Sittin' Up and Eatin' Up

I'll write a genuine posting soon, but for now I wanted to give you the links to a couple videos of Greta on youtube.com. The first is of her sitting up by herself for the first time. The second is a called, "Prelude to Solid Food" and the third is Greta's first experience with solid foods. Check them out here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewKi2NwJAiU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdab5dTuHJk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8qWx0qJpsA

Wedding Crasher

When I was in college I was a DJ at the campus radio station. Because we were in a particularly small town, one of the first rules I learned at KWLC (http://kwlc.luther.edu/) was don't talk about how small the listening audience is, or don't say things like, "Is anybody out there listening?" Well, I'm not going to ask, but I must confess that I'm thinking those thoughts about this blog. From what I understand this blog used to be rather popular, but now its readership is down a bit (a ton). I must be like the Kevin Costner of blogging. My blog career is in the toilet - and I have no one to blame but myself.

So, for those of you who are still reading, welcome to the exclusive club I like to call "The Choir," because that's who I'm preaching to.

Enough pity party, let's get on with the good stuff.

I've said it a dozen or more times by now, but don't move in to a new home three days before your sister's wedding, particularly with a five-month-old. But that's what we did.

Carrie and Peter's wedding was a splendid affair. Since children were not invited, Greta wasn't invited either, but that didn't stop her from being a wedding crasher! Yeah! Greta made her wedding debut on Saturday afternoon at the pre-wedding photo session. She made it into a few shots with the family and maybe even one or two with the bride and groom. One particularly good moment came when we did the large family photos with Greta. You see, even with a smiley baby like Greta, it's difficult to take lots of photos and get her to smile for each one. The other difficulty is that Greta will smile for most anyone, but not everyone. Unfortunately, she wasn't really interested in smiling for the man with the huge camera covering his face. He was far too scary. So, we needed a smile maker, a rodeo clown who could jump around and make Gretaboo happy for just a pic or two. We needed volunteers. Who would they be? I know, Marilyn and Jay, aka, Grandma Marmo and Grandpa Jay!

Honestly, there were several funny moments during the day, but none better than those two taking turns jumping around, making noises and trying to get little stone face to crack a smile.

After the photos Greta went home with a babysitter (thank you Emily!), but she made a cameo at the reception. Right after we got there, Greta showed up for about fifteen minutes of red carpet treatment. But alas, it wasn't her special day, so she was whisked away back to Grandma's house for more babysittin'. It was a great day for Greta, her new uncle and her auntie Carrie.

Sorry, no pics of Greta to share from this event. The photographer took some shots, but we haven't seen them yet and they'll probably be copyrighted. :(

The Pit Stop

Driving from the Jersey Shore to Minnesota isn't a lot of fun, especially when you're traveling with a five month old and a dog with a bladder the size of a gumdrop. On the other hand, it is quite an adventure and we covered seven states in 21 hours of driving. The first day, after we said our bittersweet goodbyes at Central UMC, we hit the road with the goal of trying to reach Ohio before we needed to call it a night. Greta was pretty good until the last part of PA and Jers proved to be a good traveling companion after he realized we weren't going to the vet (although it took him about four hours to figure that out). We stayed that night in a town named Streetsboro or something like that, about a half hour from Cleveland. Greta was a peach and slept pretty soundly.

On the second day, Monday, we were bound for Chicago and planning to stay with Greg, my good friend from seminary. We got to Chicago in the early afternoon (a pleasant surprise) and met Abby, E's good friend from seminary) for lunch in Skokie, where Abby used to live. After lunch the four of us headed to Greg's house in the northern 'burbs to spend an afternoon lounging in the shade and recuperating from the past few days (months) of craziness. Unfortunately, in Greg's neighborhood, as in much of Chicagoland, the cicadas were hatching. If you've never witnessed a cicada hatching, well, you haven't . . . um . . . witnessed a cicada hatching. Cicadas are pretty big bugs, like about the size of an AA battery. Once every seventeen years they emerge from the ground, hatch and mate and then die or go back underground. I'm glad Methodists don't believe in reincarnation.

Anyway, the cicadas were out in FULL FORCE and when I say full force, I mean these things were everywhere, flying into you, landing in your hair, crawling on Greta. It was pretty nasty. In fact, the sound of the buzzing is so loud that when you go inside your ears ring. Now I'm sure many of you are wondering why we didn't just go in Greg's house, and that would be a good question. But Greg has a healthy sized cat, who not only didn't make fast friends with Jersey, but he caused my eyes to water, my throat to swell up and my nasal passages to clog. And so we sat outside amongst the cicada orgy. The next morning we went over to Garrett, our seminary, to visit with some friends. From there we departed on our third and final leg of our trip to MN.

