Amelia holds her bottle...

So in this photo, Amelia is holding her bottle. When I am gone, Tom gives her a bottle and she will eat just enough to hold off her hunger until I get home. Clearly, she's no idiot. I wish she'd just drink it all up, but at least she'll take some of it. By the size of her arms you can see that she is certainly getting enough food (you should see her legs...)

Anyway, I did NOT know that she could hold her bottle by herself until I saw this picture! And when I saw it , I said, "Tom she can hold her own bottle!!!" And he said, "oh yeah she's been doing that forever..." I said, "WHAT????? How could I not know? I won't know what date to put in the baby book for 'first time she held her bottle.'"

I informed him that any potential milestone must be immediately reported to me - even if he's not sure of its significance :)

Day Two of Isolation

It's Heidi here reporting from my second day of flying solo with Amelia and Yoda. I don't have any new pictures to share because Tom has the camera - hopefully someone took pictures of him trying to surf... and maybe some video :) Things that I have done/have occurred in Tom's absence:
1. Cleaned out the cabinet below our bathroom sink which overflowed with water and has become a mildew/mold breeding ground. I called Tom to let him know he'd be installing a new sink/vanity when he returns.
2. Panicked about Amelia's bug bites because an encephalitis mosquito virus was detected about a mile from our house yesterday and is all over the news.
3. Began taking Amelia's temperature obsessively because of said virus. It was slightly high and called the doctor who said to "monitor her." Also said it's probably high because of teething or a normal virus as she is perfectly happy, playing, and eating more food than she ever has - so it's probably not the dreaded virus.
4. Became obsessive about "monitoring" the temperature and took it about 30 times this afternoon - I am not exagerrating. She does not seem to mind a thermometer in her bum.
5. Went to Target to buy a new thermometer because I did not like various readings I was getting.
6. Came home and continued to take her temperature, this time comparing it with the FOUR thermometers we now have in our house. So that means I took her temperature with each of them within a few minutes and compared notes. She really didn't seem to mind.
7. Took her outside with Yoda but only after wrapping her in the mosquito bug netting that goes over the car seat. She also did not seem to mind that and just tried to eat it.

Hopefully tomorrow I will be a bit more calm :) Only 3 more days 'til Tom comes home!

Heidi

In our posts here we have tried to focus on Amelia. But to be honest sometimes Amelia doesn't do much and our postings become, "travels with Amelia." You could actually do the same thing with a bowling ball--although you wouldn't have as many diaper stories.

For this post though I would like to talk just about Heidi. While I do pitch in a little by taking Amelia some nights so Heidi can go out and by cooking dinner on some nights. It is important for all to know that it is Heidi that does all of the really hard work. One of the reasons that I'm having such a good year at work is probably the realization that staying home with an infant is more difficult than teaching a class of 25 unruly 10th graders. Heidi does all the night feedings and almost all of the worrying. She reads all of the books twice while I read a quarter of some of them.

And this weekend she is letting me go to our friend Dan and Whitney's wedding and she is staying home with dog and baby. We thought about both going and that didn't work logistically and we thought about neither of us going. With the later option Heidi realized, because she is so kind and sensitive, how important my friends are and that I would be very sad to miss Dan getting married. So on this one she once again and like she always does took the hard job while I get to do something fun.

Just wanted it noted that I realize how great she is and the amazing job she does with Amelia, Yoda and me.

Amelia likes to swing

Today Amelia and I visited a park that is a few minutes walk from our house. I like to go between her two naps when she is often the most fussy so that she is outside and "stimulated." She just barely fits in the baby swing, but as you can see from the pictures and videos below, she loves it! I tried to bring Yoda but he would have none of it. He would NOT leave the driveway, as evidenced by the picture of him below. So I had to leave Amelia in her stroller, get him in his crate, and then back outside to her all before child protective services arrived. (I did it in about 25 seconds). In other news, Amelia cut TWO teeth last week!

Matt and Yoda

Sometimes a puppy looks cuter next to really good looking people. So instead of showing you pictures of me and Yoda I decided to show you pictures of Heidi, Matt and Yoda. (This post is 18 inches long so don't miss the one below it!)

