Holiday happenings: Part II.

Lest all of you faithful readers out there

actually, you - the person reading this - might be the only faithful reader, but just say for the sake of argument that there are others like you

who have been hanging on the edge of a cliff for the last 10 days and are starting to think that your hopes for a Part II will remain eternally unfulfilled, well, this post was written to provide that catharsis which is so hard to find these days.

Clara was lucky enough to be able to kick it with both sides of the family this Christmas, and she was kind enough to demonstrate her various skills over the course of the morning that they were able to visit.  She moves so quickly, though, that we were only capture a small number of these moments.  But just close your eyes and picture a spazzy little gal who likes squeaking and classifies everything as either "need to chew" or "need to chew again", and you'll have the right idea.

Calm before the storm of excitement.

Reprising her role as le pièce de résistance.

 

Looking earnest.  (I might also note that this was the first day in a loooong time that all of her hair could be found within half an inch of her head.)

Since Christmas, we've also been beginning the long journey of introducing Clara to the concept of solid food.  You know the one - it begins with rice cereal and ends 19 years later with mushrooms. Not being one to turn down an opportunity to stick something new in her mouth, she's exuberantly embarked on this quest.  See, for example, the following pictures of her taking to water like a fish to, um, well, yeah.

  

 

Katie and I often watch the Simpsons while eating dinner, but something about Clara's impersonation of Barney Gumbel tells me that we should perhaps wait until after she's gone to bed...

 

Our house apparently has a problem with static electricity in the wintertime.

 Keep it comin', Mom.

Excerpt from a conversation heard this afternoon.

Me: "Mike was telling me that he really likes the movie 'The Sting.'  Have you seen it?"

Katie: "You mean the one with Sylvester Stallone?"

Me:  "Um, I don't think so.  Robert Redford and Paul Newman were in it."

Katie: "Oh, right - that's what I meant."

...

Although, on second thought, I would probably pay a lot of money to see a remake of The Sting with Rambo playing a major role.

Holiday happenings: Part I.

While it is not a widely known fact, it turns out that, during the month of December, this author has a very difficult time focusing on any task for longer than 5 minutes, due to the tremendous and nearly incapacitating sense of anticipation regarding Santa's visit.  Not surprisingly, this has resulted in some extremely slackful behavior as of late, one consequence of which has been the unfortunate neglect of his duty of downloading pictures from our little friend, Mr. Powershot.  But in an effort make amends for these past misdeeds (or nondeeds), here is a brief voyage through our recent travels through living rooms on both sides of the border that we share with our friendly neighbors to the north.

As you can see, Clara had a number of new experiences in her first holiday season, including the following:

Being alternatively taunted and enticed by a series of large, fake, well-lit shrubberies,

discovering the joy of Christmas morning and the simultaneous wearing of all presents that one receives (this picture taken early in the day), as well as the subsequent discovery of the thrilling multiplicity of experiences that are collectively known as ribbon,

becoming acquainted with her inner Buddha nature,

 

enjoying the documentation of her official holiday role as the "Center Of Attention,"

 

 learning how to karaoke into a carrot stick, and

 

watching humongous flakes of snow accumulate on the front lawn and being secretly glad that she is wholly invulnerable from the threat of snow shoveling.

The snowflakes looked as though they would be delicious to the taste, as they say, but since we're still working on the distinctions of inside/outside and the ramifications thereof, she contented herself with licking the window instead.

Gimme a . . .

So, like, my parents keep trying to push books and, like, reading and, you know, stuff. But what I really wanna do, you know, is, like, wear skirts and, like, waive my arms in the air. SAN DIMAS HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL RULES!!!!!!

Sigh. My parents are, like, so lame.