9.5 months - late edition!

3 months have gone by and not a single entry!?

one might be inclined to think that perhaps nothing special or particularly exciting has happened to our young protagonist.
NOT TRUE!
first off, as you can plainly see, he is rapidly developing what can only be described as increasingly human-like features. and i'm happy to report that the smile you see is neither forced nor difficult to inspire. he's a happy baby... which is nice. in fact, we hear that a lot: "what a happy baby!" "such a good baby!" "you shouldn't let your baby play with that knife." stuff like that. all the time!
there has been much talk of late regarding which of us he looks like. a lot of people say me. some people say ellen. but truth be told, i'm a little freaked out by how much he looks like our mailman.
curious.
you are free to draw your own conclusion... but don't rule out the mailman. just sayin'. he's a very handsome fellow.

with mommy at the end of july at the kushi conference - a macrobiotic retreat in new jersey. ellen was the head chef and PD was the main attraction. i had the week off and had a blast playing "stay at hotel" daddy for most of it.

his first bike ride during his first trip to fire island.
fortunately he didn't get his first sunburn or his first tick.
note: that look on his face is not fear, but focus... focus on speed.

pawleys island, south carolina, september 2010
this is where ellen's family went every summer when she was younger, so much younger than today. hae-sin was the driving force behind getting all these fantastic people - and so many more - down there for uncle parker's bash-tastic 40th birthday. a spectacular week.

on the back deck at pawleys.
notice that it takes two of us to truly secure the giant baby.

the water was ridiculously warm and PD happily dove right in for his first...
TASTE OF THE OCEAN
(http://bit.ly/GMlNzs)

on september 18, our friends mark and shannon got married in a beautiful ceremony next to a lake in the adirondack mountains. PD was the "giant baby of honor", a position i'm pretty sure was created especially for him.
officiating was mark and shannon's old friend, and our new friend, steve, who excelled in the weekend's quickly popularized sport of PD-holding. trust me, it's not for the weak. the meek, maybe. but the weak, no.

nearly every week for the past 16 years, daddy has played poker with a select group of friends. in early october, we loaded up the game and moved it to the lake house where PD joined in on the fun. he won $327 before we found an ace hidden in his diaper. though by the time he was done with it, it looked more like a deuce if ya know what i'm talkin' about.

one special day that passed since i last overly-indulged you with tales from acadia, was september 4th which marked the anniversary of the first time i felt PD kick in ellen's belly, though i can't be sure he wasn't just in there eating a sandwich. either way, it was a very special moment that i may or may not have ruined by screaming, "that is so weird!"

this could have been what was going on in ellen's belly about a year ago. either way, the little man has really taken to hitting his many drums maybe because we've set him up with enough percussion instruments to make a baby neil peart jealous.

""laughing with grandpa!"
this was during yet another trip with mommy to california while daddy was working in washington DC trying to lighten the nation's woeful political discourse by throwing a few knock-knock jokes into the mix.

BABY TRAVEL TIP!
try shipping your baby in advance!
you'd be surprised how much time and effort you can save provided your baby doesn't exceed the weight limit.
(PD barely made it.)

mommy and superhero baby also flew in later that week to join me at the...
"rally to restore sanity" on the national mall.
more on that in our next episode.

today's song is by one of the performers at that rally - yusuf islam, formerly known as cat stevens. he has many songs that are beautiful for a variety of reasons, but i chose "if you want to sing out" because i hope our little man can be happy and confidant and kind by just being himself.
dig it...

