With Thanksgiving gobbled up by 2007, we find ourselves in the mittened grasp of the holiday season and Hazel’s first Christmas. As parents, this will most likely be the easiest (and least expensive) Christmas for us, as Hazel is too young to know what’s going on and is also the only baby on many people’s gift list. Plus, with no siblings around, we have it pretty sweet this year. Heck, her favorite toy as of late is an empty tissue box. Together, I’m sure we’ll have a very empty milk carton Christmas.

As much as people feel jolly this time of year, there is always that nasty undercurrent of cynicism. I try and just go with the flow in my house; Megan loves Christmas fanatically, so attempts to tune in the all holiday music radio station starting just after Halloween. I do try and hold her off from decorating the house until December 1^st, but not out of spite. It’s the same rationale I rely upon when delaying our jack-o-lantern pumpkin purchases. I just like to limit the amount of time I keep rotting vegetation in and around our house. It’s just good sense.

We watched the Chuck Jones’s classic, “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” last night. As entertaining as this special is, I noticed something that has slipped by me until now. In the scene where the Grinch preps Max as his makeshift reindeer and makes his own Santy costume, you get loads of interior shots of his cave atop Mount Crumpet. The scant wall decorations and sewing machine never struck me as out of place, but in a brief shot, you can see into the Grinch’s bedroom. The slumbering abode is surprisingly quite chic, with colorful linens and a headboard fit for the queen of Siam. So maybe, if you ignore what the Grinch unreliably monologues to his pet dog, he actually assails the people of Who-Ville not out of holiday hatred, but out of disgust at their tacky interior decorating. I need to review the short further, but I’m pretty sure that I saw an avocado color theme on several of the village’s kitchen appliances.

I have to wonder what I’ll get this year, as the gravy train of gifts starts and ends at Hazel Town. In thinking back, I think it’s safe to say that I have never purchased underwear for myself. All of my unmentionables, both past and present, have been either a birthday, Christmas, or (in a singular case) Valentine’s Day present. Some may threaten me with coal, but will oil prices close to $100 per barrel a little alternative fuel source under the tree might not be a bad idea.

When I look back at old pictures of myself, I don’t see much change. 18-year-old John is often indistinguishable from Current John save a few fashion cues (or miscues as the case may be). But with a baby, every few days, she gains enough experience point to evolve to her next form. So, when you look back at a few months of leveling up, the results can be astounding. Plus, with a surviving bib for a reference point, you do get the feeling that you are succeeding as a parent, at least on the nutritional front.

Hazel is kind of like those “just add water” toy sponges from the ‘80s. Sure it’s a pink capsule now, but drop it in some H₂O and it puffs into a very impressive camel or dinosaur. Of course, leave it in the water too long, and the sponge gets too soppy and starts to smell a bit – yet another similarity with a baby. In fact, Hazel has grown so much that we took advantage of the rolled-back Thanksgiving prices and bought her a new car seat. It’s huge, padded, and resembles something that belongs on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise. Maybe her future first word will be “engage” or “makeitso”. I’m still reading the instruction manual, but I’m fairly certain that, in the event of an emergency, this car seat will jettison out of the vehicle and sprout helicopter blades from the top, whirligigging Hazel to safety and the promise of another chance to get that darn Inspector Gadget. 

Not that Hazel is the only one packing on the (dozens of) ounces. As an experiment, I weighed myself first thing Thanksgiving morning and then again Thanksgiving eve. In the AM, I topped the scale at 166 but that night, after turkey and potatoes and my stuffing and pie and cookies and seconds and thirds and lackadaisically watching football, I spun the needle a bit further up to 172 lbs. Looks like it time to buy yet another tapeworm.

Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite holidays. I attribute this to my love of mashed potatoes, a few days off from school/work, holiday television specials, and leftovers. Plus, this is a great lead-in to my birthday (November 30^th for all you last minute shoppers). Though I don’t really care for football, sitting around on comfy couches with family will most assuredly distract me from any substantial updates until next week. Plus, with freelance writing gigs coming in from Colorado James, I’ll have more than enough going on to keep myself busy.

But before any of the fun can begin, I need to make my grandmother’s recipe for stuffing. I’ve been coming to Megan’s family’s Thanksgiving meals since the turn of the century and I always weep inside because I won’t eat their stuffing. They put raisins in it for some wicked (meaning bad not good in this instance) reason. And as we can all agree, a Thanksgiving without stuffing is like a Christmas special without a forced celebrity cameo.

While I’m gone, have fun with the shop.mlb.com personalized jersey generator. Though I will never drop even $50.00 on a team jersey, the temptation to order one with a funny name on the back is tantalizing. And just so you know, while “BUTTCHEEK” and “PEE PEE” and deemed inappropriate, you can get “DOUCHE” or “FECES” blazoned across your shoulders. To quote the shopping program, both of these are a “great choice!”

