After reading Avorie’s post back in November, I decided I really should start to look into reading something along the lines of “what to do with your baby once it’s born”.

I promptly looked over what books Avorie suggested (and what others suggested in the comments) and placed them on hold from the public library. I picked them up last Friday night and went right home, excited to read them all over the weekend.

Fast forward to Saturday night.

I was sitting at the (ghetto) mall in South Seattle enjoying dinner alone (and by “dinner” I mean a Blizzard from Dairy Queen), and thinking about the baby and about what I had read in the books, so far. I started thinking that maybe The King and I had made a huge mistake with deciding to have a baby. How were we going to do this, and work full time, and build our new house, and be involved with our Church. Not to mention the love and attention we want to give to our baby.

The books freaked me out. They freaked me the HELL out. They talked about dealing with your baby not sleeping, or not eating, or pooping all the time, or crying all the time, or not being able to breatfeed, or not loosing weight, or infections and doctor visits. I mean, the list went on and on. I was horrified.

I came home and talked to The King about it. He wasn’t happy about me feeling that way, because he doesn’t feel that way. He told me not to read anymore of the books. But I have to read them. I have to have some idea on what’s going to happen when our little guy arrives. I need to know how much he’s going to eat, or what different diaper changes can mean and how to choose a doctor for him.

After almost reading three books from cover to cover since last week, I have learned that each book tells you something completely different. One books said that under no circumstances should you ever wake your baby up to feed him. They said to just let him sleep. But another book said that you should wake your baby up to feed him if he sleeps more than 3.5 hours at a time.

How do I know what book to follow? Do I just pick one book and follow it completely, or a few books and choose the topics I agree with the most? And how often am I really going to use the books once the baby comes?

I did ask The King to buy me two books for Christmas. I like what they have to say the best.

I still have another list of books on hold from the library. And this isn’t counting the books I need to get on childbirth, discipline, and breatfeeding. Oh, and I need a few on “going back to work”.

When I read Amalah’s post today, I was nodding my head the entire time in agreement. It’s as if she and I have the exact same brain.

Perfect Amalah. Thanks for sharing this with us.

Last weekend The King and I went to a lovely Christmas dinner party with about 15 other couples (and far too many of their children, who were not invited, but that’s another post).

The party was hosted by a couple about the age of my parents. They are very lovely people and I enjoy their company. Usually.

After the delicious dinner (and after I totally spilled au jus sauce over me and The King and then swore very loudly about it) they decided to play a “little game” to set the mood for the gift exchange, which was the reason any of us were even there.

The game was a type of Newlywed Game where we had to write answer to questions and our spouse had to try to guess what our answers would be. Questions like; “What was the best anniversary gift your spouse gave you?”, “What do you like to do together for fun?”, “What would your spouse say is your best personality trait?”

Then we took about two hours and went around the room reading what each couple had written down. Basically what it turned into was a game of “Who’s The Most Romantic Husband?” Lots of things like “my husband writes poems for me for our anniversaries” and “my husbands always gives me a rose for every year we have been married.” All of which were followed by all the ladies in the room going “awww…that’s so sweet!”.

And at which point I would gag a little.

You see, I am not a fan of romance. Good thing The King isn’t either. I know a lot of people really love romance. But to me, it has always felt too contrived. It’s like “I know what you want and don’t worry, you’re gonna get it later. Don’t waste your time making me a romantic dinner.”

When it came time for The King and I to read what we had written down, we both had it dead on. We were totally on the same wave length. And I loved it.

The King even choose the same personality trait for me that I had written down. I wrote that he would say he likes my “positive attitude” the best. And he put the exact same thing down. Which is so awesome because I do not have a positive attitude about anything.

We both said that we liked to watch TV together. Someone said how horrible that was and how they needed to teach The King about romance. When in reality, I think that spending time together on the couch is great for us. It doesn’t mean that that’s all we do together. We do lots of things together. We built a freaking house together (and are about to do it again). But they asked what we like to do together. We like to come together at night and watch an episode of “Law and Order”, while we talk about our day. Someone else pointed out that we had just returned from Europe and why didn’t we both say that we liked to travel together.

Because, to me, nothing beats being snuggled down for the night on the couch with The King and Preston. In fact at our house we call this “favorite part”. Because it’s our favorite part of the day.

