I sit here typing while my husband and baby nap, watching the snow just come on down like it’s been doing all day. I haven’t seen it blizzard like this since the winter Michael and I got married. I’m not really one to love snow, and I’m getting a little bit worried it’s going to get in the way of our travel plans to fly out of Salt Lake on Sunday, but it’s just so sparkly and pretty that I can’t hate it. I feel so Christmasy and cozy inside, someone pour me a mug of cocoa!
Michael finished his second-to-last semester of school today, and that, my friends, is something to celebrate. Because man, I’m sick of not seeing that man! He’s been just been so homeworky this semester and it’s got me all whiney, like, “Hey man, why don’t you just MARRY Mechanical Engineering if you love it so much?” Because he does love it so much. He loves it so much that when he gets free time he rewards himself with little engineery projects. And I thought he was joking about trying to find a way to pack his homemade 3D printer into a suitcase for Texas, but y’all. He still keeps bringing it up and I’m basically pretty sure he’s seriously trying to figure out how he’s going to pack up this massive Frankenstein’s Monster of a printer into a suitcase so he can play with it on Christmas break. This endears him to me even more. He’s just the greatest.
And my little Ellie Jean. She’s just getting cuter and bigger every day. Last Christmas it was so hard for me to picture having her here with me during this holiday season, and now I can’t imagine life without her. Her little giggly self loves to talk and pat my cheeks and sleeps like a little champ and is slowly realizing what a wonderful world of solid foods is available to her. She loves sitting up and hates when we make her practice crawling, but the kid needs to learn it’s a hard-knock life. She hates it when you try to hold her like a baby, and the other day Michael was giving her some medicine and he was cradling her and she was screaming and he was like, “I know you hate being held like a baby, but guess what? You ARE a baby!”
It really does amaze me how brief each little stage last. The swaddling stage feels like it was forever ago. Long gone are the days that she needed all of appendages pinned down so she could rest without her hands hitting her in the face. We are lucky that the “up all night” stage ended with her before she was even four weeks old, and I’m finding that I can’t remember much about that time at all, other than I was so, so tired. It really does feel like a life-time ago, but at the time it felt forever long.
I’m torn between wanting her to stay in this adorable, giggly, rolly-polly stage forever, and wanting her to get to the next one, so I can see her cute little diapered booty bounce around while she crawls all over the place and hear her first words. Motherhood, man. It plays games with your heart.
Speaking of hearts, mine is so full. This is just the best time of year to reflect on all the good things you’ve got going for you. I am surrounded by good people. The kind of people that hear I’ve been down with a cold and bring me a bag of medicine and chicken noodle soup. The kind of people that see how busy my husband has been with school and take on his duty of shoveling the sidewalks before he has the chance to. The kind of people who understand that I have a hard time being away from my baby, though I’m only a few doors down from her at work, and bring me a report of how she’s doing and what cute little thing she’s up to every time they walk past the baby room at work. I’m just surrounded by good people. The best, actually. You all mean so much to me and my family, and we want to thank you for showing us what it means to be charitable!
I hope all of you have a wonderful Christmas full of food, friends, and family. Until 2017, loves!
Kelsey