Yoda's first boat ride--he wasn't sure what to think.

With Carter.

Matty--why am I in this boat? Where am I?
Oh--I'm not that self deprecating--here are some of me and Yoda.

And finally a walking stick. I didn't know I had that cut on my finger until I saw this picture. It is now wrapped and healing. I'm definitely better looking than the walking stick...........mabye......the walking stick is an awesome example of evoution.....I think I'm a good example of evolution because I have my mom and dad's smarts.....but I'm not sure that I'm cooler than a walking stick. Especially since I am not both intelligent and resemblant of a piece of wood. But I'm going to say that I am pretty confident that, given the choice, Dan and Whitney would rather have me at the wedding than the walking stick.

(This is my last post before I head to San Diego for their wedding--what a non-sequitor--anyway I'll be out in SD this week for their big celebration and my wonderful, wonderful wife will be home with the baby and our pup. I'm not sure why we decided to have both and infant and a pup but Heidi's amazingness will make it all work out. Starting on Tuesday she will be alone for the week-long-end with both and I know she will be awesome. All the same if you want to call her and say, "Wow, what an amazing wife you are to let your husband go off and be 5th in line at his friend Dan's wedding," I'm sure she would appreciate it.)

I'll be back in a week with picture of the big day. Love to All and especially to the greatest wife in the world.

Yoda and Amelia Go Hiking

I went hiking (walking in the woods) with Amelia and Yoda today. Yoda remains very good and follows me so closely that when I turn to see if he is behind me, he is often so close that I can't see him.

Amelia continues to love being in motion (unless that is car motion) and seems to enjoy riding in her backpack. At one point I stopped still to listen to a woodland sound. I soon realized that the sound I heard was of Amelia sucking on her little star--a toy attached to the backpack.

As you can see by this second video. I couldn't even catch him in the camera because every time I turn around he moves to stay behind me.

Amelia has visitors and Yoda shows off his cute factor...

Amelia visits with Jen - Heidi's roommate from UNH. Jen always brings nice clothes for Amelia to wear :) THANKS JEN!

Amelia visits with Grammy who taught her how to blow raspberries and now she just blows spit all of the time. THANKS GRAMMY!!!

The Plight of the English Teacher

About two weeks ago, I took Amelia to Sears to get her picture taken. It was a smashing success -- the photographer fell in love with her and the pictures were great! Sears has a lot of money making schemes in addition to just selling you the pictures, though. You can buy all sorts of expensive combinations with frames and mats, etc... I really just wanted pictures so I ordered them, but my hormones did prevent me from saying no to just one of their money making schemes. For $10 I could get an 8x10 picture of my hand holding her hand with a cheesy poem about mothers holding their child's hand. I knew this was borderline lame, but I thought I could frame it and put it in her room and it would be kind of nice.

So, yesterday Amelia and I took a big trip to pick up the pictures. The photographer remembered Amelia and called out her name and she turned around to look - the first time I've seen her respond to her name that dramatically. We get home and I whip out the pictures and look for my lame one first. My heart sinks as I feel my English teacher gene come bubbling to the surface. If you turn your head to the side while looking at the picture, you will see the cheesy poem:

A mother holds

their child's hand

for awhile, but

holds their heart for always!

What is the problem, you ask? It should say that a mother holds her child's hand for awhile - not their. So, I realize now that everytime I look at this picture I am going to itch with irritation. I really thought I could just put it on the wall and ignore it - but I really don't think I can do that. Every single time I look at it I'm going to feel like I just heard fingernails on a chalkboard. So I go to bed.

And I wake up this morning to see that Toonces, our cat, has decided to eat the picture - and she ripped off the THEIR. It is clear to me that she, too, could not take this error in grammar, and this picture is not meant to hang on our wall.

Dog Vs. Baby

Tom and I have been pretty excited about Yoda's arrival in our house. In fact, I have observed that we have been a bit more excited about it than when we first brought home Amelia. It is through thoughtful consideration that I have come to understand why -- we have, after all, raised dogs before, but never a baby:

1. The dog did not have jaundice when we brought him home.

2. The dog was able to eat by himself when we brought him home -- no feeding through a small pipette necessary.

3. It is acceptable to put Yoda in a cage when you are tired of him and he just goes to sleep until we go get him.

4. Yoda will wake us in the middle of the night but we can ignore it because, while we love him dearly, he's just a dog. (Although currently Tom gets up and tends to him while I tend to Amelia - definitely an even trade).

