Happy Birthdays and Baby Birdies

There were so many things to post about from Tuesday that I initially considered posting about them separately. Upon further review, I'm far too lazy for that, so they're all getting lumped together.

First and foremost, it was Mandi's 32nd birthday. In and of itself, 32 is not a significant birthday. You're well into your thirties, and the next true milestone birthday doesn't occur until the big four-oh. However, in this house, each of Mandi's birthdays is now significant because for the five and a half months between July 22nd and January 7th, she and I can officially be considered "the same age". The other six and a half months of the year, I'm older. Anyway, we went out to dinner, but we returned to Mandi's parents' house for cake. We planned to have leftover coconut cake, which I made at the lake and we carted home in a cooler, but her mom got a sheet cake from the grocery store instead. It was probably for the best, as Lily and Avery weren't big fans of the coconut cake.

Avery enthusiastically dug in to her first piece of cake. She hated it.



Lily mostly just ate the sprinkles off of the top. When she finished the sprinkles on her first piece, she insisted on another one. Grandpa gladly finished the sprinkle-less piece and served her up a fresh one. Of course she sang some silly songs while she ate. It just wouldn't be the same without the "Roger Dodger" song.


Mandi's going to hate this picture . . but I think it's cute. Actually, it's just better than the only other picture I took of her that day . . the one of her blowing out the candles on the cake.




The cake itself was nothing particularly special, but it was a fun birthday celebration.




Before we headed home, Lily grabbed Grandpa's glasses and put on a little song-and-dance for the crowd. What a ham.



Earlier in the day (sorry for the lack of chronological order), the girls and I came home from the gym and saw one of the baby bluebirds poking its head out of the nestbox. This behavior is typically reserved for the day the birds fledge the nest, so I set up a chair along the side of the house and patiently waited for "the money shot". Well, it never materialized. Between having to come inside and make lunch for the girls (darned kids) and the oppressive heat of the midday, I just wasn't able to catch one leaving the nest. This peek out was the best I could come up with. (click to enlarge)





My guess is that the birds delayed leaving due in part to my presence. The adult male scolded me from his perch on the fence across the street. When I'd approach to try for close-ups of an emerging juvenile, he would dive-bomb me.



Then he scolded me from the roof of my neighbor's house. Somehow I derive great joy from seeing a father act in such a protective manner.



Before I went inside, the female joined him at the nest. This time they weren't scolding (I'd retreated 15 feet or so toward the driveway), but rather cooing gently as if to coax the young'uns out of the nest. Again, they waited for my departure before fledging.



By the time we got back from the pool at around 5:00, all four young had left the nest and were nowhere to be seen. I hope, as they have in the past, that they'll come back to the yard to flaunt their life progress.

End Of A Vacation

I posted some of the better pictures from the first half of our vacation to Cayuga Lake in Upstate NY, I figured why not show off some of the rest.

Sleep was not an easy commodity to come by on this trip. Lily was difficult at bedtime, and that's putting it very very mildly. On the morning pictured Mandi and I heard Lily stirring at around 5:00 and were surprised that she didn't come in to wake us up. Instead we fell back to sleep and this was the sight we saw at a little after 6. Lily loves her Meema something fierce!



Not too long after breakfast they made their way down to the lake to go swimming. There were very few mornings that weren't overcast or rainy, so it was important to take advantage. Lily has learned to blow up her own floaties, saving Daddy an early morning headache.



All dressed and ready to go, the girls dragged Meema down the road and proceeded to swim for almost two full hours.



The walk back to the house was apparently the perfect time to remind Meema of all fun they had just had . . they don't pull from every direction, do they?


After lunch, they enjoyed some popsicles. There was no shortage of desserts on this trip, I assure you.



I spent most of the day just taking in the nature . . the lilies are a full month or so behind ours in North Carolina. The first blooms were just opening on these pink ones near the road (sorry I don't know the variety). There were daylilies everywhere you turned, the prettiest oranges and yellows overwhelmed every roadside view.



