I survived Santa

When babies are this young, everything is for the parents, not them.  Sofia will have zero memory of her first trip with Santa and I tried to tell myself that it didn't matter whether we went or not.  I didn't want to wait in the lines and fight the crowds for something that wouldn't matter to her one way or the other.


But when I ordered our Christmas cards and bought her Christmas dresses I found my grinch mood lifting and I was thankful for my friend Kristin who texted me, saying we should go together and it would be less painful.  


This being our first time, I turned to my best friend for all the pointers.  Their little girl is 18 months and they're pros, so when he said to get there early for the ticket to stand in line, I listened.  After I was like, WTF?  I have to get a ticket to see Santa?  Ugh, this better be worth it.


The baby wakes up normally at seven (she's been sleeping semi-well but I'm still too tired to celebrate) so I bundled her up and we headed to the mall.  I got there at 8:30 because it took me that long to get going and I was still rocking the unwashed face and bedhead.  I met Kristin at the line and there was no one around because they didn't hand out the damn tickets until 9!!!!!  So we went to Starbucks and by the time we came back at like 9:05, they'd already started to line up!!  WTF?  Gah, these people are serious!  After getting schooled by the mom ahead of us who had been coming for like eight years we got our tickets (5 and 6, thank you very much) and I headed home to get the baby dressed.


We ended up going with the red outfit due to my lack of accessories for the blue dress.  I couldn't find a silver bow and I didn't really want to buy *another* pair of shoes for Sofia.  I know right?  I never thought I'd hear those words, but she already has four pairs of shoes and she'll probably grow out of those within a month.  I'm trying to space out my clothing purchases for her.  I don't want to buy ten pairs of shoes now and have to do it all again in a month.  So red it was.


The Santa people had it down.  Before I knew it, it was our turn and the guy took her from me in an instant, sat her down on Santa's lap and started snapping away.  I barely had time to snap my own pictures.

At least his hair and beard were real and I was glad he didn't wear a dumb hat.

I would have liked some eyeglasses though.

I may mention that for next time.

Most importantly, she didn't cry!  She's in the stage where she's not sure about other people holding her - sometimes she screams, sometimes she's cool.  I was right there and I was praying this was a cool baby time and it was!  She was a champ!  I didn't get a scrunchy-face smile but she didn't scream and that's a win in my book!

I went ghetto and this is a picture of the picture.

They wanted $125 for the digital file!

Santa ain't *that* cool.

At the last minute I decided not to do the jacket because the collar was flipping up and the detail on the bodice of her dress was covered if I buttoned it.  I think it looked just fine and more than anything, I'm just happy not to have the Screaming Baby picture.  

Because this kind of picture isn't cute.

At all.

The whole thing was over in less than five minutes and I was so freakin glad that we were there early because that damn line stretched to forever.  I couldn't imagine what it must be like on the weekends!

She did such a good job!

It was a big day!  For both of us!  I felt like I'd cleared a mom hurdle by taking her, like I got a merit badge on my Mom Sash.  

I even had a good hair day!  Bonus!

Obligatory bathroom pic, because good hair days

are so few and far between around here.

The ends need work but I was untwisting it in the car on the way up there.

So safe, I know.

Anyway, Sofia's first trip to see Santa was a success and I have a good eight more years to pick outfits!  Next year, blue!  Or silver!  Or green!  Or gold!

Baby style: The Christmas edition

I totally forgot to tell you, but when I wrote the last baby style post, the people at Vitamins Baby heard me!  They sent me an email thanking me for saying nice things about them and gave me a discount code to use for anyone who's interested!  Granted, that was over a couple of months ago and I don't even know if the codes work anymore.  And now, no one is ever going to give me a discount code again because I'm late in sharing it with my readerfriends.  But, if you like Vitamins Baby too and want to get something from them, use FB2011 to get 20% off whatever you buy.


*To all other retailers who want to give me discount codes or free stuff, I promise cross my heart I'll be more timely about writing about it.  Swears.  Give me stuff and I'll show you.


Okay.


Now, on to the business at hand.  I'm taking Sofia to see Santa on Thursday and we did some shopping today.

We got a hat and mittens for winter.  Old Navy has some cute stuff!

I went next door to Carter's and got a red dress and then went to Babies R Us for diapers for our out of town trip next week.  They had their Christmas dresses on sale and I found a great blue one.  I couldn't decide so I got both and will return one.  But I need help!  I can't decided which one to keep!  So we had to play Fashion Show.

These were the best shots I could get with my phone because Sofia loves to touch things.  She is all about the texture and the silky red dress, the fur on the collar of the jacket, the velvet bolero jacket and the sparkly netting of the blue dress was so much for her.  I was constantly trying to keep her from putting the dresses in her mouth, saying "Baby, we have to return one of these and they won't take drooly dresses!"

The red is definitely festive and Christmas-y but I wonder if her dress will just fade into Santa's suit.  But I want silver accessories with the blue dress.  Old Navy had some silver shoes and I have no clue where to get a silver bow, but I just love the sparkly blue skirt.  I would have gotten some more pictures but Sofia was not having it.  She wanted to put everything in her mouth and after I stopped her a couple of times, she was done being in the dress.

Aaannd, we have meltdown.

I took the dresses off and now I'm thinking I should visit the fabric store and make a book of scraps for her to touch and taste.  Have any of y'all ever done that?  Have you ever seen it done?  

But I digress - what dress should she wear?  It's her first trip to see Santa!  This is serious!  You know how judge-y those babies can be!

It's a Christmas miracle!

I'm back and I missed you!  I missed this!  The baby slept for FIVE HOURS last night - all in a row!  It was so beautiful!  Drew was gone, the house was quiet and you know what I did?  I caught up on all mah blogs!!  It was so great!  I wasn't able to comment on all of them but I was there!  


You know what else I did?

I'd been hearing all the hype about this show and last night I finally watched the pilot, because I can't do things out of order.

F*CK THIS SHOW.

I ain't even playin.  Who in the holy hell thinks this shit up???  I was so messed up and it took forever to get to sleep.  I had to scrub my brain by watching New Girl, Up All Night and Happy Endings and I still had nightmares about that damn monster woman in the basement.  And the scarred dude.  And the bloody twins - AND THAT RUBBER MAN.  What the F*ck!  Seriously.  F*ck that show.

ANYWAY.

Thanksgiving was wonderful and it was so great to see my family, although if I have my way about things, this will be the last year we travel.  Sofia was great on the drive, for which I am eternally grateful.  But being in my parent's house, with all their stairs, and their uncovered outlets and their glass picture frames and their pointy, breakable EVERYTHING, it was so much more work.  I don't think I sat down for more than a minute before I had to jump up because Sofia was crawling high-speed for the outlets.  What makes kids go straight for those the things that will kill them?

My mom drove back with me and stayed with the baby while I finished the work for my neighbor.  Remind me to never EVAHevahevahevah say I'll do something for someone without first arranging for childcare.  I was kidding myself thinking I could coordinate movers and get a house unpacked with a baby strapped to my chest.  Yahright.

But it's done now and it's behind me and now it's time to get in the Christmas spirit y'all!  I decided about ten minutes ago that we're going to do Christmas cards so I got those ordered and they should be here next week sometime.  I'm aiming to get them mailed out before Christmas Day - I think that's reasonable.

Okay, the baby is wigging out so this has to be short but have you SEEN American Horror Story?  What is UP with that show?