have you seen my elf?

Right now our kitchen resembles Santa's workshop as we work on some top secret projects. Even Zuzu has gotten in on the action and become one of Santa's elves at home. And recently she was spotted at the Christmas party at Tata's as an elf again, making herself comfy in Tato's chair.

o christmas tree

Tonight we popped in the fireplace DVD Ty made, turned on some holiday tunes, and decorated the Christmas tree. Zuzu “helped” put the star on the top of the tree:

good hair day

Guess who did Zuzu’s hair after her bath this morning? Daddy. She looked absolutely adorable with a little curly mohawk. No product; that’s all natural, baby. From a certain angle, she reminded us of Conan O’Brien.

snow day

This is the view today from our living room window. See the birch trees that normally stand tall, way over the house? The freezing rain arrived and a couple hours after taking this noontime picture, the top branches touched the sidewalk. There’s a little crabapple tree underneath all those branches that is taking part of the weight of the larger tree. Ty tried knocking off some of the ice this morning but it just broke off branches instead.

So, it’s been a snow day. No school for Jenn (hurrah, which we’d hoped for since Zuzu is sick, which means for the first time since going back to work, I can finally be the one home with her when she can’t go to Tata’s). We just regained power after a couple of hours which were spent a) trying to hear the backup sump pump kick in, hoping it would, since the basement is almost done; b) contemplating various ways the lack of power impacted us and the things we could and could not do (turn on the oven to bake cookies? no. run the space heater? no. plug in the Christmas tree and pretend we’re warm? no.) and lastly, c) trying to open a jar of baby peaches. You can even ask Ty, the latest batch of baby fruits are impossible to open. So Zuzu ate peas instead.

Happy snow day, everyone.

-- update --

So, I wrote the above post around two o’clock. Around three, Ty called. Our conversation went like this:

Ty: have you had power?
Jenn: we lost it twice for about two hours. And guess what, each time it went out I heard a comic book-like “zzzaa – zzzaa – zzzzzzuh” and then bam! no lights.
Ty: really? But you have it back now?
Jenn: yeah, and I’m hoping it…

----zzzzaa….zzzaaa….zzzzzzuh ---- darkness.

And that’s pretty much how things were until about 7:15 tonight, when we blew out our candles and cranked the heat, and breathed a huge sigh of relief to hear the main sump pump running again (the backup was running every 40 seconds…so we were feeling nervous!).

Between Zuzu and myself we wore two sweatshirts, two shirts and one fleece; three pairs of pants, one pair of long underwear pants, three pairs of socks, one pair of shoes, a stocking cap and a hood. I imagined my dad saying, “start putting on layers, it’s going to get cold” so that’s exactly what we did. I’m not banking on the power staying on, especially since we’re supposed to get more sleet, but for now we are well-lit and toasty.

hang on

Hooray for a baby who likes to take a bath! On most nights, a rub-a-dub-dub is part of Zuzu's bedtime routine. While we've tried graduating to a bath seat, Zuzu still likes her blue baby tub; and we like it because her bath toys (a ruber duckie and a firefly) don't usually wander too far. She always tilts her head back when her hair gets rinsed (she takes advantage of this opportunity to try to lick any water that runs down her chin) and has yet to lay a giant poo in the tub. So in a nutshell, she's very cooperative when it comes to bath time.

Last night, however, instead of grabbing onto duckie or the firefly, she clung to the side of the baby tub for dear life (don't worry, she wasn't really in any danger). It cracked us up (the spinach she eats must be making her strong!).

p.s. Zuzu, if you see this when you're older, Mommy didn't pixilate your bum for the video. It's just so darn cute.

that's entertainment

Some days, it feels like we entertain Zuzu as much as she entertains us. Lately she enjoys sitting in her high chair and watching us disappear and reappear from behind the other side of the kitchen counter. Even though it's me (Jenn) behind the scenes in this video, she seems to like it most when it's Ty hiding and popping up. The more she figures out what we're doing, the harder we have to try to get a good giggle or jump out of her!