I've always been fascinated by the Gray Catbirds. Mandi thinks he's boring looking, but I think his little black cap is very dapper, and his slate gray color just adds to his already mysterious and secretive nature. This particular bird wasn't shy at all, consistently posing for me in the yard, on the wood pile, above the nest box I put up by the road, and on this reflector. Isn't the rental house across the street just lovely?



The girls took their baths super early that night, and then the strangest thing happened . .



. . they talked me in to pitching a tent for them to play in. In their pajamas. They played in the tent for a total of about 8 minutes, which is when a little girl from across the street came over to play with Avery. The tent sat empty for the vast majority of the next 24 hours, until the point that I took it down again in the face of an impending thunderstorm.



Avery really enjoyed playing with Skylar, the 9-year-old girl who lives across the street.



My guess is she probably needed another shower after sprinting back and forth across the yard. She didn't take one.



The next morning some neighbors brought their new grandson over to visit. He was a little cutie, complete with faux-hawk hairdo. Lily got a little time practicing sitting with a baby, something I hope she'll want to do a lot of when our baby arrives in October.



Later that night we decided to do the S'mores thing down by the lake. I did the best I could to start a fire with the materials at hand . . mostly some newspaper we brought, flimsy matches, and a bunch of green twigs. I wasn't pretty, and it certainly couldn't be called a bonfire, but it burned long enough to toast a few marshmallows, and that was all that really mattered.



This is the smile Avery got on her face each and every time dessert of any kind was mentioned. She loves her some junkfood.



Lily loved the idea of S'mores more than the real thing, but she posed for the camera and even showed off her new-found ability to roll her tongue. I am now the only member of the family who can't pull off that feat, although I've never really suffered much from that defecit.




In typical fashion I've saved the best for last, and unfortunately there is no accompanying photo. The funniest moment of the entire trip may have happened when we were about 2/3 of the way home on Monday. Lily and Avery were sleeping in the back seat of the car and Mandi was drifting in the passenger seat. We'd been in the car for close to 8 hours, and I'll admit I was more than a little bit lethargic. With the cruise control set at a modest 76 miles per hour, I negotiated my way around a few slower cars and was heading down a slight grade. I saw a hawk sitting on a utility pole off to the right, and as I leaned forward to get a better look I let the car drift slightly left and across the yellow line. To make matters worse, the road had started to curve gently to the right. Before I knew it I was snapping to attention and pulling the car back into my lane, the roadside rumble strips having done their job wonderfully. Mandi commented first, asking me what had happened. As I started to tell her Lily piped up from the back seat, apparently having been woken up by the sound, and said "Golly tamale Daddy, what was that?!?" All of us, including Avery, burst into uncontrolled laughter. I imagine I've got the good people at Noggin to thank for teaching her that phrase . .

We made it home after 12 hours in the car, and things are finally getting back to normal. Much has happened since then that's worth posting about, but for now the pool is calling our names.

This Is What Relaxing Looks like

How many vacations have you taken in your life that have actually resulted in relaxation? Pose that question to me and the answer will be in the single digits. Probably less than 3. But if all goes as planned (or not planned, as the case may be) the number will be increasing by one after this week's trip.



I will grant you that driving for twelve hours with two kids and a pregnant wife does not exactly count as relaxing. So technically speaking, this trip will neither start nor end in a particularly relaxing manner. However, the time between drives is shaping up to be as peaceful as any in recent memory.




Since we arrived Wednesday afternoon, we've done a grand total of absolutely nothing. No planned outings, no big trips into town, and no fancy meals. The girls have been content to play together and create their own fun, and Mandi and I have been usurping wireless internet access and generally just vegging out. One decision I made about this trip, because I was here just 2 weeks ago and had great results birding, is that I'd leave the binoculars behind. That way I wouldn't be tempted to while away the family time in pursuit of the birds. It was definitely the right decision. I've still got some great backyard birds to keep me engaged, and the extra time has been spent doing, well, very little.

