Roly-Poly

Cash & Dad’s Second Three Months

Life as your mom, my Rachel, has been interesting these days. Imagine drinking coffee at an outdoor café in Georgetown when a gaggle of Hell’s Angels approach, leering at your baby. Just as you clench defensively, one says with a smile, “that’s a knockout baby!” As you push a baby carriage through Lenox mall in Atlanta, you notice your baby staring behind you giggling. You swivel glimpsing a guy in full hip-hop regalia parading for your baby. He leans over the carriage unveiling a golden grill of smiling teeth. “He’s got as much bling as me!”

We’ve been charmed with a baby that enraptures strangers. Your smile belays your temperament and it takes hold of your face upon eye contact spreading quickly to the point of overwhelming you. It's infectious. You naturally to engage people and draw them in. Nothing is more flattering than a baby's attention!

You graduated from infant to baby -- from an expelled, wrinkled creature of womb-world to a fat, bouncing, earthbound, cute-bucket. You’ve adapted creatively. For example, you’ve taken rolling over, a basic developmental step for a baby, and elevated it to a form of transportation. If you want something, you will roll across the whole damn room if you have to. We watch our feet.

You’re appearance has matured. Your head, formerly bare on both sides parted by a Mohawk, is now fully fuzzed red-brown, but pointy at the top. Your onion head is punctuated by two large, dark blue eyes. You are now in the 90th percentile in height and 50th in weight though you are solid, like a bag full of marbles (padded in the middle and on the bottom). My shoulder is sore from carrying your around.

Your delightful presence comes with work. A recurring theme with Weller children is resistance to sleeping patterns. Only recently have we been able to improve upon three to five wakeups per night with Rachel taking the brunt of the workload, sacrificing herself so I can function at work. You and Luke have adjoining rooms so crying fits bounce into competitive screeching crescendos. Sometimes Churchill, your smelly golden retriever, is the only chipper creature in the morning.

You took your first major trip this quarter to Atlanta to celebrate Christmas. You, Rachel, Luke and I visited Grangie, Samantha, and Rick. We crashed at Rick’s house near Lenox mall. He was nice enough to lend us his place while he stayed at his girlfriend Samantha’s place. We celebrated Christmas at Samantha’s apartment and spent Christmas dinner at a hip Chinese restaurant called Aja in Buckhead. It turns out you and Luke don’t care for dark, hip restaurants as the two of you raised hell the entire time, neither happy with the local or the company apparently!

Speaking of Luke, he continues to adore you. While he hasn’t mastered the idea of sharing his toys, it’s fun to watch the two of you in the back of Rachel’s blue Toyota FJ Cruiser in baby seats side-by-side. Luke will mimic your baby talk earning a great big smile from you, and then the two of you will feed off one another’s giggles until breaking down into hilarity. Your delight in one another and witnessing the two of you interact spontaneously is a beautiful thing to watch.

Here is our quarterly interview:



Volim te,

Dad

Top three household events this quarter:

1) Your first Christmas with Grangie, Samantha & Rick in Atlanta.
2) Grangie moved into her new condo in Buckhead.
3) Barak Hussein Obama wins the presidential election.

Three Songs I’ve been listening to:

1) M79, Vampire Weekend, Vampire Weekend (released 2008)
2) Just Dance, Lady GaGa, The Fame (released 2008)
3) Marching Bands of Manhattan, Death Cab for Cutie, Plans (released 2005)