And finally: 5. We don't worry that any dog we ever have will come home pregnant by her boyfriend who has a tattoo of a skull on his cheek.

Cute Pictures of our Dog

We didn''t have enough to do...

so we decided that we could use one more challenge and today we got a dog.

We have wanted a dog for years and decided that, much like kids, there really is no perfect time to get one. This year, with Heidi not working, is the best of all possible scenarios though so we decided to go ahead with it.

Heidi went and picked him up today and she picked out the biggest and calmest one. I hope that he will stay that way for a while at least. He was really gentle with Amelia--licking her hands and allowing her to chew on his ear. His biggest problems will, not doubt, be with the cats. They are already hunting him and I'm sure we will soon have stories of them beating him up.

It's official; we're idiots

We found the ORIGINAL lost set of keys. Where were they, you ask? In the car. That is correct. We found them in the gearshift of the car.

So, if someone had stolen our car that we left in the Manchester airport - you may recall that the window was open and the keys were in the ignition - they would have also taken off with our SPARE set of keys. What a lucky car thievery break that would have been!

New Porch Furniture

In our never ending quest to live like normal adults and have "adult" possessions, Heidi bought us some new deck furniture this week.

The old furniture:

The new furniture:

Oookie

Do you know what an Ookie is?


If you don't have kids there is no way that you do. If you do have kids there is a 25% chance that you do.


But for Amelia it is the most important thing in her life right now.

See that little round yellow thing near her head--that's the Ookie. She loves it. We put it with her when she goes to sleep. Sometimes she rolls and gets away from it but during the night she crawls her way back to it. Unbelievably cute.

Thanks Heath!

Meaghan comes to visit!

Heidi's friend Meaghan came for a visit last night - she admitted that her main reason for visiting was her hope to make it on the blog. To reward her for her visit, here are some pictures and video :)

Things to Not do with a Baby

Don't worry no Amelia's were harmed during this photo shoot. We did not let her drink any beer. But she really likes teething on anything hard like the top of a bottle. She also was totally safe in the hammock--she actually loved it. And she was able to roll and not fall out.

It was when she rolled twice that I had to put down the camera and catch her.

Pictures

In reverse order here are some pictures from our Lake George weekend. The first one is of us at home taking care of the boat, and they go in reverse to the first moments we arrived for our 3 day weekend at the lake.

Lake George

We are enjoying a fantastic weekend at Lake George.

Amelia loves swimming in her floating toy and the weather has been pretty good.

It is Amelia's 5 month birthday today and it also her Uncle Vanya's birthday too. I think we might be having cake and ice cream tonight.

Not going very well is Amelia's teething situation. She seems to be having a tough time of it and my mother tells me that I got my teeth in my 5th month so this is expected. This morning I drove to Rite Aid and bought baby tylenol, a teething ring and baby orajel to combat the problem. So far she really seems to like the teething ring. You put it in the freezer for a few hours and then she gnaws on it for 1/2 an hour or so.

We watched Scott and Olya sail. The winds weren't too consistent but I think they had fun. And right now Vanya is out in our little 16 foot Penn Yann. Come to think of it he has been gone for a while. Hmmm? I'm sure he's OK.

Oh--when I was in town today I stopped by McDonald's and had their new breakfast chicken sandwich--not recommended. It was dry, so difficult to masticate and improperly seasoned. Sausage is seasoned but in a good way that makes the day better. This sandwich is seasoned in a way to make you want to buy a new toothbrush and some mouth rinse. What I really could have gone for is a treat that I had when we were in Columbus a few weeks ago. Mac's Cafe (which is actually a bar not a cafe) has what is called a scotch egg. They take a hard boiled egg, wrap it in crumbled bacon, dip that in breading and then deep fry the whole thing. It isn't something you want to eat that often--I've only had 3 or 4 life time--but it is quite a tasty treat.