Because Bret told me last week that...

...he was having a bad day at work and checked our blog to look at pictures, but was disappointed that I hadn't posted anything new in a month.

So Babe, this post is for you:



Gabe showing off one of his "houses"

Our smiley 4 month old, growing up so fast!



Long-arm shot from Christmas Day.  I like this one
because the shirt you got me brings out my eyes.
Good job on the Christmas shopping!



But I think I like this one better because:
a) my head doesn't look so huge, and
b) you have a snowflake coming out of your head



Gabe diggin' his new Cars t-shirt. 



Damage to the roof after the New Year's Day windstorm, which you spent your holiday off work fixing.


So there you go...next time you have a bad day and come here looking for a boost to your spirits, remember that you have:

- an endlessly entertaining toddler who thinks you're the coolest thing ever

- a wife who laughs at your jokes (usually), doesn't mind losing ping pong games to you (sort of), and who thinks you're the bees knees (always!)

- an adorable baby girl who one day soon will consistently sleep through the night and stop spitting up (right????)

...and that you are the kind of guy who can fix his own roof after a windstorm.  Shazam!

Love you babe!

Just put him on repeat....and rollover.

This is the conversation I have with Gabe 8 (thousand) times a day, starting as as early as 6:00 AM:

Gabe:  "Daddy?"

Me:  "He's at work, buddy."

Gabe:  "Me?"

Me:  "Sorry, buddy, you're too young to go to work."

Gabe:  "Oh."


As the day goes on, Gabe's part of the conversation gets more urgent and my part of the conversation sounds more and more like a recorded message:

Gabe:  "Daddy, Daddy?!?" 

Me:  "At work."

Gabe:  "Me, me?!?!"

 Me:  "You can't work."

 Gabe:  "Oh."

 Toward the end of the day, I start to amuse myself by providing long answers, in an attempt to see if it will change the course of our dialogue:

 Gabe:  "Daddy?"

 Me:  "Sorry, buddy, he's at work.  Daddy goes to work and helps people with their computer problems.  Sometimes their hard drives are fried, or their programs lock up, or sometimes people do silly things like just forget to plug things in all the way.  Daddy's got some pretty good stories about the different calls he gets.  You should ask him about them sometime."

Gabe waits for me to finish talking and then says:  "Me?"

 Me:  "Well you can't work buddy, you're too young.  In some countries I could send you off to work but here that would be illegal.  I guess you could consider it 'work' when I make you pick up your toys...but then again, is that really 'work' or is it just teaching responsible toy ownership?  I would say it's the latter.  What do you think?"

 Gabe:  "Oh."


The kid definitely has a one track mind when it comes to the whereabouts of Bret.





In other news, Abby rolled over (front to back) for the first time last Thursday!  Gabe's solution to tummy time was to fuss and whine and bury his face in the blanket until I took pity on him and declared tummy time over.  Abby's solution is to take matters into her own hands and in short order she's usually flipped over and THEN starts fussing to be picked up.  Guess she thinks her fussing will make a bigger impact if I can see her sad little face.  Unfortunately for me, she's usually right.  I'm such a sucker.

4th of July

It's hard to tell who enjoyed the holiday more...

...this little boy:

...or this little boy:



All I can really be sure of is that as Gabe gets older, I should probably never let these two go to buy fireworks without either a chaperone or a very strict budget in place.

The little girls across the street shared some of their super-sized sparklers with Gabe:

...and he was a little disconcerted when Bret took his new car and lit it on fire.  But once he saw it zoom off
and flip over, he thought it was pretty cool.

Lately Gabe has been giving me this response when I first ask him to smile for a picture:

I think it must be the beginning phase of that fake smile that kids start to do when you say "Say Cheese!" and they look back at you with a sort of forced grimace that they think is the picture smile you want but really it just looks like you're making them eat brussel sprouts.  Luckily I can still manage to get a couple good ones out of him -

...especially if Bret's making him laugh.

Moink

On Sunday I asked Bret what he wanted to eat for Father's Day dinner.  His response: "meatballs...wrapped in bacon".  It sounded like a rather heart-clogging choice to me, but since it was Father's Day I decided to oblige him.  I also decided to Google it to see if I could find a recipe rather than just guessing at cooking times, etc...and this is when I discovered that bacon wrapped meatballs have a name:  "moinks" (as in moo + oink).  Only, ours were technically "gobbloinks" since I used ground turkey to make the meatballs.

