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.