Maggie Simpson, then kept on motoring…

Then, when it was bathtime, she grabbed the wash cloth I was using to wash her and rubbed it up and down her tummy and washed herself! And after the bath, when I was brushing her hair, she grabbed the brush and started brushing her very own hair. It was so adorable I thought I might cry.

So here she is, 10 months old and already wanting to do things herself. I can't decide if this is a very, very good thing, or a very, very bad thing…

P.S. I'm not going to tell you how much she's been sleeping at night lately, because:
a. Every time I write about how well she's sleeping I jinx it, and
b. When you guys find out, you'll all come to my house and kill me in a fit of jealousy.
Let's just say I'm getting lots of work done at night and I still get to sleep in a bit in the morning. But I'm pretty sure this wonderful sleeping schedule will go all to hell when we start our Christmas traveling on Friday, so I'm enjoying it while I can. Maybe I'll go to Blockbuster tonight and rent The Simpsons Movie and hubby and I will have one quiet night together before Christmas…

If I don't make it back here to cyberspace before then, MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY!!!!!!

No more gingerbread cookies for me

So, I was starting to feel pretty good about myself, body image-wise. (Which is totally new for me, but that's an entirely different post).

Anyway, I was feeling pretty good about myself, because after months of eating right and exercising, I'm now just 5 pounds away from reaching my pre-pregnancy weight. Which admittedly isn't saying much, since I needed to lose 10 pounds when I got pregnant, but losing 20 pounds is losing 20 pounds, whether you still have 15 more to go or not. I can fit back into a lot of my old clothes again, and I was actually starting to not hate the sight of myself in my mirror.

Life was good. I was happy.

And then my next door neighbour dropped by for coffee.
AND ASKED ME IF I WAS EXPECTING AGAIN!

Now to be fair, I was planning to exercise during Gracie's nap so I had just put on a fairly form-fitting yoga outfit which does a very good job of accentuating my huge spare tire. And she back-pedalled really quickly when my reply was "Nope. Just still fat." by saying that it was just that I was Looking So Good Lately that the round tummy looked out of place. Hurrumpf.

Guess I gotta lay off the Gingerbread Cookies.
Merry Christmas. Bah Humbug.