Our Winter Holidays

 

  

 

 

 

 

Another New Year's Day has come and gone, bringing to a close Acacia's very first month-long celebration of winter holidays and festivals.

On December 6, Acacia experienced her first St. Nicholas Day, when we dig the Christmas boxes out of the closet and get out all the Santa decorations. She helped by sleeping through enough of the day for me to unearth all the boxes and sort through them for the first time since the move to our new house.

December 11 brought with it the Colony Christmas Festival in the cute farm town of Palmer, about twenty minutes from home. The craft fairs, food stands, hot drinks, ice sculptures, parade of lights, fireworks, decorations, and happy crowds made us really start to feel festive, and Acacia got many compliments on her cute little cap and booties (which were all you could see of her sticking out the ends of her sling!).

Next up was Santa Lucia Day on December 13, and all the angel decorations came out. I call Acacia my "little angel-baby," so this particular holiday held extra meaning for me this year. I must remember to find an angel ornament or decoration for her next year!

The Winter Solstice was December 21 -- the longest night of the year. This year's Solstice was unique as it started the night before with a total eclipse of the Moon! Dave, Acacia, and I stayed up and watched from the warmth of our livingroom bay windows as the Moon was slowly shadowed by the Earth -- turning a deep, mysterious red and casting the snowy world outside into darkness -- then emerged again, unscathed. What a beautiful event! We had a little under two hours of sunlight at our house, with sunrise at 12:15pm and sunset at 2:00pm. (The "day" here was actually a couple hours longer, but the sun is blocked behind a low hill at the southern edge of our property.) Solstice is also the day we unpack and put up the Christmas lights and candles (to encourage the Sun to return!) and hunt down our Yule Tree! Acacia slept through the hunt, but she enjoyed watching the tree being decorated -- especially all the lovely, twinkling lights.

On December 24, Christmas Eve, we hung our stockings (sadly, not over a fireplace for the first time in many years -- the one thing this house is lacking!), and I made hot crab sandwiches for dinner. Late that night as I tried to lull Acacia to sleep, I held her in my arms in the darkened house and we gazed at the warm glow of lights on the Yule Tree. I recited "Twas the Night Before Christmas" to her, remembering all the wonderful and magical Christmases of my own childhood and imagining all the joy and wonder to come during future Christmas seasons with my little daughter...

December 25 -- Christmas Day! Dave made a delicious breakfast of sausage, eggs, toast, and tea, and afterward we sat at the table and opened our stockings like the excited little kids we are at heart. Acacia fell asleep just as we moved on to opening presents, but of course we were happy to help her out with opening her gifts. The rest of the afternoon was spent reading and relaxing before it was time for me to prepare dinner: smoked ham with papaya-pineapple-clove glaze and caramelized pineapple rings, steamed peas with butter, and garlic-parsley mashed Yukon potatoes. Yummy! Dessert was a bottle of Late Harvest Ice Wine, which we'd been saving for a year -- we bought it just before finding out I was pregnant with Acacia! We spent the evening snuggled on the couch together watching holiday movies.

December 26 is Boxing Day. Growing up, my family would usually go over to our dearest friends' house (also our nearest neighbors at half a mile away in rural North Idaho!), eat leftover food and pie, and go sledding by moonlight. Fun times! This year, however, no longer living near family or old friends, we spent the day in pajamas, reading new books and eating leftover ham. I think I could get used to an annual pajama-wearing, ham-eating day..!

For New Year's Eve, December 31, Dave, Acacia, and I stayed up till midnight watching a marathon of old TV shows interspersed with a fantastic view out our livingroom windows of all our neighbors' fireworks displays! They seemed to celebrate the New Year in every time zone, so we had an ongoing show for hours. At one point they sent up beautiful fire lanterns, which floated slowly up out of the trees and away into the night sky. Dave and I toasted the New Year with a glass of mead, a kiss, a look back at the gifts of 2010 -- our daughter and new home chief among them -- and a hope for a happy and healthy 2011.

The end of our month-long celebration of winter is Epiphany, on January 6. This is the day that our family traditionally takes down and packs away the decorations for next winter. I managed to pack up most things, but it's slow going with a baby in tow and I didn't quite make it to the Tree, so this year we enjoyed a couple extra days of those beautiful glowing lights and ornamented branches before the festive season was finally over and our home was restored to its everyday appearance. Acacia watched intently as I wound the string of lights up into a ball and packed them away. I wonder, will she remember them next year?

Baby Laughter

 

There is nothing in the world so precious as the laughter of my 7-week-old baby. Luckily for me, Acacia is quickly becoming a happy and playful little girl, and I get to hear those adorable laughs every day. She first started laughing in her sleep only days after being born, and recently she's begun to laugh at funny faces, booped noses, kissed cheeks, and some events that are mysterious to me yet apparently hilarious in the baby world.

Booping Acacia's nose became even more exciting for her when I started intermittently booping my own nose, and then leading her tiny fist to boop first Mommy's nose, then (most exciting of all!) her own. The first time I did this her eyes opened wide with amazement for a moment, then she started laughing and waving her fist for more. So cute!

