Merry Christmas . . . and a Happy New Year

(New Pictures of Ian - click the link to the right) -->
Christmas
I never thought I would really like Christmas. If you know me well, you know it's not necessarily my favorite holiday. But all of that changed this year. Now, thanks to all of you Christmas celebrating types, I get to stay home from work and hang out with Ian and Betsy. What a great four days. To help get into the spirit, I even offered to make dinner on Christmas Eve for our family members who had nothing else to do. We did without the traditional Chinese food dinner and I cooked up a storm all day. We even pulled out our wedding China -- and I thought we would never use it.

We had a great Christmas, I really enjoyed spending four straight days at home with Ian and Betsy, and I didn't even work that much! Ian is a ton of fun these days. He is smiling a laughing a lot. He is interacting with people. He is holding things, kicking at things, and even standing up (with our help, of course). If you haven't seen Ian in a while (or ever), you should really try to come visit, because he is super-cool and your trip will be worth it.

New Year's Eve
Right now I am sitting in a hotel room in Marco Island, Florida. Actually, I am in my parents' room which is connected to my room. Betsy and Ian are sleeping in our room, so I decided to take a few minutes to get online and do some work. Blogging is more interesting than work, so right now, it's winning. I should have a little more time for this now, so hopefully the updates will come more frequently. The extra is mostly because fantasy football season is over. Usually on Sunday morning I would need to be checking websites and watching pregame trying to figure out who to start. There would be 2 or 3 calls to important fantasy football type people. Now, it's over and I can just relax and enjoy my Sunday football. By the way, not that you care, Travis and I got second in our league, which was a pretty serious feat considering we came back from the bottom half of the pack at mid-season. Go us!

Ok, back to Ian. Ian is doing great. He traveled like a champ on the plane. He slept the whole way and ate on the way down with only one little cry the entire time. We drove an hour plus from the airport to the hotel without a complaint. And, he is sleeping nicely in the crib that the hotel provided. Their crib is pretty nice. It is this very cool stainless steel thing that looks more like a prison than a crib. And it is smaller than a regular crib, so it fits really nicely in the room. Had this been an option for his nursery, it might have beaten out our current crib. I wonder where they get these things? Medical supply companies? Do the hotel chains have them made specifically for their hotels? Who knows.

Oh, I almost forgot, Ian went to the ocean for the first time yesterday. He stood (parent assisted, of course) with his feet at the edge of the water just watching the waves come in and out. His feet slowly sank into the wet sand. We are all very familiar with that feeling, but it must have been very strange for him. He didn't complain, but he also didn't really smile or get excited. He just sort of hung out and watched. I am going to assume he liked it. Today we are going to take him into the pool for the first time. There are two pools here and the one we were at yesterday was too cold, but we figured out the other one is to be heated. Ian has these absurd swim diapers that are WAY too big for him, but they are required for the pool. Little does the hotel know that his regular diapers would be more protective.

If I don't get back to the blog before then, have a happy new year! Betsy, Ian, and I will be long-asleep before midnight (I couldn't even wait up to see the end of the Pats Giants game last night . . . I am old), so celebrate for us!

Oh, I almost forgot, new Ian pictures in the three month link to the right.

Long Time

It's been a very long time. Sorry about that. I hope I didn't let down all of my faithful readers -- I think that includes Betsy and . . . well, Betsy.

The reason I haven't written is really that I just haven't had a lot of time. We got back from Thanksgiving in Cleveland and we had a rough few days with Ian. He had a tough time getting back to his regular sleeping patterns. Sleep and 3 month olds is a real mystery to us. Betsy has read about 12 baby sleep books. One book says put the baby in the crib when he is awake. Another book says put him in the crib only when he is asleep. One book says let the baby cry it out. The next book says never let the baby cry. The next book says let the baby cry but only for 5 minutes. What the hell? Who writes these things? Can I write a book about how to get babies to sleep? I wonder what the advance is on a self-help baby book.

Ian is sleeping much better now, thanks for asking. We seem to have a pattern down. Except for last night. Last night Ian's grandparents babysat for the first time. Betsy and I went to watch the Texans beat the crap out of the Denver Broncos (I love when the Broncos lose almost as much as I love when the Texans win). Ian decided it was much too fun playing with his grandmother and grandfather and he didn't need to sleep. That was great until about 11:00 when he was ridiculously overtired. Once he did fall asleep he did pretty well though.

Last weekend Ian took his first roadtrip. Austin! We all had a blast. Ian got to meet his new buddy Ari and he met a lot of our good friends in Austin. Ian did great the whole time we were there. We had some pretty funny moments though including breast feeding and diaper changes in a parked car on a random side street. Those are stories for another day though.

Oh, I almost forgot. Happy Hanukkah everybody. Ian had a great first Hanukkah. Of course, he has no idea that he is getting gifts and he doesn't exactly play with a dradel, but Ian's favorite things in life are lights and fans, so you can imagine he was a huge fan of candles. He was absolutely mesmerized.

Ok, three month pictures are coming soon. I will try to write more frequently. I won't promise, but I will try.