Well if you want to sing out, sing out
And if you want to be free, be free
'Cause there's a million things to be
You know that there are

And if you want to live high, live high
And if you want to live low, live low
'Cause there's a million ways to go
You know that there are

a few more firsts
- swimming at the lake house. okay, floating at the lake house
- teeth! two small, but effective chompers, bottom-middle
- eating "solids" consisting of various healthy, blendable foodstuffs
- first concert! they might be giants at town hall in new york city. it's not quite the beatles at shea stadium, but he seemed to like it.
- first attempt to crawl. it's not that he can't crawl. it's more that he just doesn't feel like it yet.
which is not to say that he's not a professional-grade "stand-and-grabber"...

editor's note:
cute "first halloween outfit" omitted due to the lack of a cute "first halloween outfit".
but next halloween... oh boy!

oh, and one more thing...
on the first day of november in the year of his birth (PD, not jesus), my favorite bay area baseball squadron, the giants of san francisco, won the world series.
KICK ASS!
this is how lifelong fans are created.

6.5+ months - travel edition!

i'm not exactly a world traveler. i've been to a few interesting places and, like everyone, i've had an audience with the queen.
what? you've never?
but i'm hoping that ellen and i will be able to show PD and his potential siblings a few interesting places to help pique their interest in the world around them. with that, we begin our parker delgado blog
"adventure series... extreeeeeeme".

(it helps if you imagine the seagull is a lion or something.)

today's episode: acadia national park.
you might want to sit down. i didn't leave a lot out.

DAY 1
(july 10)
we pack up what will almost surely be too much stuff and depart for maine, which when you look at it on a map sort of seems like maybe we stole it from canada. it's a long drive though, so we planned a couple of stops on the way. first was carlisle, mass., to visit our friend eliza's wonderful parents, steve and roberta spang.

and what a treat it was, with good company including the spangs plus eliza and her brother ned and his wife elise and their kids jonah and lucy, and susan and sean stopped by with jackson and emeline (are you out of breath yet?) and eliza's dog, enzi, played with charlotte, and yankee's shortstop derek jeter was there with his pet angelfish, "finnius" - it was a packed house. very crazy.

we had a lovely dinner and then headed off for the big treat: kimball's farm ice cream shoppe. (i don't actually think they spell "shoppe" that way or that the word "shop" is even really in the name, but it sure does give it an extra down-homey feel, doesn't it?)
this is not the greatest picture i've ever taken, but then again, it may just be the greatest picture i've ever taken.
anyway, PD was about to experience one of the true joys of life...

here it is! another first! and perhaps one of the tastiest firsts we ever get. let it be known throughout the land that mr. steve spang (of the carlisle spangs) is responsible for the little man's foray into the world of a certain chilled, sweetened dairy product that he will likely soon desire above all other basic foodstuffs.

vanilla? trite. chocolate? banal. strawberry? hackneyed.
nope. the little guy's ice cream initiation: butter pecan.

DAY 2
breakfast with the spangs. little man took the head of the table.

before we left, PD, being the hands-on helpful soul that he is, insisted on doing a little work around the house...
i went with an "antiquey" look on this one. you like?

then it was off for the next leg of the trip: portland, maine. we checked out some little shop(pe)s and then did what people do when they're in maine...

of course, PD was far less interested in eating the lobster than he was in dipping his hand in the butter. live and learn.
since none of the food we ate that day was even remotely greenish in color, we decided a long walk was in order which, of course, turned into an even longer walk because that's the way mommy does it!

DAY 3
we drive to freeport, maine, a town filled with soul-sucking outlet malls disguised as quaint little fishing shacks, all of them budding up around L.L. Bean's gigantacular flagship store that had a separate walmart-sized building devoted entirely to dumbwaiters. the place was filthy with consumerism and we happily gave in to the dark side but tried to stick with the essentials - fashion eyewear, for instance.
"baby-elvis has entered freeport!"
(along with his furry entourage/bodyguard)

since we bought enough stuff to fill a small RV, we went ahead and rented a small RV.

