EAT MOR CHIKIN

Normally, I'm a stickler for organizations to have correct spelling and grammar when it comes to logos. For example, I will never eat at the "Aisan" restaurant that misspelled their name on the menus and I'll also never eat at the "Kissimmee Koffee Kup". Aside from the very, what I find to be, offensive and possibly intentional initals, I have an even greater disdain for companies that intentionally replace a "c" with a "k". It's just stupid and unnecessary. I can, however, forgive spelling and grammar for cleverness. Example... I saw a tow truck today and the company was called "Tows-R-Us", clever. One Sweet Whirled ice cream? Clever! And tasty...

Where is this all going? It's going to Chick-fil-a. My friends to the north may not know of Chick-fil-a unless you have traveled out of New York and happened to see one of their billboards or stop at a restaurant. On one of my first trips to Florida when I decided that I was going to move here, I noticed these highly clever and very funny advertisements. Again, I hate spelling mistakes when it comes to professional organizations and businesses, but Chick-fil-a fits into the category of clever. If you have never seen these billboards, let me share. Keep in mind cows are not human, do not attend school and therefore cannot be expected to have proper spelling.

Chick-fil-a has been a life saver for Jerry and I. This company is just awesome. Since William has been born, we have eaten there a handful of times and we have never had a problem. William actually seems to like going there, even though he most likely has no idea where he is. Even if he does get fussy, it is such a family establishment that we aren't the only baby in the place and we don't feel like we have to have that "emergency exit plan" I've so many times made up in my head.

The Chick-fil-a closest to us is just a dream. Not only do you see managers working the counters, sweeping floors and asking everyone in the store how they are doing, they also came to our table to offer to refill our drinks and had a conversation with us and our child! I really can't say enough about this company and especially our store. It seems to me, in a time where companies are looking for inexpensive ways to cut costs while still managing to impress customers and keep them around, Chick-fil-a has come up with the cheapest and most novel idea... excellent service and manners. News flash... it's free and it works every time. Jerry and I go past at least five other fast food places to get to them, with a 2 month old child. That says a lot.

Just one word of warning if you ever head down here and see a Chick-fil-a... they are not open on Sundays for the sake of their employees' families and it actually makes me like them more. I'm never annoyed that they aren't open on Sundays, sad, but not annoyed. One more thing this company does to promote and preserve what is really important in life.

Baby Talk

One of the cutest things Will does lately is "talk back". We will have a conversation even though neither of us knows what the other is saying. It's like he's my own little ESOL student! I managed to catch him "talking" on video today. I happen to think it's the cutest thing on the planet, soooo I'm gonna share. He isn't perfectly balanced yet, but his little fall backwards adds to the cuteness.

Isn't his hat just adorable!? I could watch this all day and I have the live show. Still haven't caught him smiling in a picture yet, but I promise he is a happy child... as hopefully you can see in the video!

Growing Up and Spitting Up on Camera

I try to make good use of my web cam by taking pictures of William and I to gage his growth and hopefully catch him in a smile. I can't really use these web cam photos for anything to hang on the wall since my web cam doesn't exactly take high quality photos... so this is mainly for my entertainment. So far, I've gotten a variety of pictures of him not looking at the camera, looking annoyed with me and even an action shot of him spitting up. But, it's fun for me and hopefully soon I'll get to catch a smile!

May 20th (2 days before being born!)

June 15th

July 10th

July 22nd (He's getting so chunky!)

July 27th

Spitting up on me... how sweet!

I love that I can watch him growing up almost right before my eyes... but sometimes I want him to stay this small. Then he starts crying and I change my mind. Boy he is cute when he is quiet or playing though!

We're rolling!

Little William has a new talent. It took us a few days to figure out if he was rolling over by accident, or if he was really rolling over intentionally. Turns out, pretty much every time we put William on his tummy, he tries to roll over. He can't quite roll over yet from his back so when he turns over, he's kind of like a turtle on his shell. The tears come very quickly after unless we flip him back onto his tummy... and he rolls over again. So cute! Here he is playing in his little play area watching his" light show" and flipping over... we do this all morning. I love how he is so easily entertained.

If you look closely you can see Charlie walk past William and the camera lady (me) like we don't exist. He'll come around soon I hope.

