Babyzilla

There she goes, toppling over block towers with one swipe of her little hand. She wreaks havoc on any creation Mommy or Daddy try to erect. Does she have any remorse? Show any trace of guilt or regret for her obliteration? Not at all, she laughs giddily as the blocks, books, and whatever toys were used all come tumbling down around her. She’s mad with power. She’s unstoppable.  She’s…babyzilla! Our destructive little tornado has discovered her passion for knocking things down and it is quite hilarious. She has also learned to clap this week, and she couldn’t be more pleased with herself. We’ve been applauding her for months now, and finally, she can celebrate her own success. Next stop - standing ovation? We hope so, but everyone we talk to tells us not to encourage baby to walk so eagerly, as our lives as we know it will then be over. So we’ll be satisfied with her accomplishments to date, and meanwhile get busy on baby proofing our hazardous house.


Sarah Beth continues to delight us every day.  She is sleeping quite well through the night most of the time, usually waking up around 7:30AM. Occasionally, I hear her chatting away a bit earlier.  I hop out of bed to find her sitting like a big girl, having an animated conversation with her hands.  I scoop her up and bring her to our room to visit with Daddy and me in bed for a little while, and I must admit, it’s becoming the favorite part of my day.  I don’t know how we two cranky pants managed to create this happy little morning ray of sunshine, but she has made me look forward to waking up early.  She plops herself on the bed between us and tells us all about the dreams she had and how she’d like to spend her day.  She admires Daddy’s tattoos (yes the butt is still on his arm -- he really needs to get a skirt tattooed on that chick) and playfully pulls his hair and toys with the drawstrings on my pajama pants.  And she laughs…boy does she laugh!  Full-on gummy smiles with her tongue sticking out. The girl is a riot. She terrorizes Savannah into cowering at the foot of the bed while she soaks up all our love and attention.

We had such a beautiful weekend here in Charlotte. By beautiful I mean we finally got some rain! The pollen is not quite so bad now, so we spent a little time on the back patio admiring our new garden. We brought out baby’s jumpy thing so she could bounce al fresco. Seems like she enjoyed herself!

Kurt's Box Garden

Check out our roses!

Backpack Backpack!

If you’ve been fortunate enough to miss the Dora the Explorer phenomenon, allow me to fill you in on what you’ve been missing. Each episode follows Dora and her little monkey friend as they have an adventure that requires them to go somewhere to do something. Inevitably they will have to use a Map to find their way, they say a few words in Spanish here and there, and at some point they have to dig some useful object out of Dora’s backpack. Opening said backpack requires Dora and you, the viewer, to sing a catchy tune that goes “backpack, baaackpack.” SB doesn’t care too much for Dora, but when Mommy has to vacuum and that’s the only thing on, she’ll tolerate it. Anyway, this dumb little song gets into your head and next thing you know, every time you hear the word “backpack” in any context, you are singing “backpack baaackpack” and annoying everyone around you. We don’t care too much for sitcoms, but we caught “Modern Family” last week and the parent of a toddler confessed that he wanted to fill Dora’s backpack with bricks and drop her in the river and we thought it was hilarious.


Anyway, I tell you that information so you can appreciate that when we went on our first adventure with baby’s new hiking backpack, we sang it  every 2 minutes. Damn you, Dora the Explora! Other than annoying children’s ditties, SB’s maiden voyage in the backpack (backpack baaaackpack!) was a rousing success. Technically it’s not her first experience in the backpack, but the first few runs didn’t count because she wasn’t on a real hiking trail. The real first time, she cruised around our driveway. Second time was such a comedy of errors we don’t count that at all. It was Easter weekend up in Hendersonville so we cruised up to the Blue Ridge Parkway to do a little hiking. Unfortunately the parkway was closed to do wind damage, resulting in only one nearby trail we could access.  It was unseasonably hot, and we soon discovered after getting out of the car, that it was biting fly season. They swarmed us like a bad “B” movie and baby was in the backpack a total of 5 minutes.  So on Monday after a brief trial run on my parents’ street, we loaded her up and were off to DuPont Forest for a quick hike to Hooker Falls. It’s beautiful up there and the lower falls are an easy walk so it was perfect for her first expedition. Doesn’t she look happy?

Checkin' out the sunshade

Wow those are some tall trees

The dusty trail

Almost There!

Pretty!

Kurt did a little shooting of his own.  Can't wait to see this footage!

More filming for his "Baby vs. Wild" series

No more pictures please.

Ok baby, I'll just shoot the scenery instead.