25-feet of pure...ly moderate comfort.
(NOTE: we didn't know we'd be driving a billboard until we picked it up.
but as long as i've got your attention - if you're ever looking to rent a quality recreational vehicle, just go to cruiseamerica.com or dial 1-800-RV4RENT. that's 1-800-RV4RENT. you'll be glad you did!)

speaking of which, it's time to play america's favorite new game,
"can you spot the extremely tacky RV!?"
hint: it's somewhere in the middle. there's a tree behind it.
try squinting.

first stop with the rig was a famous roadside haunt called "red's eats" known throughout the area surrounding the very small town of wiscasset, maine, for what i can now confidently say is one of the finest examples of a lobster roll that is legally obtainable in the lower 48 states.

mmmmm!!
the shades serve only to mask the joy in my eyes

more "macro" than "biotic"

it's an acquired taste.

off for a beautiful drive down one of the many jags of maine's extremely jagged coast to the pemaquid point lighthouse.
18 ships went down that fateful day...

hard to get more "mainey" than this.

we ended this day with a visit with a thomas family friend, laura knox, a very lovely woman in every way who lives near belfast. i know that sounds like the beginning of a limerick, but i'm pretty sure it's not.

DAY 4
up early to head out to our final destination: acadia national park.
we checked into the bar harbor campground, found a nice spot, then almost immediately left to drive into the park where we went on a very steep, very long, very amazing...
HIKE UP CHAMPLAIN MOUNTAIN
(http://bit.ly/GDzy92)

the views are said to be stunning from up there, but on this day they were unfortunately blocked by considerably less stunning fog.
but this view was a pretty good back-up.


still a good hike and i got to swim in a beautiful little pond called "the bowl". there's something about floating on your back in a mountain lake that can just totally clear your mind and make you completely forget you're not wearing a bathing suit.
(PHOTO UNAVAILABLE)

after the hike we drove into bar harbor to walk around and enjoy the mind boggling array of lobster-themed merchandise available to us. it made me long for the days when i would sit on the porch with my father and play a nice relaxing game of lobster chess.

DAY 5
it was raining when we woke up, so we settled in for a long day at the campground. it didn't take long for RV fever to kick in so i went for a long run with charlotte while ellen hanged (hung?) (hunged?) out with PD, then ellen went for a long run with charlotte while i napped with PD. ellen pulled her usual trick of whipping up a beautiful lunch even though i had no idea we even had any food. the following picture was taken no less than a half hour later.

and the lobster theme continues unabated.

another first!
PD actually went under water very soon after this picture was taken, though it was quite by accident. but my mother always told me, if you've got to accidentally submerge yourself in water for the first time, it may as well be by sliding off the side of a large, inflatable lobster. i thought her crazy at the time. only now do i understand her infinite wisdom.
we closed out the night hanging out with the family of 6 staying in the giant trailer next to us. despite the late hour, PD was his usual gregarious self and entertained everyone with lengthy...
FITS OF LAUGHTER
(http://bit.ly/GGPMcu)

that's a lot of personality for someone who can't even talk yet.

DAY 6
late start thanks to a lack of ability to sleep (somehow!) but we took the free shuttle from our campground and made our way to jordan pond where we set out on an epic 6 hour trek that included steep inclines, sunny 1300-foot high ridge walks accompanied by very welcome cool ocean breezes and breathtaking views that looked a little something...
LIKE THIS
(http://bit.ly/GBW65M)

we also took another swim in a mountain lake - sergeant pond - me, ellen, and charlotte all together while a nice lady on the shore kept an eye on the superhero baby who, thanks to a temporary lull in criminal activity, was slumbering away in his backpack.

PD was awesome the whole day as he was for the whole week as he has been for his whole life. how a 6-month old can tolerate 6 hours of being tossed around in a backpack on a very warm sunny day is sort of beyond me.
super indeed.

DAY 7
we awaken in our rig to the faint sounds of chirping birds and the light footsteps of retirees from florida walking their yorkshire terriers.
we take the shuttle into bar harbor to rent a mountain bike, then shuttle to northeast harbor to walk around a bit before heading to thuya garden.


this place was so calming that if a hare krishna came up to me while i was there i'd probably sit and talk to him for a couple of hours... but i'd still throw away his "literature".

it was time to split up and make use of the bike. ellen took PD and char and set off for a nice walk/run. i took the bike around and up day mountain. and then, of course... down day mountain. the fun part.
we met up at jordan pond house for the switchover. ellen took the bike along jordan pond and all the way up to loop road and into bar harbor (a significant ride) while i took PD and char and somehow mustered the energy for the 4-mile run on the carriage road to bubble pond. it was nothing short of spectacular, and the little man was up for every minute of it. except the minutes he was sleeping of course.
then it was back to the rig for some well deserved sitting.

