The aftermath of all those holiday firsts ("Baby's First Thanksgiving!" "Baby's First Christmas!" "Baby's First New Year's Eve!!") is a little like the day after your wedding. There's a bunch of planning and a bunch of anticipation. Not to mention all the family gathering madness. When you have a new baby, you're like a celebrity at these things. In our case, we were seeing a bunch of people we hadn't seen since before Fiona was born. And boy, were they psyched to meet her.
But then it was all over. Fiona will never again have a First Christmas or First Turkey Day. It was a little bit sad. But with the end of the holiday season and 2007 came the start of 2008 and a whole bunch of new possibilities.
In mid-January, we took our first road trip with the young one when we headed up to North Conway, NH for a weekend with some good friends and all the associated kids. It was chaos - all those adults and children (and adult children). The kind of chaos I never expected to tolerate and even enjoy. Fiona handled it all pretty well, even though we went through every single one of the more than enough (or so I thought) outfits we had packed. The child has a gift or... something. M was banished to the couch on the second night due to excessive snoring and the fact that Fiona refused to sleep in the pack 'n play provided for that very purpose and instead had to sleep with me in the big bed.
The weekend after that, Fiona hit the five-month mark with relatively little fanfare. It wasn't until the end of the month when she reached a small development milestone and started babbling like a maniac. For those of you with kids, you know what I'm talking about. This stuff is pure comedy. I admit, my babytalk is rusty, but I understand her perfectly well. Usually, she is just talking a blue streak and swearing like a truck driver.
February has been a pretty big month for us, but I'll get into that more in depth later. To whet your whistle, here's a preview: air travel, meeting the other grandfather, turning 1/2 year old, and ... TEETH! Stay tuned, kids!