Party Time Baby

We got back last night from a wonderful weekend in Hendersonville. My Dad’s 75th birthday celebration rolled into a third week with a party attended by 80 of his closest friends, mostly from the community of Cummings Cove where they have lived for the past 13 or so years. Up until my parents moved to NC, my Dad had lived on literally the same street his whole life in the small NJ town of Little Silver. He was the Police Chief and knew just about everyone in the borough and surrounding area. He could point out the school where he fell off the roof as a kid, the chocolate shop he worked in as a teenager, and he just had to look across the street to see the house where he grew up. They had tons of friends and family around them, so when they decided to up and move after that long history, I was shocked and worried that they’d miss their lives up North too much. As my Dad said at his party Saturday night, he and my mom had a deal that they would try it for a year and if either one didn’t like it they’d move back. They were so warmly greeted by their new neighbors that it took them less than a week to know they made the right decision. It is wonderful to see my parents have such a wonderful bunch of people in their lives. They were so excited to celebrate my Dad’s big day, and dare I say just as thrilled to meet his lovely granddaughter. It was like having 40 sets of grandparents doting on her, and she ate it up! Ever the party girl, SB greeted her adoring public for over 2 ½ hours without complaint. She dished out quite a few smiles, dined on cheese and applesauce, and squealed with delight at shiny objects like watches, sparkly earrings, and Budweiser in a pilsner glass. This child definitely takes after Grandma and Grandpa Fagan.


She slept well that night in her Pack & Play in the corner of Mommy and Daddy’s room. Mommy, however, does not know how other Mommies can sleep in the same room as their babies. I tossed and turned all night, jumping at every little baby snort and sleepy whimper. And when I couldn’t hear her making any noise I’d just lay there waiting for the next sound before I jumped up to check on her. Good grief. At home we have this fantastic AngelCare baby monitor that has a motion detector under the mattress so you can tell that she’s breathing. An alarm sounds if it doesn’t detect motion for more than 10 seconds. It’s mainly to prevent SIDS I think but it is a nice security blanket that helps me sleep at night. One of those ‘silly’ overkill baby accessories we pooh-poohed until we had her home sleeping in the crib her first night at home and then rushed out to buy day 2. She slept quite soundly last night, after our big hiking adventure we took before leaving the mountains yesterday. More to come on the baby backpack maiden voyage next post…

Happy Birthday Dad!

Baby has the life. She laughed her butt off today playing with Mommy. Laughed some more when Daddy made hilariously funny faces during dinner. She then took a ginormous poop followed by an impromptu bath to clean up the aftermath, had a warm bottle and drifted off to sleep. Doesn’t that sound like a great day?


Speaking of great days, tomorrow (or more likely today, by the time I finish writing this) is my Dad’s 75th birthday. And Phil was kind enough to kick off Dad’s birthday week with a win. My Dad is not typically an overtly emotional guy, but man does he love him some Phil Mickleson. Well, it’s a love hate relationship, really. He yells at the TV when Phil screws up, and cries when he is victorious. There are only a few times when I’ve seen my Dad weep, and the first time Lefty won the Masters was one of them. And don’t think that just because it’s now Phil’s 3rd time wearing the green jacket, my Dad did not shed tears of joy. Oh he did, according to reports from my Mom when I called to congratulate Daddy on “his” win.

My Dad has the BEST stories about being a police officer in a small town. I won’t do them justice here, but if you ever sit down and have a beer with my Dad, ask him about the following:

1. The time he got shot at during a traffic stop and caught the guy on the same night.
2. When he and his partner wrangled a raccoon from someone’s house, only for it to get loose in the back of the squad car. Everyone bailed out but the raccoon.
3. The time he and his partner completely destroyed a lady’s house trying to capture a squirrel, and blamed it all on the furry rodent.
4. “Where’s the Bathroom!!!” This one will have you snorting out loud.

In honor of my Dad, I would like to share a story of my own. I actually wrote this one down for Dad’s 70th birthday but it pretty much sums up how lucky I was to have such a great man as my Dad so I’ll share it here.  When I was maybe 11 or 12, my best friend Jen and I somehow thought it would be a good idea to go to girl scout camp. We were not exactly outdoorswomen, and Jen was not known for her ability to stay away from home overnight for extended periods of time, so I don’t know what the hell we were thinking. But anyway, off we went to Camp Sacajawea. We arrived with excitement and settled into our platform tent. Um what? Tent? Not even a cabin. I have only vague memories of sweating to death, swatting bugs, and trudging through the woods and a dusty trail to get something to eat. What I distinctly remember is that Jen and I flippin’ hated that place after the first day, and we were supposed to stay for two weeks! We plotted our escape. I think Jen made the first move and went to the office to call her parents to come get her. Without her, there was no way I was sticking around, so I went to the nurse’s office to call my Daddy. Those Girl Scout Nazis were harsh – they said I needed to suck it up and my parents weren’t going to come all the way back here and they would be disappointed in me. Even then I knew they were full of crap. I remember them talking to my Dad, then handing the phone to me, and I think all I said was a pathetic “Daddy?” and poof, he was on his way to rescue me. I don’t think he used the police sirens but it is a possibility because before I knew it I was happily sitting in the passenger seat of his air conditioned car discussing how horrific conditions of girl scout prison camp. My knight in shining armor. My Dad.

