The Non-Traditional Birthday Post

Two weekends ago we celebrated our son's first birthday.

I've thought for two weeks about how I wanted to describe it on our blog, and, being the indecisive soul that I am, I decided I needed two perspectives: the traditional birthday run-down, and the non-traditional, honest recount of a truly wonderful and significant day with good friends and family.

This post gives you the latter perspective (thanks to Keith, our dear friend and trusty camera man).  These are a few meaningful pictures that I don't have the heart to clutter with captions:

 

 

 

I am so proud and thankful for this little boy.  I love reflecting on the past year and how he has brightened our family.  

It's Just A Virus, Or, Re-Imagine Uses for Your Broom.

Plasma.

Word of next generation iGadgets.

Syria's unrest.

David P.

All things that cannot be contained.

Let me back up for a moment, before I get ahead of myself and start posting pictures of our little boy holding comically large cleaning implements.

A plague fell on the House of Pagan this weekend--striking Friday and lasting through the end of Sunday.  It was foul business.  And sneaky.  Hitting poor David first, on Wednesday, then me, then Jon.  The mind really does start to reel once the symptoms start manifesting more aggressively.  Is this Cholera?  I place part of the blame on the med school experience, and part of the blame on myself for watching too much House.

Don't worry, it wasn't lupus.

In any event, we all survived and had a very mellow weekend.  This was helpful.

Call it irresponsible parenting, but when everyone is sick and can barely summon the energy to wear jeans and sit upright, we watch movies.  And keep Kleenex nearby.

Eventually, we felt well enough to venture out of the house, which our little boy loved, and in doing so, it was like God flipped some kind of developmental switch.  We have gone from zero to multiple baby gates in a mere matter of days.

This is David P.  He is a good little boy, and always very curious.

Getting ready to climb into the pantry.  David's homage to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Somewhere, in the back of that cupboard, is a family of beavers waiting to befriend him.

Unimpressed with the baby gates.  Attempting to break out with the help of his new favorite toy.

But all of this exploring, if left unchecked, can be hazardous:  

First owie--the result of a header he took in the driveway as I was walking up to greet him from the mailbox.  Too much momentum. 

Late Night Stream of Consciousness Before Bed

Late night thoughts as I wind down from work and prepare for the sleep

• My attempt to call at least one friend per weekend failed this week.  Better luck next week.  I realize that being a loyal friend doesn't require weekly phone calls, but it's nice to talk with friends often.
• My google reader has blown up... by Jenn standards.  Jon's google reader contains zillions of subscriptions to zillions of different sites--techy, newsy, health-related.  I think I would go crazy if I had to manage a reader like his--not because of content, but just the sheer VOLUME of content.  I'm chipping away at my 42 unread items:)
• If I were to decide, one day, to open up my own business, I would open a cozy, lovely little bookstore/fruit market called Nom de Plum, where writers and literature enthusiasts could enjoy good books and fine produce.  The two concepts don't really complement each other, but I would hire a clever marketing team to make it sound chic.  Of course, I would have access to digital content, for sanity's sake.  If you've ever tried to read a classic while eating a nectarine, you know what I'm talking about.
• Must clean tea pot.  It is quickly becoming tea weather and I need to get my station set back up in the kitchen:)
• Jon is sleeping and will rise in about 2.5 hours.  David is sleeping, and will rise in about 4.5 hours.  Holy goodness, I have got to get to bed.

Pumpkin Patchery

This has been a great weekend for Team Pagan.  

I did roughly 800 loads of laundry on Saturday, Jon and I cleaned and ran a bunch of errands, we got to hang out and relax as a family AND we were able to see good friends that we haven't caught up with in months due to super-busy-third-year-med-student-don't-even-think-about-governing-your-own-schedule schedules.  

Three things from this weekend are worth noting:

1. Our son is 11 months old today! 

2. Yesterday marked David's first ride in a wagon (video forthcoming).  For our little boy, life is sweetest outside, in a wagon, with buddy Miranda, being pulled around the block by Uncle Keith. 

3. Today was David's first trip to a pumpkin patch!  Cue pictures!

These are our friends, Wyatt, Ryan and Margie.  They suggested that we get together at the pumpkin patch--a fabulous suggestion.

There was a corn pit!  This was the first time any of us had ever seen one--so neat!

Wyatt showing David how to traverse the corn pit.

David, not as enthusiastic about le corn pit...

"There's corn EVERYWHERE!  Will someone please take me out of here now?!"

Oooh, and then we went on a hay ride!  Second only to the wagon ride, life is pretty sweet sitting on a bale of hay while getting pulled around by a giant tractor.  Plus, Jenn was wearing her most pumpkin patchy shirt.  Like being held by a picnic:)

I know he looks skeptical, but he really did enjoy it.  Lots of "oooh!" ing and pointing at plants and scarecrows and butterflies.

