I feel like Alexander's dad

Well, no pictures, but I've got a story from today.

As many of you know, I've always loved the book Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. As a matter of fact, my first and only attempt at political activism was a failed campaign to convince my parents to name my younger brother Alexander. Well, today I found myself plopped down right in the midst of the book. You remember when Alexander came into his dad's office? Everything went haywire.

Well, today I took Julia into my office so Amanda could go to the Ladies' Bible Study. I'd been telling her for weeks that I'd be fine with Julia in my office, that it wouldn't be a problem, and that since that Bible Study was meaningful for her (and also the main way that I find out about pastoral care needs in the church) that she should go while I watch Julia.

So things are going swimmingly along until Julia starts crying and refuses to take her passie. So I reach down to lift her up out of the carrier seat, only to feel something squishy. This, friends, is not good. I lift her leg up and see that she has, through her diaper, through her onesie, and through her pants, pooed.

This is salvageable, I think, so I lift her up and grab the changing pad and plop her down on it. As she squirms, the changing pad quickly gains a thin layer of poo, making it kind of pointless to put anything clean on her. So, off come all of her clothes and I proceed with the full body wet-wipe cleaning.

As I fold over the changing pad and set her on the clean half, I reach for a clean diaper. Wait, what's this warm feeling I feel? Thanks, Julia, I really needed you to pee ALL OVER MY DESK. I managed to use the poo-filled diaper to create a make-shift dam to limit the breadth of pee-lake on my desk, so the Confirmands won't be getting a little something extra on their certificates Sunday. But, I still didn't put any papers in the middle of my desk the rest of the day.

So now I have a changing pad with poo spread on one side, sopping wet with pee on the other side, and a naked, screaming baby. I decided that setting her down has only caused problems thus far, so that my best bet would just be to not try to set her down again and do everything in mid-air. So I proceeded to perform the rarely-tried mid-air baby diapering and onesie-ing beginning with a completely naked baby, with no assistance, all while wearing dress clothes.

My desk, well, it's seen better days. We lost some good wet wipes, and I've never seen a diaper sacrifice the way that one did, taking poo after poo and then all that pee. We had to use two disposable dirty diaper bags and I modified the garbage bag in my office to take out the clothes and changing pad, but we made it out safely. Amanda even got all of the poo-stains out of the clothes. All that's left now is the memory of how close we came to total disaster and an office that smells like Lysol, diaper wipes, and Daddy sweat.

So I feel like I did pretty well for myself. Or, as Amanda says, I could have just taken her a couple hundred feet to Mom's Day Out and begged them to take care of it for me.

Sleep!!!

Julia asleep at a few weeks old

Praise God from whom all blessings flow!
Julia slept through the night last night! I fed her at about 9:15 and then she got a whole bottle from Daddy and went on to sleep at some point... and then when I heard whimpering and went to check at the usual 2:30 - 3am feeding time, she was still asleep. I thought, well, I'm not going to wake her up to feed her... so I went back to bed, and awoke to her whimpering again - it was 5:30am. Woohoo. She was awake that time of course. But hey, she slept from about 11pm until after the paper was delivered! I think that counts as sleeping through the night. Now if she can only keep it up and even stretch it a bit longer...

Julia showing off her sleeping ensemble last night

Julia's first A-Day

Well, we don't have the full Bama cheerleading outfit yet, but I'm sure it will get there at some point. For now, Julia's cheering on the Tide with a t-shirt, her little jeans that fall off her whenever Daddy picks her up, and the pink headband and bow that Mommy says makes her look like Aunt Jemima. But, as Uncle Will says, that's better than Uncle Jemima.

Julia seemed to enjoy herself, although she started screaming toward the end of the second half - I think she saw some sloppy technique on the defensive backfield. Got to work on that.

Bows, Car Seats, and Blue Jeans - The Life of a Preacher's Daughter

Yesterday was the first day that Julia wore a hair accessory. She has more and more hair now, but still not enough to attach a clippy bow. I thought this butterfly headband was cutsy for our little cutie.

This week has seen Peter going to visit folks a lot. Of course, this happens anytime that the senior pastor tries to take any sort of vacation or goes out of town for anything. Yesterday he went to three hospitals and saw five different people and their families. All this means that Julia gets more time in her carseat (if she and Mommy are helping drive Daddy around). It's a good thing she really likes the carseat! On Thursday afternoon, I even put her in it, thinking I'd go pick up Peter early and she'd stop fussing, but just getting her in the snuggly carseat did the trick. Yay Chicco Keyfit carseat!
P.S. This is also Julia's first bow and her first pair of blue jeans. hehe.

