My Experiences as a Father... October 5 to November 4, 1999 (6th month)

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Tuesday, November 2, 1999
Jill usually picks out Maeve's clothes, and I dress her in the morning.  One day Jill set out a onesie and two pairs of pants.  I asked why Maeve was getting two pairs of pants.  Apparently Jill meant to put out one pair of pants and one shirt.  Later in the evening I saw how Jill could get something you put on your legs confused with something you put on your upper body.  She was putting on a sports bra and was putting it on over her legs.  She claims it is easier to pull it over her legs than to try to get her arms and head through it.
 

Sunday, October 31, 1999
Jill asked me a few months ago what we were going to dress Maeve up as for Halloween.  I said I didn't think we should dress her up as anything, because at her age the dressing up is really for parents instead of her.  I didn't think we should dress her up as a tomato or pumpkin or some of the other infant costumes I had seen.  Then Jill made the mistake of putting out a dark blue long sleeved turtleneck onesie and dark blue pants.  She looked like a sniper in that outfit.

Like I said on October 14, we dressed Maeve up as a Secret Stealth Sniper Baby for Halloween.  She had a dark blue long sleeve top and pants, black socks, and black and green camouflage face paint.  Her rifle was just the right size for her hands.  We got pictures of her in the bushes, up in a tree, hiding behind a brick wall and lurking under furniture.  The pictures should be back in about a week and a half or so.  It was scary how realistic she looked, and how she fit the role so well.

Proving my point that the first Halloween is more for parents than kids, I think I did enjoy it more than Maeve.
 

Saturday, October 30, 1999
I took Maeve to Home Depot today.  I had left the cart outside the Tool Corral because the aisles are so narrow in there.  There was one of those lift carts in one of the aisles that the employees use to get to stock high up on the shelves.  The employee was just finishing helping another customer as I passed, and I tried to walk between the lift cart and the display.  Maeve chose that time to throw her teething beads on the floor.  By now the employee and the customer he had helped were right behind me, and another fellow was on the other side of the lift cart waiting to get through.  I had to back up to have enough room to pick up the beads.  I mentioned something about how Maeve picked a poor time to "give me a hard time."  Almost at the same time, the other three men started talking about how Maeve hadn't even started to give me a hard time, and that it would get a lot more difficult than that.
 

Sunday, October 24, 1999
Alison said we shouldn't bother getting Maeve any toys.  Her reasoning is that she and her brother never played with toys - they preferred pots, pans and Tupperware.  Karen Schlumberger pointed out that kids love to put things in Tupperware and then put the lids on the containers.  I don't think Jill would let me get away with a toybox full of pots and pans.
 

Saturday, October 23, 1999
We went to Keene, NH today for their annual Keene Pumpkin Festival.  Last year they made the Guinness Book of World Records for the most carved pumpkins - 17,693.  Pretty impressive stuff.  There were carved pumpkins all over downtown, and there were three locations with scaffoldings filled with pumpkins.  Look at the photo gallery on their website to get an idea of what it was like.

Steve Forbes, Republican Presidential candidate, also showed up.  We took a picture of him standing by Maeve in the backpack.  That was pretty neat.  I'm sure there were people around him that would frown on it, but Jill and I both thought that it would have been easy enough to take him out.  He was just out working the crowd, shaking hands, people taking pictures.  There was no heavy security presence like when I saw Al Gore going to a meeting in Baltimore.   Al was pretty safe there.  But Jill and I weren't in a mood to harm Mr. Forbes.   That was probably good for all of us.

As for Al, Jill and I agree that if he had been there, it would have been nice to get a picture with him, just because he's the Vice President.  But he's smarmy.  That isn't an anti-Democratic comment - it's an opinion of Al's personality.  He just seems kind of soft.  Still, the picture would have to be sought in a similar situation as we had with Steve Forbes.
 

Thursday, October 14, 1999
We dressed Maeve in a black turtleneck and black pants.  I said Maeve looked like some sort of stealth covert military sniper or something.  I put Maeve down on the bed, and she blended in so well that I had to ask Jill to where the baby had disappeared.  I was thinking that if we could figure out some way to put black face paint on, and if we got black socks or shoes, she could be a sniper for Halloween.
 

Tuesday, October 12, 1999
Maeve has been trying to eat a lot of paper lately.  I handed her an envelope and told her not to eat it because we had to mail it.  She immediately tried to eat it.  I was telling Jill about it later, and Jill said what I did was like offering cocaine to a cocaine addict and telling them to not snort it.  I took issue with Jill likening my daughter to a cocaine addict, and she supported her comparison.  She said, "I've seen her trying to get things into her mouth.  Her hands are shaking.  She's thinking, 'Oh, oh, oh, I have to get this into my mouth.'"
 

Sunday, October 10, 1999
I worked my paramedic job yesterday.  Ed Fowler said his daughters didn't crawl either - they went from tumbling to walking.

He affirmed my idea of feeding Maeve with a catheter tip syringe.  It works pretty well for people on the other end of the age spectrum.  The idea of squirting Maeve's dinner into her mouth appeals to me.  I'm sure it wouldn't be that easy, but it would be fun trying.  I can't be worse than spooning food all over her cheeks, chin and bib.  Jill's objection is that eating from a syringe is not a "developmental step".
 

Saturday, October 9, 1999
Maeve ate solids for the first time today.  Jill said Maeve figured out how to use the spoon very quickly.  I pointed out that Maeve has been sitting in the middle of the dinner table in her bouncy seat for over 5 months.  I think that gave her an head start.  She was probably thinking, "It's about time."
 


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