Yes, I’ve been totally slacking off lately. Now that it’s a new year, I guess I should go back and document the holidays.

Just to finish off on my birthday, we went out to eat at the Chinese place in town (well, in the nearest town that’s not this one) and I’ve decided we shouldn’t bother again. It’s just too blah. I’d rather do the buffet thing for Chinese, I think.

Anyway, Christmas! Christmaaaaas! Financial schedules this year had us down to the wire on presents, which was hard for one particular thing I wanted to get Amy - a pair of Kershaw Komachi kitchen knives. I’d spotted them on Amazon and thought they looked cute, and then when I heard they perform pretty well, I decided on them to go along with the other things we got Amy (vintage Aquarian tarot set, Arrested Development season 2, Brian Regan CD) but Amazon didn’t have the chef’s knife in stock, so I waited. And waited. And I knew they wouldn’t get any in time for Christmas. I then thought I’d just buy the full set of four knives, but by the time I got paid, that too was out of stock. I managed to find the knives at knifeworks.com and placed the order - then got told they were out of stock the next day. I couldn’t find them when we looked in Target, or in Bed, Bath & Beyond. I was almost going to buy a single Henckels knife or that Rachel Ray coppertail knife, but then decided I wasn’t going to pay 40 bucks for something that was made in China. Then, the weekend before Christmas, I happened to check on Amazon one last time, and Target had them in stock! One two-day shipping option later, and Christmas was saved.

This year was a difficult one with Sam, because it’s very much a transitional phase. For the first time, music CDs and DVDs were the first things bought, not action figures. We did grab a couple of figures to round out the presents, but in previous years it’s been all about the action figures, so we were hoping it wouldn’t be too much of a disappointment this year. Luckily, he loves his Gorillaz and Weird Al DVDs, so I think we did good.

What did I get? Well, I was surprised to find that a copy of We Love Katamari had been sitting in the bathroom cupboard, hidden in a tampon box, for over a month! It was such a nice present because even though I throw out plenty of suggestions, I know I’m hard to buy for, and the game is something I’ve been wanting since buying the first one. Then I amassed a very surprising amount of money and gift certificates, so guess what that turned into? Mario Kart DS bundle! At last!

New Year’s.. Let’s not talk about it. It was a lot of swearing and plumbing that ended in $53 of chromed brass pipe.

So I’m 100000 today, and my fambly celebrated it by buying me Pocky, ramune, Reverse, Yan-Yan, and those awesome spicy shrimp chips, all from these guys. Yay!

It’s been 10 years, and I’m dancing babies to sleep again. m-flo was particularly successful just now. Last night she dozed off while I was playing Amplitude, although I was slightly concerned I’d put her in a catatonic state from all the flashing lights.. Oops.

We’ve had the little lump in the house for nine days now, and we’re settling into somewhat of a routine.

Oh, the lump? Charlotte Marjorie Windmill was born on 4/28/05, 7lbs 10.8 oz, 20.5″ tall. She’s beautiful. She’s perfect. And she’s preventing us from getting anything else done. She sleeps through the night more or less - which is amazing. The downside is that she does NOT like to be put down in a bassinet or crib, so right now one of us always has to be holding her. This isn’t bad, it’s just inconvenient at times. Like when I need to pee.

Because of Charlotte, Ocean’s Twelve will always be memorable to me. See, half-way through watching that movie, Amy started labor. Ordinarily that might mean a trip to the hospital, but you see, we were going to have a home birth. An unassisted childbirth. I didn’t want to - I was always upfront about that - but our decision when we learned Amy was pregnant was that we would have a homebirth, with a midwife / doula. The problem was, we had a hard time finding one nearby. It wasn’t until quite late in the game that we finally realised why - midwives are illegal in Iowa. In other words, you can’t have a home birth with a midwife in Iowa. You can, however, have an unassisted childbirth - isn’t this a stupid state of affairs? Of course, just because I didn’t want to do it doesn’t mean I wasn’t supportive - my concern for Amy’s welfare was just as high as for the baby, and surely she’d be more relaxed being able to give birth in familar surroundings, with people who loved her and weren’t just doing their jobs? But still, I was terrified. While part of me was thinking that babies have been born outside of hospitals for forever, the rest of me was looking at how we always freak out when under the slightest bit of duress - like washing the dog in the bathtub. However, Amy is such a strong person, and her enthusiasm and confidence pulled me through it.

So labor started. And I didn’t freak out. I can’t say it’s because I was cool and confident, it’s pretty much because I just switched to auto-pilot. I tried to help Amy through the contractions, I setup the big inflatable pool we’d bought (not as a birthing pool, but so Amy could sit in to help labor pains), I kept the water flowing. I boiled water. I read through the Emergency Childbirth Handbook. I’ll let Amy give the labor details if she wants, but the summary is that at some point, she decided that labor should be finished in the hospital, so my sister-in-law drove us over there, something I’ll be eternally grateful for, because I STILL don’t have a driver’s license. Because I’m an idiot.

And so, just 40 minutes after arriving at the hospital, Charlotte was born. Not quite the childbirth experience we planned, but mom and baby are both doing fine, which is the important part, eh?