back to the blog grind

i took the weekend off cuz' i'm cool like that, but now it's time to get down to business. we didn't have much going on this weekend, but it still felt full. we're working on some changes in our household (mommy is taking karate and learning to speak japanese, while i'm building a rocket that will launch bebe and me into a low-earth orbit. should be pretty sweet...). everything within those parentheses is a lie, except for the part about how sweet it would be. but we do have a lot going on, and it's keeping us busy.

and because each of us needs time to get things done, we're back to splitting up the weekend coverage, something we hadn't been doing much of since the holidays. on the one hand, it was nice to have two full days of family time to do activities, visit with friends, or just sit around the house playing with toys, doing puzzles, or coloring. and when bebe isn't napping, we do other fun stuff, too!

and while all of that is swell, i honestly love the time that bebe and i get, one on one. while mommy is around, daddy is a trusty second option. this in itself doesn't bother me. if it did it would mean thinking/feeling that my own child was being an asshole, which would in turn make me an asshole. and who wants that? i understand the relationship that mommy and bebe have is different from the one daddy and bebe have, and i have never expected to be on equal footing in this regard. i'm not especially pushy, and my experience with kids has been that if you want them to like you in any capacity, you need to give them the space, and let them fill it in themselves, on their own terms. this requires a great deal of patience with some kids, and other kids are your new best friend in the short time it takes for them to realize that you aren't three inches from their face talking in a little baby voice.

and i like that it takes bebe time to warm up to people. a little stranger anxiety goes a long way towards keeping her safe in the long run. what can sometimes be trying is the way this manifests towards me, her daddy. HER OWN FLESH AND BLOOD. ONE HALF OF THE TWO PEOPLE THAT GAVE HER LIFE. ahem.

i joke, but one of the more depressing aspects of my work week is the fact that i can spend all weekend with my daughter, and by sunday night she's snuggling me. then i go back to seeing her a few hours a night during the week and we're back to long, uncomfortable silences over a bowl of crackers or some "o's" during sportscenter. sucks.

the light at the end of the tunnel in this case is that as she gets older, the time we do spend together goes a lot further. it used to be that i would get a mention at mommy's prompts or reminders that bebe does in fact have a "daddy." bebe would answer back "daddy?" and then point at some spot on the wall or a toy animal or something.

but now, she asks about me on her own while i'm gone. of course, then when i'm home, she spends a lot of her time saying things like "no daddy! no kiss! no, no, no hug! no daddy!" but it's a start. conversely, it used to be that whenever we were out, just the two of us, she'd CONSTANTLY ask for mommy, CONSTANTLY. CONSTANTLY. now, not so much. we talk about why mommy isn't with us (mommy's doing work at school, she took the car) and what we'll do when she comes home (we'll say "hi!," and nurse). then we talk about birds, and dogs, and trains, and all the people we love and who love us.

i understand the relationship that mommy and bebe have, and i can understand why bebe wants to spend so much time with mommy- she's great! i'm jealous of both of them, and that's why i'll occasionally trip bebe when she goes running by, or dump out mommy's coffee when i know she's still drinking it. kidding.

i forgot what my whole point was. anyway, on saturday it was nice enough to get out for a walk in the neighborhood. bebe is really into her stroller right now, so i pushed her for most of the way. but at the end she wanted to stretch her legs:

"stretch, stretch."

"mommy?"

"mommy?"

arghhhhhhhhhh!

"dude, daddy. relax, i'm just kidding."

"sort of."

"but seriously. where is she?"

mommy's on the moon. she's gathering soil samples for an experiment. a really important one. and after that, well, i don't know exactly. but she may be gone a long time. all i'm saying is that don't get your hopes up that mommy will be home any time soon. she loves you a lot, she's just really busy.

"something tells me you are not being completely honest with me."

ugh. fine, we're going to go home to bebe's house, eat lunch, take a nap, and when you wake up, mommy will be home. there, happy?

"I KNEW IT!"

this is what a good kid bebe is -mind you she's only one and a half. as we walk around, i see things that might make interesting backdrops, and so i'll say to her 'bebe! go stand over there so daddy can take your picture!' and she does. just like that.

she conveys a real sense of ennui for someone so young...

but she's got lots of other emotions in her modeling repertoire as well:

psyched!

stand-offish...

and mischevious. it was at this point that she started banging her little bottom against the door to hear the echo-y 'boom' it would make.

"boom. boom. boom, boom, boom."

the other awesome thing about our weekends together is that on saturdays, i get to dress her. and that means lots of celtics gear!

"do i hafta wear all of this?"

she's also wearing her garnett jersey under the hoodie.

i put my garnett jersey on too, and then we settled in to watch the lowly new jersey nets get only their sixth win of the entire season against our team. we do not have high hopes for the post season...

in other news, i've had regular updates of my photo blog, so if you haven't checked that out in a while, head on over. also, some very exciting news: auntie ash, who has gotten into photography herself and has her own photo blog, asked me to do a photo project with her, so we're doing a photo a day for an entire year, and posting the results on yet another photo blog, He saw/She saw. we each take turns picking a theme that can run as long as a month, or as little as one day. we actually started taking pictures on valentine's day, and the theme for that day was, appropriately, 'something you love.'

the first post went up today and the next theme starts tomorrow. so far we've been doing a one day theme, followed by a seven day theme, but there's really no set structure so you never know what you'll see when you visit. check it out, we hope you'll find it as fun and interesting to look at as we do to shoot it!