Easter 2009

Julia's first Easter was one full of church services - both contemporary and traditional. She slept through both. :) Grandpa Fred came to hear Peter preach at 9am, and Grammy and Poppy (as we are calling them these days) came to 11am traditional.

Julia in her first Easter dress.

It was a Feltman Bros. dress from The Kiddieland Shop in Cullman - home of quite a few of Mommy's childhood Easter dresses, too.

Julia seems to eat up all the chaotic attention she gets from us as we race to get her dressed and take pictures and then get us all ready and out the door on Sunday mornings. Maybe we should do that every morning. . . or maybe it is the fancy dresses she enjoys. . . uhoh ;)

Mommy or Daddy?

Everyone has been weighing in on whether Julia looks more like Peter or me...This picture of the two of them reminded me of the scene in Forrest Gump where Forrest and Forrest Jr are watching Sesame Street and the both cock their head at the same time in the same way.

Hopefully Julia has the best of each of us.

more hospital memories - February 23, 2009

family of two and a half


Peter in scrub-type outfit, ready for operating room

Julia weighed 7 lbs and 2.2 oz

first Daddy kiss

new family


father-daughter moment


one doped-up mommy


one ecstatic daddy


new family all smiles

don't eat me! - Julia
please eat this! - Daddy

visitors

Julia had lots of visitors while we were in the hospital. Family included all the grandparents, Uncle Todd, and Aunt Andrea (Uncle Martin was out of the country on a business trip). We also saw Tim Tatum, Rev. Andy Wolfe, Jennie and Kelsey Sherrer, and all the McConville girls.








We had lots of fun on Tuesday night when Uncle Will and Aunt Stacey Heath stopped by with Milo's for Daddy's dinner ("Tuesday night is Milo's night"). Brian and Ashlyn Lacy and Patrick Raney also came to see Julia that evening, too!

more firsts for Julia

After Peter posted about Julia's first trip to church, I thought I would try to catch up the scrapbook with some of her other "firsts."

Her first visit from great-grandma MawMaw Nail.

Four generations.

Julia's first snow. Toboggan and mittens courtesy of great-grandma Grandma Young. This snow took place the day before Julia's original due date, making Mommy happy that she didn't have to worry about going into labor and getting to the hospital in the midst of it.

Her first home. Conversation between Mommy and Julia -
Julia: (looking around the living room.)
Mommy: "You see the living room? This is your home. This is called a parsonage."
Julia: (*cries out*)
Mommy: (jokingly) "I see you've heard of them..."

some firsts for Julia

First Fan gear -
First Bama gear, a present from Auburn alum grandad.

First Georgia Tech shirt - vintage 1980's - one of Daddy's.

First stroller ride. Thank you to Uncle Todd for the stroller!

Hanging out with mommy by the buttercups after my exhausting stroller ride around the block.

First real bath (after the umbilical cord fell off).

Her first overnight trip was to Camp Sumatanga.


First trip to Atlanta. Not the first time Julia sticks out her tongue at Mommy.

first church trip

Well, Julia made her first trip to church Sunday. She was, of course, given the rock star treatment. I had to ask Amanda to move further away from the door in Hearin Hall because such a large crowd of people had gathered that they were blocking the door. I'm already getting grief from the people at 8:30 about when we're going to bring her to that service. I told them that they'd never know when we'd bring her, so they had to come every Sunday.

She was extremely well behaved - out like a light in the contemporary service as soon as I started preaching, and then was quiet throughout the 11:00 traditional service. As someone said, I'll be longing for these days in a few years when she's wanting to ask me questions mid-sermon.

Here's Daddy holding Julia right after dressing her. She's not sure about this crazy preacher in a pink tie.


With Mommy in Daddy's office, feeling much better about life.




We've also decided that Soothie brand pacifiers are a God-send. They are remarkably effective at calming her down, so we've quickly decided that the $4 we spent on a pair of them were money well spent. That's one of the main things that got her to quit screaming between our house and the church.

And, as a parting gift, here's mommy and Julia, snuggling on their way to bed: