No Better Place

In honor of how we'll be spending the weekend, I thought I'd post lyrics from one of my favorite "New York" songs. This song is off the album Welcome Interstate Managers by Fountains of Wayne, who are best known for the tune Stacy's Mom. The album actually has a lot of great stuff, so if you are a fan of catchy rock-pop I'd suggest you check it out.

And just like the song says, now we're leaving New York, for no better place (a.k.a. Jersey City). I mean, sure, I'm still working in midtown, but we're moving to a different state! That's dramatic.

"No Better Place"

Is that supposed to be your poker face
Or was someone run over by a train
And you were minding your own business
But you're begging for forgiveness just the same

And it's running back and forth inside your mind
Just how that town defined you
Dressed you up, painted your face

And now you're leaving New York
For no better place

My name is what?

Here's Beckett wearing his name shirt in-utero and ex-utero.

As you can see from his smile he's pretty excited about being big enough to finally wear it.

Immunization Day

Monday Beckett had his two month appointment. That means one thing, er five things, immunizations. But before the shots (and one drink) we got to do the fun part, the weighing and measuring. As you can see by the pictures below, the days of his scrawny little chicken legs are long gone. They had quite a handful in which to put his shots. He now weights 14 pounds 1 ounce and is 23 inches long. He's pretty much off the chart in weight and around 65% percentile or so in height. (That is if I'm reading the height chart correctly.) The doctor was very excited at his chubby thighs. She says to keep feeding him so I guess I shouldn't worry that he can no longer wear most of his 0-3 month clothes.





The sacrifical baby awaits his stabbing.

Poor Beckett had to get two shots in each leg. Here is a close up of those chunky, wounded thighs.

He screamed during the actual shots but calmed down pretty well afterward. He was fussy and a little ornery the rest of the day, but he spent most of the time sleeping so it worked out okay. Today he was back to his talkative, cheerful self.

Father's Day

Saturday night Chris' mom took us all out to a pretty good Mexican restaurant to celebrate Father's Day. Chris tirelessly researches Mexican restaurants in the hopes that he can find the Manhattan version of Beto's.

(This is Chris' plea: Please share with us your favorite Mexican restaurants in New York or anywhere else in the comments section. I thank you in advance)

This wasn't quite as good, but it's definitely one of, if not the, best we've been to in New York. Beckett was a little peeved he did not get to try the coconut flan, but he did pretty good other than that brief whining. Here they are in front of Lupe's with my poor camera work.







By the way do you love our glowing, space age stroller? Everyone in Manhattan has one.
;-)












Beckett got his Dad a nice card and accessories for daddy's new toy for Father's Day. Ironically, Daddy hadn't received his new present yet, but daddy's present from mommy was on its way (and yes, it is pink). We don't actually have any pictures of Chris with his presents because it's much cuter to see Beckett. So here's Beckett handing his Dad a card, and he wrote it all by himself (okay he had a little help.)









Please ignore my lovely smashed up double chin.





Finally Chris had to honor himself for being an awesome Dad so he got Beckett a little token to help proclaim to the world his parenting prowess.

Rollin' With The Homies!

He may sound a little cranky here, but I like to think of it as the manly screams of exertion, like the roar of Strongest Men named Magnus. Next up, lifting a car over his head.

Can Beckett roll over???

Yesterday Beckett and I went to a sleep panel organized by other moms in our ward. We learned about how babies sleep and when I can expect the joy of Beckett sleeping more than 3 hours at once. There were lots of other babies there so Beckett had friends to play with.

These four little guys were born within a month of each other. Beckett is the 3rd oldest. From Beckett clockwise it goes Matthew (oldest), Sheldon (next oldest), Stu (youngest).

Beckett hates tummy time so I decided to try it face to face with another baby to see if that would keep him distracted long enough to get some exercise in.

Here he's hanging out with his friend Sheldon, his first play date at the hospital. Sheldon is about three weeks older.











I guess Sheldon's ability to roll over peaked Beckett's interest and competitive side. Not to be left out or considered a "baby" by his older friends Beckett chose to roll over for the first time ever. Then he proceeded to do it 2 more times! I thought it was a fluke but since he did it three times in one day I figured he knew what he was doing. Unfortunately he would not perform his trick for Daddy or his visiting grandma when we got home. So the big question is, was it a fluke or has he really mastered rolling over? He wasn't even 7 weeks old (although he was only 1 day shy) and according to the following chart that's pretty early.

When did your baby roll over?

Q: How old was your baby when he rolled over front to back?

Younger than two months
15%

Two months
15%

Three months
29%

Four months
23%

Five months
9%

Older than five months
9%

The Newest Abbott

My friend Michelle just had her fourth baby today! Here she is just a day ago.

And here she is with Sara and Sheryl.











I hear he's probably going to be named Gabriel (not sure of the spelling).

He was 6 lb 7 oz and 19 inches long.

So many babies! We're all praying that he's fine. He was a little early and things look good now, but we'll keep him in our thoughts until we're sure he's in the clear.

Take your Beckett to work day

After hibernating for weeks and enjoying time away from the office people were clamoring to see more of Beckett. I arranged to go out to lunch with some friends and then spend time parading Beckett around the office and generally causing a great stir and all work to cease as people flocked from their cubicles to admire him. If only I had the ability to stop time with my cuteness.

