Deck the Halls

As heard this morning in our living room when I attempted to trim a Christmas tree assisted only by a one year old and a cat:
"Please be gentle with the ornaments."
"Please set that down... carefully."
"Carefully."
"Haley, those branches won't hold you!"
"What was wrong with that one?"
"Why is your father in the basement?"
"Can you hand that to Mommy?"
"Haley, don't eat the tree."
"Henry, don't eat the tree."
"Where are you going? We're not done."
"Well, yes, OK, you have a point. Technically, the ornament is shaped like a ball."
"I think the tree looks great with just the six ornaments - don't you?"
"I know it is before noon but it is the holiday season and eggnog isn't that potent anyway."
"Haley, don't give me that look."


(Editor's note: This post was originally composed on December 21, 2009.)

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is a verbatim account of Henry's first email message. He was sitting on Mike's lap yesterday and reaching for the computer keys (as usual). Mike had his Gmail account open, and, by chance, Henry randomly clicked the right combination of keys to compose a message. He must have typed a "j" and my email address automatically entered in the To field. Mike thought it was sweet that Henry's very first email message was written to his mommy.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Road Trip '09

Again, I have been a lazy blogger. I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We went to Erin and Jeff's in FL for our 4th Thanksgiving in a row! I think it is now officially a tradition whether they like it or not. The drive from Atlanta, according to my new Garmin GPS unit (early Christmas gift from Mom and Dad - thank you!), should have taken 5 hours. The Garmin predicted that we would arrive at 5:33 PM but we actually arrived at 5:36 PM so, since it is clearly defective, I am sending it for a refund. Henry did remarkably well in the car on the trip to FL - he chattered and laughed and played for most of the way (see above). Since it was a road trip, we ate junk food (Goldfish crackers), listened to fun mix tapes (Science Friday podcasts), and played car games (no one but me) the whole way!

As usual, we had a great time for Thanksgiving and enjoyed a most delicious turkey and all the classic trimmings. Henry spent the weekend honing his latest achievement - walking (he is now officially a walker!). He wanted to spend every spare second walking around outside so by Thanksgiving dinner time, Henry was utterly exhausted and had a tad bit of a meltdown. After putting him in his crib, he screamed at the top of his lungs for about 90 seconds and then was out for the next 12 hours.

The return trip, however, was not as smooth and fun as the trip to FL. Henry slept solidly for first 2.5 hours of the drive home. Then, he got bored, then frustrated, then mad, and then he wailed for the final two hours of our journey home. We were stuck in the notorious Atlanta traffic for about two hours. We were so close to home yet so far. As we inched forward on the interstate, I would check our Garmin status only to find that our ETA had been pushed back 40 minutes. As time passed on the clock, I would re-check the GPS to discover that the ETA had been pushed back 40 min yet again. No matter what, we were always 40 minutes away from home - we were trapped in our own Sisyphean nightmare.

Henry on the ride home - note his glazed over expression, his apathy, his surrender.