{happy easter!}

We celebrated Easter with Shawn's family in J-town, and had a great trip.

We discovered that our infant son can easily pass for an overweight, middle-aged insurance salesman, given the right confluence of expression, outfit, and side-part.

We played some soccer in the park. Matt approached the game with an entirely appropriate level of relaxed enthusiasm, of course.

Connor & I played in the grass, instead.

Lily relaxed in the sun, contemplating the meaning of life. and wondered if she was within arms-reach of the grabby six month old nearby.

Connor learned the finer points of playing pinochle

Like how to mark your ace

And Steve found out the best way to discover that a baby has cut his first tooth:

That's right, Connor has a tooth! It's a bottom middle tooth. I haven't been able to snap a picture of it yet, because every time i pull down his lower lip, he just sticks his tongue out. He's got some surprisingly effective defensive moves.

This was Connor's first Easter. And my first Easter without eating a single Peep. Equally momentous occasions? I'll let you be the judge.

is this really the same kid?

Just the other day, rummaging through our home office, I came across the "professional" picture taken of Connor in the hospital, at 2 days old. {I hesitate to call this photography professional, as the entire operation consisted of two ladies, a wheeled baby cart, and some attention-grabbing noisemakers. The entire "photo session" lasted all of about 4 minutes. Maybe 3.}.

This was back when we thought that Connor looked a lot like Shawn-- dark eyes, dark hair, dark skin. But, over the months, his hair has gotten lighter, his eyes have turned a brown/green/gray hazel, and his complexion has Casper-ed up considerably {turns out his initial coloring had more to do with mild jaundice than paternal genetics. sorry, s.}.

So, who does this guy look like now? {no extra points for matching outfits}.

{wrong number}

Letter to Connor {6 months}

CP- you are six months old! ...And a bit. Yes, I know this letter is late. Let's just accept the fact that every monthday letter from now until the end of time is going to be at least 3 days late (and possibly as many as 30 days late). Working from that continuing assumption, I won't have to acknowledge my tardiness every time I start a post.

Instead, I will be free to start every post with: WOW, YOU WEIGH A LOT!! {Ok, maybe that wouldn't be the most tactful way to start a letter to you on, say, your 30th birthday. but at 6 months old, I'm going to assume that your self-esteem will be in no way impaired by the fact that you are in the 415th percentile for height, weight, and head circumference.} At your 6 month checkup, you logged a solid weigh-in of 23 pounds even, and 28 1/2 inches long. To put that in perspective, that's the average length for a 9 month old, and the average weight of a 12 month old. Today I asked your dad if he would mind considering a change of career field from consulting to chiropractic. I've got to either start lifting weights or get fitted for a back brace, because at this rate we are going to need a forklift to pick you up by 9 months old. {I think that at least 10 of your 23 pounds consist of cheeks and chin(s). We last saw your neck sometime in early January.} 99% of your abundant wardrobe consists of {amazingly cute} hand me downs from your second cousins Jack, Brendan & Nickolai. The twins are a full year older than you, but I fear that you will shortly surpass their size, and I will have to actually buy you some clothes. slow down, nugget!

So, you're more of a tank than a "peanut," but that doesn't stop us from calling you the latter. We also call you "nugget" {see above} and, sometimes, "meatball," and have recently started referring to you as "t-rex" due to a curious and kind of alarming growling noise that you make. also, we call you connor. occasionally.

Given all of the above, we are admittedly quite surprised that you're not more enthusiastic about eating "first foods" like rice cereal, oatmeal, and pureed banana. After giving said mush a disgusted lip curl, you proceed to humor us by taking about 10 tiny spoonfuls, then stonewalling any further entry into your mouth. We find this all rather ironic since you put absolutely everything into your mouth, except your lovingly prepared homemade organic baby food. Disgusting junk mail insert covered in toxic inks? Yum! Washcloth & rubber ducky? Yes, goes in mouth! Bibs, burpcloths? MMM, yum! Organic banana puree? The horror! This week I think we are going to try peas, carrots and sweet potato. Maybe one of these will be to your liking. If not, I will soon be googling how to clean pea mash out of roman shades.

All in all, you are a fantastically happy baby. You cry so infrequently that when the rare occasion for tears does present itself, your dad and I freak out, thinking that you must be seriously injured. You smile, giggle, coo, yell, squeak, and growl all day long, and we can't get enough of your constant entertainment. You are starting to be more independent, enjoying your toy-throttling time in the exersaucer while I make your bottles or drink some coffee. Every month you amaze us more and more. It's truly an incredible experience to watch someone see and learn things for the first time. You approach every moment with an unyielding curiosity that invites me to see old things in new ways {and reminds me to keep my coffee far, far away from your grabby curiosity}.

Lately, our family has had to grapple with the sad news of the far-too-soon passing of your very first little cousin, Grace Elizabeth. We all had big plans for you and Gracie, who would have been less than a year apart in age. You never got a chance to meet your little cousin, but she has impacted all of our lives just the same. Her death is a painful reminder that all of our days are numbered, and though we plan and plan and plan for the future, we are only promised today. this moment. so we keep her close to our hearts and try to fill each moment with more of the kinds of memories that we want to comprise "our life" when the sum total of all of these moments is finally calculated-- baby snores, morning coffee, neighborhood walks in the moby, good-morning kisses, and good night stories.

Our lives, and our hearts, are so full thanks to you, nugget. You are 6 months old, and we are loving each moment as it graces our lives.

Love,
Mommy.

p.s. overdue pictures of the cuteness below.