The pics above are from our time in Chicago.

Greta and the Little Lion

Last August when Eleanor's belly was beginning to show a little bump, we traveled to Chicago to visit family and friends. I hadn't been back to the Windy City since we moved to Jersey so there was a lot to do. During that visit we went to the home of Scott and Kirsten Rencher who surprised us by telling us that they too were expecting! This spring they had their baby boy and named him Rory.

No sooner had we arrived back from our initial trip to MN than the Rencher's came out to the Shore to show off their new bundle. As always we had a great weekend filled with catching up, seafood at Red's and very competitive, battle of the sexes bocce tournaments. And of course, there were many photo ops for Rory and Greta, which reminds me, part of being a new parent means that you'll have to wrestle with what's funny for you and what's not funny for your child. Let me give you a few examples.

First of all, when babies cry, it can be funny. I'm not talking about when they hurt themselves or when they have been sitting in a wet diaper, but just when they want attention or to be picked up. I remember this from having two little sisters and of course, now with Greta. But there comes a time after several minutes of happy playing, that they'll all of the sudden look at you and you can see it coming. It's not an instant reaction - not like the tearful floodgates opening, but more like ice melting. If you pay attention you can see it coming. First the eyes start to look very intense. Then, you can see a slight protrusion of the lower lip, not a pout, but just a hint of lower lip thrust. A few seconds later the lip comes out just a little further and the eyes begin to squint. Now you're in trouble because unless you do something really bizarre that makes them laugh, the next stage will be the lower lip quiver. If you get to this point, you're done for. And then comes the whimper, followed by another whimper, and another. Now comes the moment of truth. To tear or not to tear? I guess I never realized it before, but some babies can cry - and I mean, a real, miserable cry, without shedding a tear. I heard Greta scream through the walls one night like there was a cobra in her crib, only to find that she hadn't even shed a tear. And then again, sometimes she'll actually cry. Depending on the circumstances, the whole act can be pretty amusing. There I said it. Some will call me a bad father - I still think it's funny. Anyway, sorry for being so tangential, but this all came to mind as I was thinking about Rory and Greta posing for a picture. It was one of those times that was pretty funny even though they were upset. You see, babies like Rory and Greta can't balance themselves sitting up, so what we ended up doing is propping them against some cushions on our chair and then quick snapping a picture before one of them either fell over or began to cry (or both). The funny moment came when we sat the two of them opposite each other and they both fell into each other at the same time, bonking foreheads and then crying. It was sad, pitiful and very funny. So sue me.

The pics above tell the story of the weekend with the Renchers.

Somebody Loves Me

Just a little note to let you know that it's late June and I'm going back in ancient Greta history (one month) to cover some of what's transpired in little G's life since her most recent trip to Florence.

By the way, have you checked out the men's watch selection at Mefford's? They have a helpful and knowledgeable staff ready to assist you. Tell them the Preacher sent you.

So yes, in case you didn't read the last entry, we've moved to Minnesota, land of Charles Lindbergh, Prince, Bob Dylan and Spam. The moving process began the first week in May when we flew here for a meeting with the staff from the church I'll begin serving on July 1. Eleanor and Greta flew to Minneapolis to meet me and after a successful meeting at the church, we began looking for a home. We looked at about twenty houses in 48 hours, but ultimately decided to opt for a condo. It was during that trip that Greta got to meet my dad's S.O., Kelly. Kelly couldn't make it out to the baptism in April because her daughter was having a baby that same weekend out here in MN. The picture above was of that first meeting.

I'm really glad we got this picture because a few weeks after G was born, Eleanor's friend, Amy, made Greta a book titled, People Who Love Me. Inside the book Greta can see pictures of her with many of the close friends and family members who love her. Some of you have seen the book and many of you have a page inside. Amy told us that her daughter, Alison, likes to "read" her version of that book every night before she goes to bed. It's very cute. Anyway, now Kelly has her own page in Greta's, People Who Love Me. Thanks Amy.

The Worst Blogger Ever!

The last time I updated this site was back in May when I was on a mission trip to New Orleans. The day after I got back to NJ I left again for Minnesota where I met with the church that I'll be serving as of July 1. So, in the time since the last posting we moved to MN. I'll write some more about that whole process (May-June 2007) soon, but for now I just wanted to post a few pictures of the reason for this blog - Greta.

Greta is now 5.5 months old. She just moved up to the next size diapers this afternoon and she's growing like a weed. She's in the 95th percentile in height, which means that she's already outgrown a lot of her 6mo. clothes. As we say in MN, uff da. (For a further explanation of "uff da," see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uff_da .)

More coming soon.

-Tyler

Misery

My daughter is in Alabama this week with her mama. I'm miserable. I miss you guys.
-Daddy