Anyway - I found out yesterday that while I was making Bret moinks, my sister Laura was making my dad "scalloinks" (i.e. bacon wrapped scallops), presented to look like a bouquet of roses.  Talk about creative!  It put my moink presentation to shame!  Also, while browsing moink recipes, I found one for bacon wrapped asparagus that I think I might try soon.  Asparoinks?  Hmm.

For Father's Day, we (ok, let's be honest...*I*...Gabe, while enthusiastic about helping open presents, is not yet a big help in the way of coming up with gift ideas) got Bret a fun new picture frame and a book from flattenme.com, where you send them a picture of someone and they insert the person's head into illustrations of a story.  We (ok, *I*) chose the story "My SuperDad".

Bret said it was "cool but kinda creepy" to see himself in a book like that.  Gabe thought it was pretty cool too, until he remembered that there was wrapping paper to be played with that he was neglecting.  I am now wondering how I'm going to top this gift next year.  Wonder if there's a tie out there that would elicit a response of "cool but kinda creepy"??

From Bret's Childhood...

Last Spring we got a random message on our voicemail:  someone from near Eatonville (2 hrs away from us) had a child's rocking chair that she was wondering if belonged to Bret and if he wanted it back.  I listened to the message and then said something to Bret along the lines of "some lady just left us a message saying she has a rocking chair with your name on the bottom of it, how weird is that?" and Bret responded with "oh yeah, I remember that chair". 

HUH??

Turns out that Bret had the little rocking chair from when he was a kid, but then his family had a house fire and moved and the chair turned into one of those "what ever happened to that?" items.

So I called the lady back and said yes, she had the right person and yes, we'd love to have the chair!  She didn't remember how she'd gotten it, but there's a plaque glued to the bottom with Bret's name on it and she'd been looking in the yellow pages and online trying to find the right person to give it back to.  Pretty cool of her!

...this is the part of the story where time passes...and I think I lose the lady's phone number but then I find it, pretty much exactly where I thought I'd put it but under some other stuff...and we call the lady back and it's no problem, the chair is right where she had it before, just waiting for us to come get it whenever we have time...only at this point a year has gone by and we decide that we should just make the drive to go get the chair rather than wait until we're "in the area", because obviously we are never just going to be conveniently passing by...

So now we have the chair and it's pretty beat up but I love that it's something from Bret's childhood that we have now for our kids.  And even better - there is a long history associated with this chair.  The plaque on the bottom says:

"This chair originally given to Margaret Murphy Countryman by her family (1877-1955).  Subsequently by Gertrude Murphy List to Geraldine List Adams.  In August of 1975, given to Bret Totten, a great great nephew of Mrs. Countryman."

Geraldine Adams is Bret's maternal grandmother.  Such a fun piece of history to have back in our family...I think it's so cool that the Eatonville woman held on to this chair and kept trying to find out who it belonged to!

Gabe in Daddy's chair

Because it's Wednesday.

Carousel

Gabe went on his first carousel ride at this year's Sultan Shindig.

I am concentrating very hard on not letting my kid fall off the carousel.  And I don't think it was even moving yet at this point.

Just when I started to relax and have a little fun, Gabe seems to be over the whole thing.  Could it be that my vice-like grip around his stomach was ruining the experience for him?

Bret took him on the carousel a second time, and even with Bret's more confident (and therefore, relaxed) hold on him, by the end of the ride Gabe's expressions seemed to indicate that he was humoring us and indulging our excitement, yet not really feeling it himself.

And perhaps this is the reason why:  the weekend before the Shindig, we went camping and Gabe had his first motorcycle ride with Daddy.  So maybe it's not too surprising after all...would I be thrilled with a plastic horse going up and down and around and around after learning what real horsepower* was on a motorcycle?  Probably not!

*yes, I am quite proud of myself for this pun

Homework

Lately I feel like this blog is homework I don't want to do.

Which isn't really true, but sort of is.  I have stories and pictures I want to post, memories I want to preserve, but the end of the day rolls around and doing a blog post becomes another item on the (ever growing) list of things to do.

But tonight I came across this picture, and it made me happy, and the thought of posting it didn't feel like homework.

Perhaps I will just forego the stories part and only post pictures. 

(ha...who am I kidding?)

To My Husband on Father's Day

To my husband on his first official Father's Day (because neither of us thought last year's Father's & Mother's Days really counted, with Gabe being in-utero and our parenting skills being a thing of conjecture rather than a reality worthy of a full day of honoring):

Babe, if I thought you were snazzy before, it pales in comparison to how I feel about you now that you've added "father" to your list of life roles. Since Gabe's birth - wait, let's go back even further, during the preparation stage...

You came to OB appointments with me, shared my awe at ultrasound pictures, called me at work to remind me to drink more water...you came to a million baby classes with me, and supported me when I felt like labor induction wasn't what I wanted to do. You held my hand through contractions and encouraged me and advocated for me and held me up and kissed me and told me I was amazing when I pushed Gabriel into the world.

And then you immediately stepped up to fatherhood as you watched the nurses clearing his throat so he could breathe easier, urging them along in their task with fierce protectiveness and anxious concern resounding in your voice. 

You tackled diapering and dressing and swaddling from day one - perhaps a bit worried about handling a tiny baby but not letting it deter you from caring for your son.

When I struggled with breastfeeding, you were in the trenches with me as we first tried feeding Gabe formula via a syringe while I nursed, then formula via a supplemental nursing system, and then you giving him a bottle so I could pump.  You went to every lactation consultant appointment and every baby weight check appointment.  You admitted not fully understanding the depth of my sadness over not breastfeeding, but you let me cry without censure.  And you reminded me that the most important thing was our healthy baby boy.

You took on bath-time as your specialty, and the first bath I gave him was when he was almost three months old.

You took Gabe on a tour of the garage when he was only weeks old, and you put his little hand on the grip of your motorcycle, explaining to him how you guys would ride together when he's older.

You make up songs and stories and you made it a goal to learn the songs I sing to him, like 'Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes', 'Skittamarink-a-dink-a-dink', and 'Abba Dabba Honeymoon', even asking me to write down the words so you could learn them faster.

You can make Gabe laugh harder than anyone, and he adores you.  He starts smiling and waving his arms in excitement the moment he sees you.  If we're at home but you're not, he'll look down the hall to your office as if hoping to see you've appeared, and when you call up the stairs that you're home, he stops what he's doing and stares at the doorway in anticipation.

Watching the tenderness with which you snuggle Gabe and shower him with kisses makes my heart swell and I fall in love with you more every time.  I am so proud to be your partner in parenting, Bret.

Happy Father's Day, I love you!

April Birthdays

Papa T (Bret's dad) turned 60 at the beginning of April!   We decided to spruce up the festivities with some party decorations and while shopping for them, I saw this hat:

...and I decided that we should start a birthday tradition!

Papa T and Meemo - aren't they adorable?!

And another festive onesie for Gabe:

Then Bret's birthday came at the end of April.  A few months ago we borrowed Christina's DVD's of the first five seasons of "The Office" - really funny and we totally got hooked - so in honor of his birthday I made Bret a Dwight-ism birthday banner.

Me:  "Babe, smile"

Me:  "Babe, look at me and smile for real"

Me:  "BABE!!!!"

Me:  "Now was that so hard?"
Bret:  "Yes, actually..."
(We have had similar conversations many, many times over the past 5 years.  How many spouses (mostly men, I suspect) would like to throttle the person who invented the digital camera?)

The Birthday Tradition hat makes a second appearance.  It's possible that the hat will mysteriously disappear after Mary's birthday in July and just as mysteriously reappear in October for Sara and Gabe's birthdays.

After his birthday brunch Bret wanted to go for a hike, so we went up to Barclay Lake and Sara and Jared joined us.

On Bret's actual birthday we repeated last year's activities and bought Bret new running shoes, then went out to dinner for hot wings (Bret's birthday dinner of choice). 

Now, I know what you're thinking.  "Wow - party hats, tennis shoes, and hot wings.  Gabe has a LOT to look forward to."  I figure we're about 10 years away from copying my Great-Grandmother's classic Christmas gift of socks & underwear.  Should be an exciting adolescence for the Gabester.

...And in light of my last post about the Mercer Island Half Marathon, I will leave you with this:  Bret's big birthday gift this year from Gabe and I was a Nike+, which is a transmitter you wear when you run that tracks how far you've gone, your speed per mile, the temperature on Jupiter, the NASDAQ, the relative humidity in France, etc. etc. (obviously I'm being facetious - you can't expect it to track how far you've gone when it's busy with the temperature on Jupiter!).  Anyway, after Bret got his new running shoes, we went to the high school track so he could calibrate it, and I tried again to take pictures using the Continuous Shooting function on my camera that failed me so miserably the day of the Mercer Island Half (or did I fail it?  hmm...).   The results:

 

Look!  Look what I can do!!  Gabe wasn't nearly as excited for me as I wanted him to be.  I think he found my jubilation a bit ridiculous, since obviously there was no picture-taking pressure in this situation...after all, Bret would be coming around the track again in a few minutes!