Lyla and Ava

Lyla didn't quite know what to think of Ava. She approved of her, certainly, but it's possible she thought she was an alien. I'm sure Ava thought Lyla was an alien too.


This picture is crazy when you consider that Ava is bigger than Lyla was at that age.

And this picture is proof that Lyla and Ava will be lifelong friends:


The new mom and dad and baby are doing well, although Matt did end up sleeping on the floor in the nursery because he was tired of repeatedly returning to the bed after tending to Ava's confusion about what human beings are supposed to do when it's nighttime.

Matt and I, along with Jen's fiance Jason, smoked cigars in the garage to commemorate the new baby. We are pretty studly, and by studly I mean stinky and lightheaded.

In other news, look at this:


I'm teaching Lyla about transparency. I don't think she'll grasp it, but in fourth grade or whenever they get to it in science class, my theory is that she'll find it a remarkably easy concept to comprehend. Tomorrow we'll delve into translucence.

I'm also teaching her about "Psych," which I know is a mistake because it'll make her annoying. But it's hilarious now, so I can't help it. I'll take a piece of cheese and pretend to put it in her mouth but then pull back at the last instant and say "Psych!" Then she laughs and does it to me and doesn't yet say "Psych," but she clearly understands the joke, and it's only a matter of time before she'll find ways to incorporate fake-outs into the most mundane activities just to give herself an excuse to say "Psych!" and laugh her face off.

And then one day about a year from now, Jodie and Matt will wonder where Ava learned "Psych," but then Lyla will run up and the answer will be transparent.

New baby fun

Julie took these pictures while I repeatedly pretended to fall on the floor.






Lyla's new cousin Ava is home from the hospital. We're going to see her tomorrow, assuming Lyla doesn't suddenly come down with an ear infection or whooping cough or something.

It's fun to have a new baby in the family. Lyla was wonderful and all, but she wasn't exactly fun right away. It's not like we said "Wow, she's crying again, and it's 3:30 in the morning. This is fun!"

"Hey, her poop still looks like tar. Party time!"

"Dan, my nipples are cracking. Turn up the music!"

But Ava is not our baby, so that automatically makes her fun. We can hold her and play with her and coo over her, and then we can leave. She will definitely not wake us up at ungodly hours. It's like when your good friend has a lake cabin: it's all of the wakeboarding with none of the property taxes.

Cousin Ava

It's been a big day. Jodie's contractions started last night, and mid-morning the lovely and sophisticated Ava splooshed into the world. Her fingers and toes are in the appropriate places and in the correct numbers. She is mastering the ins and outs of infancy. Everything is perfect.

But this might be an issue:


You can see it in her eyes: "I want another one."

And check this out:


She's thinking about stealing the baby. "Is Jodie watching? Shoot."

We'll have another kid eventually, but I don't necessarily want it tomorrow. Or even nine months from tomorrow. But this is hard to resist:



How do we look at that and not immediately go home, hop into bed, and pull the goalie?


Anyway, we taught Lyla how to say "Ava," and she'll meet her new cousin on Sunday. We're all sort of drunk with the happiness of it all. Life certainly doesn't stand still.

The signs

Lyla calls binkies babies. "Baby!" she'll say when she sees one. It's awkward.

Julie decided weeks ago that we should stop giving Lyla a binky in the car. I secretly continued giving her one because I'm a total rebel, but on Monday I stopped because the binky in my car had gotten hairy, which seemed like a sign.

Lyla flipped her shit. "BAY-BEE! WAAAAA!" I told her no and she looked at me like you might look at a gremlin who broke into your bedroom and ate your kitty, like you just walked in and saw it sitting there smirking with kitty dripping out of its mouth.

That was Monday. With each subsequent day, the intensity of her car seat binky tantrum has diminished, with the exception of yesterday when she was a hot mess and got sent to bed at 6:00. Today I eliminated the tantrum completely by distracting her with a rousing though ultimately flawed version of the ABCs.

In daycare today, you see, they sang the ABCs while doing the hand signs for each letter. So I sat in the backseat in the daycare parking lot and busted it out, hand signs, vibrato, A, B, C, D, E--and that's where I got stuck. I don't know signs for F and beyond. And I could see into Lyla's mind through her eyes: "Daddy forgot the alphabet."

I started over and kept singing this time, passionately, as though auditioning for American Idol, but without post-E hand signs. I could tell by Lyla's scowl that she wasn't quite satisfied, and that suspicion was confirmed at W when she put her hand on mine and said "Uh oh."

I need to study up this weekend.

Tragic mess of a child

Lyla was not exactly a pocketful of sunshine this evening. I picked her up at daycare, and the instant I tried to stuff her into her jacket I could tell it would be an early bedtime. The jacket is the barometer for all things mood-related, you see. If Lyla cheerfully stands still and babbles about Elmo, then you have a delightful evening of frivolity in store. But if she fake-cries and stamps her feet at jacket time, then, well, it's been nice knowing you.

Julie got home just after we pulled into the driveway.

"Mih," Lyla said when we got inside. "Mih. Mih. Mih."

