Last week was the crazy-busy week. Piano recital, Nativity play at
nursing home (those two on the same day), speech, OB appointment,
post-office trip, extra ballet practice, ballet recital, choir
rehearsal, Christmas shopping. Throw in a couple of days of torrential
rains and a minor flood in our patio room, just for fun. (Minimal
damage, easily dealt with. Turned out to be not a big deal at all.
Discovering a computer power strip sitting in half an inch of
water—during the brief span of time between the piano recital and the
Nativity play—it sure felt like it was going to be a big deal.
Fortunately it happened to be my birthday, which Scott had taken as a
vacation day because that's what a sweetie he is. He was home. Made all
the difference.)

And this week? Ahhhh. No out-of-house commitments whatsoever, except for Christmas Mass, of course.

I am so happy to be able to stay home in this snug little nest. (Snug and dry once more.) I'm cooing over the pictures of Suzanne's beautiful new baby
and knowing that my turn is just around the corner. And I'm content to
have it be just around the corner—no rush, little one, though we're all
so eager to meet you. My mother arrives on January 3rd, a day after my
due date (and I've never delivered sooner than a week after my due
date), so of course our hope is that baby will stay happily put until
after grandma gets here.

But I'm all set for Christmas, just in
case. All set except for the meal, that is. I suppose I should give
that some thought. Quickly, so I can have groceries delivered, because
I'm not braving the store this week. Don't want to squander one of the
bursts of nesting energy that have put my home into much better order
than I would have supposed, given the time of year. Yesterday I got the
infant carseat cleaned up, its cover freshly washed. Baby clothes are
laundered and laid out in their drawers, thanks to Rose. The drawers
belonged to Rilla until last week: I finally made my way through every
dresser and closet in the house, weeding out, sorting, filling huge
bags for Goodwill. Rilla has a drawer in the girls' room that used to
belong to Rose: since Rose seems to stick to a small handful of
favorite outfits, we decided she didn't need a whole huge drawer full
of rejects. So whew, we've managed to find space for everything without
adding another piece of furniture, for which there really is NO space
whatsoever.

Rilla is sleeping in her little trundle bed in the
girls' room. She still wakes up at least once in the night, but Scott
can get her back down pretty quickly. Wonderboy is waking up a lot,
too. He's getting over a cough. Could be some interesting nights ahead
when we've got a third night-waker in the party.

Yesterday we
made Christmas cookies and ate most of them and put flannel sheets on the bed and watched
Rudolph and put a big red and green quilt on the sofa. The quilt was a
wedding gift from Scott's mom's best friend. Many years ago, when Jane
was the only baby, it served as a cover for our old ratty sofa. It's
sweet to see it back on the couch and remember the way the Jane-bairn
used to lie upon it, staring at its red stars, waving a tiny fist in a
quest to grab one.

The Nativity play last week made me cry: it
was the carol-singing at the end that got me. The host of eager
children in their homemade, hodge-podge costumes, the white-haired
residents of the nursing homes, the beaming Carmelite sisters in their
brown habits, many of the nuns with fat babies in their arms. Whenever
our group visits this nursing home, the sisters are quick to reach for
the babies among us. Next year I suppose it will be my little
one tucked big-eyed into the brown curve of a sister's arm, making a
little O mouth while the nuns and the old folks and the children belt
out their Gloooorias.

Glorious.