We have a book that "reads" itself to Connor, but he won't even let the narrator get through the first sentence of "Animals are big and small; can you count them all?"

letter to connor {5 months}

Hi nugget-
You are five months old! Actually you are five months, one week, and five days old. I'm currently working on my first actual jury trial, and, in the course of sitting in on the proceedings, have discovered at least two things: (1) our federal judiciary relies heavily on candy to keep the jury awake. As in, the judge will actually interrupt a lawyer mid-sentence and direct the clerk to pass out candy to the jury; and (2) billing 15 hours a day does not give me much time to update this blog, particularly when our crummy laptop takes 25 minutes to boot up. But, if I'm being honest, i can't really blame my tardiness on work. Meeting deadlines has never been my strong suit. For example, your father and I just sent out your baptism thank-yous this week. And you were baptized the first week of January. So, you might call those thank-yous overdue. And while we are at it, a few other thank yous that are overdue:

Thanks Uncle Hughie and Aunt Lizzy for the valentine's day card.

Also, thanks to the McManame Family & Mary Cannon in Scotland for the adorable clothes they sent Connor-- one of our favorite outfits is pictured below:

I can't believe how animated you are at 5 months. Your dad and I were just saying the other day that we wish we could use a time machine to take 5-month-old Connor back to meet 4-week-old Connor and do a side-by-side live comparison. We concluded that 5-month-old Connor would undoubtedly beat tiny baby Connor to a pulp. Mostly because you seem to demonstrate your happiness and excitement by punching things. You play with your toys like you hate them. When we put you in your exersaucer, you throttle the little Sun and yell "agooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!" "wooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!" at each of the other toys in turn. All appearances to the contrary, we're pretty sure you're having a good time. See below:

As mentioned earlier, tracking baby milestones is not really my forte {just imagine the pickle I'd be in if I was somehow required to write thank yous regarding baby milestones on a deadline..}. So, I'm not entirely sure what 5 month old is "supposed" to be doing, but as far as I can tell you are developing quite nicely. At 5 months, you weighed in at a whopping 21 lb 13 oz. That's off the percentile charts, and a mere 3 oz. from the weight limit on your infant car seat. Or, as your father put it, "one constipated day away from breaking the car seat." So, we got a new convertible car seat with a maximum weight limit of 60 lbs. That should last you until next Thursday, at least.

Your dad, who is the designated "baby product assembler" in the house, had to install the new seat in our Civic. It wasn't pretty. As you and I watched from the porch swing, we sympathized as he squinted as the installation manual, looked at the car seat, squinted at the manual, repeat, repeat, repeat. He eventually concluded that the red "optional" tether would never disconnect from the back of the seat, and was, in fact, just there to keep parents on their toes-- i.e. to see if you are paying attention while your wily infant tries to strangle himself with a 2 foot long rope attached to his car seat.

At some point, your father yelled "I hope we can still return this piece of crap after I've kicked it down the street!!" It never {quite} came to that, but that car seat is definitely going back to the store.

In other "milestone" news, you have recently discovered your toes:

And you love making raspberry noises all day long:

You are also thisclose to sitting up. But not quite there. Your efforts to do a sit-up take me back to the dark days of middle school, when I was subjected to the Presidential Physical Fitness Test. No, I did not get a medal. And my sit-up technique hasn't improved much since.

You are also trying to crawl, but so far have only succeeded in scooting backwards, rather than forwards.

But best of all, is the sound of you laughing. You make us laugh every single day, and bring so much joy into our lives.

things {connor} loves thursday

Thanks to a decades-old stash in Shawn's parents' attic, Connor owns a hefty stash of Dr. Seuss books. The "This book belongs to.." pages of our sticky...er.."vintage" collection often contain the penciled-in scrawl M I K E or B E T H. It appears that Mike, as a 6 year old, had better penmanship than my 26 year old brother Hugh has now. As for Beth, she was once {apparently} so enamored with the ability to write her name on the "belongs to" page that she just kept going and wrote her name on every. single. page. {and yet, one of your siblings still appropriated the book! try again!}

Connor's current favorites are Hooper Humperdink, The Berenstain's B Book, There's a Wocket in My Pocket, Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You?, The Cat in the Hat, A Great Day for Up, Fox in Socks, and Please Try To Remember the First of Octember!

Dr. Seuss' iambic brilliance is so catchy that sometimes, while at my office attempting to draft a motion or e-mail a client, my mind is instead quietly marching along to the rhythmic tounge-twisting of

When beetles battle beetles
in a puddle paddle battle
and the beetle battle puddle
is a a puddle in a botttle..
they call this
a tweetle beetle
bottle pudddle
paddle battle muddle.

We try to rotate through our non-Seuss books as well. Pretty much the only book I cannot read to Connor is "Someday." The sticker on the cover of this book bills it as "a celebration of life, love, and the bond between mother & child." Shawn and I, however, have come to the mutual conclusion that the sticker should instead read "WARNING: EMOTIONAL TERRORISM." How are you supposed to read your baby a book about a "someday" in which your baby is old and gray and looking at a silver-framed picture of his/her long-dead mother?!? I tried to read it to Connor on at least 3 separate occasions, and just ended up sobbing, with Connor looking at me like "uh, I thought crying was my job!!"

We try to read Connor a few books every night before bed. He likes to "read" along with us, i.e. out-shout the reader with "gooooooooooooooooooooo!" or "awoooooooooo!" Apparently, he does not yet understand the whole "one person talking at a time" thing. I have a feeling we will be continue to get notices of this inclination from Connor's future teachers.

Sometimes, if we have no books handy, we read him... uh, the Band-Aid box:

Taking a walk down the street to the library to pick out some new books:

Connor is just four days shy of 5 months old!

{wordless wednesday}