Friday, September 25, 2009

Song For Evvy

A DAY WITH YOU

6 am has never felt so good
the light comes in and floods your room
we walk in slow and you lift your head
and then we get to spend the day with you

your smile is like the greatest thing
we have ever seen
better than most anything
we could ever dream

your hands on ours or on our faces
that one leg raised
and how you bang it on the floor
kind of makes us lose our breath
our little tootsie toots
we love to spend the day with you

we love to spend the day with you
looking, finding just being with you
and everything we wished and more came true
there is no better day
than any day with you

your eyes can light up new york city
your cheeks are roses and oh so pretty
you are the center of our universe
when you're asleep we just converse
about our little tootsie toots
and the day we spent with you

we love to spend the day with you
looking, finding just being with you
and everything we wished and more came true
there is no better day
than any day with you

there is no better day
and no better way,
than every tiny second
and every little moment
we get to be with you
and look at you
and lay on floors and carry you
and love on you
and kiss on you
and dream the day away with you
there is for sure, hands down not any better way
to spend any kind of day
than spending it with you.

xoxo evvy...your dad(dy)

Friday, August 7, 2009

Fine Lines

Okay, there is indeed nothing more cute than a baby with rolls and rolls and chins and chins. Our baby has many of both. And I am so down with you (that means any of you) saying "ohhh, look at her legs, so cute" or "ohhh she is so mushy..." However, there is line in the proverbial sand (talking to you parental figures). When you keep going on and on calling her "the michelan man" or "the state-puff marshmallow guy" and you tell us how everyone who sees her pictures says this and that (regarding rolls and chins) just be prepared for me to potentially say to you "okay, enough! sounds like you are putting your issues onto my child. she is a 5 month old. yes, she has rolls, we can all see them. she has chins, see those too. maybe say something interesting. i am not telling you the sky is blue, you can see that. not telling you the things about you that you likely know."

fine lines, my friends. very fine.

My Morning Hours

I have never loved the 6-8 a.m. timeslot more than I do these days. Daddy and daughter time. We start off by sitting down at the piano. Evvy loves hearing me play and she is now mesmerized that she can make sounds of that big upright. And she's mad good, too. Yeah, she's almost five months now, but I swear the girl can play. I want her to be whatever she wants, she can love or hate sports, ballet, theater, cooking, hiking, dressing up, being girly...but between you and me...I PRAY SHE IS A SINGER/SONGWRITER. I have always been obsessed with girls who can sing and write music. Evvy Delilah: Singer/Songwriter. Kind of perfect. No pressure (as I hire three piano teachers today to turn her into a prodigy right quick).

Then we play on the floor blanket ala RIE. I lay down there with her. Kind of never happier than when I am playing with my daughter (and my nephews and Godkids) and making up worlds with them. Finally, people who don't think I am super weird for being, well, super weird. Our new favorite made up song: SISSY ON THE HIGHWAY, SISSY ON THE HIGHWAY...DON'T CROSS THE STREET CUZ THERE'S SISSY AT YOUR FEET. Huge hit around these parts.

Then we play my recently downloaded Disney playlist. Evvy is mad for Belle's songs in Beauty And The Beast. We sing, dance around. I put Evvy up in the air and say "How did you get up there?" I repeat that a few dozen times. She laughs and laughs. I get chills. Seeing my daughter laugh gives me chills. Well, making my daughter laugh really does me in right good.

Then, a lot of activity behind us, the baby girl rubs her eyes. And by 7:45 she is plum tuckered. Who isn't, you know what I mean? And then to the crib. Sleep sheep goes on. And then I have to start prepping to talk to people who are not nearly as interesting as a five month old.

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Red Rover, Red Rover, Roll Over, Roll Over

Meesh and I have been saying for weeks now that Evvy is so close, so very close to rolling over. We have watched, with baited breath, we have waited. We were in New York and my parents were certain it would happen there. It did not. We were in Boston and Meesh's parents were positive it would happen there. No chance. Meesh, well you guys know Meesh, is an eagle eye. She has been flip cam ready every minute of every day. She sometimes fall asleep gripping that flip cam. Brushed her teeth with it once. Not really, but kind of.

We just put Evvy down in the living room where she was playing with her objects (by objects I mean we are now in RIE classes so...no more toys, just "objects.") and I turned to type on the computer and Meesh turned to get water from the kitchen and Evvy turned from her back to her side to her belly. Pardon my French, but that bitch flipped when no one was looking. She flipped when all the flip cams were resting on tables. She flipped when she wanted to, when she was not being eyeballed. How did I know she flipped if I wasn't looking? Well, I heard a scream. The scream that stiffens your neck and makes you wonder who broke in to the house. It was Meesh, God bless her she's a screamer. She walked in to see the aftermath. Then we applauded. The dogs raced to share in Evvy's spotlight. Big day for us. Big, big day.

