Open Mouth, Insert Foot

A Dog in a Treehouse

I remember pulling into my garage one day with Dodger in the back of my car, and he started barking really loud. His "big dog I'm going to scare you away" bark. I thought what in the world could he be barking at in the alley, I couldn't see anything in the rear view mirror. And then I saw it. The dog in the treehouse. And I finally caught him on camera.

5 months old

Wow, do I really have a 5 month old baby? How did that happen? I have been thinking a lot about the choices we have to make as parents and how ultimately, we can't get this day back. We don't get a do over. Each moment passes and slips through our fingers and it isn't coming back to us. Ever. It feels like just a couple of weeks ago we were heading to the hospital for Lily's birth. And now I have a 5 month old. A 5 month old baby that smiles and giggles and rolls. That tries to catch the water being poured out from a cup onto her belly at bath time. A sweet 5 month old with the whitest blonde hair and rosiest cheeks you will find. And just as quickly as the last 5 months have passed, so will the next 5, and the next 5 after that. And soon she will be crawling, then walking and talking. And I won't get these moments back. Ever. And I've been dwelling on this and how it affects the choices I make as a parent. So even when the days are long, and I am so ready for her to go to bed, I choose to hold my baby and let her fall asleep in my arms. It is hard when there are so many people giving you advice on how to raise your baby, but I'm choosing to intuitively parent her. To make the choice that I would make if there were no baby books out there telling me what to do. Because the laundry can wait to be folded, and my email can wait to be answered, because this moment is never coming back to me. Lily will never be exactly 5 months old again. And one day soon, sooner than I can imagine, she isn't going to need me to hold her and put her to bed. And I will miss these days. But I will have sweet memories in my heart of a little rosy cheeked blonde babe peacefully resting in my arms each night. And I will forever cherish this time, because I can't get it back. Ever.

Auntie J and Cousin B come to town

Phil is lucky in that almost all of his aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents live in Texas, while all of mine are out of state on either the east coast or the west coast. Last weekend my Aunt Jeri and Cousin Bryan came to town and got to meet Lily for the first time. My aunt is so much fun and I have lots of great memories from our vacations to the Outer Banks and visits to their house in Marin and I hope that Lily gets to make her own great memories with her as she grows up. No family get together for us is complete without a lunch at Joe T's and no trip to Fort Worth is complete for my dad without a trip to the Flying Saucer. On Monday Phil had to go back to work and Lily and I met up with my family in Dallas for the Bodies exhibit and lunch at YO Ranch. We had a really good time together and I'm looking forward to a family vacation with all of my cousins and aunts and uncles this summer. We haven't all gotten together in a long time and I can't wait for Lily to meet them all.

First Bowl Game

Patrick invited us out to Shreveport for the Independence Bowl, so we braved the cold and took Lily out to her first Aggie game, admittedly a loss, but no surprise there. We had fun visiting with P, although Lily decided that standing still was not an option after about a quarter so I spent a lot of the game walking around with her. She also downed a 6 ounce bottle almost immediately, then decided she was hungry in the 3rd quarter, so I wandered around with her in search of a decent place to feed her at a bowl game. That was quite the experience, but we fought through it and luckily Phil isn't as hard core of an Aggie as he used to be, and we left in the fourth quarter and drove back to Dallas. We really did have a good time, I don't mean to make it out to be bad, it was just cold and a fussy baby does not make for the most enjoyable football game!

Bad Hair Day