I tried to explain to everyone at the party that I am not really into romance. The ladies in the room looked at me like I was from another planet. I mean, how could a woman not want flowers for her anniversary? Pa-lease! Give me a Hostess Lemon Pie any day over flowers. And if The King ever were to write me a love poem, he would never hear the end of it. Gag.

Please don’t stone me for admitting I don’t like romance. Women around the world, please don’t roll your eyes at me. Just accept me for who I am.

(and don’t tell me that I’m the only one of us out there!)

You probably don’t know this about me, but I am a very lucky person. Let me be a little more specific. I am not necessarily lucky in life. But I do win things. All the time. I don’t have any type of “system” to winning. I don’t have lucky teddy bears that I have to rub, or certain phrases that I have to say. I just concentrate on winning. And I win.

If I play Bingo, I win. If I enter a raffle, I win. The great thing is I am never even surprised when I win. It’s like I expect that I will.

Some of my winnings include a one caret diamond necklace from Mervyn’s. This one is great because I just had to fill out a little entry form at my local Mervyn’s. I filled out tons of them, one for everyone I knew. But it was my name that won the necklace. (It isn’t a pretty necklace. A little too fancy for my taste. But it was a free diamond necklace, baby!)

Last week The King and I went to my company Holiday party. They had a drawing for prizes. Right off the bat I won a $50.00 gift card to anywhere I wanted (the top prize). I knew I would win it. Right after I won I grabbed The King’s raffle ticket so that I could concentrate on his numbers. The next number they called was his. He won a $25.00 gift certificate. Total winnings for The King family: $75.00 (which was spent this weekend on a new table at IKEA for our little apartment, and some Christmas goodies as well).

Today I got a work e-mail telling me that I won for something I had entered this summer. It was for the entire county, with a total of 27 winners out of 10,000 that entered. You had to submit how many times a week you use alternate methods for your commute to work. The Grand Prize was a trip to the Yucatan Peninsula. Alas, I did not win the trip. But I did win a $100.00 gift certificate to the Home Depot.

I wasn’t going to say anything to The King about it, and just give it to him for Christmas. But I have to tell him so that I can show off my ability to WIN. I have been trying to convince him of how lucky I am, and he hasn’t quite bought it yet.

(I’ll still probably give it to him. I mean, what in the heck am I going to buy for myself at the Home Depot? They don’t sell purses…)

———
Updated 12/15/05

After reading some of the comments I remembered some other things I have won. Once I called into a radio station to have them announce a friend of mine’s birthday, and ended being the right number of calling. I won some donuts and some money (but I don’t remember how much). Also, a few weeks ago we were having a lunch at work to celebrate our construction project coming to an end. There was a raffle. I won some work gloves. Size “large”.

Thanks to all the comments and e-mails I received yesterday giving me many ideas for Christmas gifts. I went online yesterday afternoon and bought The King a few items, and felt much better after spending some money. As for the family members we need to buy for, I think I may get them each a year subscription to a magazine (The King gets great deals through his work). Now I just need to look over the list of magazine options and place the order. Soon.*

As far as Christmas goes, I am feeling a little better than I did yesterday. But only a little, because I still need to buy more items, wrap things, make the Christmas ornament for the party this Saturday (plan the party for Saturday). And then there’s the Christmas cards.

If I haven’t mentioned it before, I love to mail letters. Actual letters that come in the mail. I have been mailing out my own Christmas cards since I was about 15. I take choosing my cards very seriously. When I was younger, I liked the “funny” kinds. You know, with a picture of Santa’s sleigh crashed on top of an outhouse with the caption, “I said the Schmidt’s house!” Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about.

When I was in my early 20’s, I preferred the general “Happy Holidays” cards, so as to not offend anyone (as if I knew a lot of people that would have been offended at that stage in my life).

As I got a little older, I started to prefer the more traditional Christmas cards. Traditional, yet modern. This means I don’t want the kind with the large angels and gold leaf with an obscure scripture reference. I want one with a nice nativity scene and a little message about the Christmas season and best wishes for the New Year. These types of cards are hard to find. As in, impossible. I always manage to find one that will work, but never the perfect Christmas card I dream of.

This year The King said he didn’t want me to do cards at all. Mostly because he knows we are busy and don’t really have the time. And also because we have a lot of people in our lives that just flat out drive us crazy. I explained to him that NOT sending out Christmas cards is not acceptable to me. And then went one step further and told him he could help me choose the card this year.

Gasp!

