And this is how it ends...

I can't remember if I have mentioned it here (I am sure I have---I seem to mention everything here), but our friend Allie set up this meal thing for us where people would sign up to bring us a meal on a Monday and Thursday during the first two months. Well, Emmett is days away from two months and the picture at left is the way it all came to an end: eye-catching and very tasty. Adra and Jason brought us a very attractive, crusty topped mac and cheese dish (along with salad and homemade cookies), which Andrea had already served up before I got the picture snapped. I really wish I would have taken more pictures of other dishes and put together a little collage here, but alas I don't think of these kinds of things until I have eaten the evidence. It was really nice and very helpful to be given meals during the last two months---we probably have eaten better since Emmett has been born than we had for some time previous. Thanks to all that dropped food by and to Allie for putting it all together. It really was a big help. The whole thing got me thinking that we should get a group of friends together and deliver meals to each other every once in a while just because the experience is nice. Maybe this can be our next club to form.

I feel like I haven't seen too much of Emmett in the last few days. I have been working long days as I try to get a paper ready for a conference in Tahoe next week (the whole fam is heading up). I am an amazingly inefficient writer, especially when it comes to those science paper things (I actually hand wrote the great majority of my dissertation and then transcribed it to the computer as I found that it was so much effort to go back and change handwritten sentences that I would actually make progress---the latest trick has been a few glasses of wine which get my science inhibitions turned down a little). Anyway, the result of my slow paper writing is that I keep arriving home after Emmett has gone to bed, and as he is sleeping the longer hours now it feels like I get zero interaction. Actually, last night he woke up at around 9 pretty cranky and I was secretly glad that he couldn't sleep as I got to hold him and try to settle him. The whole settling thing took about an hour and I tried every trick in the book, including one from Dr. Sears' big Baby book: the ol' "strip baby naked except diaper and put him on pop's bare chest" trick. Yep, didn't work at all. Not only that, I had to spend 10 minutes rewrapping both Emmett and myself with him screaming and flailing the whole time. Andrea came in mid-redressing and I believe all I said to her was "don't ask." I have to say, though, that it was pretty neat to feel how soft his skin is right next to mine. I change his diapers and clothes a lot, but the feel of baby skin on tough hands (well, relatively tough) is very different.

Speaking of happy kids---in getting pictures off of the camera I noticed that there was one of Tyler that I took during his visit last weekend. I had put him on our rolling chair, was running him up and down the hall and took a break to snap a photo. As you can see, he really loved it. Proof that Uncle Damon equals F-U-N!