Merry Christmas, everyone! And Merry Baby's First Christmas too!

Veronica marked the occasion by waking up at 4:40 a.m. this morning. I got her back to bed in less than an hour, but I still want to know how she knew to wake up so early on Christmas morning. Is it just born into kids, or what?

Veronica, so far, prefers a few gifts over others:

- the Leap Frog Learning Drum;
- the musical, light-up Winnie-the-Pooh from my mom and dad;
- the toy cement mixer truck;
- the spinning, stacking toy from Coby and Chad; and
- the little Care Bear from Coby and Chad.

Of course, her favorite things of all are the tags, the wrapping paper, and the packaging - all great things to chew on, apparently. :-P

Jason and I have had a good Christmas too - family, friends, co-workers and employers all have been very generous. Jason ended up getting me a gorgeous pair of white gold hoops, a Bon Jovi CD I'd been asking for, Godiva chocolates, and - an impulse buy that I just love - a Moe's Tavern clock for the kitchen, even though he can't understand why I like "The Simpsons" so much. Plus, money we've received has been used to purchase a CD player for my car - finally!

This is in addition to a wall hanging from Coby and Chad, "Interview With the Vampire" on DVD from Coby, and numerous things from my parents (favorite: the $300 gift certificate to Lane Bryant) and Aunt Emily (the video camera stands out there - we have Veronica's first Christmas on tape!)

As soon as Veronica wakes from her midday nap, we're heading out to Jason's family's in Marietta. Jason is cleaning up wrapping paper and packaging. Pita is wandering around, viewing everything (including her new toy from my parents and the new kitty bed Jason and I purchased for her.)

I'd better be going. Just wanted to note Veronica's first Christmas, and to all my readers - Merry Christmas to you too. :-)

Strange things our daughter likes:

Strangest thing to make her smile: The vacuum cleaner while it's running.

Strangest thing to make her laugh: Listening to "Fingertips" by Poe when Daddy's driving her to the babysitter's in the morning.

Favorite Christmas carols: Anything by the Squirrel Nut Zippers (yes, they have Christmas carols, as evidenced by their appearance on a holiday CD burned by my friend Sara a few years ago.)

Strangest addiction: Tags. Still tags. We've cut them off all her toys and yet she just keeps finding them, on new items or, in tonight's case, in the pile of laundry on the bed. She either finds the tag on something, or examines it closely enough to determine a tag is nowhere to be found.

We know why she can be so odd. Duh, she's our kid. But that doesn't mean she doesn't leave us scratching our heads sometimes and wondering, what the hell?

So the holidays are now upon us. Coby and Chad will be stopping by tonight and spending the night, on their way from Wisconsin to West Virginia for Christmas. My parents will be visiting this weekend. Jason might be working some on Christmas Eve, and Debbie, our daytime babysitter, may be doing the same - meaning that we might have at least some of the day just to ourselves. Christmas Day plans are still up in the air, as Debbie, Bobby, and/or Darren may be stopping by and Jason would like to take a day-trip to see his family in Marietta. Whatever happens, we WILL be back in Marietta on the Saturday after Christmas for dinner at Anne's house.

Which leads us to this being Veronica's first Christmas.

So far, she's not very impressed with the tree. She tried grabbing it once, which resulted in the breaking of an ornament. It was the most disasterous 15 seconds she's experienced so far. But past that, she doesn't really seem to care about it.

She's already opened one present, from one of my co-workers: A Barney book of Christmas carols, with little buttons on one side so music plays as you read along the words. She loves it. She'd have to, to put up with her parents' off-key warbling of holiday favorites.

She didn't seem to get the hang of unwrapping it, though. Oh, she pulled and ripped some paper once, but for the most part she just kind of picked at it. She seemed more interested in looking at me, holding the camera, and smiling. What a little ham. Gee, wonder where she gets that from. ;-)

Under the tree, waiting to be unwrapped, are board books for her. A crib mirror. A LeapFrog Learning Hoops set - a little basketball setup that announces letters and numbers. A LeapFrog Learning Drum, that does the same every time she whacks it. A toy truck (a cement mixer being driven by a little blonde girl). A new bath toy, which is a little octopus that tells if the bathwater is too hot. A new teething ring shaped like a puppy. I may even be forgetting something.

Her little stocking, courtesy of my dad (a pink number that says "Baby's First" on it) is stuffed, with bubble bath and pretty headbands and a crinkly teething book (Zane had one at the hospital and Veronica just loved it.) And I think I may be forgetting something there too.

The top shelf of the fridge holds Gerber Vanilla Custard Pudding for babies. It was my idea; we don't feed her refined sugars, keeping only with things sweetened with fruit and, in one case, cinnamon. The vanilla custard, though, is excellent - Jason and I have both tried it - and we want to give her a treat for Christmas, just like we're eating.

We're taking lots of pictures. We've got cute little holiday outfits for her. We have all these things listed above. And yet, this will pretty much be just another day for her in one week. I think this year, and possibly next, will just be a chance for Jason and I to relive Christmas joy, and we will enjoy it until the days begin when Veronica will want everything advertised on TV under the tree. :-P

Veronica's language is progressing, and regressing. There's good news and bad news.