DAY 8
having such a good time we decide to stay in the park one more day.
it started with a little...
SPLISH SPLASH!
(http://bit.ly/GCRyOv)

we checked out of the campground and drove up to cadillac mountain.
it's the highest point in acadia.
which is why we drove.

the obamas had been up there just the day before. did i mention yet that the obamas also happen to be vacationing in acadia at this time? well, they were. in fact, i think they followed us there. gonna have to look into that.


drove to northeast harbor to catch a boat out to little cranberry island. they called it a "mail boat" but the only thing it appeared to be mailing was a bunch of other tourists, and not one of them had a stamp on their forehead.

like most rugged lobstermen of the northeast, PD relaxed in his stroller after a long day of trapping.


lunch at islesford dock restaurant which was the best food in the area not cooked by ellen. then we visited yet another thomas family friend, the trotters, who - and this is far less likely than you can even imagine - have a house on little cranberry island. i guess big cranberry island has just gotten too industrialized.

the mail boat delivered us back to civilization and we left the park that afternoon. we drove to just outside belfast that night and skipped paying for a campground, opting instead for a secluded parking lot that was apparently secluded from everything except the unimaginably diligent police officer who banged on the side of the rig at 3:30 in the morning!
just to ask for I.D.!
not even to tell us we had to move!
what!?
apparently there has been a rash of nogoodniks driving around in 25-ft RV's with "cruiseamerica.com" plastered all over them terrorizing the outskirts of belfast, maine. you can never be too safe.

DAY 9
very nice lazy morning at our highly suspicious parking space. a nice lawn gave ellen a place to play guitar for PD and me a place to throw the frisbee to char.

packed up and headed to belfast for the annual celtic festival which i went to very freely because i half-thought i'd be getting larry bird's autograph. turns out that wasn't the case.


From there it was on to dinner with laura knox and her family and her neighbors, some stimulating conversation, and a quick drive to our final campground of the trip just outside of belfast - couldn't risk johnny law comin' after us again!

DAY 10
long drive home. but on the way, we spotted some homemade furniture on a lonely lawn in front of a lonely farm house on a lonely stretch of maine road and we just couldn't leave it alone. i present to you...

baby adirondack!!
it's like a regular adirondack chair... but for babies!!

so it was an amazing trip that exposed PD to many different sights and smells and sounds and tastes. in the last hour of the ride home he did have a bit of a break down, but it was pouring down rain and we'd been on the road for something like 8 hours.
in the midst of that, and following a week of almost constant jostling, our boy deserved a good cry. really, the only surprise is that we weren't all crying.

the end.
except for one more picture for no other reason than because i like it.

and yes, i wore the same shirt for the entire trip.

p.s. - happy second anniversary, honey.
you will always be my queen-wah.

5.5 months

i'm writing most of this entry on june 20th, 2010, my first father's day.
this picture is a few months old but i think you all get the idea.
that's right.
i accidentally glued my nose to my child.
the doctor said it's not the first time he's seen this, but i sort of wonder. i mean, excuse me for wanting to be close to my son... and forgetting that just seconds before this picture was taken i had placed a small but effectively strong dab of industrial adhesive on the tip of my sniffer.
would it help if i promised it will never happen again?
well, i'm sorry but i can't do that.

