It's December!

Happy December, readers. I trust everyone had an appropriately “abundant” Thanksgiving holiday and is gearing up for the next spate of celebrations. For the big day, we hosted a handful of friends here at the house, and despite the cool evening temps, we dined outdoors well after sundown. C roasted his best bird to date, I finally employed our new napkin rings and P had her first taste of cheesecake (or “cheese pie,” as she now calls it). I know what you’re thinking: “That was really her first taste of cheesecake? Ever? But you guys look like such a cheesecake family. How can that be?” I know, I know, but it’s the sad truth. The girl had to wait 2 years and 4 months to have cheesecake. All in all, it was a totally decadent meal that filled our refrigerator with a disturbing amount of leftovers. Success!

We also took P to see “Yo Gabba Gabba Live” the day after Thanksgiving. It’s her favorite show, and I felt she was finally old enough this year to really appreciate it. Well. No one told me there would be confetti canons. Needless to say, it took P about 20 minutes to recover from the sound and sight of confetti being blasted into the air over her head. After that, she got into it, especially when the characters came down into the audience and walked right by us. I would definitely take her to see it again if they come back to LA next year.

Yesterday we visited with a friend of ours who just gave birth to her second baby, a little girl born two weeks ago. I love it when they’re still covered in that fuzzy newborn down and they curl up in your arm like warm little bunnies. Holding a sweet new baby, you almost forget the nightmarish zombieland that your life becomes in those first weeks. Averaging three hours of sleep, you survive on adrenaline, dry shampoo and whatever food you can manage to eat with only one hand (burritos, anyone?). As terrible as I’ve made it sound, that time goes by so fast, it’s frightening. One day you’re rocking your 7lb infant to sleep and the next you are having full conversations with her, now two and a half years old, about what she wants for breakfast, who her friends are at school and what happened to the fat squirrel that used to live your yard. (The neighbor’s German Shepherd ate him. Not my most honest moment as a parent.) It’s a cliché, but it is so for good reason: the speed of their development is breathtaking, awe-inspiring, exhausting.

Now that a lot of her friends have new siblings, P will often ask, “Mommy, you getting a baby?”

I say, “No, we’re not right now. But would you like a brother someday? Or a sister?”

Her answer is always different. Sometimes it’s, “Sister!!!” Other times it’s, “Brudder!!!” She yells out her choice like I’ve just asked her if she’d prefer cupcakes or strawberry ice cream for dinner.

“Maybe, baby,” I tell her.