What a Beautiful Weekend

My nephew Hayden, 7 lbs, 13 oz. and 20.5" long.

It started Friday with a party at a coworker’s house, where we exchanged silly gifts and people raved about the peanut butter pretzel balls I made. I went home and slept for about an hour before getting a text that Yazmin was in the hospital, so I headed downtown around 1:30 am and met my new nephew two short hours later! Back home to sleep till noon, then whipped up some candied walnuts for Yazmin, a chocolate eggnog pie for the family and some chocolate-dipped pretzel sticks for another party. (My arm was actually sore the next day from all that mixing and whipping cream.)

Then the war in Iraq officially ended. Thanks Obama!

On Sunday I did some freelance work and Yazmin and family stopped by my parents’ house with the baby. I got to see my dog Jayda around a baby for the first time ever. I let her sniff all over his rump, his car seat and his stuff. She jumped up a couple of times when he was our arms, but my soft boot sent the message that wasn’t okay. Later when he cried, she perked up her ears and cocked her head and stared at him intently. It was pretty cute.

After that, I finished most of my Christmas shopping and went to an hors d’ouevres potluck and sing-along party. The host is a good friend of mine who happens to be an attorney, so needless to say it was a fantastic place to hand out my adoption networking cards. There were probably 100 people there, many of them in the legal profession.

The funny thing about adopting is that I go back and forth between thinking “No one is ever going to pick me!” and “Holy cow, I need an adoption loan soon!” depending on how encouraging the day has been. Yesterday was a holy cow day.

I’m looking forward to a short work week, then tackling the moment’s most pressing question: Where to spend New Year’s Eve?