Dad here.
This past weekend was our annual camping/cabin weekend with Gena's family. We stay at a little cabin in the Brainerd lakes area that's owned by Missy's aunt and uncle.
On Friday we had perfect weather. Chad brought his boat up so in the afternoon we went for a boat ride and took turns tubing. Zoe went for the ride with us; I was a bit worried about taking her on the boat with us but she was very content to sit on my lap and watch people on the tube.
Saturday's weather wasn't nearly as good so we spent most of the day inside but Zoe had a lot of fun with her cousins. They're all very sweet to her and she enjoys being in a crowd. She was very good for us all weekend and we had so much fun with her.
This Friday we'll head out to Montana for my grandma's 80th birthday. I'm sure everyone will be excited to see Zoe and she will be excited to see all of them.
One day per year, those of us lucky enough to have fathers in our lives take the time to acknowledge them.
I must admit that I've been exceedingly fortunate to have a wonderful dad with whom I have a great relationship. While he wasn't one to change a diaper when I was growing up, he did fix a lot of broken dollies and was always willing to rock me and sing to me when I got the occasional boo-boo. I never doubted that my dad loved me and still loves me despite my many shortcomings.
Now that I have my own daughter, I have a new appreciation for the special relationship between daddies and their little girls. And I have an even greater admiration for my husband. When you marry somebody, you have an idea in your mind of what being married to them will be like. And if you're lucky, the reality reconciles with, or even exceeds, your expectations. The same is true when you decide to have a child. I was admittedly more reluctant to undertake the serious responsibility of bringing a child into the world than Brian was. He was excited about it and assured me that we would figure it out together and that I would be a good mom. He never seemed to need reassurance that he would be a good dad. He must have already known what he was capable of.
I could make a list a mile long of all of the things Brian does for Zoe. But it would not do justice to what Brian IS to Zoe. He is arguably the best daddy any little girl could ever hope to have. And while she doesn't realize it now, I hope that one day Zoe will realize she hit the daddy jackpot. To Brian I want to say, thank you. Thank you for being better than I could have imagined at the most important "job" you will ever have.
Mom here.
I just wanted to share a couple of things that Zoe does that are my absolute favorite things in the world.
One: when she is tired, she sings or hums herself to sleep. I always know when she is about to fall asleep in the car because she sings to herself for about five minutes or so. She used to do it all the time when she was a really little baby, but now only does it every now and then. It makes me sad to think that one day she will stop doing it.
Two: when Zoe likes something she is eating, she makes an "mmmmmmm" noise the entire time she is eating it.
I keep wanting to get the singing/humming on video, but haven't been able to yet and the other day we tried to tape her making the "mmmmmmmm" sound, but she stopped when she saw the video camera.
Dad here.
Gena wanted me to meet her at the mall last night to help her pick out some glasses. Since we were done pretty early we decided to go get some dinner at California Pizza Kitchen.
Gena got some mushroom ravioli with a garlic cream sauce. Zoë tried some of it and really liked it a lot so Gena gave her quite a bit of it.
When it was time to go I picked Zoë up and just about got knocked over with a blast of baby garlic breath. It makes total sense that when somebody eats a bunch of garlic they get garlic breath but it was so unexpected for my sweet baby to have it!
Gena put her to bed last night and when she burped her she said she got assaulted with garlic breath too.
When I dropped Zoë off at daycare today I was talking to her teachers Ewa and Sandra about her pacifier thievery since they weren't there yesterday.
They told me that some times her friend Lily does the same thing. Lily and Zoë are trouble for each other. Apparently they had to have their cribs seperated because they would just sit up in them and babble at each other during nap time.
Ewa told me that sometimes if a kid who never had a pacifier starts taking them at this age it might be because she's teething. I took a look when she said that and sure enough tooth number seven is on its way.
Dad here.
A couple of days ago Gena went to pick Zoë up at daycare and Zoë was crawling around the floor with a pacifier in her mouth. When she was just a newborn we would offer her a pacifier only when she was really upset (they can interfere with breast feeding so it was always a last resort) and she never really took to it. So Gena asked why they were giving her one.
They said they didn't give it to she stole it from another baby. Apparently she does this all the time but they claim she usually just grabs them and doesn't put them in her mouth. She uses her mouth to carry things when she's crawling so that's probably why she had it in her mouth that time.
Gena was a little skeptical of the explanation and wondered if she wasn't just grabbing them off the floor. This morning I got confirmation that our little girl is, in fact, a pacifier bandit. I set her on the floor when I dropped her off and then went to fill out her sheet. She crawled up to a newborn who was laying on the floor with a pacifier in her mouth and just yanked it away from her. The problem was that this baby's pacifier was on a string that was attached to the baby's shirt. So Zoë's getaway was thwarted. The poor little newborn had no idea what was going on as Zoë was yanking on the pacifier trying to get away with it until I intervened.
