Note To Future Self

Hello 2009!

No, I don’t have anything constructive to say. I just wanted to take advantage of my esteemed position as the, uh, closest to the international date line.

It’s the little things in life.

We’ve survived Christmas, and boy are we pooped.

Best to just take a nap.

p.s. Yes, there was Christmas bread

Preliminary research suggests that worldwide financial collapse can be averted by flooding the interwebs with cuteness.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t find any pictures of puppies and kittens, so these will have to do.

You can’t say we haven’t done our part.

Thank you to everyone who’s braved the post office (and experienced the joys of international postage) this holiday season. Em says it’s her best Christmas yet!

Apologies for the radio silence. All is well (if not quiet) on the western front.

Em is one week old and already starting to talk about upgrading to a bigger laundry basket, maybe building a little self-contained laundry basket in the garage so she can “have a life,” etc.

In a new recurring feature, we made Em do battle with a ferocious mastadon hand puppet today for our entertainment.

Newp. No car keys till you defeat the wooly mammoth.

p.s. Noticed a decline in NZ-related news yet? I hate to break it to you…

I brought my precious home today:

What? Oh, her?

Yeah, she was there too:

Dad got a push mower for his birthday. We’ve been using a horrible free-cycled unit from the last century, and the righteous appeal of taking four hours to mow a 150 sq ft lawn just sort of wore off. Besides, I have better things to be doing now (sleeping).

Yes, that’s a laundry basket. We ran out of dresser drawers.

Anna is feeding, so Aaron takes dictation:

We came home from the hospital yesterday, or as we like to call it, the “baby spa.” This new mother thing is easy when you have staff coming to your door every hour, dropping off lunch and chocolate milkshakes, and when you can ring a little bell and a midwife will come in to answer your questions about “latching” and “the rugby hold.”

As we were leaving, one of the midwives mentioned that Em would probably want to feed a lot over the next 48 hours (ed — which she has), and she would enter the “Rotorua” phase as her digestive tract kicks into gear (ed — which she most certainly has).

She’s in love with the world.