 

Happy Birthday Daddy!  I love you!

New Trick

Yes I know, you’d think my new gig would allow for puh-lenty of blog time, but it’s not the case. My boss is very demanding. She’s also very cute so I don’t mind it too much.  Enough excuses - let’s get down to business.

We’ve had quite an action packed week. We spent Easter weekend up at my parents with the whole family. The New Orleans Fagans were in town too, so SB got to meet her beautiful and talented cousins Ryan and Marketa and her Aunt Sarka for the first time. She thought everyone was lots of fun. We celebrated my Dad’s 75th birthday…well, started the celebration at least. His official b-day is next week. Stay tuned for a tribute post in honor of his big day. During the weekend we had baby’s first breakfast out at Mike’s on Main in Hendersonville. SB loved the ceiling fans, the 50’s music playing in the jukebox, and the waitresses making a big fuss over her. She’s starting to warm up to her public. She’s got that coy I’ll smile at you but quickly look away thing down pat. Boys, watch out. She’ll be a heartbreaker. We made it through almost all of Easter morning Mass until I got a whiff of her booty at communion time and thought it would be best to retreat for a quick change. No Easter Lily or burning incense could cover that up. She made another social appearance at brunch before we had to pack up and head back to Charlotte.

The only damper on the weekend was that SB got her first sniffle. Apparently the poor baby has inherited her momma’s pollen allergies. I know a little runny nose is nothing in the grand scheme of things but it sure does make your heart bleed when your baby is uncomfortable. She had a tough time sleeping Sunday night but she is doing much better now. We hunkered down in the house pretty much all week until the rain washed away some of the green mess and cooled things down to a more bearable temperature. I know we live in the South, however, 90 degrees the first week in April is a bit much. We had our air conditioner serviced on Thursday to the tune of 643 bucks. It better feel like the arctic tundra in our house this summer for that kind of cash. The guy had to clean out our coil; apparently it was clogged up mostly with dog hair. [Note to self: do not brush out the dogs right next to the air conditioning unit.]  Despite forking over that big check, we scraped together enough nickels to head over to Fiamma for our friend Natalie’s moving back to Atlanta farewell dinner. (Hey Natalie, you made the blog again!) It was baby’s first trip to this glorious restaurant and despite the crowd, the staff made a big fuss over her debut. I may have mentioned once or twice how much we love this place. SB thought it was spectacular! She was fascinated by the kitchen and the people buzzing by. She squealed with delight when the server refilled our water glasses. She got a taste of Daddy’s sorbet and Mommy’s avocado. She partied for 2 ½ hours, well into her bedtime, without so much as a frown. It appears we have a social butterfly on our hands. We had a lovely time with our friends, although we will miss you Natalie and Mike. Kurt won’t know what to do without Mike’s special ribs this summer. I guess we’ll have to make a road trip one of these days…

To top off our week, drum roll please…..Sarah Beth greeted us this morning SITTING UP in her crib. All by herself. She was so proud, laughing and smiling at her accomplishment. The best thing about it was, I was there to see her. Kurt too since he worked from home today. If I had been working, I probably would have missed that milestone. But instead, I could pick her up and congratulate her with hugs and kisses and sit on the floor with her, clapping and cheering when she did it again, followed by a call to Grandma who also clapped and cheered. So if you’re wondering how I’m enjoying being a full-time mommy, there’s your answer. It’s not easy, taking care of baby and getting all the other stuff done that needs doing, while trying to start up a photography business and do some writing on the side. But the rewards far outweigh any paycheck I could receive. Sarah Beth is happy. I’m happy. Kurt is happy. We have a relatively clean house, clean laundry, groceries in the cupboard, and dinner on the table most nights. We may not take an extravagant vacation anytime soon or live in a big fancy house but there is so much joy in our lives right now we don’t even notice.

Life is good.