A Winter Wonderland

You find me here in Seattle where we are in winter panic mode. The weather forecasters are throwing out words like "Deep Freeze" and "Arctic Plunge". They are pronouncing with shock that it finally feels like winter, which only makes sense given that the first day of winter is now just days away. All of this for a couple of inches of snow and temperatures in the 20's.

Those of you in much colder regions with your several feet of snow and sub-zero temperatures can stop laughing now.

Part of being a Seattleite is freaking out about snow. We have precious few snow plows. We do not routinely purchase snow tires for our vehicles. Most of us (myself included) are clueless about how to drive in snow and ice. Oh and we have hills. Lots of them.

Despite such threatening winter conditions, I ventured out to meet C and Danny and my friend Jenny and her baby Rebecca at the mall yesterday. The nice, fancy, newly-remodeled mall! My main mission was to get Jillian's picture taken with Santa. It seems a bit strange to me that I was so eager to hand off my infant to a complete stranger and pay an unreasonable sum for pictures taken with that man. But I did and here is the proof:

She did not cry, but not surprisingly she did spit-up. She missed Santa but got her dress. Of course it is the one thing in her wardrobe that is not easily washed.

Speaking of spitting up, it is certainly one of her favorite activities. One evening Jeramy went to kiss her and she spit up in his mouth. (I wanted to take a picture to show you all but he wouldn't let me). Then this morning she must have spit up while on her activity mat, because when I went to pick her up I found a large puddle next to her. She missed her clothes, but now the back of her hair is encrusted in spit-up. And since she was ready for a nap, I didn't dare clean it off her right away for fear of bringing her out of her near-sleep state. The need for a good nap certainly the need for crusty, formula-free hair don't you think?

Oh and speaking of naps (because I feel like rambling today), I am experimenting in hopes of moving her from the swing to the crib soon. Right now the only place she she sleeps day or night is in the swing. And while this has afforded me excellent sleep, my husband fears that she'll be sleeping in that swing until she is 5 years old. I think the issue is that Jillian falls asleep and stays asleep best while in motion whether it be in the swing, the car or the stroller. You can only stop the motion for a couple minutes before she wakes up. In fact she has become so used to the swing that she often falls asleep the second I place her in it. At this moment I am only brave enough to try to crib out with naps. I can handle a angry, fussy sleep-deprived baby in the evenings but I live in fear of returning to those sleepless nights of the first couple weeks of her life. So far, her record was a 25 minute stretch of sleep she got in the crib on Monday. For the sake of my sanity, I hope we top that soon.

She'll probably wake up any second now, so I'd better tie things up with the latest pictures.
She has taken to cramming things in her mouth. Her hands certainly are a favorite for this activity, but if you hand her a rattle this is the result. And like most kids you can buy her all the expensive toys in the world, but her favorite rattle is the cheap one from her first aid kit.

Her Christmas dress. Do you know how hard it is to find a Christmas dress in very small baby sizes?

This outfit was an early Christmas present from Great Grandma Funk. Very snuggly!


Evidence that we do indeed have snow...although certainly not enough tat we fear losing Jillian in the snow drifts.