We went to Target, because they have good cards for good prices. I found one that is okay. But doesn’t have any reference to anything “traditional” (no mention of baby Jesus) and is semi-modern. And I can’t remember, but it might not even mention “Christmas”. It is pretty. And has glitter. (I admit to being a glitter whore and tend to get sucked into things with glitter.) The King said he liked that one, but also wanted a box of ones for his friends. He choose a really cute one with a kitty and some funny little saying. It’s cute. It has nothing to do with baby Jesus.

I printed out the list of names of people I want to send cards to. There is about 45 names. I think that’s a lot of people. The King and I both agree that we need to whittle the list down. I’m not the type of person who sends a typed up update letter, no, I hand write them all. This is going to take me some time.

While talking to some friends last night about Christmas cards, we were all saying how we need to whittle down our lists. I asked them how many they send out, thinking that my list of 45 was outrageous. Get this…

They sent out over 200 cards this year.

That’s over $70.00 in stamps. Not counting the ones that are going out of the country. Who knows that many people? I don’t think I have met 200 people in my life. For sure not that many people that I like enough to mail out cards to.

The question is, who do you whittle out of your list? Of course there’s the people that don’t ever send you a card. But what about aunts and uncles? I sort of feel like it my parents responsibility to send their siblings cards. I’ll keep sending them to cousins, but not the aunts and uncles. And old college roommates? How many years do you keep sending them one?

No matter what, I need to get working on these darn cards. Maybe tonight, after I finish making the Christmas ornaments.

*note to The King, please bring home that list of magazine tonight. Thanks.

So Christmas is in like, what, 2 days? Okay, maybe that’s an exaggeration. But it’s close.

In both my family and The King’s family we draw names for who buys presents for who. This makes it easier, and less expensive than buying for everybody in both families. This year we drew my little brother and little sister, as well as The King’s little sister and her husband. We also try to get something thoughtful for each set of parents.

We were able to find my little sister something at Sephora in Paris (which I hope she likes, but you never know). That leaves gifts for two grown men (both new fathers) and one gift for The King’s baby sister (new mom to twins). I have no ideas. None. Zilch. Zero.

I had a great idea for The King’s sister and her hubby. They are absolutely in love with the Dallas Mavericks. So I figured I could buy them tickets to when they are out here to play the Sonics this year. Then I found out they had already bought tickets. Which, hello, of course they did. But that leaves me (again) with NO IDEAS.

My little brother loves video games, and plays them far too much of the time. I do not condone this activity. Especially now that he has a brand new baby. Although buying him a new game for his gaming system is the easy answer for a gift, I don’t want to do it. It will be my last stitch effort. One that I hope I don’t have to resort to.

I don’t even want to talk about the fact that I haven’t bought one single gift for The King. No joke. Nothing. I have a list of ideas, but when I went out shopping for some of them, my list became really silly looking and I didn’t buy any of them. He doesn’t need clothes (at all), he got some new cologne in Europe, he doesn’t play video games, he already has an iPod, he got a new bike a few months ago, and we don’t really like to buy DVD’s. So what does that leave to buy him? Pretty much nothing. And the one good gift idea I had was an online thing, and it’s probably getting too late to order anything online. This is my own fault.

And then there’s me. People ask me what I want, and I don’t even know what to tell them. I can usually ask for some clothes, but I don’t really want maternity clothes. Should I ask for “baby items”, or is that tacky? I don’t know. You would think that I would have a list of things that I would love for someone to buy me. The only thing I can think of is another pair of boots. The King bought me a great pair last Christmas, and they are getting ready to be retired.

One a little different note, The King and I are hosting the Ornament Exchange we have every year with our 4 closest friends. It is this Saturday night. Which isn’t as far off as I initially thought it was. The ornament exchange is a great idea and we usually make sentimental ornaments for each other. I haven’t begun to think about what I could make for them. I guess I need to make a trek to the craft store in my spare time this week. And then I’ll actually need to find time to make the ornaments and get ready for the party.

Thankfully enough we did buy a kitchen table this weekend for our apartment (with the winnings from my company Holiday party). Our other tables were too big, and had to be left behind at the house. I am not sure how many people will fit at the new table. Maybe just The King and I and Preston, the cat. Having parties in this places is going to be hard.

What I’m getting at is, does anyone have some really awesome gift ideas that they want to share with me? And does anyone want to come over and help me make some ornaments for my friends? Anyone?

**and yes, that is a picture of me on my first Christmas.**