Shout! Shout! Shout at the Ewok!

Howdy gang,

                Man oh man has it been a crazy few weeks! Super busy, but pretty damn good overall. The 22^nd was my wife’s 28^th birthday. She worked of course, but I took off from work so Elizabeth and I could pamper her a little bit. Elizabeth got her Mama the new Garth Brooks box set which we have sadly been listening to non-stop in the car. That will go down as one of my most regrettable purchases I think. Anyways, I picked up Ewok early from daycare so that her and I could get some extra snuggle time in before Mama got home. Once she got home I let those two do their thing while I made dinner. As it turns out, cooking for someone that is gluten and dairy free is a giant pain in the ass. I’ve never had a whole lot hiding out in the Fat-dad Cookbook, so I did my trusty stand by and made tacos. My wife was just happy because she got to get a little extra snuggle time in herself AND she didn’t have to cook. My wife even got a backrub once Elizabeth finally went to bed! I know. I know. I’m pretty much the best husband and father that has ever lived.

                Elizabeth is growing like a damn weed! Seriously. I can’t stop looking through the pictures of her on my phone and it is simply amazing how fast she has grown. She now has 5 teeth, she is eating non-boob food regularly, she has become much more vocal, and is SOOOOOOO close to crawling. She is so close to crawling that it is almost painful to watch. She has all of the parts down, she just can’t seem to put them together in order to actually crawl. She lifts her whole body up in some sort of a mix between a plank and push up, but instead of moving her legs to get forward movement, she ends up scooting herself back. The fact that she can’t seem to figure out the crawling thing doesn’t really slow her down at all though. She figured out about 2 weeks ago how to efficiently navigate her surrounding by rolling to where ever she wants to go. It really is quite the sight to behold. She is some sort of toy-seeking missile too. She still loves her Sophie, but she now also loves to knock down her stacking cups and she insists on emptying her ENTIRE toy basket. She has such an intense determination when she makes eye contact with that toy basket, it seems to scream “What the hell?! I JUST emptied that freakin’ basket!”

                Like I mentioned, she has become much more vocal over that last 2 weeks. She used to jibber jabber from time to time, but now… this kid won’t shut the hell up! It is damn near constant yelling and general noise making. She seems to have 2 real favorite times to do it though. 1^st favorite is to simply keep herself awake whenever she is getting sleepy, which has turned our nighttime routine in to a rather noisy affair. Her 2^nd favorite time is at strangers in public. I am not exaggerating either. We will be strolling as a family through Target and she will pick out some rando, make eye contact with them, cock a half smile and then just start yelling nonsense at them at the top of her lungs. I will attempt to write an example of her jibber jabber phonetically so that you can get the full picture. “AAAAHHHHahahahahahAAAAAAAHHHHHbabababababaBABABABAHahhhhDDDDDDDDDDDAAAAAADADADAda!” It is annoying and cute all at the same time.

                We, as a family unit, are very glad that teething seems to be getting a little easier and it seems like there might be a light at the end of the tunnel. Her big, goofy ass, jack-o-lantern smile still melts me every time she flashes it at me. It was so hard to see her in pain, especially when she is normally so happy-go-lucky. Even though she has 3 teeth all coming in at the same time, she seems to be doing much better with it this time around. It is pretty easy to get her to smile and giggle as she seems to think everything is freakin’ hilarious. I had to take her to the doctor this last Monday for the 2^nd part of her flu shot. They had the whole office decked out for Christmas, so we had a lot of fun looking at the lights on the tree, but the fun really began when we noticed the shiny balls hanging from the ceiling. I would lift her up so she could swat at them and I thought she was going to die of laughter. She refused to give up either, we seriously played with them for about 10 or 15 minutes before we were called in to the exam room. The laughter quickly died once she got the shot of course, but she only cried for about 15 seconds and then she started giggling for ABSOLUTELY NO REASON! She then reached out for the nurse and gave her a little snuggle hug and went back to her normal goofball self. The nurse mentioned that that was the 1^st time in her entire career that any patient had reached out for a hug after a shot. That’s my girl I guess.

                As per usual, we ended up having 2 Thanksgiving get-togethers again this year. The whole fam damily got together at my in-laws house for lunch and Elizabeth had lots of fun playing with her 2 cousins and her Papa and her Aunts and Uncles. She is just totally enthralled with her youngest cousin. We will call her Eva. Eva is the goofy one of my two nieces. Her older sister is a little more reserved and can even be shy, but not Eva. She is always moving, always doing something goofy, always doing something kind of weird, but always is adorable. She is infamous in our family for licking a window and for her favorite game called “sock hands”. Sock hands is really just what we call her insistence on wearing her sock on her hands instead of her feet. Now that I just typed all of that, I can totally see why Elizabeth is so interested in her cousin. Hmmm. Anyways, we also went to my cousins’ house for dinner and because it was our God Son’s birthday. He turned 7 this year! That just made me feel old as all hell. He is just such a fun and generally good kid.

                I guess we had a pretty eventful couple of weeks! I am out of town tonight for work and won’t be home until 1030 at the earliest so I probably won’t actually get to see Elizabeth until Friday afternoon if I don’t get called in to work. I was kind of “over it” when it came to work hotel stays about 5 years ago, but now that I got my little snuggle buddy at home and she is growing and learning so fast, I hate to miss any second that I don’t absolutely have to. Grrr. Anyways, as usual, I thank you all for reading. Don’t forget to check out Fatterhood on Facebook, I will be posting some of the holiday family pictures that we took and you WON’T want to miss em. Check back soon for more posts or use this time to catch up on some older posts! I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving as well! Until next time…Prost!