Cheek kissing has also become a game. I'll lean over her, make a big "O" face (raised eyebrows, wide eyes, open mouth), and then lean in for a big smack on one of her cheeks. She's begun to anticipate the kiss when I make the "O" face now, so I'll pause at that point and she'll get all excited -- grinning, sucking in her breath, turning her head a little to one side so her cheek is toward me, and looking at me out of the corners of her smile-squinted eyes. It's the most adorable face! When I lean in and kiss her cheek, she grins even bigger and tosses her head and squeals with laughter. Sometimes as I lean in, she'll turn her head at the last minute so I kiss her lips instead of her cheek -- tricky girl! I could play this game with Acacia all day.

I feel so lucky to have such a special little girl in my life. It's wonderful getting to know her as more of her growing personality emerges. I'm looking forward to spending the rest of my life getting to know her better... but I can wait for that. Right now, I'm happy to listen to her baby laughter.

A Day in the Life of a Newborn

Acacia continues to enchant us with her amazing cuteness, as we try to settle into at least a semblance of routine. Dave is back at work, leaving the house in the pitch black that is 5:30am and returning in the pitch black that is 5:30pm -- welcome to Alaska in November! Acacia and I, having been up half the night nursing, try to sleep in a while longer (or at least, we lay in bed nursing and pretending we're not awake yet). Tired as I am, seeing Acacia grin and giggle around a mouthful of breast with milk dripping down her chin makes it all worthwhile!

We spend the day mostly in the nursing chair, since my sweet little milk monster is hungry every hour or two. Between meals she sleeps -- unless I try to put her in her cradle, in which case she wakes and is hungry again. For about a total of two hours each day, Acacia is awake and not busy eating (or having her diaper changed). She spends this time just looking around, sometimes from her cradle and sometimes from my arms as we walk around the house or try to get a couple chores done (laundry is a daily occurrence now, as everything near us ends up wet and smelling like milk). She can be fascinated by the smallest thing -- a shadow on the wall, a lamp above her, an interesting pattern, a window -- and stare intently for minutes on end before blinking and shaking her head as if to wake herself. I wonder what she's thinking about...

Invariably, as soon as Dave gets home from work and I set dinner on the table, Acacia wakes from a nap and wants to be held or nursed. I'm getting quite good at eating with one hand. She usually spends the early evening awake and looking around, then drifts off in my arms with an after-dinner snack and spends the rest of the evening napping while Dave and I watch a movie or read or spend time on our computers. She wakes up just in time to nurse back to sleep for bed... for a couple hours. And the cycle begins again.

Life with a newborn can be frustrating at times and is definitely tiring, but it is also beautiful, wonderful, and miraculous. I wouldn't trade it for anything!

Acacia's Three-Week Birthday!

Three weeks ago today, on October 22nd at 3:50 in the morning, Acacia was born into the world. It seems like no time at all - she's still so tiny and helpless and brand new - and yet I can barely imagine what life must have been like without her. Acacia has managed, in three short weeks, to make herself an irreplaceable, indispensable, immensely important part of our lives. And she's been a busy little girl during those first three weeks! Besides the whole ordeal of being born, Acacia has:

~ entertained visitors in the hospital and at home

~ had her first sponge bath, sink bath, and big tub bath (with Mommy!)

~ been pestered constantly by the paparazzi (mostly Mommy and Grammy)

~ learned to nurse beautifully, even in her sleep

~ outgrown all her "Newborn"-sized clothes

~ been to her first doctor appointment

~ been on her first long car ride (taking Grammy to the airport in Anchorage)

~ been on her first grocery shopping trip

~ learned to follow Mommy's finger with her eyes

~ used a computer for the first time (with a little help from Daddy!)

~ learned to scare Mommy by throwing up out her nose

~ spent hours on end calmly looking around and taking in the sights

~ been completely adorable when she grins and laughs in her sleep

~ been completely lovable every minute of every day.

Bringing Home Baby

I knew, logically, that having a baby would change my life. Now that Acacia is home with Dave and me, I'm beginning to realize just how completely she's changed it already, and will continue to change it in the years ahead. What I didn't anticipate was how much having a baby would change me.

Somehow I must still be the same person who went into the hospital a pregnant woman and came back out a mother. Yet all the little things that seemed important to that pregnant woman feel worlds away now, and the new mother in me can't focus on anything other than the beautiful, wonderful, tiny, fragile, sweet little angel who sleeps and nurses and sleeps again... and occasionally stares at my face with her lovely dark eyes as though memorizing it, while completely mesmerizing me.

The moment I first held her, I loved her more truly and deeply than I could ever have imagined possible, and I know without a doubt that I would do anything for this amazing little person who depends on her daddy and me so completely. When she laughs in her sleep, my heart soars; when she cries, my heart breaks; when she finishes nursing only to cuddle closer to me with a tiny sigh of contentment, my heart overflows and my world is complete.