And One (Year)

Hi. It's Matt. Yesterday was my birthday. Just one more year gone by, kinda. Today marks the one-year anniverary of Bea coming home from the hospital. I believe it was three days before Bea came home that I was doing the evening shift at the hospital and gave Bea her first bottle. She pounded it in about 7 minutes, apparently a near record for a baby that age excluding the fact it was given to her by her Dad - apparently dads are less talented in the bottle department then moms. The next morning they told Melissa that Bea could come home the next day (my birthday). Well since Melissa was on bed rest for 90 days and including the the last 60 days in the hospital, and Bea was born another 56 days early, we weren't ready at all and we asked for an extra day to get ready. We had a crib that that was it. So I spent my birthday last year with my father-in-law with two shopping carts at Babies-R-Us and bought everything. It was like a $500 bill. At 10 pm on my birthday we just had finished dinner and Melissa essentially told me to hurry up and eat my piece of cake so we could open presents and keep on working or whatever we were doing.


Fast forward to yesterday when we had a nice birthday lunch with family and Melissa and I went out for a nice dinner and movie date. Not having to eat your food as fast as you can (before someone gets fussy) is pretty nice. Unlike our last date on Valentines day Melissa kept her food down (no flu yet). As you can see on the picture of me and Bea, it was a little chillier then normal. The average temperature is 63 degrees, so the snow and wind chill of 10 degrees or whatever it is wasn't appreciated. I told Melissa we have an equal chance of an 85 to 95 degree day as the cold weekend we've had.

We liked Bea a year ago, but a 12 month old (or in our case a 10 month old full term) is a lot, lot, lot more fun then a 2 month pre-term baby. Yesterday we had a long back and forth conversation to the tune of "AAAAAAAHHH" and today it was "YAYAYA". Other recent highlights including playing superwoman and flying towards her birthday balloon (with a huge grin and multiple vocal signs of pleasure), holding her hand or preferably letting her hold her little toy car while learning how to walk. She doesn't crawl yet, other then backwards into things and getting really pissed off or spinning circles, but she loves walking (with some assistance). She's generally a non-stop smiler with lots of laughs and head bobs (to the beat of a good tune). The enormous grin when waking her up and the non-stop dialogue when changing her are pretty good too. Basically Melissa and I are having a blast with her.

I wonder what next year will bring.

My Mommy went to NY and all I got was this lousy t-shirt

Hi All -- Sorry so long between posts. I just returned from a trip to New Jersey for my friend Kathleen's wedding. The wedding was absolutely lovely. I got to see many of my college friends and got to spend some time in New York City as well. It was in the 70s and sunny all the days we were there.

However, I did miss Bea, Matt, and Bullet. That's right -- I left Matt in charge of the whole bunch for three whole days. He recruited his parents (Grandma Pat and Bumpa) to help out. It sounds like much fun was had by all in my absence. I did pretty well on my first time away from Bea, I didn't cry or anything. :)

Bea is still not quite crawling or walking, but she is trying real hard. She really likes to walk holding onto your hands. She is also enjoying NOT wearing her winter jacket anymore! Hooray for spring.

Thanks to everyone who sent Bea birthday wishes!
Talk to you soon,
Melissa

Bea is ONE!

Sunday was Bea's first birthday -- yes, we have all survived this eventful year together. Although we had a hillariously accident-prone morning (food problems, Bea spit up on the furniture, shattered perfume bottles, etc.) -- we did actually have a family birthday party for Bea.

Guests included all grandparents, Great-Grandma Hazel, Matt's sisters, and Matt's sisters' families. It was the perfect 1-year-old birthday party: We all ate a lot of good food and Bea got a lot of obnoxious noise-making toys (which she loves). :)

Here are some pictures:

Bea got a car for her birthday!! Here she is behind the wheel.


Here is the birthday girl in her party dress. See how she holds her finger up to tell you she's one (only joking, she was probably pointing at the balloons.)


Bea LOVES balloons.













Here is Bea with Great-Grandma Hazel. Hazel is probably telling Bea to be a good little Swede and eat her lutefisk when she grows up.













Here's me and Bea through the streamers -- which are almost as cool as balloons.


Lastly, here is the obligatory picture of the baby eating cake. She didn't get loads of cake, because she is still on the premie menu (two months behind).

Thanks to everyone who helped us during Bea's first year.
Love, Melissa