It starts with one lick …

… then another …

… gotta get every crumb!

Last Saturday we took apart Abby’s crib.

Truthfully, she hadn’t been sleeping in it much for the past three weeks anyway. For the tail end of December she would go to sleep in her crib, but at some point in the night she would get up and refuse to go back in. Since we were all battling colds, I eventually gave in and started sleeping with her on the spare bed, reasoning that we really needed sleep to properly evict the germs (having battled them for a month and a half at that point, we were more than anxious to bid them adios). That actually did the trick, but then she started cutting her molars (which are HUGE for such a little mouth!) and that lasted another week or two. Last week she stopped even going to sleep in her crib, crying and fighting the sleep she so clearly needed, but would peacefully drop right off to sleep when put in the spare bed (but then I had to sleep with her to make sure she didn’t drop right off the bed).

So, we finally decided that it was either her crib or her room that was upsetting her. And since we couldn’t move her crib out of her room without taking it apart, we took the plunge, took it apart, and lugged it down to the basement, putting a twin mattress in its place (we have a bed frame, but were concerned she would roll off it in the middle of the night so for now the mattress alone graces her room). The funny thing is that she doesn’t get off her mattress, even though she knows she can. When she wakes up, she sits in the middle of it and calls out until I go get her.

The other funny thing: the first night I was worried that she would not only crawl off her mattress, but also open the door to her room (even though she can’t work door knobs yet) and fall down the stairs, so I made sure the gate at the top of the stairs was locked.

And she doesn’t even leave the mattress.

She also happily goes to sleep in her room now.

I finished this shawl months ago, but never quite got around to blocking it until a few days ago. The yarn was originally bought to make a crocheted scarf, but while my trial attempts had gone well (I hadn’t crocheted in probably close to 20 years, so I felt a refresher was in order), once it came time to put hook to yarn for the actual scarf I kept messing it up so I decided that perhaps the yarn was telling me that it just wanted to be something else (or perhaps it just wasn’t impressed with my crochet skills).

Pattern: snowflake, yarn: Briar Rose Sonoma, colour 12335

It actually knit up quite quickly (although it required a few extra repeats of the lace chart since the pattern called for different yarn) but once done it sat forlornly on my knitting table, never forgotten, just simply another victim of shortsightedness: while I had known that I would need blocking pins, I had not actually obtained any. And then once the pins were purchased and in hand, I needed to get blocking mats. And once those were in the house … well, then I didn’t have a shawl pin, so I couldn’t wear it even if it was blocked.

But with two shawl pins on my Christmas list, I was pretty sure that excuse wasn’t going to hold for much longer. And when this little guy showed up under the Christmas tree, I knew that the time of excuses had indeed run out.

Shawl pin from Twice Sheared Sheep on Etsy

It’s always nice to have some time off work to relax and unwind, but even nicer when it comes in the form of almost two weeks in a row. The only downside was that we were all sick in varying degrees, but we still managed to fit some fun and relaxation.

We visited family and friends and were spoiled by their gifts. We drank eggnog and rum and filled our bellies with roasted chestnuts (done in the oven, but still delicious). I enjoyed my Christmas Fanta (the Orange flavour that you can’t usually get in Canada). We watched our pug card tree fill up with cards from around the world. We continued our tradition of the “12 days of Starbucks”.

We took Abby to see the festival of lights at the city park and sipped hot cider as we wandered among the displays. Out Boxing Week shopping, she suddenly decided she would like to walk everywhere (but hold onto our hands as she does). We took her sledding in the backyard. She also took a few spins around the house in her new box.

I had a bubble bath for the first time in probably a year. We embraced our inner couch potatos with a Twilight-a-thon and got sucked into marathon showings of American Pickers, Auction Kings, and Auction Hunters, which made me want to purge the house of unneeded items and then go to an auction to fill it all up again. In between we discovered Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, which just made me miss Buffy.

The best moment, though, was on Christmas Day, when Abby spontaneously hugged her one-week old cousin (and then thankfully did it again once I had the camera in hand).