 

 

Last Friday, Hazel had her six month check-up. And while she passed the battery of tests (such as getting weighed and peeing on the examination table) with relative ease, she did have to endure a few vaccination shots. Heroically, she barely made a peep or a grimace during the injections, but for the entire weekend following, she was affected in unpleasant ways. Said effects varied from being just a little out of it to screaming in pain and confusion. The latter built to a dramatic crescendo last night.

Hazel’s bed time is between 7:30 and 8 at night depending on her (and our) energy level. Sunday evening went as usual: I bathed Hazel while Megan prepared to give her a final feeding before slumber. Things went well and Megan and I were relaxing on the couch by 8:15. Around 10, the wails began. Now this could have been the final effects of the vaccinations, but the evidence isn’t definitive. Whether we should blame modern medicine, the Tex-Mex dinner we ate, or my guffawing at Family Guy, the end result was a very inconsolable banshee baby.

We took turns rocking and soothing her in her room. My spirit cracked after about an hour and a half. Megan lasted for just over two, but with no permanent headway being made, she soon joined me at wit’s end. Being the mom, she pulled herself together first and picked up Hazel, the pair heading to the living room. After I composed myself, the realization came that there was no high-pitched cries echoing through the house. Going to investigate, I found that Megan had sat Hazel in our wicker laundry basket and our daughter was just sitting there with her chubby, little hands gripping the rim of the basket and a huge toothless smile spreading from one cherub cheek to the other. She looked like an amusement park attendee waiting for the flume ride to start. The levity shattered all my tension and I started laughing very hard. Megan laughed too. Hazel decided to start crying again, but without a lot of gusto. The end was in sight.

She still wouldn’t be rocked to sleep or take a bottle, so Megan once again used a brilliant gambit. She helped Hazel to her feet and walked her around. Hazel plodded down the hallway to the bathroom, turned back to shuffle after Fleabag (Both cats were very concerned at this point, though whether it was for Hazel’s well-being or their own interrupted sleeping one can only guess.), and then took the long walk down the hall to the kitchen. Her screams turned to those of delight and we just helped her do some laps around the house until she tired. I scooped her up for a pajama change - her drool had soaked the original pick of the night - and Megan prepped a bottle near the rocking chair. Fifteen minutes later, we had a sleeping baby and two very worn-out parents. The clock read 1:07 am.

When I left for work this morning, both mama and baby were still sleeping soundly. Next time, we’ll have to ask for the vaccines made from puffy, white clouds rather than Guatemalan insanity peppers.

In case you were wondering, last week I sold my Taurus and bought another Taurus. This isn’t brand loyalty; it’s just another example of my innate spendthrift. So this morning I dropped off my ride to get an inspection sticker. The garage I use is run by the most honest man in the world, whose name also happens to be John and whose garage is on John Street (how can you ignore the signs?!), so I don’t mind walking the mile or so to my office – even in this morning’s cold New England rain.

As I ambled past a gas station on my way in, I saw a Saab owner gassing up his shiny foreign auto. Glancing at his license plate, which is the vanity variety, I chuckled. Surely promoting his own or his business’s initials, his personalized plate read: PBFT. Much like how “achoo” represents the sound of a sneeze and “ack-ack” stands in for the sound of a machine gun repeat, “pbft” is most assuredly how one represents a fart in print. If this isn’t a comic strip staple, it darn well should be. And so we see how self-promotion can bite one in the butt (no pun intended).

Speaking of self-promotion (and poorly crafted segues), I am once more up for Blogger’s Choice Award in the Hottest Daddy Blogger category. Somehow I lost the 2007 competition, but I am sure we can alleviate this in ‘08. Now let’s not get hung up on the semantics of “hottest” or anything; they could be referring to swarthiness for all we know. I lay myself bare before you and submit the voting link. Look in your heart and do what’s best for everyone (but mostly me).

Today Hazel turns six-months-old. It’s hard to believe that just a few months ago, she was nothing more than a grainy ultrasound blip that occasionally kicked the inside of Megan’s belly. To say that our lives have been different this past half year would be a bit of an understatement.

But at the same time, things have been fairly consistent for us. Megan can still crack me up like nobody else. I still sing every day, except now I have a fairly captive audience. Oddly, I watch less cartoons than I did before becoming a dad, but that’s mostly a time management issue. When I look back at the years and years I’ve been an adult, it boggles me how much time I wasted. This is not to say that I’m mister efficiency now, but I do have a higher sense of urgency when free time crops up. To think of all the times Non-dad John could have been doing laundry – what the hell did I do all day before Hazel showed up?

The past few weeks especially have witnessed a transformation in Hazel’s personality. She laughs all the time now. She has favorite toys. She’s really jumped the gap from mere baby to little person (there is a difference). Sure we haven’t had a full night’s sleep in months and we don’t really get to go to concerts or movies or anything anymore. So far, parenting beats the hell out of six months in a leaky boat. No contest!