Date Night

You know you write Young Adult romance when you're watching the State of the Union and are struck by how much it resembled a prom this year.



Or maybe I just have been blogging with the Fictionistas for a while, because you know how much we love crazy prom stories here.



In a spirit of bipartisanship in the wake of the Tucson tragedy that many are criticizing as empty symbolism, members of Congress abandoned their time-honored partisan seating chart and sat with members of the opposing party during Obama's speech to a joint session of Congres.

The last several days here in DC have been like a politican Match.Com as members of Congress have scrambled to find "dates" to the big event.



After all, those all-important prom pictures look that much better when you have the perfect date.

In years past, the State of the Union looked just like a junior high dance, with the Republicans on one side and the Democrats on the other. But now we have a more mature Congress that's graduated at least to high school.

The tradition of partisan seating dates to 1845 in the House of Representatives, with Democrats on one sides of the aisle, and Republicans on the other. But it wasn't until 1913 that it became the practice for the State of the Union. For the first time since Thomas Jefferson, President Woodrow Wilson personally delivered the State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress, and the Representatives and Senators observed the House's partisan seating.

For the next 70 years, partisan seating was the norm, but no overt partisanship during the speech. But in 1983, Democrats mockingly applauded President Ronald Reasan during a line in his State of the Union. From then on we saw an era of one side of the chamber leaping to their feet at various times during the speech, with the other side sitting quietly and sometimes grumbling. At times it looked like the party the president was from was engaged in a weird aerobic workout during the State of the Union, they would get up and down so often.

It was always entertaining, that's for sure. Several State of the Union drinking games were even built around the jovial jumping up and down. (Because let's face it, even for the biggest politics die-hards among us, the only way to get through these things is with a drink.)

But this new seating arrangement really screwed things up. It used to be that members of Congress didn't even really have to listen too terribly hard in order to participate in the political pep rally. If the President was from their party, all they had to do was pay attention to what the sea of politicans around them were doing. If your seatmates are standing and cheering, you do too.

I kept watching last night to see if anyone would mess up, forgetting that their seatmate was from the opposing party and just following along, caught up in the excitement. That would have been funny.

I do know of one person who was very caught up in the excitement of the evening. She kept standing up and clapping whenever she saw the people on TV doing so.

My 1-year-old daughter. :)

Hey, it's DC. We start 'em young.

Reading at a Young Age

If you follow this blog, it's a pretty safe bet you love books. i mean, I know we're hilarious and awesome and all, but you probably wouldn't have found us unless you're a YA fan. Unless you're related to us, of course.

But those of you who aren't our actual family are probably all YA readers. and not just readers, but big readers. And you've probably always had a love of reading.

I've been reading to my 3-month-old since she was a teeny tiny baby in the NICU. It's really fun to see the change in her during storytime.

In the NICU, she just slept while I read. Then when she was a few weeks old, she would be awake, but looking at me, not the pictures. At about 1 month, she started attentively staring at the pictures.

Around a month and a half, she started to seem to recognize the story if it was one we'd read several times before. She particularly loves "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" by Bill Martin and Eric Carle and "Shampoodle" by Joan Holub (shout out to Joan, who follows this blog! She actually giggles when we read this one!!!!). About that same time, she started tracking. When I would read her a story with both words and pictures on both pages of a two-page spread, she would look at the correct page at the right time. I know it's because she could see which page I was looking at, but still, that's kinda cool, you know?

Then around 2 1/2 months, she started grabbing the pages and trying her best to turn them for mommy. :)

A couple of weeks ago, we started going to "Babytime" at the library. It's baby storytime for babies under 12 months old. We sing songs, do lap bounces, finger play, and listen to stories. Let me tell you...30 babies, mommies, daddies, and nannies in a room is cuteness overload!

I love that she's already so interested in books, because that's such a huge part of who I am.



So what about you? Did you love books at an early age? What age did you learn how to read? What were some of your favorite books when you were little?

'Twas the Night Before Christmas...

And all through the house,
Not a creature was stirring not even a mouse (which isn't much smaller than my baby daughter, by the way).

Not a creature was stirring, except for me, of course. As a new mom, I'm paranoid to sleep. It's 5 am and I'm on the night shift. Mr. Brice watched the baby and did some work from 8:30 pm to 2 am while I slept. Now it's my turn.

I can't believe it's actually Christmas Eve. CRAZINESS! Seriously, where did this month go? Oh wait...I know exactly where it went. Sadly, Mr. Brice's grandma passed away the day after Thanksgiving, so we went out of town for the funeral the first weekend of December, which meant a long car trip down to Tennessee.

Then when we got back, it was off to work the first two days of the week like normal. But what came after that was anything but normal.

I left work that Tuesday afternoon (December 8) around 4 pm so that I could meet my friend (and frequent Fictionista blog reader) Jennifer up at the Capitol Building. She was visiting from Atlanta, and was staying with her cousin, and even though being 8 months pregnant was keeping me from doing all the sightseeing and whatnot with her that I would have liked, I had tickets for the Capitol Tree Lighting Reception at the Botanic Gardens after the lighting, so we met up for that.

I was feeling completely fine. I ran into smoe people I knew and they asked me how I was feeling, and so of course I gave the standard throwaway answers that any 8-month preggers lady gives:
"I feel like I'm about to pop any second"
AND
"I'm so ready to not be pregnant anymore."

Which wasn't exactly true. I didn't literally mean I was about to pop, and I had way too many things still to do to get ready for the baby first. But, well, those answers are pretty much expected. I don't know. Whatever.

Except, it ended up being true. When I got home from the reception, I went with Mr. Brice to walk the dog, then I sat down to get some writing done. Did significantly more writing in one session than I'd done in months. I was feeling pretty good about myself, when all of a sudden it hit me that I hadn't felt the baby move in hours.

I drank some juice and laid down. Several hours later, at about 3 am, I got up to walk around, drank some more juice, ate some string cheese, and came back to bed. In tears. Because I couldn't feel anything.

Mr. Brice told me it was time for me to call the hospital. The midwife on call told me to come in for observation.

I was admitted around 4 am, and they immediately got a heartbeat. Yay! What a relief. I figured they would send me home with the typical giggles they reserve for any other clueless first time mom who panics over the slightest thing.

They ended up sending me home 4 days later, and lo and behold, I was no longer pregnant. My baby, who was 5 1/2 weeks premature had to stay behind in the NICU.

But Merry Christmas to me! Baby Amber came home yesterday!!!!!!!! Santa brought us a very special early Christmas present this year.



It's our first Christmas as a little family, and I couldn't be more thrilled. so my wish for all our readers is that you and your family have as joyous a holiday season as I am.

Happy holidays!