Here's Beckett socializing at my work:

This is Rhonda she does my same job just on the corporate side.

This is Dominic and Jennifer. Beckett was just so cute Dominic had to take pictures of him.

Here's Lavette saying goodbye as we leave to go to Daddy's office. (We left in disgrace as Beckett was wearing jeans which were not appropriate work attire as one partner pointed out.)

After socializing at my office it was time to get down to business and be productive at Daddy's office.

Document production
is boring.

All in all it was a successful day. Beckett received several job offers despite his inadvisable choice of clothing. Now he just has to decide if he wants to be a CPA or an attorney.

Heads or Tails?

I was checking out the blog this morning and noticed that we have 14 blogs over there on the left of our homies. Not one of our links starts with a letter in the second half of the alphabet. What are the odds on that? That's literally like having a coin land on heads 14 times in a row.

No cute pictures, but I think Dawnell's working on something for you. While you are at it, check out our old friends with the new blog, Dave and Candace! They are doing a Flip That House style makeover, but they are actually moving in to their flip. Good luck guys!

Risky Beckett

Beckett is not a Tom Cruise fan and so was a little miffed to be impersonating him.

Why you should always do up the safety straps...

I left Beckett sleeping peacefully in his bouncy chair and he stayed that way for a long time. Eventually I made myself some lunch. That's when he chose to wake up. I walked back into the living room to find he'd wiggled his way horizontal in the bouncy chair and hooked his leg over the edge. He's too little to roll himself out (I hope), but he did get a lot of movement going. Like a good mom I laughingly reached for the camera instead of picking up my angry baby. It's a good lesson in why you should always hook the safety straps, even when you think they're too tiny to fall out. He was fine.

Kicking and Smiling

Not only does he smile, he also kicks a horse on demand. Well played.

Church Chillin' Beckett

This Sunday Beckett's girlfriend Haylie was getting blessed. Her parents, our friends Jenny and Tom are the ones who introduced us to the joys of Jersey City. So we went to the blessing and to get a preview of our new ward. Since it was such a momentous occasion we had to dress Beckett up in his snazziest clothes. Check out how stylin' he is.

Like his parents Beckett was ready to get out of his church clothes and eat.

The Bjorn Supremacy

As the weather gets hotter and more horribly humid here in New York Beckett has taken to rebelling against his sling. He doesn't like being down in all the fabric and his little head sweats a ton. So I decided to give in and try and find a Baby Bjorn for him. I looked on eBay, but wasn't too thrilled with how high the prices always seemed to go. So I finally ventured into the world of Craig's List. I should have just started there. I found a promising post where they were selling it for only $30 and the seller said they forgot theirs on vacation and so bought a new one and only used it a few times on said vacation. Now I wouldn't drop another $80-$100 on a Bjorn, but they did live on the Upper West Side so it seemed like a reasonable assertion. I contacted the guy and when he told me that his nanny would give it to me I knew I had scored. I went and picked it up and it really was practically brand new. It wasn't faded or gross or anything. Thank goodness for rich people.

A Sixth Sense

If you are a basketball fan (I guess this one goes out to all the husbands out there) then hopefully you watched the transcendent performance of LeBron James last night against the Detroit Pistons. LeBron scored 29 of his team's last 30 points, including the last 25. It was an incredible spectacle, with spectacular drives to the basket mixed in with questionable 22 foot fade-away jump shots that improbably went in time after time.

The Sports Guy's article on ESPN dot com about the game ended up using a couple of analogies to video games to describe just how dominant LeBron was last night, as though comparing LeBron to actual players would have cheapened the experience. The comparisons are apt, as the easiest (if not best) strategy in basketball video games is to give the ball to your main guy and just go to the hoop. I almost feel like doing that cheapens the integrity of the video game, so I'll frequently be looking for ways to get all of my teammates involved when playing video game basketball. Clearly I was raised in a town where John Stockton was idolized and not, say, Stephon Marbury. But last night proved that LeBron is a video game, and the Cavaliers actually do use the strategy of playing one on five, and it actually works. (Rant: thanks to the ridiculously bad defense of the Pistons. The Cavs had at least one guy on the court at all times who was a ridiculously bad offensive basketball player, either Eric Snow or Andy Varejao. I have no idea why Detroit didn't run a box and one at LeBron, or just run a freaking double team at him to make him pass. I mean, he literally scored the last 25 points! At some point don't you consider giving Eric Snow the chance to beat you? I would have rather given Eric Snow a wide-open two foot layup last night than let LBJ jack up a 30 foot fade-away three point shot. I'm not exaggerating. And yet there went LeBron, right down the middle of the lane...)

I've had some kind of stomach flu or something since Memorial Day which has me down, so I ended up going to sleep last night around 7:30 after getting home. I was feeling so under the weather I wasn't even up to watching re-runs of the three best comedies on TV (and for us 30 Rock isn't a re-run, since we've just now gotten into it).

So, when did I wake up? With 6 minutes left in the fourth quarter, right before the LeBron experience began. Now that's what you call a Basketball Sixth Sense. I may not see dead people, but I know when it's time to watch greatness.