{on turning 30}

I'm 30 years and 4 days old young old.

So far, it feels a lot like writing checks on January 1st of a brand new decade. Date: January 1, 200... oh crap, new check. Is 2010 really here? It really exists? Do people even write checks anymore?

Not that anyone is really in the habit of asking me how old I am, but if someone should dare to ask {really, you shouldn't} I know that "twent.." will start to roll of my tongue before I train my mouth to accustom itself to starting that answer with "thirty" for the next ten years. Now that I think about it, the last time someone asked me how old I was, other than a doctor or other medical professional, was a woman in line with me at the downtown Rite Aid sometime in the summer of 2009. I was obviously pregnant with Connor, and was waiting to pay for my daily candy fix. The woman in front of me asked when I was due {normal}, whether I was having a boy or girl {normal}, then told me "it's so brave of you to have a child in your forties! how old are you?" {NOT NORMAL}. I choked a little, turned bright red, and mumbled something along the lines of "lady, I'm 28!!" To which she actually replied {REALLY NOT NORMAL} "oh, you look like you are in your forties. or maybe late thirties." My only choice here is to assume that this woman was either (a) completely out of her mind; (b) blind; (c) on some hard drugs; or (d) all of the above. The alternative is just too soul-crushing.

To celebrate the big 3-0 this year, I took the day off work {yay} and spent the day engaging in Thirty Random Acts of Kindness. Except that I sort of lost track of my list, and cannot entirely verify that I did thirty things precisely, but that's probably beside the point anyhow. {except that when I think about the fact that I was trying to do thirty things on my thirtieth birthday... thirty seems to be the entire point. oh well}. Among other things, I put Giant Eagle gift cards on car windshields, left other cars with notes wishing them a wonderful day, baked brownies for our postman, left a thank you note for the garbage men, taped 2 dollars to a vending machine, gave the YMCA babysitting girls batteries and a thank-you note, returned stray shopping carts in a Target parking lot, visited my grandma and brought her strawberry filled cookies. I did some things on my list more than once, but never made it to a few other things I'd planned out. By the end of the day, I realized that I'll probably never have time to do thirty random kindnesses again in a day, but I'll almost always have time to do one-- so I'm hanging on to the unchecked-items on my list, and doing them one by one each day.

In my twenies, I wore a lot of different hats & lived a lot of different lives.

At 20, I was a mostly-single college student. At 21, I triumphantly graduated summa cum laude and phi beta kappa from a school that had originally sent me a rejection letter, and left home for my Peace Corps assignment in Togo. I spent every day of my 22nd and 23rd years on the continent of Africa, promoting girls' education, tearing my hair out with frustration, meeting the best friends of my life, and sleeping every night from 7 pm til dawn. When I was 24, I came home, moved to Chicago, fell in love with Shawn, moved to New York City, and started law school. At 25, I was engaged, and was a new bride at 26. When I was 27, I graduated from law school, moved back to Pittsburgh with Shawn, passed the bar exam, and started practicing as a litigator at a large firm. At 28, I got pregnant, bought a 99 year old house, gutted and remodeled a large portion of the house, and had my first baby. At 29, I reveled in my role as a new mother, stumbled through the juggling excercise of work-life balance, and got pregnant for a second time.

In my thirties, I'm looking forward to putting down deeper roots, picking out the few hats I like best, and wearing the hell out of them. More time with Shawn, more babies, more making our house into a home. Now that I'm 30 I don't feel particularly, or suddenly, wise, but my twenties have taught me some good lessons and I'm at least the wiser for having run that crazy gauntlet.

And at the very least, I know enough not to ask any Rite Aid customers for their age.

{shaking hands & kissing babies}

Well, election day is {finally} behind us! Hope everyone got to the polls yesterday. Like any good citizen, Connor voted early & often...first with my mom in the morning, then hitting the polls with Shawn and I in the evening.

I think the particular act of voting is exciting, but, in general, abhor politics. I don't believe a single thing that any politician says in a campaign, and resent being campaigned-to as if my brain has already been preserved in a jar of formaldehyde. I'm a registered Independent, and loathe both the the Republican and Democtratic parties for multiple reasons. As you might imagine, hating everyone and discounting everything that everyone says can make deciding who gets my vote a bit challenging.

Several weeks ago, at our town's fall festival, Congressman Jason Altmire's campaign team gave CP a balloon. Connor loved that balloon. So, I figured I'd vote for Jason Altmire.

