A belated Merry Xmas and a somewhat early Happy New Year to the throngs of thechunk.com readers. Happy Birthday to my sister who turns 28 today.
I didn’t quite make the Saturday deadline for mailing out our xmas cards. The majority were sent on Tuesday and more went out today. I think we’ve still got a few more addresses to track down.
We had a very nice Xmas. I bought pre-lit 7.5 ft. artificial tree on Saturday morning. It looks great. I’m not sure how long we’re going to leave it up. I guess until Epiphany (Jan. 6th?). My mother and sister came in town on Tuesday afternoon for a 24-hour whirlwind stay. The Wife made a wonderful Xmas Eve dinner of pork tenderloin, boneless beef rib, cranberry, and real mashed potatoes. My mother brought some sides and we got a pumpkin pie from Central Market.
The Boy made out like a bandit. He got his Spider-Man Web Blaster and his Attack of the Clones DVD along with a bunch of Spy Kids figures. His Jaja and Grandpa S. gave him an impressive Yamaha keyboard complete with stand and bench. I’ve got to find him a piano/music class in the new year. It was great fun to have a the young kid Christmas enthusiasm this year from The Boy. I videotaped most of his gift opening and hope to finally use the firewire video capture card that I bought ages ago to get the footage onto the site. La’s big present was the super-deluxe swing that we got her as an early present to ourselves. The Wife got some clothes, books, and some bath salts/bubble bath. I also did very well. I got some books, some DVDs, and a couple of PS2 games. The two big surprises were the cappucino/espresso machine from The Wife’s parents and a talking Homer Simpson bottle opener from Santa (ahem, my mother).
I also managed to survive my first full night alone with both kids last night. Mary went back to work for a 11pm-7am shift. The Boy’s no big deal these days, but La is another story. I got her to sleep just as The Wife left around 10:30. Andy was over to hang out for a while and we stayed up talking and watching Best In Show until 12:30. Part of our discussion involved our thoughts on LOTR: Two Towers, but I’ll save that for another thread. I really should’ve been sleeping while La was down too, but I just didn’t do it. She woke up at 1:30 for her first bottle. I had her back down by 2, but I was up for another 1/2 hour listening to the dog across the street bark non-stop. I think his owners are out of town and for some reason they allow him to roam free. I wasn’t far from going out there with a bat and braining the fucker to shut him up. I did learn that the City of Austin actually has a phone number specifically for barking dogs. I may be using that one soon. She woke up again at 4:30 and it took me an hour to get her to go back down. Total sleep for me: 1hr + 2hr + 2hr + 1hr after The Wife got back. Six hours straight would be ok, but broken up like that isn’t very restful. I have a feeling that The Wife and I both will be in bed before 10 tonight. I worked from home today and will be going in for a full day tomorrow. The Wife works again Saturday night and then both New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. Unfortunately, that means I’ll be missing the big Unsane reunion show at Emo’s on New Year’s Eve. It’ll be just La and I watching Foo Fighters on MTV.