By your request, little one, Gramps and I took you on your first amusement park ride during our recent visit to Southwick’s Zoo.
I honestly couldn’t believe that you wanted to ride these cars, but not only were you brave enough to give them a try, but you had fun doing so.
Could a roller coaster be next?
After two months of begging and pleading to “help feed Charlie,” I finally allowed you to give him a bottle, little one.
The first photograph was taken three seconds into the feeding.
The second photograph was taken eight seconds into the feeding. Though you are still technically holding the bottle, you have now turned your head in the direction of the cat.
At the eleven second mark, you shouted, “He’s done!” and dropped the bottle and scooted off.
It took you just eleven seconds to learn the truth behind feeding a baby:
It’s boring.
Your first bottle, little one!
It went okay. You didn’t exactly love it, but you drank it.
Mary Kay gave you your first cartwheel training, little one. You didn’t nail it on the first try, but you’re getting there.
Best of all, you were persistent.
You had your first ambulance ride last week, little one. Here’s what happened:
__________________________________________________________________
My daughter took her first ride to the hospital in an ambulance today after having an allergic reaction to what we assume was peanuts.
We determined that Clara is allergic to peanuts more than a year ago, but as far as we can tell, she did not come into any contact with peanuts today. But when my wife picked her up at preschool this afternoon, her arm was covered in hives. After confirming with her teachers that she hadn’t eaten any peanut products, Elysha assumed that the hives had been caused by poison ivy and proceeded to drive home, only to discover en route that her condition was worsening rapidly.
This is where my wife gets impressive.
Driving by a construction site, Elysha pulled the car off the road and alerted a police officer on traffic duty that she had an emergency. The cop told her that he would call for an ambulance, but as he said this, Elysha spotted an ambulance driving by and flagged it down. Clara was receiving treatment moments later.
Being allergic to bees and having suffered an anaphylaxis more than once (the first time leading to momentary death), I know how terrifying these situations can be. I can’t tell you how remarkably well Elysha handed it, especially considering she had our four-week old son with her at the same time.
When I received a call from the police officer informing me that my wife and children were on the way to the hospital, I had just stepped out of the shower. After hanging up the phone, I had to dry off, get dressed and drive two miles more than the ambulance did in order to get to the hospital, yet somehow I arrived nearly twenty minutes ahead of them.
Granted I ignored every stop sign, red light and posted speed limit along the way, nearly killing myself at least twice, but still, I’d like to think the ambulance would’ve reached the emergency room before me. After all, the guy driving the ambulance started his trip with clothes on. I did not.
I also find it slightly disconcerting to see that Clara is taking after her father. I have traveled by ambulance to the hospital at least a dozen times in my life, including twice before the age of three, once after splitting my head open in my bedroom and another time after swallowing a bottle of paregoric. Clara has now her first ambulance ride at the age of three, which is relatively early to experience such a thing, and I am hoping it is her last for a long, long time.
To her credit, Clara handled the evening well. Though she was initially inconsolable in the ambulance and difficult to treat, she was calm by the time they arrived to the emergency room, and thanks to an injection of Benadryl, her hives were almost entirely gone. We spend almost three hours at the hospital before being released, and other than complaining about being hungry (which I did as well), she couldn’t have been braver or better behaved.
She even made good use of her time while we waited for the doctors to determine what should be done next.
I was lying next to you, little Charlie, staring into your eyes as I am wont to do, when you lashed out like an angry cobra and latched onto my nose like it was a nipple.
At first I thought it was amusing and asked Mommy to take a picture, but it quickly became quite a slobbery mess and a little scary.
The amount of suction that you were able to generate was astounding.
When I finally managed to detach you from my nose, Mommy looked at me and gasped.
You had given me a hickey on my nose, little Charlie, my first hickey in a very, very long time. Though it’s visible in this photograph, the picture really doesn’t due it justice. It was large, red and lasted two days.
Clara had a habit of biting my nose when she was an infant, but never did she latch onto my face like a vacuum cleaner.
I suspect that I will be keeping my nose far away from you for quite a while.
We’ve officially found something that you do not like, little Charlie.
Bathing.
We gave you your first bath today, and you screamed for most of it. Thus far it’s the only thing that you have thoroughly rejected.
Unfortunately, your mother likes to bath her children hourly, so this is going to be a challenge for you.
This morning you asked about my mother, little one. It was the first time you did so.
I took out some old photographs and we looked through them together. You never actually asked where she was.
Do you know? DO you even know what death means?
You loved the photographs, and you were very sad when it was time to leave.
It was an unforgettable morning for me, little one, but an incredibly difficult one as well.
Your first black eye, little one, courtesy of her nightstand, which happened to be piled high with books at the time, of course.
Your Daddy had many black eyes growing up, courtesy of any number of hard objects coming in contact with his orbital socket, including bicycle handlebars, doors, canoe paddles, baseballs, inadvertent elbows, a fiberglass vaulting pole, a headboard, and the clenched fists of friends and enemies alike.
This black eye, my first, is a mystery.
My mother told me that I emerged from my bedroom one day, crying my eyes out with blood pouring from my forehead and my eye already turning an ugly shade of yellow. The stiches used to close to the wound in my forehead left a cross-shaped scar that was replaced fifteen ears later with a decidedly less distinctive mark by the windshield of a Datsun B-210.