*********
big news!
literally...

at 27.5 inches, PD is now officially taller then the shortest man on earth! as you can imagine, this is a huge relief to me. i have lived the passed 6 months with a dreadful fear that my son, despite his preordained mission to one day save the planet, would end up being the shortest man on that very planet that he exists, as mentioned just now, to save.
i'm sure you'll all join me in a collective "phew!"
(collectively)
phew!
thank you.

p.s. - he's pushin' the scales at 24+ pounds at this point and he's not even on solid foods yet. not entirely true. he did eat little pieces of banana and delicious farmer's market strawberries (what else!) on memorial day weekend at our good friend josh's house upstate. and a few days before that he licked a grape but didn't actually eat it. baby steps. or in this case, baby licks.

CUTE PICTURE ALERT!
CUTE PICTURE ALERT!!

this one's titled "find the baby"
clever, right?
(bonus points for finding the baby's hand.)

and one more for good measure...

swingin' with his girlfriend, talia.
(PD's the one in the hat who looks kind of like winston churchill.)

developments...
- he's learning how to sit up, but based on his progress i can't help but suspect he's been drinking.
- he slept for ten hours straight recently!... once... then he stopped doing that.
- he now seems to be laughing at specific things, though cleverly worded political satire is not yet one of them.
- he's been toying with the idea of constipation, but then every few days he let's us know the hard way that he's simply toying with it.
- he's teething, and though i can't specifically recall the experience myself, he certainly makes it sound unpleasant.
- he smiles from his crib when you walk into his room in the morning. it's very, very nice.

we now interrupt this blog for a message from parker delgado havlan
MAGICAL LINK TO MESSAGE
(http://bit.ly/GD3YSr)

one of the fun things about having a baby is you get to buy a lot of things that you don't really need but you can easily convince yourself will be good for the baby. new ray ban sunglasses, for example, so the sun doesn't get in my eyes when i'm playing with him in the park.
what?
then there are those rare items that genuinely work out for everybody.
enter...
baby backpack!
we love this thing, and PD seems pretty fond of it as well. this particular shot is from atop a lookout tower on a hike near the lake house. it's one of the things we love to do.

we drove down to virginia to help PD's great aunt-in-law, Vi, celebrate her 90th birthday.
it was a pleasure to meet her along with some other family members we hadn't met yet. Vi was energetic and fun and happy and delightful. she showed us her home where she practiced her favorite hobby of weaving on one of several looms that she had. she told PD and me about meeting her husband (ellen's father's oldest brother) in the service and getting married in hawaii and travelling and living in various places around the world. it was a lovely day.
sadly, Vi passed away just a week after our visit, but she was definitely extraordinary and i can only hope that some of her longevity, kindness, and joy rubbed off on our little man.

PD's first music festival - and by proxy his first introduction to hula hoops and the scent of patchouli - was just last week at the clearwater festival in croton point park on the hudson river. the little man had a great time no doubt in part because he is not yet old enough to be embarrassed by his daddy running around in public without a shirt on.

with mommy and friend shannon at the lake.

photo by our friend mark.
lighting provided by nature.

as long as we're out on the dock, let's join ellen, PD, our friend shelley and PD's sister-doggie, charlotte, who loves doing...
THIS
(http://bit.ly/GG0544)
PD has yet to join her, but that's just a matter of time.

today's song is courtesy the extraordinary bob marley.
it's "Three Little Birds".
dig it...

Rise up this mornin'; smiled with the risin' sun.
Three little birds pitch by my doorstep
Singin' sweet songs of melodies pure and true; sayin',
"This is my message to you-ou-ou."

Meanin': "Don't worry about a thing,
oh! Ev-ry little thing gonna be all right.
Singin': "Don't worry about a thing",
‘cause every little thing gonna be all right."

indeed.

and in closing...
lake house, father's day, 2010
life = good.

