My Experiences as a Father... July 5 to August 4,1999 (3rd Month)

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Monday, July 26, 1999
Maeve apparently likes to have people smile at her.  If I smile at her, she smiles back.  It's great that she is happy about stuff like that, but it bores me.  Smiling doesn't amuse me as much as it amuses her.  I feel guilty about not smiling, because it makes her happy, but after about 30 seconds I've had enough.  I could probably go on for hours and still have her smiling every time.
 

Sunday, July 25, 1999
Maeve is talking a lot more now.  Unfortunately, she mumbles, just like Jill's family.  It's a New York thing or something.  I should have seen this coming, with both Jill and her mother spending a week alone with her.  I don't know how long it will take to teach her to enunciate her syllables.
 

Saturday, July 24, 1999
I'm back from Workcamp.  That was fun.  Jill and I are trying to figure out if we can both go next year, and if we should take Maeve.  I can understand Jill's concern about letting Maeve use power tools, but I think she will be trained enough by then to use them safely.

Jill did say that Maeve likes to watch TV with Jill and her mother.  Jill admitted that she tells Maeve to not watch TV, because I will get ticked if Jill turns her into to some Teletubby-watching-TV-addict.
 

Sunday, July 18, 1999
Maeve slept for 9.5 hours.  Jill said that's the first time in 10 weeks that she has gotten more sleep than I did.  It probably won't last, but it's nice to have it happen once in  a while.

I'm off to Workcamp today.  I'll be back on Saturday.  Jill says I haven't taken a week off work since we have been married.  I think it must have been at least 10 years since I've done such a thing.  This will be new for me. I much prefer working.  Janet Spellman laughed when I told her that if I were to try to vacation at the beach that I would want to have a laptop out on the sand.
 

Saturday, July 17, 1999
With my sister Shirley also being pregnant, she has called Jill on several occasions for advice on the travails of pregnancy.  Unfortunately for my sister, Jill did a pretty good job of avoiding any problems.  She never had any morning sickness.  She was going to the gym through her 2nd trimester.  People at work forgot she was pregnant because she never complained or looked as run down as other pregnant women around the office.  In fact, with her gestational diabetes diet, she actually felt better and looked healthier.  Labor was very, very smooth (compared to the dozen or so others that I have been present for).  And now Maeve is a wonderful baby who behaves pretty darn well.

So Jill is of little help to my sister.  My sister is in a Sunday school class with several other expecting couples, and she talks about Jill as though Jill is some sort of mythical science fiction character.  It sounds like the class never tires of hearing about Jill lore.  Shirley calls Maeve "The Golden Child" and said that Jill had "The Golden Child Pregnancy".
 

Friday, July 16, 1999
Matt Vigeant thought that April (our new DCE intern at church) would like to eat armadillo since she is from Texas.  Apparently April does not like armadillo, but talking about it did make me want a stuffed armadillo for Maeve.  Every pansy child has teddy bears and Raggedy Ann dolls.  I can't think of any child who had an armadillo as a favorite stuffed animal (I know the favorite part will take some working on, and even then is probably more of a finicky reaction on Maeve's part).

Jill is a little skeptical.  She thinks Maeve will hold it against me when she gets older that I didn't think she should be a cookie cutter image of every other "typical" child.  I think Maeve will learn to appreciate my efforts to develop her as an individual.  Jill also said it's ugly; it looks real instead of like a cuddly stuffed animal.  She would also like it better if it would curl into a ball, just like the real thing.
 

Monday, July 12, 1999
Maeve is talking now, but she has a very limited vocabulary.  I caught Jill today saying to Maeve, "bug a bug a bug a bug a bug a."  Jill claimed that Maeve says it.  I suggested we teach Maeve some words she doesn't know instead of mindlessly repeating the ones she does to the exclusion of all others.
 

Saturday, July 10, 1999
Well, it looks like Jill's mother was right on Monday when she said we should spray Maeve down with Lysol.  Maeve went to the doctor (she is up to 11 lbs) and was diagnosed with conjunctivitis.  An eye cream will take care of it in 5 days.
 

Thursday, July 8, 1999
I met April, our new Director of Christian Education intern, last night.  I had e-mailed her a lot, but I had never met her in person or talked to her.  I had planned to not tell her who I was, make her think that she had met me on Tuesday and that we had a conversation.  When she didn't recognize me, I was going to give her a hard time for not remembering me.  When she saw me, the first thing she did was call me Daniel.  Her mother saw me talking to her and she said, "There's little Maeve!!!"  Apparently some Texans have been looking at our web site.  So much for anonymity.
 

Tuesday, July 6, 1999
Maeve spends a lot of time staring at things.  I tried to have a staring contest with her, but she beat me every time.  She is too good.  All of that training she has been doing is really working out for her.
 

Monday, July 5, 1999
My dad and Granny Kay left today, along with Jill's father.  Jill's mother Edith was left behind to help take care of Maeve for Jill's first few weeks back to work.  Edith wants to spray Maeve with Lysol to get rid of the germs that she was supposed to have gotten in the fireworks crowd last night.
 


Contact Daniel at daniel@splatcat.com or Jill at jill@splatcat.com
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