The good news: She has mastered the term "kitty", as well as "kitty-kitty". She almost has down "kittycat" too, pronouncing it "kitty-at". She says any one of these three terms when she sees Pita.

Now for the bad news: She thinks "kitty" or any derivative thereof stands for anything that makes her happy. And I do mean anything. If Jason or I make her laugh, we're "kitty." Her favorite food is "kitty." Her favorite toys are "kitty." We can't get her to say mama, dada, or anything else.

We got her to say "duck" last week in relation to a toy on her activity center, over and over again, while playing with the duck. But for the next day or so, EVERY toy on the center was "duck" and she seems to have forgotten about the bears being called "beah." And now, whatever toy she's playing with is referred to as "kitty-kitty" if she's having fun. No duck, no beah, nothing like it. It's like those words flew from her vocabulary - not like she had much of a vocabulary to begin with, but even less of one now.

And it's not like we're discouraging her from saying other words. Hardly. At the very least we're still working on mama, dada, bear, and duck - not to mention other words as well. It doesn't matter. We either get babble or, if she's in a good mood, the inevitable "kitty." It's cute, and it's wonderful seeing her little mind making a connection with a term, but I'm getting a little worried here.

Moving on...

We had our family portraits taken at a place called The Picture People at Polaris Fashion Place. Now, our Sears Portrait Studio experience back in the summer was less-than-stellar. Part of that was Veronica's lack of smiling, due mostly to her being new at it and the fact that she was hungry. But the other part was the bitchy woman we dealt with, who photographed her as well. Yeah, I wouldn't have smiled for her either. But it left me not wanting to get her portrait done again.

The Picture People, though, was GREAT. I loved it. We got some wonderful shots, and Veronica's smiling in every one. Plus a basic package was ready that afternoon (it's supposed to be ready in one hour, but ours took closer to two - a minor gripe, really, considering how busy they were and how Sears took over a week to have ours back.) It's a little more expensive, but we had a coupon, and it's really not that much different in price. Plus I liked our photographer so well that I'm going to ask for her again. (Reminder to self: Suzanne. I tend to forget stuff like that.)

And other news...(Hey, I haven't updated in a while. Bear with me.)

We tried to have Veronica and Zane get portraits together, the weekend after Thanksgiving. Aunt Emily was going to schedule the kids in at the Marietta Wal-Mart, but couldn't get a booking. We opted to have Anne do them instead, which was fine by me because she takes quality photos anyway. She should have her own studio or something.

Anne and Emily set up a holiday backdrop at Grandpa Warren's house. Emily purchased little Christmas outfits for both of the kids - a Santa suit for Zane, and a little Santa-style dress for Veronica. Zane was up to 15 lbs. by this point (probably more by now!), had the tube removed from his nose, and was just a healthy, chubby-cheeked little boy who's about strong as an ox. The kid is Bam-Bam.

Anyhow, we convened. Got the kids all dressed up. They didn't seem to mind, not even the little Santa hats on their heads. They looked too cute for words. Then we sat them next to each other.

*sigh*

Veronica looked at Zane. She smiled a bit. She's used to being around other babies at the babysitter's house.

Zane, in the meantime, wasn't used to being in such proximity to another kid, their Halloween photos notwithstanding. He started crying and lunged for her eyeballs.

This happened numerous times before Ben took Zane into the other room for a bottle. Anne, in the meantime, decided to snap some solo shots of Veronica. We got her to stand up on the chair - the first time she'd stood on her own, November 28! - and got some beautiful pictures of her smiling. Then Ben returned Zane, and I had the bright idea to leave her standing and sit him in front of her. This way, he couldn't reach her eyes and might not be so freaked out by her.

Anne readied the camera. Jason steadied Veronica. Ben placed Zane seated at her feet. The daddies moved out of the frame, and just as Anne snapped the first picture, Zane's hand reached up to Veronica. She looked down at him. He grabbed the front of her little dress. And then, he yanked on it and pulled her right down on top of him, nearly flipping her off the chair. The second picture Anne took in this scenario has an undescernable lump of red velvet and baby, with Aunt Emily's arm in the frame to keep them both from flipping onto the floor. I hate to say it, but since no one was hurt, it was hysterical. :-)

We ended up with some cute pictures of both kids, but unfortunately not together. Ah well. Maybe a shot of them when they're turning one would work. Let's keep our fingers crossed. :-)

And in still other news....

We put up our Christmas tree today. It's Baby's First Christmas Tree, with a Baby's First Christmas ornament courtesy of Aunt Emily. Baby could care less. While we were stringing up lights, Baby was sitting on the floor with her Boppy, squealing in delight when the cat started grooming herself. I've been getting crap from people for about a week now about not having up our tree yet, how the baby will love the lights, but so far Veronica could care less. Oh well, it looks lovely and I'm certainly enjoying it. And Veronica's in grabbing mode now, anything she can get her hands on; perhaps it's good she's not into the tree. :-)

I hope I don't take as long to post again. This post is insane. But it's the holidays, and even with a VERY limited budget and gift list this year, plus a good bit of it done online, I'm still slammed. Here's hoping the next post will still be in 2003. :-)