Happy Hour

It is not a big secret that I used to frequent happy hour on Friday afternoons. I say Friday afternoons because we would actually arrive before 5pm, and I consider anytime before that "afternoon". It didn't take much digging to find a picture of one of these happy hour adventures...

This is Tanya and I, circa 2005. I have about a hundred photos similar to this one of us out on several different occasions. I'm guessing this was a Friday night when we started out at Antigua for the fabulous 3 for 1 special and then headed to Latitudes for the completely unnecessary 2 for 1 special. I know all of this because we did it every Friday night in 2005, 2006 and parts of 2007. All of this fun would occur before 10pm and we would somehow find our way home before midnight. I'm sure it doesn't surprise anyone when I say that I can't remember this night except for what I have in photos.

I understood when mid-way through 2007 she wanted to start a family and couldn't continue to come out and have fun with me anymore. It was, at first, hard to understand why once the baby had come why we couldn't pick up where we left off. Needless to say, many of my photos since her 30th birthday party (the stories are still circulating from that adventure) are a lot more "family friendly".

I still sometimes miss going out to happy hour on Friday evenings, I can't lie about that. I can also tell you that I do NOT miss waking up on Saturday morning with headaches so bad I wished I was dead... but it was all a part of the fun. I was upstairs this Friday afternoon just getting out of the shower, because I didn't get the chance to get in there before 3pm. When I came downstairs, this is what I found... all three of my boys, napping.

As much as I wish that I could "just be normal" again, this sight will never give me a headache, make me wait uncomfortably in a restroom line, pay a cover charge or have the need clean up the back seat of someone's car. I think it is safe to say, this is a much happier happy hour. And I don't even have to pay extra for VIP status... what a deal!

Cheer up Charlie...

Walking around our house with slightly less pep in his step is our kitty, Charlie. Even before William was born, Jerry and I would joke about how he was going to pack his bag (bag and stick style... see below), tie it to his tail and escape from the house.

We always got a good laugh out of it, but I secretly hoped that Charlie would adjust to William positively. Cats get a reputation of being jealous and there are even old wives tales that tell of cats "stealing the breath" from babies. Charlie didn't adjust badly, but he didn't adjust willingly either. He spends a lot of time under the bed and isn't as snugglie as he was before baby... and he wasn't really all that snugglie.

We've tried to put the two of them together, you know, to get acquainted... it didn't go very well. For either of them.

Ever since we've gotten home, Charlie has been hiding his favorite toys more than usual. He loves these little mice that come in packs of 9... he has gone through two packs and I can't find one of them anywhere. We suspect he is packing them in his get away bag.

Today, while I was eating lunch, Jerry called me over to the doorway to get a look at Charlie's current progress in his escape plan. Here he is, with one paw in Jerry's shoe. Very sneaky... you can barely tell it is in there. They definitely don't fit him very well, but everyone needs a pair of shoes to walk the streets of West Palm Beach if they are going to survive. Who knows, maybe he is checking to see if he could fit inside the shoe to use as shelter. Either way, this is definitely part of his get away plan.

Poor Charlie. It used to be him I would take incessant pictures of, now he is forced to do even weirder things to get a photo. Hopefully Charlie sticks around, because he is starting to show telltale signs that he has had enough of this new little human that gets all of the attention. I guess this is my karma for chasing away my childhood kitty, Alabaster. If only I hadn't run over his tail with my walker all of those times...

6 Weeks...

... plus a few days. He's a cutie and a little chunker! We had a little photo session in his little Ralph Lauren polo jumper because he is just so cute in it, and it is probably the classiest thing he owns. Unfortunately, he's almost already grown out of it. I'm determined to have a quick laundry turn around and squish him in it again.

We are finally getting glimpses of William's personality and this week has been a huge milestone for getting out of the house... we've been to see fireworks, gone out shopping and even been out to lunch in a fancy country club (where we also had our first "nursing in public" session). We've also had some visitors... Jerry's friends wife and children, and Melissa is coming tomorrow!

This is also the point in which I would have had to return to work if I was still at school. They only allow 6 weeks maternity leave, but you can request up to 12 weeks if you had worked at least one year, which I had not since I transferred counties in August. I must say that asking new mommies to return to work after 6 weeks is no where near enough time. I can't imagine having to send little 6 week old Will off to a day care because unfortunately all available family and friends that could watch him are just too far away. Lucky us, I have the summer off and Jerry will be able to work from home when I have to return to work in August.