3.5 months

excuse me while i gush, but...
to your left is one of the cutest baby pictures that ever existed in the entire universe.
(too much?)
maybe, but i mean come on!

the big news since last we checked in is that the planet's latest superhero baby can fly!
on a plane of course.
wait. you didn't think...

here he is with mommy dearest (but in a good way) as they board the plane for his very first flight.


is it cliche to say i see where he gets his crazy cuteness from?
too late!

anyway, the flight was great. he didn't cry at all. just slept and ate.
and pooped.
then pooped again.
did i mention the poop?
which brings us to this weeks installment of...
"how to change a diaper in an airplane lavatory"
i'm sure many of you out there have done this before but i hadn't. not until our trip that is. fact is it wasn't so bad since the changing table is roughly three-quarters the size of the bathroom itself. hell, i almost crawled up there myself to take a nap. in fact, i would have and if not for the chance of having it break off the wall and drop me in the toilet where i would be sucked down by the jet-engine-like flushing mechanism and spit out somewhere over kansas.
but resisting my toilet-nap wasn't the hardest part. the hardest part came during one diaper change when i realized i also had to pee. without getting too graphic about it, here are the basic steps:
- put down changing table
- change baby
- unzip pants and prepare "self"
- pick up baby and put up changing table
- pee
- put down changing table, place baby on it
- put "self" back
- et voilà

anyway, we took our first official family trip out to the area near the bay that surrounds the city of san francisco.
(there's got to be an easier way to say that.)
why take our baby clear across the country at the ripe young age of 10 weeks?
why indeed!
it was time to meet the family, including...


grandpa bob and grandma kaaren!
(not a misprint. her name is spelled with two "a's". hi kaaren!)

... cousin hana and cousin kobi

looks like PD has his first non-mommy crush!
he also met his namesake, uncle parker, his uncle speed, and his aunt hae-sin, and - funny thing - i didn't seem to take a single picture of this despite the fact that we spent the entire week in their lovely new home.
bad daddy!
bad... daddy!
rest assured, this will be remedied in droves upon the morrow.
(not sure why i went all "middle english" on ya there... just felt right.)

PD also met...

uncle glenn and aunt liz.
may their kindness and good vibes rub off.

cousin reuben...

are you guys looking at the hair, the baby, or the boobs?
just pick one (or two) and go with it.

and the hardest working uncle in show business,
the multi-talented uncle who needs no uncle introduction but i'll give it to you anyway...

uncle ed!
may his talent and determination rub off.

of course, what trip to anywhere near san francisco would be complete without a day in san francisco...

look out! it's a classic cable car! ahhhhh!


PD with mommy, new sun hat, and infamous island prison in background.


the famed golden gate bridge.
i'm told that beyond it lies shangri-la.
and just beyond that, marin county.

developments?
i can name a few.
the little man...
- realized his hands are attached to him
- realized his thumb is attached to his hands
- realized his thumb fits snugly in his mouth
and yet skeptics of evolution remain.
balderdash!

he has also started making what i guess can best be described as "non-accidental sounds". i love having extended conversations with him and convincing myself that we are in complete understanding. i don't know what it is. he just seems to get me.

he's taking a music class with mommy. they're taking long walks in central park thanks to the springing of spring. he spent his first day with a nanny - a lovely young woman named cindy. and he played on his first swing...

this is actually his second swing but you get the point.

on a personal note, i've always considered myself a fortunate man, but after witnessing the past few months i realize even more then before that i really did hit the jackpot when i met ellen. then i hit the jackpot again almost two months later when she interrupted a date i was on to tell me to call her.
(if you don't know the story, i'll be happy to tell it. she's quite a gal!)
with that in mind, this edition's song is inspired by the mother rather than the son.
it's The Four Tops' "Ain't No Woman Like the One I've Got".
dig it...

Every day the sun comes up around her
She can make the birds sing harmony
Every drop of rain is glad it found her
Heaven must have made her just for me
When she smiles so warm and tender
A sight for sore eyes to see
Ain't no woman like the one I've got.
Oh, no, they don't come better.

(too much?)
too late!

one last note: my boss announced this week that he has signed a contract through june 2013. yes, i've been there for nearly 14 years now, but i think i'll stay. unless anybody out there knows another place i can make 17 million dollars a year (give or take) writing jokes.
i didn't think so.