that's my girl

Because of anticipated winter weather, we decided to head back to San Antonio a day early. This meant we ended up on an evening flight which was something of a concern since our little bundle of joy tends to be more than a little grumpy in the evenings. However despite the time of day and even a slight delay, our child did very well. Once we had boarded the plane, Clara gave her a pre-flight snack after which I placed her on my shoulder to burp. She can usually be counted on to let out a dainty lady-burp when thrown over the shoulder and patted (the baby, not Clara) but for some reason this time she ripped an incredibly loud and percussive belch that could have offended a truck driver. People seated several rows ahead of us turned around to which proudly made known that the source of the echoing eructation was, in fact my daughter.

She made her daddy so very proud.

first documented smile

Over the past several days we’ve had the opportunity to introduce our daughter to her extended family and they all seem to agree the she is precious. It’s always good to hear this fact confirmed for while Clara and I of course believe this to be true, I sometimes wonder if there is some pheromone that babies release that cause their parents to think they are the cutest thing ever when in fact they might not be.

Anyway, because these family events are always accompanied by lots of camera-wielding relatives we knew it was only a matter of time until one of the recorded the smile that we first reported back on the 15th. Thus I am thrilled to share with you photographic evidence of that elusive grin.

had I known...

So we spent our first Christmas with our daughter quietly in San Antonio. To be honest, our little girl seemed fairly unimpressed by the entire proceedings – the tree, the lights, nay even the presents seemed to not inspire the least bit of excitement in her. Perhaps this was all for the best as the big adventure was to come the day after when we were to travel to Dallas to visit my family. Since she still doesn’t care much for the car seat, we had calculated that a half-hour of screaming on an airplane would be less offensive than four hours of screaming in a car. So it was that our daughter was to experience her first airplane flight, or at least her first airplane flight outside of the womb.

Despite the added complexities of traveling with a child (our days of traveling light are, sadly, over), the trip went really well. We kept her entertained on the relatively short flight and afterward a woman mention that our child was “the best baby she had ever flown with”. That meant a lot to Clara and I and while we know someday we will be “that family” that fellow passengers look at with disgust, it was nice to avoid that on at least the first leg of our first trip.

Once we were in the terminal in Dallas, I was given charge of our child while Clara ran to restroom. While holding our incredibly cute daughter, I received a lot of attention from my fellow travelers – especially the attractive young ones who always seem to be populating the airports of Dallas.

Had I known a baby was such a chick magnet, I would have had one long ago.

thankful to be disappointed

Alas, the judges did not consider my daughter's brave performance as worthy of advancement to the second round of judging. I personally think the process was rigged. I mean, she's so darned cute how can your heart do anything but melt? To add insult to injury they took all non-advancing videos off their webpage so I am forced to repost the video here.

Anyway I watched "The Road" last night with some friends and returned home to watch a bit of a TV documentary Clara was watching about a baby that was born three months premature. The movie, as you know, is an adaptation of the fun Cormac McCarthy book about a father and son's crazy romp through a post-apocolyptic Eastern Seaboard. Premature babies, as you know are small and fragile. Watching these two things in close succession drove home that which I already knew - that I am incredibly lucky. My daughter was born healthy and since then I have not needed to defend her from hoards of marauding cannibals. And when all is said and done, if the choice was between not winning a video contest and fighting off a famished anthropophagite with my bare hands, I think we would all choose the former option.

And on that note, Happy Christmas.

baby's first starring role

While the critically acclaimed "Baby Alarm Clock" video of a few posts ago went a long way to describe a bit of what it's sometimes like to spend time with our daughter, there were still story nuances that needed telling. Thus over the weekend I set out to make our baby's first feature film. I then turned around and entered it into a contest to try and jump-start our child's college fund even though Mommy and Daddy naturally believe she will be smart enough to get a full scholarship to Princeton.

Anyway, the video competition plays out in two stages. 50 finalists are initially selected before the formal judging occurs. The selection process for those finalists is somewhat vague, but I figured building some buzz beforehand might make sense. So by all means, watch the video, log-in and post a comment about how great it is.

Our child will thank you in 18 years.

firsts

This past weekend was one of may firsts for our little girl. On Friday, December 11th at 7:04 pm Clara and I witnessed what we believe to be Baby Poogie's first observed smile. While the fact she was pushing something through her bowels may have been a contributing factor to this smile, we're counting and celebrating it all the same.

The following day, Saturday, for the first time she actively peed on Daddy whilst he was changing her diaper. And then on Monday she had her first diaper blowout that seeped through two layers of her clothing to stain two items worn by her Daddy.

Both Clara and I are very proud of our little girl for passing these important milestones. That said we are both also looking forward to the day when we celebrate firsts that have absolutely nothing to do with poo or pee.

baby alarm clock

It occurred to me that all the pictures I have posted while cute and adorable and all don't tell the whole story of the experience. Mainly this is because photographs are far too quiet. Hopefully this video (a first for the blog) will help give the reader a better idea of what things are like in between the times when the angelic photos are taken.

It's also worth noting that neither Clara nor I have had the need to use an alarm clock in over a month. As you can hear, our child has been providing this functionality. Our only complaint is that she doesn't have a "sleep" button.

Oh, how I wish she had a "sleep" button...

t+1 month

How is it already the second of November? How is it my daughter is now a month old? How is it I've been a father now for a month and I still feel unqualified for the task? How is it 4:45am and we've already changed our child's diaper at least three times?

One notable event of this past week we had the opportunity to hang out with some other infants and see our little screamer in relationship to others. Doing this made me realize that maybe she's not really all that much of a screamer. Though it may be hard to admit it at midnight when she's hoarse from crying and glares at me with a furrowed brow and quivering lip, I think at the end of the day we have a fairly easy baby on our hands whose cries are relatively easily quelled and whose ability to relatively consistently sleep through the night in four-hour chunks is in a word, miraculous. And by selecting only the cutest, must endearing photographs to share, it's hard to describe are little bundle of poo as anything but angelic.

I hear tell that in the next month we can expect our first smile. I really am looking forward to that. As much as I pride myself on my ability to get her to stop screaming I think it would be much more rewarding to get her to start smiling. Having that bit of positive feedback would help Clara and I greatly. Not that we're in this only for the positive feedback, but some would help make us feel better about the job we're doing as parents.