All I want for Christmas....

A.'s first Christmas was really nice. My mom, dad, and sister (visiting from Seattle) came over in the morning for the classic Christmas -- stockings, pancake breakfast, lots of presents. A. got more than anyone else, of course. Normally, she's all about ripping and eating paper goods of various types, but we couldn't get her to tear into her presents. Oh well, it meant more presents to open for me.

The day after Christmas, A. was pretty fussy. When we finally get a giggle out of her, what do we see on her bottom gum? Two little white spots! Her first teeth are arriving! Unfortunately, it appears we're in for a long, painful process. The spots have barely gotten larger in the last 3 days, and the poor girl appears to be in pain. At least it comes and goes, so she's not miserable 24/7.

This weekend, before more family visits, JJ and I are going to see three houses. Two of them aren't the specific house we'd like, but the idea is to get a feel for the sort of houses that are in two neighborhoods that are commute-friendly for JJ. If we liked the general feel and layout, we'd keep an eye out in that neighborhood for just the right house. The third house is one that we might be interested in. It's very different from the other two -- those are in newer and fairly homogeneous neighborhoods, whereas this one is older and not in a neighborhood, per se. The things we like are the large yard (.5 to 1 acre) and the smaller town that it's in.

It'll be an interesting comparison between the three. I'll have more details next week.

She slept through the night!

In the 7 and a half months she's been alive, A. has never slept through the night. She has acid reflux, so before we started treating that with Prevacid she woke from reflux episodes and to eat small, frequent meals to control her symptoms. Once we started treating the reflux, at 5 months, she had established terrible sleeping habits that had her up every 1-2 hours and napping only in her car seat or while being worn.

Since moving to Florida, JJ and I have been working on A.'s sleep. We finally got her napping in her crib, which was fabulous and gave us a lot more freedom.

For her night sleep, we tried all of the gentle methods, but she's too stubborn. We finally turned to Dr. Ferber and his progressive-waiting approach. Night one was terrible, with hour-and-a-half long crying jags and little sleep for any of us. Night two was better, with 10 wakings but only 4 soothings.

Last night, night 3, she finally -- FINALLY -- slept through the night. Into bed at 7pm, up at 5:45am. I'm still having a hard time believing it. We'll see if it holds.

Do you have any idea how amazing it feels to sleep for 8 hours for the first time in more than half a year?!

Lake-neighbors

I kind of love the people in the house across the lake. It's a big two-story house, with a sandy beach built down to the lake, a big dock, and at least one play structure for their many kids.

Nearly every evening, you can head the kids outside playing. They had Christmas lights up -- both on the front of their house AND the lake side -- the day after Thanksgiving. And tonight they set off a not insignificant fireworks display over the lake. Why? I have no idea. But I love it.

The house-hunt begins

JJ and I had our first meeting with a real estate agent yesterday. Our plan was to watch our income and expenses through December and January to get a better idea of what we could afford, before starting the search in late January or February.

But we've been idly looking at houses online and by driving around, of course, and we found one that looked so promising that we decided to move the timeline up and view the house immediately.

Fortunately or unfortunately, the house didn't live up to what we'd hoped. The neighborhood is great, and I'd love to live there. The yard is pretty nice, but most of the backyard is eaten up by a large lanai and pool. The interior is really the problem. It's very much an entertaining house, with the dining room, living room, and "party room" broken up. The party room takes up the back of the house, and has a wet bar with tap and beer lamp for over a pool table. Upstairs is cramped, and the second and third bedrooms are pretty small.

It's nice to have a starting point, though, a house to compare other houses to. And now that we've met with Maria, our agent, she can start pointing us in the direction of other possibilities. We're in no real rush, so we can take our time, watch the market, and find just the right place.

Shorts in December

I was excited to leave California and the need to wear jeans and a sweatshirt at all times during the year. I didn't realize that I'd be greeted by unseasonably warm weather in Florida. It's been in the 80s for as long as I can remember; a cold day is a dip to the high 70s. Now, given, even the Floridians are a little taken aback, but the average high is still only about 5 degrees colder than we're seeing!

So it was shorts for me and a onsie and dress for A. as we headed to the Magic Kingdom to watch the taping of the Christmas parade. No, it isn't live. It's taped in early December, and the audience applies to participate, gets into the park early, and has to sit through take after take of each act, looking excited and enthused the whole time.

We didn't officially apply to be in the audience; A., my Mom, and I just showed up intending to try to blend in like my family has in years past. They were a bit stricter about segregating this year, though, so we just sat in some rocking chairs outside one of the stores and watched the taping from a distance.