"Do you want some milk, Lyla?" Julie replied.

"MIH! MIH!"

"Well let's go to the kitchen and get you some milk."

Feet stamping. I think Lyla expected that Mama would immediately produce a sippy cup. Or a boob. "MIIIIIIIIIIIIIIH! WAAAAAAAAAH!"


After some coaxing, Lyla dragged her feet into the kitchen.



I microwaved some chicken nuggets and cut up some cheese. No use trying to feed vegetables to this tragic mess of a child.

While stuffing her face, Lyla shat her pants ferociously. I immediately placed my index finger upon my nose. "Nose goes!"

"No way," Julie said.

"I nose-goesed it! Done! It's sacred. You can't un-nose-goes something."

She looked at the clock. "It's 5:45. Think we can get her in bed by 6:00?"

"It's worth a shot."

"You wanna tag-team this som'bitch?"

"You're doing the diaper. Nose goes."

"Fine."

We are terrible parents.

When Zoe comes out

Exactly two seconds after I took the preceding story-time photo, Lyla became very distracted.



Julie figured out Lyla wanted Zoe, a puppet that lives on the shelf. Lyla is certain Zoe is alive, even though she has the same voice as her mama and occasionally the same voice as her dada. She moves and talks; therefore, she is.

In case you've never seen a 15-month-old interact with a puppet, here you go. First comes Lyla's look of anticipation as Mama gets Zoe ready.


Next is the part where Lyla has a conversation with Zoe, which consists of pointing at her and saying "Dz-oh-ee."


Then Lyla becomes mildly freaked out after Zoe says something back to her.


Which is followed by Lyla signing to Mama that she's "all done" with Zoe.


But with a little encouragement from Mama, Lyla touches Zoe and remembers that Zoe is her friend.


So she signs "thank you" to Zoe for coming out to chat.


And story time resumes.

Tumbling

At daycare they had some kind of water station activity they did with the older pupils in the infant room. The kids got so wet that the teachers had to strip them and let them run around in diapers for half an hour while their clothes tumbled in the dryer.

I'm trying to decide if this could somehow be a metaphor for teaching high school English, but I've got nothing. My students peer-evaluated literary analysis papers on The Great Gatsby today. Create a Venn diagram of Lyla's day in school and theirs, and there might not be anything at all in the middle section.

Now that Gatsby is done, we're onto Our Town, a play that reminds us that we humans are terrible at noticing the beauty in our lives until it's too late. The days of running around your classroom in a diaper while your clothes dry--those days are over. And if you have kids, then there will come a day, if it hasn't come already, that those days will be over for them, too, never to return. It's not fair.

So I try to notice. And then I try to write.

All things serpentine

I am deathly afraid of snakes, always have been. There wasn't an experience that led to it, but I remember as a very young child I had a magic wand that I would take down to the basement; by tracing a circle around where I was standing, no snakes could get me. One time I was camping and stepped on a garter snake and it was the single most terrifying experience of my life.

So I took Lyla to the zoo today and showed her the snakes. Walked her right up to the Burmese python cage and let her pound on the glass. Then we looked at the boa constrictor in the case, the one that's been taxidermied in the same position ever since I was a kid and probably before. Finally, in the gift shop she held a green rubber snake that was eerily reminiscent of the one my foot met that day.

I don't want that child to be afraid of anything. But I hope I didn't take it too far today and inspire a lifelong love for all things serpentine. If I ever find out she's secretly caring for a garter snake in a cardboard box or something, I'm getting an apartment.

Math

Today Julie took Lyla out to lunch with her mom and sister Jodie. Lyla got her own meal off the menu for the first time. It was a grilled cheese sandwich with grapes and cantaloupe. She is 15 months old today.

Lyla ate half the sandwich, a good amount of the grapes, and none of the cantaloupe because cantaloupe is nasty.

When the bill came, Lyla helped calculate the tip. "You just move the decimal over and multiply by two," she told her mother, who majored in math.

I wish I would've been there, but I stayed home to do our taxes. Unless I figured things wrong, we're actually getting a refund this year. I guess that's what happens when you take unpaid parenting leaves, pay for daycare, and, well, have a kid in general. Maybe we'll take the windfall and spend it all on grilled cheese sandwiches and grapes.

Four shots

Lyla's 15-month checkup was today. I am happy to report that her height, weight, and head circumference percentiles (90th, 75th, and 75th, respectively) all suggest she will one day put herself through law school by winning purses in underground cage fights.

She also got four shots, which I believe were the H1N1 booster, one for tetanus, one for maybe MMR or something, and the fourth one was, let's see, oh yes: an anti-tattoo serum. It takes away any temptation she might have in college to get a tattoo.

We skipped the pre-shot binky dipped in sugar water because non-bedtime binkies are like so passé. We also skipped the post-shot acetaminophen because Julie read in a prestigious medical journal that it could decrease the child's immunity to whatever the shot was for, tetanus, MMR, tattoo-temptation, etc.