Alec Baldwin

I was with my brood (yeah, I have a brood now. 2 dogs, Meesh and the baby) at JFK airport. Meesh was carrying Evvy and I, on the other wicked full hand, was carrying two dogs in their dog bags, three suitcases, a computer bag and my diaper bag (which is so dope! messenger bag circa my NYU days. Makes me feel mad young...mad youngerrr) and the only thing not in my hands or strapped to my shoulders was the airplane we were about to fly out on. The airplane that, we would learn in just moments, was also be passengered by Alec Baldwin. First of all, he called his daughter a Rude Little Pig which, in his family, obviously means "gorgeous, lithe-bodied girl" because that daughter (or as my black friends oft say, dorrrterrr) is beautiful. We only have a few actor obsessions in our brood and Alec Baldwin is one of them.

He stood right behind us in the security check-in line (insert queer tabloid headline here: Alec Baldwin Goes Thru Security Too!!) and his blue eyes twinkled, his mouth turned into a sneaky smile and he said to me "how is it being a mule? She gets to carry something lovely and you...well...everything else that exists. Feels good, huh?" Well, as my Mom would say "That was it...my window...he gave me a window and I wasn't not going to jump through it." And so it was, indeed, my window. I wanted to ask him for his facebook friendship but I played it cool. I said "I should have a masseuse following me." He said "on Twitter?" We laughedddd!!

He sat a few rows ahead of us on the airplane. We had a few winks. We said goodbye when the plane landed in L.A. You know, the way super close friends do. He said Twitter...ohhh that Alec Baldwin.

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Sleep Training

I write this as Evvy is in her first round of sleep training. Meesh and I sit by the monitor kind of like families did around the radio before TV existed. Or when Bette Midler bid Carson adieu. Or when Luke and Laura got married.

Meesh is cringing. She is prepping herself to go in Evvy's room. We wait five minutes (that is the first round) and then go in to the baby's room, stand far enough away from her crib that the baby can't reach for you but close enough so she can see you. Sound scientific? Supposedly it is. This shit better work.

Meesh just got up. She is going in. I hear through the monitor "Honey, mommy's here. You can do this. You can go to sleep. You can do it." In the background, the sleep sheep sings sounds of the wild, birds, rain, all peaceful sounds. I search my pockets for valium. There had best be one. Is there one? There isn't one. Oh, p.s. we haven't slept for weeks. Unfair, Meesh (mommy of the year award) really hasn't. She and her boobs get up for the feedings. The endless feedings. Really Evvy? You're hungry again? But it's 4 in the morning lady. Oh right, she is 4 months old.

She is screeching now. Sleep training is awesome. I'd rather be in Navy Seal training. Getting louder. A little bit louder now...a little bit louder now...shout, put your hands up!!!

What are you doing tonight? Oh, going to a movie? Hanging with your friends? We're sleep training bitches. Jealous?

Thursday, July 9, 2009

We're Backkkkk!!!

Almost four months old now. Baby Evvy. Or as my nephews like to say, Baby Ebby (which is far better than Baby EWY(double parenthesis here: remember some people thought my daughter's name was EWY because the double VV's can look like a W...moron alert!!))

I have not written in a while, because well, there seemed not much to write about. Baby Evvy was growing (90'th percentile in height, scoff if you will as I'm not in the 90th percentile however my Dad and all of his siblings could be on a black basketball team, well, blewish(black/jewish) and she was sleeping and she was feeding (on a breast so beautiful and big you might want to watch your step so as not to get pummeled by it) and she was just a, as my Mom might say, "delight" or "so lovely" or "not just cute, Matthew...(dot dot dot) beautiful."

Well, I don't know how to write about mediocrity and to be fair and honest, the last few months have been beautifully mediocre. NOT ANYMORE. My beautiful little daughter has, in the last few days, thrown some gray in my pelo (hair for the English readers.)

Meesh is on a friend date tonight. A girls night. Her new post-preg skinny jeans, a great top, with "well, do you like the wife-beater peaking out?" "yes, babe, it looks great." "So, Matty, there are bottles in the fridge and maybe tonight should be the first night we put her in her crib?" "Okay, great, Meesh." (thinking in my head "REALLY! TONIGHT, when you are out on the town sipping "totally great wine" and eating "great tapas"...tonight should be her crib inauguration?) I bite my lip...I'm tough...forgot though, that I was Jewish. (FOOTNOTE: IF YOU ARE JEWISH TRY NOT TO FORGET IT IN MOMENTS LIKE THIS. I CAN BARELY FIX A DOORKNOB LET ALONE PUT A BABY IN A NEW BED)

Needless to say, my beautiful daughter (so far her eyes are blue, dimple in her chin) became my worst (love her to pieces) nightmare (in a dreamy, having a tequila on the beach sort of way).

The teething screams, well, they are new. Like knives in chests or necks or eyes. In my life...(see, I'm saying parent expressions now) I never knew a sound like this. You want to all at once calm your baby and do anything for her and take a valium, shut the door and watch Housewives of New Jersey (even that noise can sound like Mozart in comparison)

I swaddled. I binkied. I bottled. I burped. I flipped her and reversed her (Missy Elliot Reference for those over 55 reading this).

And now I sit, writing this. Because now there is silence (and of course I am freaking out that the quiet means something bad...running to check, hang on...just checked, chest rising, nose expelling air!!! I'M FREEEEEEE!!! Go ahead Meesh, have your friend date, get dolled up, look beautiful. I PUT OUR CHILD TO SLEEP (after 2 hours) beat that, playa!!!!!