New tricks!

Owen is turning into a more interesting little person every day.

The other day, when he was scheming ways to get into the dishwasher, I was debating whether he's smarter than a monkey. I couldn't decide. There must be a point in life at which you become smarter than a monkey, but I don't know what the threshold is.

Here are a couple new entries in the Possibly-Smarter-Than-A-Monkey column:

Owen now initiates peek-a-boo himself and gets a big charge out of it. He plays both the version in which he holds a bib up over his eyes so that we "can't see him," and then dramatical

ly drops it with a look of great glee in his eyes, and the version in which he actually hides behind something and then creeps back into view. He's done it with the bannister on the stairs and the other morning when I was sitting at the table in the kitchen, he hung out behind the chair and then slowly crept into view and tapped me on the knee. Creep back behind chair. Repeat.

He really chortles at the big moment of surprise.

For a while, he's been into the drawers on the buffet (the ones that have linens in them, not the "AH AH AH!" ones). He likes to play Drawer Goes In, Drawer Goes Out and he really loves to pull dishcloths and towels and napkins out and fling them on the floor. Owen also enjoys poking around the cupboard with flour and sugar and noodles in it. Today he pulled out a package of pad thai noodles and put them in the drawer. That was the first time he'd actually put something IN something else. The he took the noodles out of the drawer and looked them over and put them back in the drawer again!

That's a milestone folks.

Always exciting new things in this household.

Another first: on Monday, Owen met this strangely-dressed fellow in the shopping centre.

Yep, soon to be first Christmas with Owen. He already has a mountain of presents and there have been a couple to open. Favourite gift so far, some shiny foil paper. Until he tore a bit off it and tried to swallow it, that is.

It should be an exciting week. I think that man from the mall might come for a visit.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Oh the season!

It’s been a silly one - I’ve absolutely no willpower these days and have been gorging myself on sweets and under feeding the baby nutrients, hoping that shooting cans of V8 will make up for the lackadaisical vegetable consumption. But that’s what Christmas is all about, right?

Been working a lot - worked Christmas Eve until noon, then planned to hurry home for a grilled cheese sandwich and some quality time spent making side dishes for the friendly gathering planned for the evening. A flaming transistor on Young Street put an end to that plan, and led to me ordering pizza from Chad’s and eating it in the chilly house. Fortunately, we had electricity again by mid-afternoon, so I was able to get brussels sprouts and sweet potatoes into the oven with plenty of time to spare.

We packed them up and hiked down to our friends’ condo, where the turkey was just starting to smell amazing. With cooperation from four couples, a delicious holiday dinner was soon on the table and we popped our crackers, wore our silly hats and laughed the night away.

John and I had our little private Christmas Eve when we got home, exchanging ornaments, and reading The Night Before Christmas to the baby. We were abed before it got too late, and slept all snuggled and lovely til Christmas morning came.

Didn’t sleep in as long as I would have liked - these days my body doesn’t always cooperate with being a lie-abed. We opened some very sleepy stockings and had a lazy morning anyway. Eggs with faces for breakfast, soft boiled with soldiers. I seem to have imposed all the Perkins family traditions on poor John. I do make sure he gets his eggnog pancakes on Boxing Day if I can, though!

Despite some planned scaling back on presents (we bought each other some big ticket items - a Zune for John and emerald earrings [to complete my set!] for me, and then we asked for mostly money towards a new camera from our parents) there was still an overwhelming amount of stuff under the tree! And then just as we’d gathered up all the wrapping paper and were trying to decide whether to eat lunch at home or go to Mum’s and eat there, my sister called from Mum’s and let us know she was on her way.

We packed up our presents for them (and the Wii) and were soon on our way, where the overwhelming haul continued, with some truly adorable gifts received all around both trees! Even little Petey found himself with a small haul, including socks and stuffed animals, and John’s old baby kilt. (Cutest thing ever.)

With the opening finished, we settled ourselves in for a good afternoon of silly party games, consumed another delicious turkey dinner, and watched Love, Actually - quality holiday film or what?

Boxing Day was more lazing around and Wii-ing (my mother is pretty hilarious and not at all bad at Wario) until poor John had to go into work. I puttered about making soup and cookies and chilling out.

Saturday was sort of a cleaning and shopping and crazy decompression day. John worked the late shift again, so it was sort of weird to be home alone two evenings in a row, but I made up for it by going to bed early.

Sunday we got to see Eden! And Michael! And Izzy! And a bunch of other friends who came by for a little party, with punch and all. It was too short a time with one of our favourite little families - we don’t see enough of them now they’re in Ottawa.

Monday I totally couldn’t get out of bed, so I snoozed for an extra hour and skipped lunch. I ended up taking two hours vacation in the afternoon so John and I could do some Boxing Week shopping. We picked up some bits and bobs at Mic Mac, then walked pretty much all of Dartmouth Crossing, completely failing to buy a new camera and not having dinner until quarter to eight. But the Festive Specials made up for it, and it wasn’t ridiculously late.

The most exciting part of the whole adventure was the giant bang and shudder of the bus in the middle of Dartmouth. We originally thought we’d been rear-ended, but good, but it actually seemed that one of the radiator pipes had burst. Everyone was piled off the bus and thought they’d be stuck at the stop for half an hour, but they ended up bringing us a replacement.

On the way back from the Crossing, we passed the 10 going back to Halifax just as we pulled into Mic Mac - hey Metro Transit, no fair!

And tonight is New Year’s Eve! The final date in the Season of Delight! (Save Epiphany, which I mostly just use as a day to take down my decorations and stow them for next year.) Note to self: Make Christmas Card list - for real this time.

I don’t know if I’ll make it to midnight or not! I’ll certainly try, but I have strange waves of sleepiness and it’s hard to predict my stamina from one day to the next. I know for sure that we have early-bird dinner reservations for a hopefully glorious feast at Brooklyn Warehouse. I know for sure that there’s also a bottle of dealcoholized pink champagne in my fridge due to guests who are much more refined than we.

So in short, I hope all who are reading had a wonderful Christmas and that 2009 is everything you dream of. Me, I’m just a couple of weeks away from the legendary third trimester, and sooner than we can really imagine, we’ll be three.

I, for one, can’t wait!