Then, last week, Jason Altmire sent us a campaign brochure. CP picked it up off the couch, carried into the kitchen, and unceremoniously dumped into the trash. So, I thought- maybe not, Altmire.

The one thing I will sincerely miss about this election season: the nightly automated telephone calls to our home from the candidates. Shawn got in the habit of answering our home phone with an exuberant: "hello, Joe Sestak!" before he had any idea who was on the other end of the line. Shawn would talk-back to the automated messages until I was rolling on the floor laughing. Example:

{ring, ring, ring.... where's the phone?? oh, Connor hid it under the console table...}
Shawn: Good evening, Joe Sestak!
Candidate: Hi, this is Jason Altmire!
Shawn: Hi, Jason!
Candidate Hi, this is Jason Altmire!
Shawn: um, hello.
Candidate: Hi, this is Jason Altmire!
Shawn: Does this thing re-start every time I talk into the phone?
Candidate: Hi, this is Jason Altmire! I'm running for re-election because I'm just as disgusted with Washington as you are!
Shawn: Thank you for taking the time to get to know me and call me personally!
Candidate: As a member of Congress, I'll make sure to always listen to you.
Shawn: Jason, right now is not a good time-- I'm on the crapper.
Candidate: I ensured that the Mexican border fence was made with American steel, not Chinese!
Shawn: That is totally irrelevant. And again, I'm on the crapper.

Now the only phone calls we will get are ones from Verizon asking us if we want to upgrade to Fios.

{big news}

So...it's been a slow two months of posting here at the fourth house on the left. I'm sure this has greatly disappointed my {single-digit} blog audience. Alternatively, you may not have noticed the blog silence at all, in which case I would gander that you find my life about as interesting as reading Chaucer. If you were sincerely disappointed by the non-posting, I do apologize; and if you didn't even notice, truly I can't blame you. I didn't notice, either.

So, why the dearth of chubby-cheeked photos and mildly humorous accounts of baby/toddlerhood? Well, I've spent the past 2 1/2 months trying not to barf during every waking moment, and promptly passing out for the night {in my work clothes} when I put Connor to bed at 8:30 pm. So, you can imagine that, along with a few other things {a groomed personal appearance, nightly toothbrushing, laundry, and any semblance of a professional work ethic} this blog was summarily abandoned for the duration. I suppose this is only a preview of what's to come, since {you may have guessed this}:

We are expecting baby #2 in late April!

Normally, my body-intuition is laughably incorrect {e.g. I was totally convinced that Connor was going to be a girl, and came within 2 clicks of purchasing the PBK Penelope bedroom set in anticipation of meeting a baby who I thought would be named Madeleine. When I found out at our 20-week ultrasound that CP was, in fact, CP, I forced a smile, then went out for Chinese food with Shawn and sobbed over wonton soup that I didn't even know my baby, what kind of a mother would I be?? Then I ate all my cashew chicken and half of Shawn's. And went to Coldstone for desert.} This time, however, I just knew that I was pregnant, and knew that I knew. Since I wasn't charting, I had only the vaguest general idea of when I could take a pregnancy test and expect a conclusive result. So, I just started peeing on a stick every day, sometimes twice a day. All of which were negative results. Shawn caught on to this after a few days and was like "uh, don't those things cost like $10 each??" To which I replied "um, no, they cost $8 each. honey." He asked why I couldn't just wait "like 2 more weeks, see what happens, then take one test." I told him that only normal people could do something like that, and he married a good old-fashioned-crazy, so the "wait and then test once" option was clearly not a possibility.

Undaunted by the 10 negative pregnancy tests I'd taken, I stopped by the Dollar Store one day after work and bought 7 more {much cheaper} tests. Five days {and 6 negative pregnancy tests} later, I was 98% convinced that, yet again, I was wrong and didn't know anything about my body. So, on the evening of August 15th, I drank a beer {oops, sorry baby}, talked to Shawn about how disappointed I was, then got ready for bed. On a whim, I decided to take the very last test. The second line didn't appear right away, and I was just about to toss it the test in the garbage, when I looked closer and saw the faintest pink line emerging from the white background. I ran down the stairs, waving the test and shouting to Shawn "do you SEE this LINE?!?!" He replied "yeah, i see one line." To which I countered: "no, not the line that's obviously a line, I'm talking about the line that is HALF IMAGINARY-- DO YOU SEE IT?" He refused to believe that there were two lines on the test. Luckily for me, I knew the internet was as full of the crazy as I was, so I did a quick Google Image search for "positive Dollar Store pregnancy test" and THOUSANDS of comparative images appeared. {yes, dear reader, thousands of women have, in fact, posted pictures of their dollar store pregnancy tests on the interwebs. There are even websites staffed by pee-stick gurus, wholly dedicated to pregnancy test analysis.} Shawn was still skeptical, but became a believer the next morning when a digital pregnancy test indisputably read "Pregnant."

