How cool is that.Christmas was just like I imagined it would be, except even better. We even got to skip that annual embarrassing poems & singing tradition. I don't think all countries even have that! All you lucky buggers in USA - you wake up and there's a pile of presents under the Christmas tree. In Estonia, people are clearly very eager because we even have to work for out presents!
Santa Claus comes and sits under the Christmas tree. He calls out a name and then that person has to perform something to get that gift. It can be a song or a poem, or perhaps even a short dance. Small children prepare new material every year. I think they just try to prove to Santa they they are Good kids.This gift giving tradition is not as cute when adults are getting the gifts. Usually people just recite the same poems and sing the same songs year after year and every year we get to watch people painfully singing songs they don't remember the lyrics to. Mhh, now that I think about it, the entire point is see people make a fool of themselves. No one is excitedly looking forward to hearing "Holy night" for the hundredth time
, they just want to see if the performer is able to sing it without any major mistakes. But this year... This year we were hosting the Christmas party. 
This year we simply distributed the presents!Siiri did not see any fireworks on New Year's Eve. She was sound asleep while I was outside, in front of a suburban house, admiring the pretty lights with a baby monitor in my hand.
The bangs were unbelievably loud. I was convinced baby couldn't sleep through those but fortunately I was proven wrong. We spent the evening with two other couples in a child-friendly environment in a new suburban style housing district. Many similar-looking houses occupied by friendly families, many of which launched at least a few fireworks. There were rockets going up all around us. We had delicious dinner and real Champagne. I really enjoyed it and I don't think I would have preferred a loud party with drinks. Maybe I really am starting to settle down! 
...or perhaps I just needed the rest. Right after Christmas Eve I suddenly got very edgy. I was talking with - I mean to - Erkki really fast and mostly about things I usually don't even care about. It felt almost as if I was vocally procrastinating to keep myself from thinking some stressful thoughts. I took a moment to think it over and realized I was facing failure. I used to have a real goal of writing the article by the end of the year. Now it was a week until the year ends and I had social plans for the next day and travel plans for the couple of days after that. It seemed inevitable that I will not finish any version of the article, not even a bad and flawed version. How hard could it be to write one flawed version of something that I have been thinking about so much... At least it can't be possible. I had tried to do it in short periods of time but I used up too much of that time to study for exams in stead. Also, it was quite impossible to really concentrate before I was already out of time for the day. It was excellent that I had a babysitter around so I can study for exams but I still had no article to show for it. So learning from past mistakes, for 3 days in a row I had a babysitter for 6 hours straight and in the evening had Erkki take care of the baby as much as possible. At the end of the writing marathon I sent my science advisor THE FIRST DRAFT of the article.
So that's how my holiday season went. This week was quite busy. On Sunday a colleague contacted me, "You did remember you're scheduled to give a presentation on Friday, right?".
Well lets just say I'm glad she reminded me early. I had plenty of time to prepare for it, too bad I was sabotaged at the last minute: I got 3.5 hours of sleep lying sideways on the wrong bed. I was working on coffee life-support for the entire duration of my presentation.Baby Update: 8420g. I think she's lost a little weight. No wonder. She eats very little and she is simply a little ball of activity. She's 69cm. I thought she was 70 cm so apparently she has also shrunk. She still has 3 teeth and she's actively teething (...forever and always). Nearly 8 months old, she can commando crawl back and forward, she swings herself back and forth on all fours but does not crawl for more than 1-2 steps. More like frog-jumping really. She pushes herself to sit and back to stomach position with ease but she leans forward nearly all the time when she sits. I wish she learned to hold her upper body high and straight.
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