I have since learned that the United States is one of the only "well to do" countries that doesn't offer paid maternity leave. If I didn't already have enough reasons to move to Canada or Australia, they give their workers one year maternity leave with pay. This is supposed to help with post-partum depression, nursing, and keeping young babies healthy, among other benefits. At least according to the few people I've talked to. What a concept! I mean, come on... how can you expect me to leave this face and nurture other people's germy children?

Until then, I'm not going to think about returning to work and I'm going to enjoy every minute I have with my little crankypants.

4th of July

Yesterday was the 4th of July and it is probably my favorite holiday. I'll say the same thing about Christmas, but it is only because they are on opposite ends of the year and I change "favorites" on a weekly basis.

Being a new mommy and wanting to celebrate my favorite (summer) holiday, I went about researching where the fireworks would be held in West Palm Beach. As luck would have it, there is a park about 4 blocks or so from our house and the festivities were being held there. This was almost too good to be true! It is excruciatingly hot outside in Florida this time of year, and I didn't want to have to deal with parking, where to sit, getting home, and all of the other fun activities that single/babyless people do so easily and without much (if any) thought. All of these things seemed like very daunting tasks... not to mention the feeding, diapering, and crying that would come with bringing a baby along. We don't have to deal with that... YAY! Fireworks are at 9pm, so we get William ready (feed, change diaper, get him in the car seat, calm him down from being in the car seat, wait for daddy to get ready...) and walk over to the park at 8:30. We find a seat right away, sit down and 15 minutes later... fireworks! We couldn't have asked for a smoother experience... really.

While we were waiting, we took some fun "waiting for fireworks" pictures.

Ohhh... Ahhh... Fireworks!

William was pretty good. We tried to get him to watch, but I think he was mostly just confused as to what was going on around him and why we were at the park after dark. He started crying during the fireworks for a few seconds, but a little bouncing and mommy-talk got him quiet quickly and he eventually just fell asleep.

Overall, this was one of the best 4th of July experiences I've ever had. Usually there is a lot of parking stress and traffic stress and hours of sitting in a park sweating waiting for the fireworks, and I was sure that we would probably just stay in to avoid all of that fun. Our landlady wants us sooo badly to buy the townhouse from her, and we have thought about it, but always decide not to because it is missing a lot of the things I want from a house to raise children in. BUT, a fireworks experience that was this hasslefree... nah... I would still like to have a pool and a yard. My only wish is for next year, when William is walking, to have a similar experience and not have to go leaping into the intra-coastal after him!

One Month Old!

One month and one week old already! How time is flying. I can't believe that it has already been almost 6 weeks since William was born. A lot has happened with Mr. Will in that time. He is almost holding his head up without support, only waking up twice (sometimes once, if we're lucky) in the middle of the night and I think we are getting glimpses of his first smiles. It's hard to say about the smiles though, we can't tell if he is smiling at us or if he just has gas, which he has quite a bit of - for a little guy. The biggest accomplishment, in my opinion, so far is how easy it is for us to put him to bed at night. It's like a sigh of relief when he's finally down for the night and Jerry and I get an hour or two to ourselves to be adults and not fear screaming or getting spit up on. Even at night, I've got it down to a science... just at the first squeak of fussing, I get him up, feed, change and back to sleep... no tears, no playing... strictly business! Poor William though has a pretty bad rash on his face that he's had for almost a week. It's either a heat rash or baby acne, either way we just have to wait it out. Hopefully it's not a heat rash because, well, we live in Florida and it's only July 1st. The heat is just getting started!

Look at how cute he is holding his little head up! He looks like a little chunker when he's lying down, which is also cute. Hard to believe he weighs almost 10 pounds! Note that I've got him on the Boppy Pillow again... on the bed... another Boppy Pillow "no-no". Really, I need to read the directions a little closer before placing my child on these things.

Nothing new or exciting to report on the Mommy and Daddy front. We are still in survival mode, but we're getting more and more into a routine. Our days of choosing between a shower, food or sleep have turned into having the ability to accomplish two of those activities a day, and sometimes, if I'm really lucky... I get to sneak in laundry, dishes or cleaning, too. It's as unglamorous as it sounds, but I know the day will be bittersweet when William becomes more independent and doesn't need us as much. Funny, I would rather talk about poopy diapers and wipe away drool than anything else right now... and I never thought I would EVER say that!