I'm 15 weeks now, happy to be out of the first trimester, and I ate an entire 16 oz steak for dinner on Saturday.

{happy halloween 2010}

Last year at Halloween, CP was only 4 weeks old. Our little pumpkin was barely bigger than a jack-o-lantern. He went trick-or-treating but, as far as I could tell, had no idea what was going on, and couldn't have cared less about this thing called "candy."

What a difference a year makes.

By the time trick-or-treating started this year, Connor had already eaten at least 3 kit-kat bars, and knew how to sort the good stuff (the reese's) from the merely mediocre candy (plain hershey's).

When he found out that he was going to have to share this bounty with the trick-or-treaters who came to the door, he did his best to scare the neighborhood away:



I wasn't sure what to expect from this year's trick-or-treating. I'd kind of anticipated that CP might spend about 10 minutes outside, visiting our next-door neighbors, then hanging out inside, watching the costumed kids from behind the glass storm door for the rest of the evening. CP totally blew those expectations out of the water. I should have known that any event would be a hit that involved (a) people loudly exclaiming how cute he was; and (b) giving him candy.

Our little frog liked to pick out his own candy-- waving the twizzlers wildly, giving the mike & ike's box a good shake, grabbing an entire handful of mini milky ways. Sometimes he would put the candy in his orange plastic pumpkin. Sometimes he would keep it grasped in his tiny fist. Sometimes he would slowly and indecisively select 3 different kinds of candy. Sometimes he would just stare, wide-eyed, until someone plopped a bag of mini-pretzels into his pumpkin bucket. Sometimes he would take a piece of candy, then re-gift a piece out of his pumpkin to the halloween hostess. Sometimes he would abandon his orange pumpkin and run away giggling and grasping a snickers bar. It was so much fun.

He only trick-or-treated about 4 houses away in each direction, but loved bopping around our driveway all evening, watching all of the older kids. He put his full prince-in-disguise frog charm on a 3 year old ladybug who wrapped her arms around Connor and exclaimed "he's just so cute!!!"

Unfortunately for Connor, we ran out of candy at 7:15... {this MAY be POSSIBLY related to the fact that Shawn and I single-handedly ate 2 bags of our reese's and a bag of kit-kats before any kids showed up at our house but this theory has not been tested in a double-blind peer-reviewed clinical trial so let's not jump to any conclusions}... so we had to give away the peanut's loot. Then we turned off our lights and hid in our house until 8:00 so as not to either (a) break the hearts of earnest trick-or-treaters arriving after 7:30 and/or (b) get our house bombarded with flaming toilet paper thrown by enraged, barely-costumed teenagers.

It was a good day.

{one year ago}

One year ago, i woke up to my first morning as Connor's mom. I remember it all so clearly. By 'clearly,' of course, I mean that I recall various non-sequential snippets as seen through the fog of a morphine-induced haze. But, still, I remember it. My soul remembers the parts my brain can't re-process a year later.

I was lying in my hospital bed. Brand-new CP was swaddled in his footprint flannel blanket, dozing in the isolette to my left. Shawn was passed out on the daddy couch to my right, snoring away. Before dawn, Connor woke up, crying. Given that I had an abdomen full of staples, there was no way I could get out of bed to pick him up. Enter the dutiful partner. Who was still snoring. Could he not hear our baby crying? I wondered. I prompted him with a few subtle calls of "Shawn.... Shawn...Shawn....Shawn...SHAWN!!!!!" And nothing. "HEY GET UP OUR BABY IS CRYING!" I shouted with an effort that threatened to rupture some stitches. Still snoring. Then he stopped snoring, but didn't wake up. I was fairly certain he had died. Panicked, I threw the only projectile I could reach--the TV remote-- directly at his head. No reaction. So, my 7 hour-old baby was crying, and I appeared to have a dead husband. The day was getting off to a rocky start.

