ring in the changes

After what has seemed like years of deliberation, we have decided that Charles will become a stay at home dad, at least for the time being. He will join the ranks of Michael Douglas, and..., and...., surely there must be others?? After doing a bit of research I found that there are other stay at home dads and, apparently, they really hate being called Mr. Mom. There are web support groups like: www.rebeldad.com and stayathomedad.org

So far, all the people that I have told this news to have said, "Oooohh," in an alarmed tone, "does he realize how hard that will be???" So many people have said this that I have begun to doubt our decision. Then I think: wait a minute, aren't they referring to the same job that I have been doing for the past five months? Wouldn't I know how hard it would be? Or do these people have some secret knowledge they aren't sharing with me? Do people issue the same warnings to moms that are considering being stay at home moms? Or, are they concerned because Charles is a man, i.e., a MR. MOM!?! Poor Mr. Mom gets sucked into the cheesy drama of soap operas, is inept in every way, and nearly has an affair. Hopefully, Charles won't suffer the same fate, although he did manage to sit on my peanut butter toast this morning.

He assures me he won't have an identity crisis and I annoy him by giving way too many instructions on this or that baby thing. I have spent nearly every minute with Renee since she was born. I am going to have to adjust to letting go, letting someone else take the reins. I am glad it will be Charles because letting go is a bit more difficult than I imagined. I think she is very lucky to have a daddy like Charles and we are both very lucky to have baby Renee. Besides, they're only babies for a very short time. Before we know it, Renee will ask us not to kiss her when we drop her off for school, she'll want to dress herself and basically, have nothing to do with us, which will mean we've done our job. In the meantime, I think we'll ignore the naysayers and get on with doing things our way. To the Mr. Mom's around the globe: UNITE! to change the stereotype.

how can you resist?

this week with Renee

It's week 19 folks. Renee is 26 inches long / tall. That means she's grown nearly 6 inches since she was born. That's more than an inch a month! This week has been a pretty good week. I am trying to figure out how to get back to work so I've been interviewing 'childminders'. Well, I interviewed one and then changed my mind about the whole thing and Charles contemplated quitting his job again.

Renee's started reading books...hee hee

Doesn't she just look so smart? I think she'll move from this text onto something equally as challenging. Maybe something by Dostoevsky? : )

I am afraid her balding patches have ruined her chances for a baby modeling career : ) She needs too much beauty sleep to make enough smiles for the paparazzi anyway. So, it's probably for the best.

Poor thing. I think you could stick some little dots (for eyes) in the bald spot and it would look like a man with a moustache, like Charlie Chaplin, but Charles wouldn't let me do that. He doesn't seem to think it's such a funny idea. I guess he hasn't been on maternity leave for the past 5 months and so is not as easily amused.

Also, we had a little outing this weekend. We all went to Willen Lake which is where Charles and I lived when we first moved to England. We thought it would be nice to have pictures of Renee there so when she's older we can show her where she lived when she was born.

Here we are at the Peace Pagoda near the Buddhist Temple.

And here we are with the lake in the background. It was such a beautiful day and Renee was an angel. She let mommy & daddy hang out at the pub by the lake and have a Guinness. See how big she's getting? Giant, giant baby. Mommy needs to figure out how to hold her more pretty-like for pictures.

Finally, this week we attended (via webcam) the FIRST BIRTHDAY party of the illustrious Benjamin, Renee's baby cousin. The webcam business was a major pain in the a*@ and gave me a headache but it was worth it to see such a cutie-pie. We didn't get to see Ben open all his presents but we did get kisses and hugs and lots of love. I can't wait to see pics of Ben with his face in his birthday cake. BTW...how did the UK v. UofL game turn out?

sweet Ben and his pretty mommy...so much sweetness makes me cry.

****HAPPY BIRTHDAY BENJAMIN!****


one last thing...i took this goofy online quiz to tell me what breed of dog i am. turns out, i'm a scottish terrier and charles is a saint bernard...hmmm




You're a Scottish Terrier!


What Breed of Dog Are You?

Brought to you by Tickle

screechie monster

Someone has stolen my baby and put a screechie monster in her place. These days Renee's favorite things are screeching and sucking her thumb. The sucking her thumb part is endearing and sweet, the screeching thing is...hopefully, a quickly passing phase. It's difficult for me to understand her as the screeching is usually just her playing although it also sounds very close to a cry, complaint or demand. We took Renee to a barbecue where there were other toddlers running around and she must have learned the screeching there because it started the next day and hasn't stopped. I like to think that it's her way of singing. I still prefer the cute cooing baby noises she used to make but she much prefers the screeching.

cute thumb sucking

scary screeching

bank holiday weekend

We have a long weekend this weekend and we've been lucky enough to have beautiful weather as well. So we have been getting out of the HOUSE!!! Renee has been staying up late. Mind you, late for her is 8pm but it's wild & crazy stuff for us. I have even felt guilty about it ?!? With all this time on our hands we've been able to play a bit more so here are a couple of videos of the poor, tortured baby.

Oh, and now that she's found her fingers she can't keep them out of her mouth : )

Oh, and the baby didn't wake me up last night but Charles did crying out "BEGONIAS" really loudly in his sleep. Then he said, "begonias, begonias, begonias, begonias" quietly a few times, rolled over and was quiet. I don't think he even knows what a begonia is.

little mohican

any relation?

No. We do not style her hair. It just does this on its own. People comment on her hair whenever we go out which isn't often because her perfectionist mommy doesn't want to mess up little Renee's routine. This little mohican has started rolling over again. She stopped for a long time. It must be hard to keep up your strength when you keep putting on weight. She rolled over this morning from her tummy to her back. If you don't have babies, and even if you do, this may seem boring but this is big, exciting stuff for us. Remember, we don't get out much, this is what we do: wake baby, feed baby, baby talk, change baby, play with baby, put baby to sleep: repeat. repeat. repeat. I never knew it could be so much fun. Must be the hormones messing with my head but...me want more babies.

Charles informed me that when he was a boy he thought that women became pregnant as they matured; like an apple grows on an apple tree. He thought that when a woman started to 'ripen' she then found a husband since she would need some help with a baby. Fortunately, that's not the way it works. Can you imagine? Its amazing the stories kids will concoct to to help themselves understand the mysteries of the world.

He also told me that when he was a boy they had a woman that helped out with the cooking in their house. But, she had a swollen belly, said she was ill or something and so Charles refused to eat anything she cooked. Apparently his mom would try to pretend that she cooked the food so he would eat it but she wasn't fooling him--oh no. He wasn't taking any chances. I guess his thought process went something like this: food goes in your belly, that lady's belly is freakishly swollen, if I eat the food she makes my belly will end up like that too, so no way. At the time, it didn't occur to anyone that the lady cook might be pregnant. It wasn't until years later he worked this out for himself. Maybe this is why he's so weird, I mean cute.

The Joys of Opposable Thumbs

august 17, 2007

Renee has found her hands. I am not sure what she's doing with her legs though. She sometimes does that when she's trying to go to sleep as well. She's growing up so fast. Soon she'll be eating food, wow! That should make for some good videos. I read somewhere that if an adult person weighing 150lbs gained as much weight as a baby does at the end of one year that adult would be 450lbs! Bring on the mac n cheese baby.

Mommy-shan is thinking about getting back to work so blogging and knitting will probably slow down a bit unless Daddy picks it up, kinda doubt it.

big time bath

I asked Renee to perform something special for all of you but I am afraid this is all she's up to these days which is just fine with me. A bit of cute jabbering in the bath. Enjoy!