I am just so happy today. Christmas was wonderful. We woke up when Kate did, and I got her changed while Den got the video camera. She walked out to see the tree, she was tickled to see it on the floor, and then opened her stocking stuff. Which took a while. The girl is, err, slightly dainty. She’d rip off one little piece of tissue paper, then hand it to me, repeat. She only made it through a few small things before she ran over to her highchair and announced “Eat!” So she got cheerios while we opened some gifts.

Den and I got her an aquadoodle and the meowsic keyboard. I apparently made a slight miscalculation because I saved the keyboard for the last gift, but when she got the aquadoodle that was the end of it for her. We let her play with it for a bit before I gently tried taking the pen away and redirecting her to the presents and she just started crying. She opened several presents holding the pen. Needless to say she really likes it! She likes the keyboard, too, so apparently I did good picking those out.

From friends and family she got the Little People Amusement Park, which she will occupy herself with for some time, she likes putting the car down the track and clapping. I like that it’s a toy that she will find new ways to play with as she grows older. The other big hit was the Fisher Price Tea Set. It has pouring sound effects and last night she sat at her table and just kept pouring into the cup and saying “ahhh!” as she pretended to drink. So adorable!

She also got a bunch of clothes and books, which is great because she never has enough clothes and she can never have too many books! The pajamas we got were in 18M size, which is what I told them she was wearing. I’m quickly realizing she’s already outgrowing that size though. Holy smokes, what the heck? She really must be having a growth spurt. I don’t feel too bad, though, because everything she outgrows is going to be re-used by her sister. (Which is kind of exciting, considering some of the adorable dresses Kate wore only once for special occasions!)

Unlike Thanksgiving, after which Kate had a most horrible meltdown that lasted for days, today she was in a ridiculously funny mood. She was running around playing “get me” with us in her new style of “running” – which consists mostly of stomping her feet really fast and moving really slowly. And then collapsing on the couch or on pillows in fits of laughter. When I tickle her, causing shrieks of laughter, and then stop she’s started looking at me and saying, “tickle?” so I’ll do it again. The funny thing about this kid is that she’ll be running around shrieking and gasping for breath one minute, and then she sits down and plays with her keyboard or little people for 10 minutes, as if someone flicked a switch in her.

My tree is still up, my lights are still on, my music is still playing… I refuse to let go of Christmas so quickly. It’ll take me a few days to resign myself to packing it all up. :)

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It has been really nice to decide on a name for the baby so quickly, and to be able to call her by name at home. Ember. It just feels right.

I’ve started thinking about the girls’ room and what I’m going to do in there. Den is relieved he doesn’t have to re-paint it something more gender neutral, since it’s pink and cream right now. It’ll be a tight fit with two beds/cribs and two dressers, but I measured and it’s definitely doable. We’ll have to lose the big bookcase but I’m honestly not upset about that since the bottom half is unusable anyways, thanks to Kate’s proclivity towards pulling every single thing off the bottom 3-4 shelves (grrr). I’ll be getting a second dresser exactly like Kate’s, and hopefully putting a couple shelves above each for storage. There is a small closet that we use for some storage, but it really really needs shelves put in it. (I don’t know why people in the 50’s thought closets didn’t need any shelves at all. How is that useful?) Decoration-wise I really need to actually get some more framed pictures up on the wall, and maybe even the letters I bought for Kate over a year ago. I’ll have to get some for Ember too.

I picked out a baby book for Ember, which took longer than it should have mainly because I couldn’t find what I was looking for. Apparently no one makes a simple yellow gender-neutral non-character baby book (the two I found were Winnie the Pooh). Kate’s baby book I really like, it’s pink with a giraffe on the front (Pepperpot Molly’s Nursery). I wanted them to be the same size, a similar style, but I wanted Ember’s to be yellow to differentiate. Well I ended up finding a pink one with birds on the front that is really cute… I just didn’t really want both to be in pink, but oh well, they’re not exactly the same. At least the scrapbooks I get to pick out whatever colors I want.

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I’m getting used to this idea of having two girls. Still so unexpected, but I can see a lot of positives in it. Especially when I look at Kate running around and think, best case scenario we get two like her. Of course Ember will have her own personality – it’s so strange to wonder at this blank slate, this unknown. That’s what really kills me about Devin… the not knowing who he would have been. I guess in some way I thought that having a living boy would give me a better idea of what Devin might have been like… even though of course they would have been different too. Kate is so thoroughly girl – sensitive and quiet (usually) and communicative and gentle. Not that boys can’t be those things too, but most of the boys I see running around are into trucks and running full-force and bashing toys together and yelling loudly. It’s really kind of shocking to see how early those differences show up. So, yes. It will be interesting to see how this girl’s personality develops.