After 5 entire minutes of provoking him from Sleep/Death, Shawn finally awoke. Of course, I greeted him with something sweet and caring, along the lines of "what the hell is wrong with you???" to which he replied "I'm tired." I genuinely hope that one day {a long long long time from now} when I'm dead and God & St. Peter have set me up in my own personal heavenly home-theater to re-watch the entire tape of my life, I get a nice zoom-in on my face at that moment. I'm sure it was nothing but a kindly mask of compassion and understanding. Because, after all, Shawn had just physically endured 48 hours of forced hunger and thirst, 36 hours of labor, 2 failed epidurals, and a major surgery. Oh wait, no. That was me. Get up and get that baby.

Not that I didn't understand why he was so tired. When we both woke up bright and early two days earlier, Shawn and I were electrified by the notion that we would be meeting Connor. That Day. Or a little bit later, as it turned out.

Since I was ten days overdue and Connor showed absolutely no interest in changing residence, I was scheduled for an induction on Monday morning, September 28, 2009. I was under doctor's orders not to eat after 4 a.m. Monday morning. So, of course I set my alarm for 4 a.m. to get in one last meal. But, when 4 a.m. rolled around, I thought "eh, I'm not really hungry." And went back to bed. Now, I'm not big on regrets. In all my 29 years on this earth, I can count my regrets on two fingers. This is one of them. Sometimes I feel an actual physical urge to time-travel back to that 4 a.m. wake-up and scream to my unsuspecting self: GO EAT A HAMBURGER RIGHT NOW!!! But, alas, no such self-apparition from the future appeared to me that morning, so...regret it is.

On the way to the hospital, I was entirely pre-occupied by my fear of getting an IV. I've never been good with needles. During routine blood draws I usually throw such a fit that the phlebotomist gives me a Sesame Street band-aid afterwards and asks if I want a sticker {yes, i do, thank you.]. So, I decided my only option was to fake it 'til I make it-- I was going to nonchalantly PRETEND that I was completely impervious to the gut-wrenching fear and nausea brought on by needles. And, to my great shock, it worked. Now, the thing about being hugely pregnant in the summer is that it's quite easy to entirely lose track of things like your ankles, wrists, and fingers. The formerly delicate, bony joints get lost in a swell of puffy pregnancy bloat. So, the nurses tried about 6 times to find a vein in my sausage hands, to no avail, before finally calling in "the expert," who succeeded on her second try. All the while they were digging around, I was cool as a cucumber and everyone keep saying "wow, you're so tough! look at you!" Now, I'm almost positive these people changed their opinion of me about 30 hours later, but we'll get to that.

For the first couple of hours, I just waited for the induction agent to start some dilation. My nurse suggested using a foley bulb to augment dilation. I cannot believe I actually agreed to this, but I did. I sincerely hope that Mr. Foley {and yes, I am positive the inventor had to be a man} is currently writhing in eternal torment, having a Foley bulb applied perpetually to his own nether regions.

After the foley bulb, the nurse increased the dose of Pitocin to strengthen my contractions. Not too long afterwards {like maybe 15 seconds} I requested the epidural. I was delivering Connor at the region's premier women's teaching hospital, so I was prepared to meet some nursing students, residents, etc. during my labor. However, I made it clear from the start that I don't want anyone coming near my spine with a 10 inch needle unless he or she is a board-certified anesthesiologist. With 30 years' experience. And Harvard Med credentials. So, of course, Magee sent me a girl wearing a bandana who appeared to be 12 years old. She explained that she was some sort of nursing technical student and would be "assisting" the doctor with my epidural. Holding still in a cross-legged position during these contractions was challenging, but no big deal. The epidural went in without a hitch, Shawn didn't faint at the sight of it, and all seemed well. Within a few minutes, everything below my waist was comfortably numb. Shawn and I settled in for an evening of waiting and relaxing.

Around 2 in the morning, I started to feel pain again. Around 3 in the morning, I was convinced something had gone awry with the epidural, so I paged the nurse. She seemed to think I was overreacting. Over the next 15 hours, I kept paging people, telling them that this epidural was not working. People kept thinking I was overreacting. A parade of anesthesiologists came in, looked at the dosage, increased it... all to no avail. Meanwhile, CP's heart rate kept dipping due to the max dosage of Pitocin coursing through me and squeezing him unrelentlessly. The doctors placed a monitor on his head, and we were continuously worried about him. Meanwhile, dilation continued, very very slowly. For much of this time, I was writhing in bed, while Shawn did his best to remind me to "breathe." {p.s., dear reader: lamaze classes are a waste of time}. Finally around 5 or 6 p.m., some genius board-certified Harvard-credentialed anesthesiologist actually looked at the epidural site, and declared "oh, it fell out." The epidural had been pumping all the medicine into my sheets for hours.

