The First Christmas

Christmas came and went in a blur. There was the usual frenzy of buying gifts. We were grossly indulgent this year so I'm feeling very poor now. There was also the usual sense of guilt for buying into the commercial side of Christmas and allowing the real meaning of the season to take a back seat. I'm glad though that we went for Christmas services because that always puts things into perspective for me and as usual, if not more so this year, I am overawed by the idea of sacrifice and unconditional love.

The only difference is that this year, we had the twins with us. No doubt they're too young to really understand what was going but I wanted it to be special for them. They seemed to know that it was a special day because they stayed out late, they slept in strange beds while Mommy and Daddy were at friends' homes being merry and they finally graduated to wearing sleepsuits to sleep. One, it's more presentable for them to go to bed in sleepsuits, especially when they're out, two, it took them this long to finally fit snugly into them.




But time doesn't really mean much to them and they're not at the age where they can clamour and bug us awake to open their presents yet. They could open this year's loot next year and they wouldn't be any wiser. As with all children, they had more fun tearing apart the wrappers in a bid to get some of it into their mouths. It was a great deal of rip, shred, tear and they seemed undaunted even if the presents came in plastic wrapping rather than paper.




Their loot consisted of a whole lot of clothes that they can't wear at the moment, some shoes that they can't use at the moment, although it would look quite smashing on their feet. Packrat is a little bit uncertain about that point because Aunt Threez bought Baby J Sienna Miller type ugg uggs with pink pom poms on it. I so have to get it on her feet and take a photograph of that! What puzzled me was that Baby E got a whole bunch of cool tops but not one pair of pants in sight. I'm wondering if it's part of baby couture these days to wear sneakers, cool long sleeved tops and just diapers. Judging from the gifts, yes. But then again, I'm being snarky because I have realised my son is extremely short in the shorts/pants/material to cover his legs department.

At the end of the day, their favourite Christmas gift were Beanie baby bears that Uncle Bryan got for them. Of course, how they showed affection for it was to devour it. Baby J likes her Bear Bear's nose, she heads for it all the time. Baby E likes his Bear Bear's ear. I'm encouraging this attachment because I think it'll be easier to get them to sleep with their favourite somethings instead of us being their favourite somethings and spending a great deal of dead time just lying beside them waiting for them to fall off to sleep. Plus, I have very fond memories of my own smelly pillow that is now replaced by a Bambi pillow case that I insist on having even though it's threadbare.

They've turned six months already. It's been an amazingly exhausting, fulfilling, heartbreaking and nerve racking six months. And they're growing so quickly. Yesterday, they graduated to blended porridge, two days ago, both of them assumed crawling position and crawled one step before falling flat on their faces. Baby J always wants to sit up on her own and Baby E pulled himself into standing position a couple of days back. He looked so proud of himself for about 5 seconds before his jelly little legs buckled under him and he landed on his diaper padded bum. And now, they're teething. It makes them cranky, it occasionally makes them feverish and it makes breastfeeding them a great challenge.

But when I look at the photographs of them, or when they snuggle up to me when they're asleep, it's all worth it. Right up to the point where Baby J screams blue murder into my ear and makes as if she hates every fibre of my being. But that's a different story and Packrat assures me it's not personal.

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