Change of scenery--sitting with dad, mid "ooh."

There was also a hay maze (next to the corn pit)!  Perfect place to explore.

Walking to dad in tiny green cords:)

Practiced some more walking in the grass by the pumpkins.  T-Rex posture.

Step...

Step, step, step!  

I was quick enough to snap this photo, but not quite quick enough to keep the dirt out of his mouth...  He is a little boy.

Ok, I know that two in a row just looks reckless, but he started out by trying to push the wheel barrow, and then discovered that the handles would be perfect for chewing.  Too cute not to photograph.

This place was beautiful.  By the end of the day it had gotten a little muggy, which is why our son looks discontent, but we all had a great time AND we found the perfect pumpkins to grace our porch!

The Walk

Its funny, everyone tells you that when you have children, "everything changes."  Admittedly, I put this in the same column as the wonderful advice of, "get as much sleep as you can now." That is to say, the 'of course' column.  Now, nearly 10 and half months later, I can say that I have absolutely been changed by becoming a Dad.  For example: 

The other day my Dad sent me a song that he said I should listen to as it regarded fatherhood.  The song is called The Walk by Sawyer Brown.  I wasn't able to listen to it that day, until finally this afternoon while in the midst of hanging out with my son that I remembered the email was waiting for us.  So David and I pulled up the song and pressed play.  

The first thing that struck me was: Man I've heard this before.  Turns out, it is a song that my Dad used to play often when I myself was a kid.  I remembered the song well, but had never paid attention to the lyrics. I listened along, and realized how profoundly my life has been changed by my son David.  I noticed motion to my left and looked over at my son: 

Not only was he listening to the music, but he was dancing along.  I want to thank you Dad for sending me this song, it brought back amazing memories of childhood with you.  I greatly enjoyed the walk with you, and look forward to the walk with David everyday.  

As I watched my son dance, its hard to describe exactly what I felt at that moment.   I leaned over, scooped him up, and told him how much I love him.  It was at this point that, out of nowhere, a piece of dust flew up and into my eye.  

Clumsy

Fact: I can last about three days on sub-standard sleep before I begin damaging myself.  


This is a threshold that I suspected in high school and confirmed in college. Now, as I wife and mom, I just try to minimize the damage.


Our poor kiddo has been sick all week (talk about sub-standard sleep--he has been such a trooper), and Jon has to work nights this week for his OB rotation, so we've all been struggling with both quality and quantity of rest.  In the last seven days, I've managed to:

• Slice my finger with a paring knife (this is the first time I've ever cut my fingers in the kitchen, ever);
• Bruise both hips (I'm still trying to figure that one out...  I'm pretty sure there were two separate incidents);
• Whack the outer part of my right elbow on a fire alarm at the pediatrician's office;
• Whack the inner part of my right elbow on something else angular at home (I can't recall what it was);
• Drop the baby monitor on my left foot;
• and the piece de resistance--I very nearly crashed into the crib after tripping over the glider ottoman in the baby's room the other night when I went in to feed him...

Nine years of ballet--I'm convinced I would have broken something by now had I not had that kind of training.

All of this said, I don't think I'll need to wear mittens or use circles of paper with safety pencils at work, I just need to move a little more intentionally.  A tired, hurried Jenn is a clumsy Jenn, but a tired, deliberate Jenn keeps her fingers intact.  

*When I Googled "clumsy" for some inspirado for this post, the first link I stumbled (ha!) upon was a youtube video of Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas.  I watched for one minute and twelve seconds before deciding three things:
1. That's not the kind of clumsy I'm talking about...
2. The song is like a virus and I'll likely be humming the first minute and twelve seconds of it for the rest of the weekend;
3.  I bet she could help it if she too were more deliberate.

Date Night!

I know some of you saw the title of this post and thought of the 2010 comedy with Steve Carell and Tina Fey.  Sorry readers, this is not a movie review--it's an actual review of an actual date night.

That's right!  Date night (this past Saturday)!  One of the few that we've had since the baby was born and one that came right on the heels of the first week of Jon's OB rotation.  A much needed time to decompress and have some fun after a 72 hour work week.


It was glorious.  For three straight hours:

• Jon and I wore our semi-fancies and met our friends at a funky, local restaurant to hear a former colleague and his band perform everything from Dean Martin to Paul Simon to Amy Winehouse.  I know it doesn't sound like a complementary line-up, but it totally worked.  They were really fun to listen to and watch!

• We ate world-famous cheese dip and drank adult beverages.

• I hate to focus on the attire too much, but seriously, it was after 7:00 pm and I was wearing clothing that was both clean (free from baby-related stains) AND that had structure to flatter a figure, not a circus.

