Who doesn't love a montage?

The rookiemoms have challenged their readers and other parent bloggers to write about our favorite outings with babies as rookie parents... And it is fitting that it comes now as we celebrate the babe's first birthday. Since last night I've been poking the hubby saying "this time last year I was in labor..... I was yelling to get the baby out.....you were in the bar and I was trying to breastfeed" and other such memories from my first day as a mom. These memories of the first few hours of motherhood, prompted the hubby to get out the camera and look through old photos. He wondered why we had so few (friends of ours with a 10 week old have almost as many as we have over the course of the year) I have to explain that my mother takes about a year to develop a roll of film (yes film) because she forgets to take the camera out of her bag, I guess it's in the genes. Maybe I am genetically programmed not to take more photos, but here are some of the more interesting ones that made it through.

We take the babe everywhere with us, and as he was more than a week late these excursions began early in his life. The first real outing we had was to the Rangers Dinner Dance were I danced a jig with the babe in a sling, changed him on the first of many bars, and let him fall asleep amidst empty beer bottlesat 9 days old he already fit into the Gaelic Football crowd..

The next big outing for our little one was a trip to the Bronx Zoo, this was a large group adventure where we all really learned that a mom (or dad) needs to bring more than 4 diapers for a day long trip with a newborn.We also proved that human babies and monkey babies are surprisingly similar.

The gorilla baby and the babe are the same age (a little more than a month old), and just about the same size. The gorilla could perform feats of gymnastics, the babe had the power to wet through double diapers, shorts, a sling and my tee shirt in record speed. We also proved that a baby loves a bug carousel just as much as the next person.

Sweltering summer came and we left the city for the beaches of Long Island, where the babe watched two college grads try to put up a protective UV blocking tent for his enjoyment. This was after the same two college grads (one of which is now a doctor) spent twenty minutes trying to get a carseat hooked in correctly. The babe took it all in stride, the first time at the beach when we did get the tent up and the second when it collapsed all around us...

In the fall we went to Maine, where we discovered that the best cure for a teething baby at a wedding reception is a cold (empty) beer bottle.

We went pumpkin picking at the farmer's market for Halloween, watched the NYC marathon from the comfort of our curb, and picked out a Christmas tree at a local nursery. We rang in the New Year at a friend's house, complete with noisemakers and party hats.

There are 163 photos uploaded onto our online photo saving place, and there are another 260 on the broken camera, the new camera is up to about 75 photos and video clips, I'd estimate that most of these photos are of the babe's first year. There would be more, but I am like my mother; so much so that I would venture to guess if not for having a digital camera I would only now be developing pictures from my first days as a mom.

We have the first roll over on video, the first steps, the first haircut, and the first birthday locked away on memory cards and in our minds. We don't have the first real poop, or the first fancy dining experience on film, we do have the first bath, and we will have some potty training shots when the time comes. But I wonder if I will stop taking pictures of the big adventures in the coming years, or if I will overcome my genes and remember to take the camera out of the bag more often.

let him eat cake

These pictures do not capture the joy with which the babe ate his cupcake. Yes he only got one cupcake with a candle as his own personal cake. The thing has lots of frosting and he didn't sleep the rest of the afternoon. BUT when he did crash he slept like the dead.

I was a little disappointed that he didn't blow out the candle, as we have been practising blowing for this very occasion all week! But his cousins were impatiant and blew the candle out for him.

There is now a spot on the wall that is a little lighter than the rest from where I had to wash off the frosting, and now two days later I am still scraping cake and frosting off his seat. My neice said that the hubby should have cleaned up "Well you're the one who gave him the cake, Uncle John!"

There is video of this but it is stuck on the camera...

Family Updates

The babe will be one this Saturday, but we had a party for him this past weekend due to some scheduling conflicts. We had a few friends over, my mom (dad didn't come), the hubby's mom, the hubby's aunt and uncle (they are hubby's godparents) and my sister (not the one with the blog) with her kids, my sister in law also sent my nephew over with his babysitter (which was a little weird but he had fun)

I spent the day drinking and avoiding my mother in law. We don't get along very well when it comes to the babe. She has her ideas about how he should be raised and I have mine, you'd think that since I was the mom my ideas would be respected or at the very least listened to, but nope. I know that a lot of my feelings about my mother in law come from the fact that while I was still pregnant she told me I wouldn't make a very good mother. She said this because she was angry that I didn't want anyone in the hospital when I gave birth, and I didn't want anyone to visit in the hospital either. I was in the hospital for about 24 hours, and I wanted that time to be just the three of us. She was upset and felt that I was denying her, her grandson. She was also upset because I had said that if the babe was born I was going to take him to my brother's wedding regardless of how young the babe was. This is what sparked the not a good mom comment. She felt that a newborn with no shots should not be at a wedding. I felt that my brother should meet his nephew before going to Iraq.

