I think the winter doldrums have finally set in. I’m all about soups and casseroles, hot baths, and tucking myself into bed with a book… basically, anything to avoid thinking about the vast expanse of white outside my door. I’ve also been super busy with custom orders this month, so I’m spending a lot of quality time with Illustrator.  I’ll post some samples at Calobee Doodles later.

In the meantime, while I crawl back to my cave to hibernate, you’ll just have to suffer with cute baby videos like this one:

Ellie persevered through a cold and enjoyed her birthday very much. We didn’t get as many photos as I meant to (too busy running around fetching things) but our good friend Danielle held the camera and got this sweet video of Ellie’s first* “Happy Birthday” chorus and her first taste of birthday cake (courtesy Daddy’s excellent culinary skills):

* it was actually her second. We forgot to film the first one, so we all sang it again.

I know I’ve been somewhat less active, but the holidays are really taking it out of me this year. Between work stuff, Ellie’s upcoming birthday, and the usual Christmas craziness, I’m ready for a vacation.

Yesterday began the three days of Elliemas. Tim and I made a executive decision: Ellie’s birthday should be about celebrating her birth, but the three days before it will celebrate surviving her birth.

Ellie was born after a three-day-long “festival” of sleeplessness and on-and-off labor, much of which is still vivid in my memory because it was easily the most surreal experience of my life. How can passing another living being through your body not be surreal? And then there was the fact that it took three whole days to get her out (she will never live that down) and all the drama surrounding the hospital transfer and so on. What did I say? Surreal.

That pretty much sums up new parenthood as a whole. Everything around you is the same–your house, your family, and your friends haven’t really changed in the few days you’re out of commission–but from the moment they placed Ellie in my arms, I saw the world through a new filter. And kind of like how it takes a while for your eyes to adjust to a new lens prescription, this filter made everything look just a little off. Add this to the fact that I’m pretty sure everyone and their mother got to look at my boobs for the first few weeks–not a regular occurrence around here, I can assure you–and then there was the lack of sleep, the routine examination of baby poop (“Honey, what color would you call this?”) and the persistent, nagging feeling that I was totally out of my league.

In hindsight, those first few weeks were just plain weird. It’s no wonder there are thousands of books on the subject of parenting. Unfortunately, none of them seems to adequately answer the question “When will my life go back to normal?” I think I can answer it now, though… and the answer is never. You’ll just get used to The Crazy. You’ll learn to embrace The Crazy so The Crazy doesn’t overtake you. And that’s really the best you can hope for.

I am not sure how we’ll celebrate the “three days of Elliemas” but I think we should start with a date night (something we haven’t had since, oh, February) and a cocktail or six. Although now that I think about it, that’s probably how this whole mess got started…

It’s hard to believe she’s almost a year old. I’ve said it so many times over the last few weeks, but it’s true. The squirming little bundle we brought home from the hospital is now a spirited almost-toddler on a mission (we’ve yet to pin down exactly what that mission is, but from what I can tell it has something to do with stealing the TV remote and eating cat food… babies are strange creatures).

It’s amazing how much our lives have changed, but despite the magnitude of this difference, it’s not something I can easily put into words. We still go to work, come home, eat, sleep, and we have the added task of baby care–it’s the same old life, with more responsibilities. If anything, it’s more mundane than it used to be, but somehow the simpler things are more fulfilling. Watching Ellie grow into her personality, seeing her try new things–it’s an unmatched thrill. And this is only the beginning!

Just look at that face. All the remote-stealing and cat-food-eating in the world couldn’t make her less perfect to me.