Topics of conversation on the way to and from dinner included:

• The potential pros and cons of transferring your consciousness into a robotic life form if future technology were to permit;
• How wild and great that it is that we're married with a precocious child;
• The speed at which an adult can metabolize alcohol;
• How much we love our friends;
• How to locate the best, free parking; 
• How full we were; etc.

I cannot tell you how much we love the date night.  It is such a great investment.  We highly recommend it.

Bagelversary

August 19th is a significant date in the Pagan piazza.  It marks the date of our first date--the safe, mid-day, "let's meet for lunch, how about bagels?" non-date of two high school friends reunited after graduating from college.

Bagelversary.

22 year old Jenn wore a casual red skirt and white T-shirt, so as to look cute, but not like a woman who was interested in pursuing any type of romantic relationship.  She maintained the same, flippy, retro haircut that she had in high school.

22 year old Jon, wore a relaxed pair of jeans and collared shirt with the sleeves rolled up.  He maintained the same spiky and provoked haircut that he had in high school.

22 year old Jenn would never have admitted it, but she thought that 22 year old Jon looked super handsome and that he smelled really good.  They hugged, exchanged pleasantries, ordered food, prayed over food (an act that pleasantly surprised each of them), and then chatted for an hour or so about what they had been up to for the last four years.

And then they parted, agreeing to meet up (Jon, correct me if my memory is failing me) again later that night so that Jenn could attempt to hustle Jon at pool.

They did, in fact, meet up again, but Jenn did not hustle Jon at pool.  Frankly, both Jenn and Jon played terribly, but that's not the point.  The point is, they navigated through the safe, bagel lunch, then dinner, then three games of pool, AND a late night viewing (at Jenn's insistence) of The Royal Tennenbaums--the movie that she had watched multiple times in college and had taken with her overseas to watch when she missed hearing English.

And now we're married.  With a baby:)

Take that, Jenn who attempted to simultaneously date and yet not date 22 year old Jon on the first bagelversary.

Sometimes I think it would be fun to write letters to the Jenn and Jon of five years ago, giving them little glimpses into the future and extending some perspective.  Something with the poetic depth of Conan O'Brian's In the Year 2000 sketches, combined with Rilke's wittiness and comedic timing.

Maybe for another post.

     

The Post With All the Mischief

I have to say, I'm happy to have a child that is active and curious.  


I'd much rather have a busy baby than a baby that didn't like to get into at least a little trouble every now and then.  I used to pray about this sort of thing before David was even born without really knowing what type of behavior his little personality would affect.  Ask and ye shall receive, right?  


Right.  Ten-fold.


Sure, our house is baby proofed, but we're still figuring out how to David-proof it.  


What I have learned in the process is that sometimes it's more fun to jump in the laundry pile and play in it than it is to fold the clothes in it.  Sometimes eating your food and wearing it are equally fun.  Let me illustrate:    

Have you heard that song, Merry Happy?  I'm going to compose a piece inspired by this little boy called, Busy Happy.

Contrary to guidance from the manufacturer, playing under large toys is always more fun.

At any given moment, some part of our house will need to be tidied.  I like to think that our kiddo is just a super-accomplished multi-tasker.

Case in point.

Also, the camera lens....

will always be more interesting than traditional toys.

Fairly sure that my son took to heart all of the dialogue he heard in utero while we watched Oceans 11.  He works quickly and with much charm and stealth.  David Ocean.

The contents of my purse are fair game and will likely end up in his mouth.  Although, last night, I saw that he had placed a piece of sausage in my purse.  Mischief or thoughtful gift?  

Our son is happiest without pants... 

while in motion... 

while exploring the dishwasher before one of us swoops in and snatches him away from it.

I know it sounds cliche, but striking that balance between organized wife and mother and rested/fun wife and mother can be a challenge.  All that said, yes, our house must be tidied.  Yes, there will always be domestic banalities.  But my latest strategy is to reserve the bulk of those for the weekend during the baby's nap time so that we can play.  

Breakfast Noms. Al Fresco, Please.

Recently the South has felt a little swampy.  


I'm talking, walk outside from a moderately air-conditioned building and your glasses fog up, humid.  So when we can, we try to take advantage of the early morning hours, while it's still reasonable outside.  One of our favorite early morning past times?  Breakfast on the back porch, where we can watch the bugs, birds, and squirrels!  Like a lot of little ones we know, I'm convinced our son could stay outside all day if we let him:

According to David, nothing enhances the flavor of a waffle like the fuzz from a felt blanket.

Right hand is for eating, left hand is for counter-balancing.

Moments before I maneuvered the camera away from the waffly clutches of this happy kiddo:)