in motion

hung by the chimney with care

"Mummy, those are my stockings. I hung them up."

water fall

All I can say is, yes, i know it looks like, but really it's just a way of entertaining the kids during their bath by pouring the water out a cup from a great height.

our own little godzilla

Yes, awesome new game for Charlie. Let's throw toys around! In the kitchen! He loves chucking them around while his mum and dad try to avoid the obstacle course he's created.

guess what we're doing AGAIN?

This time we are at the Botanical Gardens and have some uninvited, but still welcome, guests.

the blues siblings hit the road

boat parade

We weren't supposed to be watching the Christmas Boat Parade from the crumbling wall by the side of Harbour Road. We were supposed to be watching it from Sami and Mere's house with a cocktail in our hand surrounded by friends. We tried to get there. For about an hour we tried turning down every road we knew to escape the clog of traffic on each of the main roads. Each time, we met police who redirected us in the complete opposite direction and wouldn't let us retrace our steps back to a main road. So we pulled over on Harbour Road and watched. And for a moment, all was good. Just the reverberation of Christmas songs banging out across the water and bouncing off all the buildings with the lapping of the waves and the festive lights of boats whose owners have way too much time on their hands.

Mr. Mom

So the karma wheel spun around again and this time Mama was shuttled off to the grandeur of Baltimore for work while Papa got to stay at home with the kids. I admit to being a little apprehensive. Not about feeding, bathing, getting them to school with clothes on the right parts of them, but about the ravenous boob feeder who normally wakes up in the middle of the night hungry for mama milk that Papa cannot provide. Fortunately, we had a watershed moment. He cried, as usual, at about 2am and I let him cry for about 25 minutes and then went in to visit. I held him and something strange happened: He calmed down. Normally, I am seen solely as the transport mechanism to the boobs or the car and whenever I would try to calm him down in my arms, he would just kick and scream "Driver! To the boobs!" but this time was different. This time he chilled out. This time, his Daddy was something good beyond his transportation services. He calmed down and I lay him down in his crib and thought this is the first time he's ever seen me as someone comforting and it changed our relationship. He then slept through the night for most of the rest of the time. Good work, Charlie!

father christmas

This was one of those nice evenings where you do something you wouldn't ordinarily do and you're pretty glad you did. Anna Laura emailed us to let us know about a St. David's Society event taking place at this historic building we'd always talked about visiting (it's one of the oldest houses in Bermuda dating back to the 1600's). The main draw was Father Christmas (not to be confused with Santa, Father Christmas is apparently the olde time Santa with different garb and perhaps fewer elves). So Schuyler, Charlie, and I went as Mama was in bed sick. Unfortunately, the place was peopled with men in trilby hats which Schuyler mistook for pirates which unfortunately meant that we weren't able to go inside and take a look around since the pirates might get her. Of course, a strange man showing up in a red suit and handing her a gift was perfectly acceptable and caused no fear whatsoever.

holiday concert & lunch

So we're those people. We're the people who ask our boss's for time off work so we can go watch our daughter's holiday concert. We're those people who show up to the concert. We're the people whose trigger happy cameras make the paparazzi look restrained. We're the people who listen to the discordant cacophony of "Five Little Firecrackers" and manage to find it quite enjoyable. We're the people who sit around knee high tables while our kid refuses to eat the Mac-n-Cheese on offer. We're the people who are proud of our little girl's verve and enthusiasm. We're the parents.