Slow Beginnings – A Little More December

Arriving the day before Christmas Eve and departing the weekend after New Years, Sweet Baby and her parents came north for the whole holiday. That gift of time made for the most luxurious of holidays.

Having nine-month old lively Sweet Baby changed everything. We celebrated around her wake time (early) and naps (one in the front pack on a walk and one in the crib). Sitting in a little chair that hooked onto our wooden spool coffee table, she ate meals with us by the fire.

Sweet Baby gets up and down from the floor with enviable ease and can stand alone, although a little shakily. For Christmas she revealed one bottom tooth and then another in the days after. Sometimes she wore a t-shirt with a glittery heart on front saying, “My heart is made of gold.”

If she’s on the floor, she extends her little arms for a pick-up or grabs hold of our jeans to pull herself up. Once up, she’s a cuddly, wiggling bundle delivering smiles, squeezes, and squeals. She pats us, then extends her arm as though to point, but turns her hand palm up in the most graceful, slightly questioning way. I’m not sure what it means, but it is pure Sweet Baby.

Santa and stockings? Secondary to the package she received from our niece on arrival day, wrapped with a huge curly-ribboned bow. Each time Sweet Baby encountered the bow, she would carefully pull one strand out, turn it this way and that, and eventually insert it in her mouth (the final exploration). An adult would remove it, and she’d pick another.

Sweet Baby looked with intensity at everything – pictures on walls and fridge, the sky and trees. When I carried her over my hip in one arm while I opened or closed the shades, put the kettle on, made the oatmeal – I explained my actions. She’d watch the shade go up and then turn her head toward my face and study me – looking for reaction, for more words.

Oh, and words – her mom speaks mostly Thai to her, so her tiny head is full of two languages. The sort of things you say to babies became familiar in Thai, even to us.

For Christmas dinner we went out to our favorite Thai restaurant – cheerful and colorful. The Sweet Bride and the restaurant’s owner chatted to one another while each held a baby girl. The Sweet Bride said it felt like being home – and to us the evening felt like a delicious new tradition.

On the day of departure I picked up the remains of the ribbon when we got back from the airport run. Good times never last quite long enough – and oh, Sweet Baby’s first Christmas was a very good time!