At this point, I was 32 hours into labor, 8 cm dilated, on the maximum dose of the devil's own Pitocin, starving and thirsty, in transition, with no epidural. I totally lost my mind. It didn't hurt any more than it had 2 minutes earlier; after all, nothing had changed. However, I could not believe that after starving me, wearing me down for a day and a half, and amplifying the pain x1000 with pitocin, these doctors were going to have me finish the job au naturel. So, I started screaming. Various combinations of the word "no" and every swear word I have ever heard, along with a generous and hearty repetition of "I CANNOT DO THIS!" Surely, other women in labor heard me and had panic attacks. Probably people in other ZIP codes heard me and had panic attacks. I was inconsolable in my pain, which was fueled now by sheer rage. It was probably the kind of extended outburst that you don't see much outside of a psych ward. A dozen people were in my room. One kind nurse tried to assure me that I could do this because "you've already come this far!" I told her, to her face, that she was full of shit, and that I could not be pacified by such meaningless platitudes.

Anesthesiology was called to attempt a second epidural. The girl with the bandana walked two steps into my room before I screamed "not you! get the hell out of here!" Regardless, the second epidural never fully took. At this point, it had been 24 hours since my water broke, and the window for safe delivery was pretty much closed although I was still not fully dilated and Connor's head was not fully engaged. A new OB {thank God} finally came on shift, and she advised us that a c-Section was our best option at this point. I tearfully agreed, and though I was scared of having my first surgery, I mostly felt relieved.

Once we decided to have a c-Section, things kicked into high gear as people started prepping me for surgery, and handing out scrubs to Shawn. When I got to the OR, the doctors actually wanted me to transfer myself from the gurney to the surgical table. I was like "wait, are you kidding? You just gave me a spinal & i can't feel anything below my chest. You're going to have to un-beach this whale on your own, guys."

After I was numbed up & Shawn was sitting at my head, I heard a little Connor cry, in no time at all. He was born Tuesday, September 29, 2009 at 8:52 p.m., weighing 8 pounds, 11 ounces, and measuring 22 inches long. He sounded like a baby kitten. The nurses wrapped him up & handed him to Shawn. I caught a glimpse of his puffy little newborn face, but had a hard time focusing, since a doctor was standing at my head, jabbing pain meds and anti-nausea drugs into my chest at 1 minute intervals. At the end of the surgery, the doctors asked if I wanted to hold Connor as they wheeled me back to my room. I couldn't feel my arms yet, so I didn't trust myself to hold onto such precious cargo.

When I arrived in the recovery room, I demanded some grape juice. I have never been so thirsty in my entire life. The nurse told me that I couldn't have any liquids for several hours, in case it made me nauseous. I think I started laughing like a hyena at that point, in my drugged-up haze. After all this, I'd take the risk of throwing up, thank you very much. Get me the juice. I demanded approximately 22 dixie-cup juice refills in a row, before regaining enough strength to finally hold baby Connor in my arms for the first time. I don't remember what I said, or how long I held him. I only remember a sense of sheer amazement, that this was the little guy I had gotten to know over the last 9 months. Here he was, blinking his bold dark eyes at me, rooting around with his tongue, taking the world in one long glance at a time.

A year later, the amazement hasn't worn off. It still washes over me in waves at a time. When I see my handsome 30 pound nugget walking down the hallway grinning from ear to ear and tugging on his birthday balloons, I can hardly believe this is the same baby who had monitors glued to his scalp just a year ago.

We're still amazed, still very tired, and still very much in love with our little Connor. What a great year it's been.

and i thought i didn't understand statistics

It's after 2 pm and I'm sitting in my office chair, vacillating between intense hunger pangs and a deep & abiding laziness that prevents me from actually walking down the street in search of some lunch. I'm complicated. Or just that lazy. I'll let you decide. But probably keep the verdict to yourself.

