Christmas. Walking.

Ben has been getting his top teeth in for the past few weeks. He's also been on and off with colds since October.

And he is walking!! Yesterday was 2-3 steps in between things. Today was many steps, travelling about 6 feet to land on mama or nanny, sister, bubby or dada. By the new year, he'll be a little terror. Oh wait, he already is!

He's eating everything in sight. We feed him. With guests over today, he cruised all around the table, grabbing at things. Blueberries, crackers, pickles. At Oma's the other day, he was eating Kythe's baking. He started with a rather hard chocolate biscotti, and grabbed a shortbread with the other hand. I put the shortbread back down and moved the baking. He surfed around the table, and found the exact piece of shortbread and determinedly ate it.

Oh, the cookies. We left cookies out for Santa, who took a bite of the shortbread, and one of the gingerbread. And there's Ben in his Santa pajamas finishing them off the next morning.

Hannah was barfing. She was up in the night, Christmas morning, twice with the pukes. The whole family slept in til 11:15am, Christmas morning. Though Hannah did call through my door at 6:45 to excitedly and sweetly let me know Santa had come and left stockings and presents. We opened some, starting after we were all up. Then after a smoothie, on request, it started again. Barf. Poor girl. We took an afternoon hiatus on present opening. She went back to bed. Mama went to get some Gravol and ginger ale, some Lysol spray to keep the bugs at bay.

Christmas dinner with the family was cancelled, much to our disappointment. We four stayed home, while the other four had theirs elsewhere. We all still made what we intended to, just at separate houses. It was a most wonderful dinner we made.

I understand not wanting to catch the barfs. And kids share their germs freely. I just really didn't want to cancel Christmas dinner, all on one little girl's upset tummy. From facebook and some moms I talk to, it sounds like it's a common occurrence this time of year, when kids just get so excited, and eat too many treats and strange things, and maybe are pushed a little too hard and get run down. But we had Christmas, even if it was quiet. We saw some family today, and we'll see more later this week. Maybe we'll look back fondly at the quiet joy of just being us four, for Ben's first Christmas.

We did get a new camera.

Hannah's illness has passed. We are a little concerned she hasn't been eating much lately though. I'll have to make some more dinners she likes, salmon, rice, broccoli and such.