We went on so many planes! We went on planes and planes. And unlike everyone else in blizzard-riven America this week, we somehow got to go on planes that went where they were supposed to go at pretty much the time they were supposed to go there. For this I am extremely grateful.
The baby more or less acquiesced to all of this plane going, only dissolving into exhausted whimpers on the final leg of the trip home. Fortunately that was on a VERY LOUD variety of very small plane, and her defeated little sobs were barely audible over the vast
WHOOOOOOOOM
of the engines and propellers. About twenty minutes before we landed, she gave one last sad hurp and fell flat on her face into my armpit. There she partook of a sleep so profound that she regained all her good cheer and then some, far more than can be merited by any airport at ten at night, and giggled all the way through baggage claim.
Somewhere in a gap between all those plane flights we had Christmas. Merry Christmas!
My ancestral home, unlike Southern California, has a winter. In winter you get to put your baby in ridiculous all-in-one fleecy garments.
For going outdoors she also had a hastily knit hat, because the hood of the above garment turned out to be more ornamental than practical. I was very proud of myself for realizing this before we got to the land of ice and cold, and for managing to produce a hat with the aforementioned necessary haste, all while watching The Bourne Identity the night before we left town. Competence!
On Christmas Day my aunt impressed us all with her well preserved skill at shorthand, which she'd been taught back when it was a standard school course for adolescent girls. It's magic. It seems to me that there must be circumstances of some glamorous sort (haute espionage? delicate diplomacy?) for which discreet practitioners of the art are now highly sought after. Please tell me that this is true. I want very much for it to be true.
None of us did a Christmas tree this year, but there was an excellent trifle, which is all I really require of the season. Next year, when Jane is old enough to notice, I suppose we'll bestir ourselves a bit more in the directions of piney boughs and knit stockings. I did share my trifle with her, an event which inspired her to fling her limbs about in pure joy, like a tiny David Byrne.
We saw wonderful old friends, went out for drinks twice, froze our ears half off (I didn't have sufficient haste to knit hats for us, just for the baby), went out to a film, exchanged many presents, ate lots of fantastic food, and watched the Doctor Who Christmas special all perched together at the end of the guest room bed. It was great.
I didn't get a bath though. Not one! Dammit.
She's really uncommonly adorable.
Posted by: LizardBreath | 12/31/2010 at 11:23 AM
Ditto the above. Lordy, she is lovely. So so cute.
Happy Christmas and New Year - I hope you get a bath in your stocking in 2011.
Posted by: Lumpy badger | 01/01/2011 at 06:18 AM