I met Fiona for the first time. She greeted me by taking a huge crap and then peeing on me. So I retaliated with my first diaper change in 16 years. The crap taking was so explosive that the diaper change had to be followed by a clothing change also. She's a squirmy little thing. But I managed to get the onesie over her head while only having moderate fears of suffocating her. But she came through just fine.

I had been feeling pretty confident about this whole "baby" thing. But seeing a real, live newborn baby kind of freaked me out. And now I'm starting to have all of those thoughts that are listed in pregnancy books that I rolled my eyes at as little as a week ago. What if I really suck as a mother? What if the baby hates me? What if I don't like the baby? What if taking care of a baby is more hassle than I can stand? Doesn't it count for anything that I wasn't ready yet?!? I didn't say go! Make it stop!!!!

OK. It will all be ok. Ina May says to trust your "inner monkey" for these things. Meaning that monkeys do this stuff just fine all the time. Monkeys do not have nervous breakdowns over babies. Monkeys never have to go into therapy.

...

I just special ordered meat for Christmas Eve. I never did audition soups. I'm just going to go with my recipe and hope for the best. So here's Christmas Eve:

Herb-poached Shrimp with Homemade Cocktail Sauce
Marinated Roasted Red and Green Peppers, Mushrooms, Artichoke Hearts and Olives with Feta and Pita Chips
Spiced Nuts

Tomato Soup with Orange and Cumin
Nouveau Beef Wellingtons
Baby Spinach with Scallions and Lemon

Plum Pudding with Custard Sauce
Sliced Oranges with Carmel, Mint and Crystallized Ginger

Sparkling Pineapple and Ginger Punch

...

Dinner at Morel's last night was lovely. I had Morel Bisque to start and then the "Duck Duo". It was a grilled duck breast and confit. I think I might be the only person in the world to bring leftover duck confit to work for lunch in a Kmart bag. Leo had the Mushroom Treasure Chest, which was a bread box stuffed with a million types of mushrooms to start and the filet. It all was great. We ordered a Chocolate Lemon Napoleon for dessert. I was hoping for more chocolate and lemon flavors, but they added a lot of cinnamon stuff and I found the whole thing kind of schizophrenic (but tasty). But the appetizer and entree were great.

Leo got me a Pewabic Tile of a girl riding a whale. I love it. I really need to figure out a good way to display my tiles. I still have about 5 animal ones and 5 regular ones that I was going to make into something for Fiona but decided to keep for Owen once I got knocked up. Plus I have the "Life is Worth Living in Detroit" (so don't kill yourself) tile and now this. I think maybe I'll put the kid's tiles on a coat rack (glue them to a white board with three coat hooks underneath). Leo would probably help me with the grout. And the others have hangers.