Did I lose a few days?

I have been having the oddest morning. Typepad seems to have developed a black hole of sorts and many of my favorite breakfast reads have had a few days of posts sucked out of existence. Hmmmm.

I suppose I'd best get something fresh out there for those craving new blog content. I have nothing lengthy and captivating, so I present you with Santa's grab bag of blog content:

Gabriel is finally sitting up on his own. He had been doing the froggy-style sitting for a while, but now he is doing real, honest-to-Pete sitting. It's great. Of course, now he never wants to be reclining, so the bouncy seat has lost its charm.

Rolling over is another story altogether. He won't do it. He hates being on his tummy, period. He sleeps either on his back or his side (which he alters himself throughout the night), but he won't roll over to his stomach. Personally, I don't blame him. Why on earth would he want to work at getting himself into a position that he doesn't like? Sounds logical to me. He's brilliant, I tell you.

Oh, and he hates meat. HATES IT. I have tried grinding up real meat, and I have tried the disgusting little jars of meat. Nope. HATES IT. He does like yogurt, and he will be trying tofu this weekend. I'm actually not concerned about the meat- I just want to be sure he's getting enough protein. And he loves veggies and fruit, so we're good there.

It is most certainly NOT beginning to feel a lot like Christmas. How the heck did it sneak up on me so that it is now only a week away? How, I ask you? How?

We are about the enter the year of the lean. Our budget has had to be trimmed to the core. We are not extravagant people. Really. But now, between my three months of unpaid maternity leave, renovating the kitchen, and a surprise repair at the apartments we own (sewer collapse- over 10K, OUCH!), our finances basically suck. Had it not been for the sewer, we would have been just fine. No one can really predict those things, so I don't feel like we were irresponsible (we had saved up the money for the kitchen stuff and the leave, so those were planned), but these days it is just not that easy to have tens of thousands of dollars lying around "just in case." Thankfully our parents are helping us with loans, but it is going to take us at least a year to pay them back and begin to rebuild our savings.

And on the heels of the financial crisis, I feel like a big jerk because I have nothing, yes nothing, to put under the tree for the baby. His first Christmas and I have zilch. Ok, the kid has a better wardrobe than me because my friends and family can't seem to help themselves, and he has toys coming out of his wazoo because my parents saved ALL of my toys, but I still feel guilty. I suppose it's better to stiff him on a gift this year than next. Maybe I'll wrap my old toys that he hasn't seen yet...bad mommy.

Ok, now I am depressed. Bah humbug.

Must get some good baby hugging in soon- that fixes everything :-)