And with the pop of 10,000 champagne bottle corks, the holiday season (and 2007 as a whole) is packed away and put up in the attic. I hope you bought enough mothballs.

Hazel’s first Christmas went swimmingly. Despite my worst fears of weird or useless gifts, everything she received has not only fit well into her daily regime, but also fits in our house without forcing us to install monkey bars on the ceilings for room-to-room transit. Of course, this Christmas did herald in what will be known heretofore as the Toys with Lights and Sounds Era. But that’s okay, as her Learnin’ Table does play La Cucaracha.

She also got loads of clothes. Even though those rectangular gift boxes always filled Young John with bitter dread and a sense of impending disappointment, now that I’m a parent, I think these are the best gifts she “opened” (the use of quote here recognizes that Hazel didn’t exactly open any gifts this year, but she was more than happy to eat the wrappings once removed from any gifts). She now has a full wardrobe again, which has been dwindling over the past few weeks as she continued to grow despite us telling her to wait until after Christmas. Hazel will be all set for another three to six months until she Hulks out again and outgrows her current staples like so many torn purple slacks.

We also made another Connecticut trip, this time during the day as opposed to our moonlight drive of last time. Hazel did phenomenally well on the 6-hour drive down; she even helped steer the car and read the maps when we attempted a shortcut in northern Massachusetts. But, with a mere 45 minutes left to go, she decidedly freaked out just outside of Hartford. I like to think this was in memoriam to the once mighty Whalers, but once we got off the highway for a closer inspection, her tears we probably caused by the massive poop in her diaper.

Not to downplay the visits from other folks, but it was great to see Jim again while we were both back in CT for the holidays. Despite being the person I talk to most (after Megan and Hazel), we haven’t seen each other since he came back east to be a groomsman in our wedding nearly five years ago! Jim, I’ll see you in another half decade; by that time Hazel will be old enough to knock out a few state high points (I’m thinking Ebright Azimuth and maybe Britton Hill).

Hope 2008 started off smashingly for you, the Internet. Now if you’ll excuse me, our new Roomba is stuck under the couch and I must extricate our new robotic family member.

The first time my parents came up to see Hazel, she was just one-week-old and was stuck in the hospital with a bad case of jaundice. The second time my parents came up to see Hazel, she was seven-weeks-old and back in the hospital for hernia surgery. The third time my parents ventured north to see Hazel, it was this weekend and the state of Maine got socked with a pretty ample snow storm. The white stuff is still falling today and is collected on the ground in one- or three-foot drifts. In short, grandparents should have it easier.

Luckily, with being snowed in all yesterday, Hazel enjoyed tons of Gramma and Papa time. They may have said they were coming up for my and Megan’s birthdays, but once my 29 candles were blown out, I may as well have been a houseplant. This of course is fine by me, me being Dad John. It may have taken a little punching down upon my inner Young John to step aside here, but my birthday gift copy of Emmett Otter’s Jug-band Christmas certainly helped sooth the whiny beast. If you’ve never seen this holiday classic, think “The Gift of the Magi” meets The Wind in the Willows. I dare say that the movie is worth the flight to Maine needed to get oneself to my living room for the next DVD viewing. I’ll even supply the popcorn.

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.

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!

Yesterday, I had the day off from work. I haven’t had Veterans Day off since high school, and even that is a historical assumption on my part. I spent the morning raking leaves (I’m behind – again!) and then came in to watch Hazel while Megan showered. Hazel had just finished her bottle and was sleeping on my chest when my cell phone rang. Of course, I didn’t lunge up to answer it, spilling my daughter to the floor. That’s what voicemail is for.

I consider myself an optimist, but every time I get a phone call at an odd time – during the workday, very early in the morning, etc. – I think the worst. Having a slew of older relatives and a father who not only travels hundreds of miles each week by car but also has a heart condition, whenever I hear that telephonic tone outside the ordinary Sunday Mom Call or Midday Wife Check-in, I can’t help but cringe a bit at the expected bad news.

But yesterday’s call was of the best variety. It was my sister, fresh from her 20-week ultrasound appointment. I’ve known she is pregnant since August, but now I know the baby’s gender as well. Come April, Megan and I are going to have a nephew! The is a trifecta of positive news because:

a) This will be my first nephew and new things are always awesome.
b) Hazel now has two cousins to play with in the not-too-distant future.
c) My sister now has no use for all those baby girl clothes and Hazel can say hello to a metric ton of hand-me-downs.

Even though the latter listing speaks to my inner cheapo, reason b above trumps the other two; after all, b stands for best. Growing up, both Megan and I had acres of cousins around all the time. Even through to today, you cannot throw a hunk of garlic bread in the Connecticut Valley and not hit a minimum of three cousins of mine. Be they first-, second-, or third-cousins, I know them all well and still see them a few times a year.

I’m sad that Hazel is so far away from cousin Carolyn and soon-to-be cousin [Boy Name], but hopefully this will spur her on to master the Instant Transmission technique since the Department of Homeland Security is still clamping down hard on importing Floo Powder from the UK.