Day 2 and/or 9th Day of Christmas

We ended up having friends over on New Year's Eve which meant we had to actually stay up till midnight. And here I was thinking I'd finish off the champagne and crawl into bed at 10!

I made some treats (tomorrow: gloomy depressing this-is-never-going-to-happen post about getting down to my Pre-Jackson Weight which, to be honest, was not terribly impressive in the first place) and drank a little too much wine. And the baby slept through the night. I KNOW. He didn't, however, get the memo that his idiot parents didn't go to bed till one and would have liked to sleep in a little.

Don't think the sleeping is any better. It's not. Last night we let him cry for half an hour in the middle of the night. Torture! For us and for him. Eventually I went in and rocked him back to sleep, but seriously, we're not sure what to do. Half the time he's yelling WHILE WE'RE ROCKING HIM. I hold fast to my theory that he sleeps [much much MUCH] better when he's allowed some time and space to fuss it out and put himself to sleep in his crib. Before Christmas he was no longer crying when we laid him down AND he slept great. After Christmas he seems so tired that he doesn't have energy to fuss and then sleeps terribly. Tonight we're going to put him down freakishly early and see what happens. I mean, his bedtime is between seven and seven thirty. How much earlier can it be?!

So we stayed up and watched the fireworks. Except: good one, Seattle! A computer glitch kept the fireworks from going off. Nice! I had to hide my eyes so I wouldn't die of embarrassment watching the newscasters try to fill in the empty space (while all the revelers in the background hurled insults and shook their fists). The general consensus in my house was: someone's fired!

A few years ago we were actually THERE. I have no idea what possessed us. I'm generally not much of a New Year's girl. I'm exhausted by the time Christmas Day is over, quite frankly, and New Year's is more like an extra couple days for recovery. One year we had some friends over for a big hot pot dinner (do you know of the holy yumminess that is hot pot?) but mostly I'm at home with my friends the wine bottles. But anyway. We had some friends in town and they wanted to Do Something so we thought we'd Go Out. We met at the Westin hotel for drinks (oh, how I LOVE meeting at the Westin for drinks! So long pre-baby life!) and then wandered down 5th avenue till we ran up against a zillion people waiting for the countdown. It was super cold and super crowded, but it was fun to be out and celebrating and we got a pretty cool picture out of it.

Note: This year's fireworks looked like this, but without the fireworks.

Anyway! Happy New Year! A whole day late! Which also happens to be my parents' 30th wedding anniversary! Which means I AM NEARLY THIRTY! YAY PARENTS!

(See how I can make anything about myself?)

Now I've got to dress the boy and feed him and figure out how to keep us both happy on a very dark very wet day. I see a trip to the mall in our future. Does anyone have ideas for how to get out of the house without spending money? If it were a nice day we'd just go down to the lake, but we have to stay inside. I can't think of a place to go that's inside that doesn't cost money. Not that the mall has an entrance fee or anything, but how are you not supposed to buy anything when you go? DILEMMAS!

Here's to hoping Day 2 goes well for everyone!

Comments

[Jen]

Argh, I can't not spend money at the mall either.

Happy New Year!

[Tara]

Wow, I'm impressed that you guys stayed up till new years by your own accord! I was not planning to be up, but the baby had other plans.

As for out of the house free stuff.... ummm... the library? I just realized that ours lets you check out magazines (back issues), which is kind of fun. Oh, and the dvds. Boxed sets! We started watching Big Love last night. Now if I could only figure out how to return stuff on time.

[Tessie]

Yay! Maybe a health kick post in the works? NOBODY is writing about their health kicks, and it is making me SAD.

[Lisa]

Cost-free cold weather activities with a wee one are difficult to find. My only thought is some sort of children's activity at the library, but those are usually scheduled inconveniently (I would imagine) for the nap schedule and also geared toward older kids. Maybe if you have a tiny mall budget you can go window shopping and then reward yourself for not buying anything by treating yourself to a nice latte or something similarly geared that suits your tastes. I usually go for a food treat, like a honey pretzel or ice cream. Of course, that's throwing the new year's diet goals out the window, but who's watching?

[Christiana]

It is understandably hard to not spend money at the mall - don't know how the baby would do, but library? Or some art museums have free days where they don't charge the usual fee once a week or once a month.

[Elizabeth]

I have no ideas besides the mall or the library, but Mr. E suggested building a fort inside. He also said "is there an old vehicle in the yard?" so take his suggestions with a grain of salt.

[blog nerd]

re: baby sleeping

Baby Nerd goes to sleep at 5:30 and will sleep 12 to 14 hours.

I skipped the third nap. So it can be surprisingly and pleasingly early.

[Maureen]

Look! I updated my URL!

But I'm actually commenting to say that, for what it's worth, my Jack goes to bed by 6:30 most nights. So however early you need is fine.

Also, I was totally asleep by 10:00 on New Year's Eve, even though we were watching a movie I had not yet seen. A good movie, even! (_Ratatouille_) This boggles Andrew's mind. BOGGLES. He cannot fall asleep if he is watching something new; I don't even think he could fall asleep if he were watching something he had seen before. Me, I can fall asleep AT THE MOVIE THEATER.

We went to bed by 10:30 I think. That turned out to be a wise move, because a certain someone was awake from 2-4 am.