I love January. The rush of the holiday and birthday season is over and we've been spending our days puttering around indoors, enjoying all the little corners of our house. Like much of the country, we have just emerged from some uncomfortably frigid weather which, due our poor, drafty windows, prompted much snuggling for warmth in the chilly evenings and not a few mugs of hot chocolate.
And since I tempted fate in my previous post by bragging about my lack of illness in 2009, I promptly got knocked over by some kind of cold/flu/virus last week, taking Juniper down with me. I spent several days glued to the couch, feeling miserable and whining pathetically and taking my temperature just so I could bemoan the extent of my feverishness. Juni also spiked a bit of a fever and spent a couple of nights revisiting her dinner (and lunch and breakfast). After each upchucky episode, I would rush to her side in a panic. She would be sitting up, rosy-cheeked and horrified at being jerked out of her sleep by such a startling occurrence. However, not two seconds later, she was smiling and giggling, delighted that Mama and Daddy have shown up for a middle-of-the-night snuggles. Needless to say, Juni tolerated being sick much better than I did.
Juniper is experimenting with standing all on her own, so her first zombie-legged steps might be just around the corner. She walks very well with her alligator push toy, chomp-chomping up and down the house with glee, sending the dog skittering for cover.
She loves to dance; whenever she hears music, she shimmies and bounces and sways with a little grin on her face. She has also started to "sing", which consists of a flat, scratchy, high-pitched wail, not unlike that of a Chinese opera singer in its baffling lack of recognizable Western musicality.
She still eats just about anything; however now eating has become a game that must played on her terms. She will eat those peas but only on her tray and not off of a spoon. She will eat the kiwi but only if I place each piece in her mouth with my fingers. She will drink the soup directly from the bowl but not from the soup spoon. She will eat the waffle only if she is allowed to stuff half of it in her mouth at once. She will eat that spaghetti but absolutely not while sitting in her high chair. She will wait until I am eating MY spaghetti and then whine and tug on my pant leg until she is fed the aforementioned and previously spurned spaghetti, all the while standing on my feet, wiping marinara on my knees.
There is never a dull moment.
And we are grateful for all of those moments, which we enjoy in safety and comfort and affluence, given the tragedies, great and small, that are occurring right now - natural disaster thrust upon extreme poverty. Visit Charity Navigator to research a list of charities that are on the ground in Haiti right now. Also, all proceeds from the Craft Hope Etsy shop will benefit Doctors Without Borders in Haiti. All of the items have been donated from the very generous crafting community. Visit the Craft Hope website for more details.
