Happy Memorial Day

We went to Philly for the weekend and Charlie had a great time at Aunt Caryn and Uncle Forrest's house.  My sister Caryn's house is known as "the House of Toys" and Charlie had a blast.  Here's Charlie in the jumper.  You can almost see the moment where he realizes that he can move his body by pushing his feet down. That's Abuela providing the play-by-play, and loving every minute of it.

 Charlie ended the night by reenacting Saturday Night Fever. 

 

Charlie had a great time with his cousins.  I didn't take enough pictures of him with his cousins, which is strange because a significant part of life is now dedicated to taking pictures of Charlie to put up on my blog.  At least I got one decent picture of Charlie with cousin Lilah.  Lilah was very sweet with Charlie, though she still can't tell the difference between me and Andrew and she calls me daddy.  I have no objection.  

Here's Charlie with Mommom, Poppop and his cousin Serena, who's just a few months older than Charlie. We like making them look at each other to see if they'll challenge each other to baby dominance.  So far, all they seem to do is stare at each other and drool. 

The kids looked better in this picture, but Mommom had her eyes closed in this one so we didn't use it.  Hopefully Charlie and Serena have avoided this genetic impairment.  Mommom and Poppop just got back from a trip to Spain, where Mom finally realized what the big deal about Spanish wine is.  I'd like to say that this explains the Mommom eyes, but it doesn't.

Charlie had watermelon and absolutely loved it. He kept sucking on this one piece of watermelon so hard that he started choking on the amount of liquid he was taking it.  It's funny when your kid starts choking.

In other news:

• Charlie loves Uncle Andrew, which makes sense since we're identical twins. And Andrew's got two kids so he's knows what he's doing. It's like Daddy with more experience. 
• Nilda's already thinking about Charlie's first birthday party.  The woman can't think about dinner before 4:00 pm, but she's planning the one year birthday party and the kid is not even six months old.
• Charlie has realized that if he keeps screaming when we put him down to go to sleep, someone will come for him.  Even worse, he has cunningly developed this deep, guttural scream that instantly causes his parents to come to his room.  A week ago, I said I would never let Charlie cry it out.  Let's just say that, like the President, my views on the issue are evolving.
• Nilda and I went into his room after one meltdown and sat him up.  We were trying to keep stern faces so he knew we were serious and he had to go to bed, but he was doing the crying hiccup thing and it was really cute.  This was the first time that we had to act in front of Charlie and not let him know how we really feel. 
• Nilda has special powers to tell when Charlie pooped when no one else can.  We call them Poopy Powers, or PPP (the extra "P" stands for "Poop").
• I always knew that having a kid would bring me a lot of joy. Nilda seems completely surprised by this.
• We've jumped on the bandwagon and watched one episode of Downton Abbey and loved it.  It's got everything Nilda likes: (i) costumes, (ii) servants, (iii) ornate sets with pieces of furniture she can point out using her nerd knowledge of furniture, (iv) strict gender roles, (v) fancy words with fancy British accents and (vi) gossip.  Before the opening credits were over, Nilda said, "I'm going to like this show."
• Charlie is ready for football.  

 

• Charlie was a big hit at the office.

•  Remember, Charlie, you don't have to become a lawyer.

Rolling Over

Charlie rolled over for the first time today and there is much excitement in the house!  We've been on the lookout for when he'd roll over, and now that it's here, Nilda can't contain herself.  Here is a video that Nilda took.  It's only 10 seconds long and the audio is low, but Nilda's high pitched excitement, and Charlie's inability to understand what all the fuss is about, tells you all you need to know.  Charlie's expectation of reward for minimal work begins now!

Now we can look forward to hearing him wake up throughout the night to practice his new skill, only to be stuck on his back like a turtle and waiting for someone to (a) squeal and scream because he rolled over like a puppy and (b) put him back on his stomach so he can get back to sleep.  Charlie's five months old now and sick of pictures.

Unless, of course, he's in the mood to pose.  Just like his mommy!

The case that was supposed to go to trial settled just days before, so now I don't have to be an absentee father for the next two weeks!  That's good because Charlie is in the stage where he's super excited to see me when I come home at night, which lasts about 20 minutes until he realizes he's tired.  I swear, this kid sleeps more than any human being should sleep.

We had a great weekend even though I was out of the house by 8:00 am on Sunday morning  Man, my life has changed.  We went to the Native American festival in Inwood Hill Park.  Apparently, Native Americans have been living in Inwood since prehistoric times and Inwood was where the Europeans bought Manhattan for $25.  This meant you could finally get that wolf sweatshirt that you always wanted.  They also had traditional Native American foods like tamales, empanadas, samosas, saag paneer and Sprite. They also had corn.  Corn is Native American, right?

Charlie also got to try out his new flexible bath tub.  He was very suspicious, grabbing onto the sides of the tub like he didn't trust us for putting him in this new contraption. 

I thought about writing a self-reflective post about how I know the blog has become just a series of pictures about Charlie, which is more of a web-based journal for me than a blog for anyone else to read.  Instead, I decided to post pictures of the amazing steak that I made this weekend.  We found a Italian butcher near us that cuts aged steak to order and we got a gigantic rib eye that was amazing.  It was a little more medium than I would have wanted, but I burned the shit out of it on the outside so that more than made up for it. 

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day, Nilda.  You are the best mother in the entire world, with the exception of my mother, who is gorgeous, amazing, wonderful and who I love with all my heart, much more than Andrew.  (Lesson for Charlie = Always suck up to your mother.  That's where the bread is buttered.) 

This was Nilda's first Mother's Day, and it was a great one.  We saw Abuela, face timed with Mommom in Spain and had a great time, in spite of the fact that Charlie had a cold that kept him awake most of the weekend, which Nilda then caught, and then gave to me, and I had to work most of the weekend on an upcoming trial.  But Charlie FINALLY got his toe in his mouth so it's all good.

I also climbed up and went waaay in the back of the top top of Abuela's closet and took out Nilda's baby pictures and made the startling discovery that CHARLIE LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE NILDA DID AS A BABY.  It's incredible.  Put Nilda's baby face on my baby head and you get Charlie.  Guess which one of these is Charlie?

Okay, maybe that wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be.

P.S. - Here's Charlie modeling the fabulous, incredible quilt that Mrs. Rancier made for Charlie.  It deserves, and will receive it's own blog post. This portrait is titled, "I'm Sexy and I Know It."

Oh No, She's Moving Shit Around Again

Come on, Brian, it's been almost five months since he was born.  Of COURSE we need to move the furniture. 

Charlie is getting bigger every day and is doing great:

People used to say that Charlie looked like me, but now everyone says he looks like Nilda.  I don't think he looks like either of us. But he definitely looks like Andrew and I as babies.  Check us out.  And there's TWO of us!   

It was our five year anniversary on May 5.  Happy anniversary, Nilda!  Oh right, you don't like it when I call you "Nilda," so happy anniversary, sweetheart!  We had a very romantic adult night, with a very fancy and amazing dinner at L'Atelier and a very sophisticated showing of The Avengers in 3D.  I love you, Nilda.  Check out this hot mama!

On Sunday, we went to Kate and Houdin's and Charlie went to the beach for the first time.  He slept through the whole thing.  Kate asked me if I was still doing the blog.  For shame, Kate.  For shame. 

Charlie has started sleeping through the night.   We started diluting the formula during the night feeding, and Charlie was not pleased with the product.  We think he decided to protest the poor quality of the night feeding by not even waking up for it.  We'll take it.

P.S. - Charlie's upset that the Flyers are out of the playoffs, but, really, they spent the entire series going downhill.