(It's actually one of those silly mommy magazines. The blurb doesn't cite any specific study, and the magazine's cover boasts the headline "Eat more, weigh less! Nope, we're not kidding.")

So midway through the second poke, as I held her down on the table, Lyla threw open the mouth on her 75th-percentile head and shouted things that, if translated into English, would totally get her sent to the principal's office.

She was better in about 40 seconds. Oh, and not to brag or anything, but at this age they look for babies to say 5 words or so. Lyla says over 50, and none of them are swear words. Fuck yeah!

No cheese

Lyla wouldn't give the camera the time of day. I was like, "Hello? Hey Lyla! Say cheese! Cheeeese!" And she was like, "I'm busy. Go away."


"Dad, seriously. Get that thing out of my face."

Powers of manipulation

I plan to use my powers of manipulation to get Lyla to eat vegetables. Phase one started today. The whole plan happens to coincide with Lent, so I suppose I'm giving up my failure to get Lyla to eat vegetables.

I have a bag of frozen corn, peas, and carrots, so today I arrived home with Lyla and boiled up a small bowl of that crap. Once it was done, I put Lyla in the highchair and listened to her say "No-no" when she saw what I had.

Then I started eating it with a baby spoon right in front of her and acting damn excited about it. I didn't urge Lyla to try it or anything, but when she looked interested, I put the spoon and bowl on her tray. A pea entered her mouth and exited. So did a corn kernel. Then I begged her to feed some to me, so she picked up little pieces and put them in my mouth, and I pretended to love it.

Within five minutes or so, I had eaten the whole bowl. The way I figure it, I'm a pretty cool guy, so day after day when Lyla sees me eating those little pieces of flavorless blah, her resistance to vegetables will slowly erode. Pretty soon she'll be begging for vegetables in order to be just like Dada. "Vee-vees!" she'll say.

"No Lyla, we're having chocolate cake for dessert."

"VEE-VEES!"

Just you wait.

Elmo-head cacas

Here Lyla is eating a cracker, or as she puts it, a caca. They are shaped like Elmo's head, which she does not find the least bit disturbing. Usually she doesn't get to eat cacas right before dinner, but she found a tupperware of them in the baby bag and ran it over to me while shouting "Peez!" I could see in her eyes that if I said no, then years from now Uncle Scott would be walking her down the aisle.

The word "peez" reminds me of how Lyla refuses to eat peas, so whenever I put some on her tray and say "Peas!" with stupid enthusiasm, she must think I'm asking her to please eat them, which I suppose I am. She always replies the same way: "No no."

Speaking of which, this is the no-no cupboard:


Inside the no-no cupboard live all the other cacas. Once or twice every day, Lyla likes to double-check with us whether the cupboard still retains its no-no status. Maybe it has recently become the yes-yes cupboard, which would make all the Elmo-head cacas inside fair game. It doesn't hurt to ask.

Julie feels a little better, by the way. She has more energy, although her voice is about an octave and a half lower all of a sudden, which makes her sound exactly like Jesse Ventura. Is it offensive to call her "Julie The Body"? Will it land me in deep caca?

Time goes faster

Julie developed a fever on Saturday afternoon. Exposure to babies gives you the weirdest symptoms sometimes, such as the random Saturday afternoon fever. Last week we were worried about getting pinkeye. Maybe this week it'll be diaper rash.

Let's hope not.

But anyway, Julie's fever has morphed into a bad cold, so Miss Lyla and I have spent a lot of time together this long weekend. As a result, she will undoubtedly end up with some destructive habits; her favorite new game, for instance, involves jumping off the couch into my arms. Plus, I fed her some salsa and she completely freaked but recovered once I shoved some milk at her. Then I gave her a pickle and she was not amused until I squirted ketchup on it. Good daddy/daughter stuff.

I must say this even though it sounds bad: Lyla is more fun to hang out with than she used to be. During my parenting leave last spring and summer, a lot of the day would be spent moving Lyla from place to place in the house. "Hey, maybe you want to lie on your back under this play thing. No? Sobbing? Really? Okay, let's go back to the jumpy thing. No? Let's heat you up some breast milk then. Hey look, two minutes have passed." I sort of went insane for awhile.

I'd do it again; don't get me wrong. But now Lyla can do so many more things that she's like a little entertainer. I feed the dogs and she tells them to sit and stay. She woofs at them. Things like that make time go faster.

And after a weekend like this, I know tomorrow will find me occasionally visiting this blog, looking back, wishing time at work would go faster too.

Lyla hates sledding

Look how happy Lyla is to go sledding! Whee!


"Let's go sledding, Dada! Hurry up!"


"Look at me in the sled! So happy! The time of my life!"


"I lost my mitten! This is so awesome!"


"Eeee!"


"So fun! Aaaaaah!"


"Again! Again!" (And by that she means, "Never again! Never again!")

Typical Saturday

Among many other activities, Lyla loitered by the wall, pretended to watch TV, had a friend over, got a new outfit from Grandma, tried on my coat, drew a picture, and de-Kleenixed a box. There is no such thing as a typical Saturday.