Negative Creeps

Have I ever sent you an email pointing you to my YouTube page, where I occasionally post videos of the girls doing cute things? Have I ever mentioned how cute my daughters are and talked about the adorable thing they did the other day, and then said "I have it on video, check it out on YouTube"?

If so, and if you actually want to see the videos, you'll need to sign up and send me your username so I can add you to my friends or family lists (Mom, you're already set up). I uploaded a bunch of stuff over the weekend, and almost immediately two people I don't know subscribed to the videos. When I went to check them out, I saw that one of them has listed as their favorites nearly 200 videos of people, mostly but not entirely children, getting wet. Playing in pools, lakes, sprinklers, whatever.

I don't know what it means -- it just seems, I dunno, creepy. Maybe it's totally innocent and this person just enjoys videos of people getting wet the same way people enjoy videos of cats falling off railing, or I enjoy videos of people wiping out while trying to do skateboard stunts. They're welcome to their videos, I've just decided to not have videos of my kids be among them.

So, videos on YouTube are now private. Send me your info if you want to be able to see them. Also, any recommendations for a different video sharing site would be much appreciated.

Wonderful Christmastime

I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas. We did -- this was the first year that Zosia really got the idea of Christmas, and the last few weeks were full of anticipation and "is it Christmas yet" and "it's so hard to wait! I'm so impatient." When it finally was Christmas, I think she was so relieved it was finally here that she forgot to be moody and as a result spent the entire day (except for the briefest of meltdowns at teeth-brushing time) in a remarkably good mood.

As befits the first granddaughter of eight grandparents, she got a ton of stuff, as did her sister. Whatever your feelings about rampant consumerism (I admit to being both fascinated and a little squicked-out by it) there is no denying how great it is to see one's kid in a state of frantic excitement, running from room to room and toy to toy, eagerly monopolizing her sister's presents as well as her own (big hits: Viewmaster, tiny pony with comb-able hair, bongo drums), all the while with a huge smile on her face. It did a papa proud.

We manged to get the girls to sit together in their matching Christmas dresses just long enough to snap a couple of pictures. Here's one of them:

In their Christmas dresses
Originally uploaded by Ruzich/Johnson

We finished our day with dinner out at a Chinese restaurant -- we thought about a movie but didn't want to press our luck -- and evening fell with Daryl wearing her moisturizing gloves & booties and paging through the Complete Sandman collection while I rocked my way through Guitar Hero III for the Wii. We collapsed into bed exhausted but fully suffused with the Christmas spirit, ready to move on to New Year's, 2008, and everything it has in store for our little family.

Family Videos

A couple of grainy, shot-with-our-Nikon video clips, for your viewing pleasure. First, D-Jo's friend Sarah stopped by with her daughter Katie, and Zosia enjoyed bonking the balloon off her head:



And then we are proud to present Genevieve, the Farting Baby:

Genevieve

I am proud to announce that Genevieve Pamelia Johnson Ruzich was born this morning at 2:33 AM. She weighed in at a healthy 8 lbs., 15+ oz., and she and D-Jo are happy & healthy and resting comfortably:



We're still undecided on what the shortened version of 'Genevieve' will be. D-Jo is leaning toward Viv or Vivvy, and I'm partial to Ginny, although D-Jo suggested P.J. (after the initials of her two middle names) and I like that one a lot. We'll see what fits...