Another month has gone by, and another year. Wow, it’s Anya’s second year! I hope she remembers to start writing 2008 when she signs her checks. She:

+ Has tasted avocado, broccoli, cheerios, pickles, gingerbread, oatmeal, banana, biscuit, and green beans. I can’t really say if she actually ate any of these things, but she hast tasted them. Her favorite appears to be pickles.
+ Is sleeping through the night more often.
+ Went to her first party.
+ Talks like a Mogwai. We can no longer feed her after midnight. Among her new words are: hallelujah, poopoo, doodoo, dadadadadada, i love you, gagagagagaga, and diediedie.
+ Sighed at me with exasperation. I believe I was putting toys on her head.
+ Experienced her first Christmas.
+ Gets angry / frustrated when she can’t reach what she wants. (And according to DCP, she steals toys from the other baby and scoots away so the other baby can’t reach the toy, and then the other baby yells at her, and she just sits there and chews on the toy and cackles.)
+ Has a pincer grip that would make a baby lobster proud.
+ Has been doing lots of crunches to get her abs of steel shiny.
+ Continues to work on crawling.
+ Finally outgrew her 3-6 month clothes (Maybe she outgrew them a while ago and was just scrunching her feet into them. I don’t know.)
+ Met her half-brother.

Edited to add:
+ Got her first tooth! (I can’t believe I forgot to write that! It’s so sharp and pointy!)

As Supreme Ruler of Absolutely Nothing At All, I do hereby decree that henceforth all holiday cookies be given in dough format.

Why? Because apparently 98% of the world’s population prefers raw cookie dough to actual baked cookies.

This morning I delivered to my coworkers the 40 dozen or so frozen chocolate chip cookie dough balls I’ve spent the last two weeks making. The idea was that everyone gets overwhelmed with treats this time of year, so this way people could bake up some cookies later when things weren’t so crazy and they had a hankering for hot cookies. (Also, it saved me having to bake the cookies myself, which I admit was a really big factor in the dough decision.)

From what people have been saying to me, I think most of those dough balls will never make it anywhere near an oven. These people are cookie dough freaks. “YAY! You gave me cookie dough! I love cookie dough more than anything in the world! Cookie dough rocks!”

It truly and honestly never occurred to me that people would think I was giving them dough. So, if it’s the thought that counts, and the thought was “bake cookies later when holiday treats run out,” and everyone thought the thought was “oooooo dough,” then were the gifts failures because the thought I had wasn’t the thought they thought I had?

Bonus Question of the Day: Did you know that avocado stains (fabric, not babies)?

It’s getting hard to get Anya’s monthly photo taken. I want to be able to see out the window, so I can track the seasons as she grows, but it’s dark when we leave in the morning and dark when we get home at night. I’ve been waiting until the weekend to get a photo and post this, but why wait? I’ll just update the post this weekend with a photo!

What was Anya up to this last month? She has:

+ Learned that it’s funny the way Mommy goes “AIE!” when baby sticks her hands in her diaper area during changing time.
+ Also learned that it’s fun to undo the velcro fasteners on her diapers. (Possible coming attractions for next month: Anya learns to undo her diaper and then stick her hands in her poo!)
+ Perfected sitting. Mostly. Except for when she topples over. At random? On purpose? I do not know.
+ Graduated from baths to showers.
+ Charmed every living being on the planet with her Smooshy Face of Ultimate Cuteness.
+ Tasted soy milk, napkin, tissue paper, and ribbon and consumed yams and pancake.
+ Toyed with the idea of crawling. She’ll tolerate being on her tummy now, which makes practicing crawling easier. She needs to work on her upper body strength, though. I’m thinking of getting her the “Arms of Steel” video.
+ Fed herself her bottle.
+ Hung out in a highchair at Hardee’s (and munched on said napkin previously hitherto mentioned).
+ Rode her Daddy’s childhood rocking horse.
+ Opened her first Christmas present (and munched on said tissue paper and ribbon previously hitherto mentioned).

Edited to Add:

+ Explored a mall and learned all about clearance items.
+ Been tailed in an antique store as a possible shoplifter.
+ Had people fly in from across the country and across the planet just to see her. (Not really just to see her, but don’t tell her that since it will be bad for her ego.)

Question: How do you know your mommy really loves you?

Answer: You ask her to brush the flour off the gingerbread cookies you made for the office holiday party, and she does.

Question: How do you know your baby really loves you?

Answer: When she sees you, she makes a squooshy face.

Last night, Andy and I were discussing what we could give folks for Christmas. One person we know, who shall remain anonymous, is really uptight and could use a chill pill. As we sat in the living room pondering gift ideas, Andy noticed that one of the “Special Deals of the Day” at amazon was a fancy-schmancy vibrator.

I said, “We should totally get X a vibrator.”

Mom and Dad were surprised amazon sold them. (Didn’t I mention my parents were there, too?)

Andy said, “Yeah, there are tons of them. Let’s see.”

So, Andy did a search on vibrators and pulled up the previously mentioned tons. He started remarking on some of the more interesting ones. “This one is a bunny. This one is ribbed for your pleasure. Hey, there’s a jumbo deluxe kit! And, ooo! Look at this one — it’s the Super Duper Model. It’s black!”

Dad jumped up and said, “I want to look too!” He went and got his computer and started looking at amazon’s vibrator section. Soon, he and Andy were browsing the entire adult section, and they continued to announce to the room their findings. “Look, here’s undies with a vibrator built right in! And a remote! We could give the undies to X and the remote to her SO! HAHAHAHAHA! Look at this book about which knots work best for bondage!”

Andy got bored eventually, but Dad kept browsing the list of items. Every 15 minutes (Andy timed it), my dad would announce an item: “Butterfly Crotchless Thongs!”

It was a bit odd to keep having my dad talking about this sort of thing, so I employed my newly found parenting skill of redirection.

“Hey Dad, do a search on wood sushi!”

“Sushi? You don’t like sushi.”

But he couldn’t resist. He searched for wooden sushi and came across the really cool wooden play food I’d been oogling all week. Dad kept up the announcements, but at least now it was stuff like, “Wooden sandwich set! Wooden birthday cake!”

Here’s what Anya had to say about all this:

This was a big week for packages for Anya. She received gifts from her Grandma Diane, her Aunt Rebecca, her Great Grandma Swokla, and her Great Aunt Linda. When assembled, the packages made Super Package Tower O’ Fun ™. It’s the coolest present of the season. All the babies want it.