So, in lieu of actually eating anything, I opened up this blog. And, for the first time noticed a little tab in my Blogger window that says "Stats." The existence of such a blogger feature is surely not news to anyone with observational powers keener than those of an elderly, cataract-ridden pet. But, to me? News. So, i clicked on the tab, only to find that Google, blessed Google, tracks all kinds of information about my blog-- who's reading, how they got here, what their ATM PIN numbers are {just kidding. i think. at least i haven't noticed a tab for that one yet}.

So, I would like to give a big shout out to my readers in Canada, India, China, Colombia, Denmark and Hong Kong. I have no idea how you got here. How did you get here?

Also, whoever found my blog by Googling "forth house on the left" and "fourth house of the left" should either (a) take a long, hard look at the all-caps blog title at the top of this page, or (b) lay off the sauce when using the computer. You know who you are. I don't know who you are, but you do. If you are one of the blog readers from China, Colombia, Denmark or Hong Kong, I'll cut you some slack. If you are {as I suspect} my dad, I am not surprised.

Interestingly, 2 separate people found this blog by googling "the holy roller's poop looking" Way to focus in on the key words there.

Also, my dear friend Google tells me that I am the only person thus far who has looked at this blog today, so I don't expect this message to get around like wildfire.

But if it does, Google will know. And I will be watching. Goodnight, Denmark!

letter to connor {11 months} or: this one goes to eleven*

CP-

Yesterday, when I got to the office, my voicemail button was blinking. I rolled my eyes, drew a deep breath, forgot my voicemail password, remembered my voicemail password, and pressed "3" to listen to my new message. The operator told me that I received a new message at 7:30 a.m. I wondered who could be so obnoxiously ambitious on a Monday morning. As the message began to play, I heard some breathing, then beeping noises-- clearly the caller was dialing a number while on my voicemail. At first, I suspected spam telemarketing. Next, I thought it was some kind of heavy-breather prank call. Then, my mind briefly ran down a list of partners and senior associates who might be so blundering as to leave such a message. Finally , between the beeps of pressed keys, I heard "gak! gawk! gook!"

It was you, calling me from your dad's cellphone.

I listened to the whole 5 minute message, which took up my entire inbox time allowance. Thanks for calling. Definitely the best voice mail I've ever gotten.

I started this letter to you on August 31st, which is only 2 days after your 11-monthday.

Now, it is September 20th, and you are going to be one in 9 days.

So, this letter is a bit late.

But, better late than never.

Right after you turned 10 months old, your father and I finally decided it was time to acquaint you with your exceedingly expensive teething toy-- also known as the Pottery Barn Kids Kendall Crib sitting in your nursery. Up until this point, you'd taken occasional {brief} naps in the crib, but still slept with us at night. For the most part, this meant that one of us had to go to bed whenever you did. Which, by the way, was whatever time you felt like it. Often as late as 10:00. Sometimes later. We had no "bedtime routine" other than "he doesn't look tired yet....nope, still not tired....still awake.... bath.... still awake...snuggle in bed....endure headbutting...watch as you climbed our headboard....still awake... still awake....storytime....still awake....then finally off to dreamland at an absurdly late and unpredictable hour. You'd spend the night thrashing about, terrorizing your father and I until we had been gouged, kicked, and slapped into submission along the mattress edges. Sometimes you would cuddle with me, in the crook of my arm, which was breathtakingly sweet. But mostly you just tried to pull my eyelashes out.

So, it was time for a change.

We decided that we needed a bedtime routine. 8:00 bath, then nighttime diaper and jammies, followed by a good-night bottle and story time in our bed, then an 8:30 bedtime in your crib. I braced myself for the backlash. We decided in advance that we were definitely not going to let you "cry it out" alone in your nursery, but would rub your back and soothe you while you were in the crib, without lifting you out. That way, you would know you were not alone and that your crib was a safe place for you to sleep. You caught on like a champ. You do resist & cry occasionally, but not often. More often than not, I lay you in the crib, then lay down on your rug. You follow suit, and stick your chubby little arm out of the crib slat to hold my finger, and drift off to sleep through your babbles and giggles. You don't always sleep through the whole night, but can usually be reassured with a simple pat on the back and a whispered "Connor, I'm here." In the mornings, you get up {early. so early} sometime between 5:15 and 6:15. We know you are "up for the day" when we hear you talking in the crib, announcing your wakefulness with a series of "gak! gak.... gak!" proclamations until I plod down the hallway, open the nursery door, and see you standing in the crib, smiling and squinting in the new light. You bounce with excitement at the prospect of a new day. It's impossible not to smile in return. The morning experience could only be improved if PotteryBarn Kids invented a crib that was also a babyproof latte dispenser.

