I know all there is to know about the Crying Game...

Hey Wavy,

Above is one of the myriad books I bought several weeks after your brother was born, in my frenzy to try and calm him down. It definitely had the cutest cover of all the books that I bought. *You* would be the sleepy baby on the left, though.

When Jake was your age, dear lord, I loved him dearly, but he drove me to the brink of madness. Your daddy would leave for work, and I would secretly pack us both up in the truck and take six-hour round-trip drives all the way down to Mammoth and back, and try and get home before your daddy did. It seemed sometimes that the only thing that would calm him for any amount of time was a ride in the car. So ride (and ride and ride and ride) we did, listening to music, stopping for nursing breaks, driving thru for fries and diet coke, then turning around and coming home.

Sometimes we'd take a long loop through Smith Valley and Yerington, north to Reno, then all the way back. I actually loved these drives, and kind of miss them. They were way more fulfilling than sitting here at home, watching 12 hours of Food Network and eating my weight in Christmas chocolate.

I'm so glad, that if we were going to have a fussy baby, that we had a fussy baby *first*. I can't imagine having a calm, baby like you first, then being blind-sided by a colicky nightmare a couple years later. (Of course, nowadays we know that it wasn't colic, but something a little more complicated than that...)

So yeah... I know all there is to know about calming a fussy baby. Mainly, it's shoving a boob in your mouth, but there's a ton of other tricks that you and I haven't even had to employ yet.

Keep on keepin' on, baby girl.

Christmas. I'm not a big fan of the holiday, so the best I can really say is that it's over. Here's the main reason I'm disillusioned:



Look at all the toys! All the rampant consumerism gone wild! The mess!

But look at how cute the two of you are anyway, despite the evilness of the season:





Quick side note: see that snazzy red Old Navy coat that your brother is wearing in that photo? That's a present from the church... I don't know which church exactly, but this year we were recipients of church charity!

Several churches this year approached the Early Intervention folks and asked for names of kids in the program that they could heap Christmas gifts on. So I guess I can take comfort in the fact that there were probably a few other families in the program feeling un-worthy and slightly trashy because of the un-deserved charity, but I do still feel slightly sullied. Regardless, you got a tres cool jacket, a toy dumptruck and a couple pairs of pajamas. Sigh... Next year, dinner at the soup kitchen!

I love you both, my little white trash babies...