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To say that Zoe is happy I am home would be a large understatement. She would glue us together if she could. Ted is starting to notice her too. The first day we were home he watched her walk by with his mouth wide open, like -wow, what in the world is that amazing thing! Since then he has been keeping an eye on her. Yesterday Ted napped on my stomach while Zoe slept on my legs. I think they are going to be good friends.
During the past three weekends, Ted and I have been up in New England with way too much going on to sit down at a computer and keep up with our weekiversary posts. He had lots of firsts: first parade, first time in the ocean, first time meeting twins, first continous string of laughter, first road trip, first time Mom and Dad left him to go on a date… The list goes on!
His first parade was the famous Bristol 4th of July parade. Honestly he was not really into it. The fact that it started with police cars and motorcycles with their sirens on full blast, didn’t really make it a very 3 month-old friendly event. I am sure he will love it next year though.
He did seem to like our trip to Second Beach. I was worried about Ted getting too much sun, so Auntie Kim bought him a swim shirt with SPF and Grammie bought a beach tent. I threw a bucket hat on him and off we went. We put his feet in the water and wet sand. I think he liked it. Then he took a nap in the beach tent.
Ted and I got to spend a lot of time with our family. Chris even got him to laugh and laugh. I had gotten a chuckle out of him before, but he apparently finds Auntie Christine to be hilarious.
He is holding his head up high during tummy time and lifting all four limbs up in a way that makes me think he is going to roll over onto his back any day now. He is grasping his toys and stuffing them in his mouth. When I stand him up on his feet, he takes a lot of weight on his legs, like he is trying to stand on his own. He has also begun drooling. Which, I have heard, means teething is on its way. I weighed him this morning and unofficially he seems to weigh about 16lbs!
Our trip was awesome. We already miss everybody and can’t wait to head up there again.
It’s been a strange few weeks, just me and the cats hanging out here in North Carolina while Kate and Ted are up north visiting friends and family. I’m happy for them, glad that Ted is getting to spend time with cousin Jack and his new family. I’m more glad that I get to see them both tomorrow.
Hopping on a jet plane again tomorrow and heading up north to meet up with them, and then on Sunday we’ll all pile into the Celica and drive home. The Celica has been busy up north, getting itself a new clutch, a long overdue bit of maintenance I can’t wait to shift gears again without fear!
It’s been a fairly productive time for me down here. I did lots of yard work, installed a rain collection barrel, cleaned out the garage so we can fit an actual car inside of it, filled up two bags full of old clothes and brought them to goodwill, and got to visit some locals. I also installed our new HD converter box thing, which will allow our tv to work after the great old school tv signal cutoff happening next year.
I also caught up on sleep. Delicious multiple-hours-in-a-row sleep. It was good to relax, but will be better to see the rest of the After Victory crew this weekend.
… give or take a few days.
Even as we speak he’s growing bigger. Lucky for him he remains very cute even as he gets bigger. He and Kate are in New England now, visiting great-grandparents and grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins and friends and I’m quite sure when I got to pick him up he’ll be taller then me. I miss them both!
It was fun to be up there for his baptism and to see all sorts of family. Auntie Christine and Uncle Josh made for good Godparents! We’ll post more pics of that later.
Ted was very well behaved on the ride up, only crying a few times. We took the Celica up this time and he seemed to fit well in its tiny back seat. His first ride in a standard transmission car, too!
Besides growing, Ted has come to the realization that his hands are affixed to his body and that he has some control over them. He’s not quite sure what to do with them, and letting go of things once he catches them is still a little elusive, but he’s no doubt thinking of all the cool things he can do with them.
(thanks to Uncle John for the photos. He’s got a way fancy camera.)
This past weekend we were just sort of hanging around so we decided to drive up to New England and get our kid baptized. Good times hanging with the fam, and we’ll post up some photos when we get them back from the photomatt.
We also got to visit Erin and Jay who we hadn’t seen a while. They fed us, hooked Ted up with some cute welcome-to-existence prizes and then watched Ted for us while we go to drive their sweet new ride, a 2008 Honda FIt Sport.
So nice of them to let us take it for a quick spin. We each drove it around the neighborhood a bit.
The thing that stood out to me the most was the redunkulously tight turning radius. I was pretty sure that the back wheels were turning too. But this was no 1987 Honda Prelude with four-wheel steering. It was, in fact, the little hatchback that begged to do donuts. Around a single donut. (Note to Erin and Jay: We did not perform donuts in your nice new car. Just turned around in a cul-de-sac. Then we took it off a sweet jump. Twice.).
Besides driving in circles, I also used the paddle shifters located just behind the steering wheel. It’s an automatic, but the gears can be shifted manually and without a clutch. I thought it worked well (and better then the Mazda 3 paddle shifter I tried before), but its still a little confusing for me because I’m shifting gears and there is no clutch pedal on the floor. I think if I had a Fit, I would use the paddles.
The rest of the dash layout was clean and intuative. The speedometer and tach had a cool blue light around it which I thought was cool in a blue-lights-are-cool kind of way.
Acceleration was right about where I thought it would be - fairly quick but not quite neck-snapping. It’s 109 horsepower engine isn’t quite what you’d want in a top-fuel drag race, but the car is light and the driver will probably be rewarded with respectable fuel economy.
As far as exterior looks go, I like the Fit from most angles. Every once in a while it looks like a 2002 Civic SI. The tall windows make it look a little van-esque sometimes, but for the most part it feels very much like a hatchback.
The inside is giant and it’s seats fold in useful ways, just like every hatchback should. Jay gave us a full dealer salesman like-demo of all the seat modes.
Kate and I both agreed that we would buy a car from Jay. In fact, if he still had his giant Chevy Caprice battle cruiser, we would totally buy that from him.
Today Ted and I are packing the rest of our stuff for our big trip up to New England. Most of the things we need to bring we, of course, use everyday. Which means there is lots of stuff we can’t pack till the last minute. We are meeting Pat at the airport when he gets out of work so that his car will be there when he flies back down here.
The packing is going easier than I thought it would so far (knock on wood.) Ted hasn’t been taking a lot of naps this morning, but he has been in a really good mood. Allowing me to race around and get the rest of our stuff together. Hopefully his lack of naps will translate into sleeping for a long time tonight in the car. With Ted there is no rhyme or reason to when he will have a sleepy day or an alert day. The past couple of afternoons, he has been full of baby angst.
Maybe he was still feeling the residual effects of Monday’s immunization. On Monday night he freaked out on us and just kept screaming. We called the doctor and they said that it was totally normal after getting a shot and to just give him some Tylenol. After that he calmed down very quickly. And he seemed fine the next morning. Hopefully he is fully over it all now.
Can’t wait to see everybody! I will have my laptop with me so if anyone wants to get together (really just to see Ted) drop me an email.
This past week Ted didn’t do quite as well with the sleeping through the night business. He mostly just had us get up once though, so not too bad. This weekend he seems to be discovering his fingers, or at least how they taste. Tomorrow we go back to the pediatrician for more immunization. I can’t wait to see how much he weighs.
Here is some more video from this week. He speaks more in this one than the last one we posted.
Conversation Part 2 from After Victory on Vimeo.
Just five days till New England!
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