Although it is hard for me to believe, you are often mistaken for a girl. Nevermind the fact that 99% of what you wear is unmistakable "boy" clothing. I'm not really sure what is wrong with people, but I was under the impression that there was some kind of social compact whereby, if you come across a baby dressed in a navy polo shirt and truck-embroidered courduroy pants, if you are still on the fence as to the baby's gender YOU SHOULD GUESS BOY. I mean, I dont' want to peg baby wardrobes into particular genders. If you are the proud parent of a lovely baby girl and want her to wear navy polos and truck pants, I think you should do so. But surely THE VAST MAJORITY of babies dressed in such fashion are going to be boys. And yet. And yet. Well, usually these encounters go something like this:

Passerby unaware of social compact: "oh, she's so sweet! look at those cheeks!"
Me: "Thanks. He's a boy. His name is Connor."
Passerby: "Oh. what a doll."
Me: polite smile. semi-restrained eyeroll.

The script goes quite differently, of course, when your confrontation-averse father is out with you.
Elderly grocery store cashier: "Oh, she's so sweet! Look at those cheeks!"
Shawn: "Thanks."
Old lady cashier: "So, what's her name?"
Shawn: "Uh, Michelle."

So, now we can't go back to our neighborhood grocery store.

Your unbelievable cuteness has not diminished a bit. There is a 20-something girl in our neighborhood who I know only as "the dog girl." She has a small ugly dog named Guenevere. Once she called the dog "a dog" in its presence then apologized to the dog, explaining that "Gwennie doesn't like being called a dog!" This self-averse pooch is the proud owner of a $600 bugaboo baby stroller and is regularly walked by her owner who wears $350 Christian Louboutain 4 inch stilettos for their outings. Suffice it to say I used to think this girl was a total loon. But she has totally redeemed herself by referring to you, always, as "the cutest baby in the world." She walks past in her designer footwear with that pitiful dog every day and calls out "how's the cutest baby in the world doing?!" Even the crazies know you're cute. Even if they don't know you're a boy.


Well, at 11 months, you are in love with the word "gak." You love to dance to banjo music. You still hate almost all food {although nobody believes me on this one in light of your physique}. You cruise and crawl with wild abandon and love when your dad chases you. You're desperate to figure out how to open the babyproofing staircase gates. You've definitely outsmarted the 'under the kitchen sink' lock more than once.

You grow our hearts every day, and we love you so much CP.

Love,
Mommy

* no, I have not actually seen the Spinal Tap movie. I have not stayed awake for an entire feature film since sometime in the late 1980s.

{yes, my child is joyfully running on an Eat n Park sidewalk barefoot}

{three years ago today}

happy anniversary.

thanks for making me laugh every day of the last three years.

it just keeps getting better.

{holy shit}

I know. I swore. In the post title. My mother in law is gasping in horror. I'm sorry.

But if there ever were an occasion for the phrase "holy shit" {and if you've ever attended a Gallagher Christmas Eve dinner you know there are many} then this is The Appropriate Use of The Phrase.

My mom wears a miraculous medal of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Connor ate it.

Now you'll have to excuse me while I go sift through the holy roller's poop looking for the Mother of God.

water baby {fenwick island 2010}

vaction is a time for...

seeing the ocean for the first time.

...exploring a new frontier.

...feeling the wet sand squish between your toes.

...relaxing with the shade seekers.

...brushing up on your mousketools.

...making early gradeschool alliances.

...hanging ten.

...naptime anytime.

...really thinking hard about all of the weird stuff that people are inclined to buy when away from home.

...enjoying ice cream at 10 a.m just because.

...applying sunscreen liberally.

{last known sighting of shawn's wedding ring before it got swept into the watery depths of the atlantic, where it surely joined the claddagh ring i lost 20 years ago, a mere 7 minutes after my parents bought it for me }

...preparing for one's future as a rugby player.

...hitting crabs with a mallet.

...letting the work emails pile up unread in your blackberry.

...big families getting together.

...keeping up family traditions like early morning bike rides from the rehoboth boardwalk to the henlopen acres wall. which everyone clearly enjoyed very much. yay, memories!

...two nine hour car rides and Bay Bridge traffic...

...which are worth it, for this: just being together.