It was all mote though as the babe was not born yet,and now everything the mother in law says is tainted to my ears. So when she showed up early this weekend I started drinking wine out of a plastic cup, mostly to give my hands something to do.

When my friend Gwynne arrived, I got to hold her baby for a long time, which was nice- what is even more amazing is that I don't remember the babe being as small as Gwynne's. And he for sure was at one point in his life...It made me want another soon. Particularly when the hubby (who had flat out refused to hold any newborns before having the babe) right away offered to hold the baby when Gwynne wanted to eat...

I also got to see my sister and her twin girls. I like having the twins around because they are older kids, so really like real people with distinct personalities. One, who is almost as tall as me even though she is only 7, likes to follow the babe around, the other likes to hang on to my sister. But the quiet shy one observes everything perfectly.

It is hard when my sister visits though, as there is no camaraderie of motherhood with her. She is a single mother not by choice, her husband passed away 7 days before the twins were born. She doesn't have it easy by any stretch of the imagination, and I would never in a million years trade places with her; but I don't like feeling like I can't talk about my own feelings of how hard motherhood is with her, because she always turns it into she has it worse.

This sister I think best embodies the family philosophy of no emotion, the suck it up and deal with it mentality that we all grew up with and all possess to some extent. I wonder if this sister will be a support and resource for my blog sister, or if she will turn her nose up and say "well you had a choice, I didn't".

My brother was at work as usual, his wife as well. Their son came with the babysitter who is quiet and shy in the face of our loudness. My nephew followed the babe around with my niece, avoided the dog and laughed at my friend Gabe imitating a duck for ten minutes

My other brother was in the desert somewhere. I am sending him pictures of the one year old nephew he has never met. He should have been celebrating his one year wedding anniversary on 5/5, what do you get a man in the desert for the paper anniversary?

Coming soon Video of cake!

more firsts

So I promised video and here it is.... Baby's first real steps, and where does he go? Right to the dog food

And now also first haircut photos too...he went from this














To this: To finally this- Look its a real boy!
This should get everyone off my back about when he is going to get a haircut! The boy has his dad's curly hair up top. Apparently it is like his grandpa Joe's (I never met the hubby's dad as he died while Hubby was in High School) and it is easy to comb into a classic Grandpa Joe pompadour. Now all he needs is a little Brylacreen and two combs in his back pocket.

Baby's First Patty's Day

Today was our first St. Patrick's day as a family, well the official first since the babe was in-utero last year. We had the whole day planned out, beginning with a breakfast in Connolly's and ending with a marching in the parade. We ended up not having breakfast, but we did go to Connolly's which was the important part. You see, me and the hubby met in Connolly's 3 years ago today.
I was there with some friends (and some boys who my friends thought were my friends) and he was there annoying me. He kept standing behind me, poking at my bobbly head shamrocks and telling me not to get on strange boys' shoulders; he annoyed me so much I had to talk to him. We chatted and at the end of the night he left with my phone number and I left hours later with another man....
We went on one date that ended weirdly; and he swears that if I hadn't called him for a second date we would have never ended up together. He was/is the only man I have ever asked out. Our second date ended much smoother, and I realized that I was going to marry this near stranger that same night. He moved in with me soon after...
Flash Forward one year, same bar, same band (Shilelagh Law). The man I love got up on stage and said " One year ago today I met a girl here, that night I asked her for her number and this year I want to ask her something else" and he got down on one knee and proposed.
Flash Forward another year, same bar, same band but I am pregnant by 7 and a half months and we have been married for about 4 months; do the math and see that I was indeed pregnant at our wedding.
So from this timeline you can see St. Patty's Day is pretty important to us as a couple and we'd like it to be important to us as a family. So we bundled up the babe and headed to Connolly's. We had seen the band on friday night for our own couple fun so we just wanted to be in the same bar for commemoration purposes, and so our tradition still stands. We had some tea, watched the parade and then the hubby went off to carry the banner for County Down. I joined the parade for the last 15 blocks and we celebrated as a family as we will for the next zillion years...