Intrepid Murmurings

2007, Here We Come
Happy New Years!
Last night we rang in Emma's first New Years, and it was amazing to actually have a baby lying there next to us as we watched the ball drop (she woke on cue at 11:58). We have spent quite a few New Years Eve's wishing for that, and I doubt I will ever forget getting the call on New Years day with news that our first IVF had failed. Ugh. Its amazing for this dream of ours to have finally come true.
Emma spent the last week of 2006 perfecting her crawling and pulling up maneuvers, and we now have a Very Mobile Baby that is causing gray hairs to appear on me at an incredible rate. I am so totally overwhelmed with the task of taking care of a constantly moving baby in our death trap of a house and can barely make it to another room with one dangerous item before she is pulling up and pulling over another. It kills me to see that soft round head smacking the ground/furniture/toys with a stomach curdling thud. Every other minute and she is hurt and crying, super clingy but then climbing all over me since she cannot be still for more than a suck and a cuddle.
The other thing on my mind is decluttering, another need we have right now not only because of the childproofing but because the of the new load of fun Christmas goodies. I have instated a new rule of "one thing in, one thing out", but because we are in a serious pickle space and storage wise it is more like one in, five out. Everywhere I look I consider if I can kick that thing to the curb (or, more likely, sell or donate it). Anyone need a 160 buck extra large dog crate? How about a Playstation (numero uno, not tres)? Or a huge tub and a half of size Me Before Baby clothes that I MUST get out of this house, soon. I love the idea of simple living and feel like My Stuff is Dragging Me Down. Mentally, and physically. I simply cannot clean around it, even if I did have the time to actually keep house.
So, thats whats on the docket around this side of the mudroom door. Lonnie, however, is lost in his engineering geekery out on the other side, in his newly decked out shop (I think adding two power tools to the mudroom makes it a shop). Since the day after Christmas he has been obsessively working on building his fancy Binocular Holding Device (working hard, very much so, but for fun on his hobby, of which I am bitterly jealous about at the moment). These are no opera binocs, oh no, these are astronomy binocs, and big ones, at that! He started the plans days ago with straw and toothpick models. Yes, models. That is how geeky my husband is! Which I love about him, I do indeed.
If only I could get him to obsess about baby gates...