Holiday pot pourri

I have been trying to steer away from calling Ruby "Rube" as a short form or nickname. It's just a little obvious and not particularly becoming. I have been trying to get "Ru-bijou" (or Ruby-jou, if you like) to stick. That's cute right, a sweet little pun en français? Instead, we've started calling her Ruby-dooby-doo... Which is kind of cute, but not exactly a short form. Guess what the short form of Ruby-dooby-doo is?

Meet my daughter, Doob:

Happy news: little Doobie is a good sleeper... by my (admittedly quite low) standards. She's recently been insisting that her bedtime is 8 pm, and I put her down in her crib. Her crib. (All right, it's a playpen, and it's in our room, but it's the concept that counts.) She then typically proceeds to sleep for 4 to 6 hours. Combine that with Tim's new 8 pm bedtime (it used be 9, back when he napped during the day), and voila! We have an hour or two of FREE TIME in the evening.

Last time I had a kid, that didn't happen for well over a year.

We actually went out last night to a party for a few hours, without the baby. Granted, it was next door, and Baba could have just called us to pop home if she woke up. But she didn't, and we drank beer and stayed out too late. Yay Dooby-doo!

Appropos of nothing, tonight Ken asked Tim: "What is your favourite thing to do?" Tim answered, without missing a beat: "I like to hug, and to go to the green tennis court." Well, of course.

And some Christmas clementine fun:

The Littlest Poobender

She looks so innocent. And yet beneath that sweet exterior lies a powerful being, capable of feats that leave her mortal parents shaking their heads in wonder.

The story goes like this: it was supper time, and I was holding sweet Ruby against me, her chin on my shoulder. She was sleepy, yet restless. I was struggling to eat a greasy chicken leg with one hand (and that is not the messy part of this tale). Suddenly vibrations below alerted me to the potential of a geyser about to be unleashed... A shake and shudder, and it passed. And then I felt some moisture as a loonie-sized schmear of poo appeared through the little one's leggings. I rushed upstairs and mangaged to control the damage - just a little spot on the leggings, none on her dress. Diaper changed, I returned to my chicken.

It was not to be. There on my chair and pooled beneath the table: the liquid golden poo of a breastfed baby! Further investigation revealed that there was also babycrap on MY ass. What the... ??

How Miss Ruby managed to get poo all over the floor and on my butt, but barely any on herself or my arms or shirt shall forever remain a mystery. However, I have my own hunch... She's a Poobender!

Looks like Tim called it, way back when...