Boycott Carowinds Theme Park

Sunday afternoon something very disturbing happened at Carowinds, a popular amusement and water park here in the Charlotte area. Instead of re-writing the story, I will give you a link to our local newspaper and their article regarding the issue. Once you've read it, I hope you'll understand why I'm calling for a boycott of the parks. I don't for a minute think that places like this can stop people from misbehaving, but when it's called to their attention they have a responsibility to their guests to remove the offender swiftly. I personally will not take my family to Carowinds ever again, and I feel that a large outcry from their clientele is the most effective way to get them to enact some changes to their operation. If you would like to let them know how you feel about this situation you should send an email to guestrelations@carowinds.com .

Under The Bus

By 9:30 this morning I had enough material for a really funny post. Like most things in life, it just got better with time.

Being our 4th wedding anniversary, Mandi and I decided to just relax around the house and spend time together this morning. Neither of us got out of our pajamas until after 10:00. We got some things done, had a leisurely breakfast, and generally just hung out. The only drawback to this plan is that Lily bores easily . . very easily.

She got up around 6:15, was dressed (and I'm using that term loosely) by 6:25, and had her entire chest of dress-up clothes emptied onto the floor by 7:00. She spent most of the next 2 hours acting out her own version of Snow White, in which she was too late to make it to the Princess Ball with the other princesses, she had already eaten the poison apple, and she was waiting for me, King Daddy, to save her from the monsters in the Spooky Forest. She mixed in some performances of her latest and greatest songs from upon her "stage", which is actually the wicker toy box in the living room. Her favorite song, for those who haven't heard it, repeats the phrases "If I don't care if YOU don't care" and " Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls!". So far, this would be considered par for the course, and nothing to really write home about.

Then something happened. She tired of Snow White and began to get extra bored. Having taken off her tappin' shoes, she immediately put back on the socks she'd picked out for today. They're green and white and have little strawberries on them, as well as the Strawberry Shortcake logo near the top. They were inside out from being taken off carelessly earlier, but that didn't stop her. She put them on as-is, with the white heel spot conveniently located over her ankles. She then strapped her pink light-up tennis shoes back on and marched upstairs to find something else to do. All of this, mind you, while wearing a blue dress. What an ensemble.

A minute or two later, I began getting summoned to come upstairs and help Lily find her Dora The Explorer outfit. I try to make her keep looking until she finds it herself, but at some point it's like a switch flips and she's completely incapable of continuing on with something that she perceives has already failed. "Sailboat, sailboat, why can't I see the stupid sailboat!?!" I relented, went up and found her shirt for her, and went on my way. This is the end result.


Remember what I said about it only getting better? Half an hour passed and Mandi and I finally decided on a course of action for the morning. We would get dressed and head down the road to get Lily and I haircuts. Mandi and I went upstairs, and as is her custom these days, Lily was hollering for us from the bottom of the stairs no more than 40 seconds later. Over the TV we could hear her saying "Can I have . . " over and over again, but we couldn't tell what she was asking for. Mandi went to the top of the stairs and asked what she wanted, and Lily shouted "Cream Mommy, can I have some cream?"

Mandi still didn't know what she was asking for, so in response to the puzzled look she received Lily held up the can of Reddi Whip, or "cream" to show Mommy what she was asking for. Mandi of course could not contain her laughter, and she insisted Lily come upstairs to show me what she had. This is a very good re-creation of precisely how she looked when she showed me the whipped cream.


You may be wondering, now that you've stopped laughing hysterically, why I titled this post "Under The Bus".

When I saw what she had, I immediately knew why she had it. Hearing it from her mouth, however, would allow me to use the information to my advantage, so I lobbed a couple of semi-leading questions her way and just sat back and waited.

"We don't just eat whipped cream Lily . . who let you just eat whipped cream?"

No response, just a sheepish grin.

"Lily, did you get to eat whipped cream with somebody?"

"Yeah."

"With who?"

"With my Meema."

Busted!!! I knew full well my mom was the culprit . . whipped cream has been one of her favorite foods for as long as I can remember. I'm not surprised at all that she's trying to corrupt Lily with her addiction. It is, after all, more fun to share. I'm sure she told her it'd be "their little secret." Not so much Mom, not so much.

When Mandi and I finished laughing hysterically about Lily throwing Meema under the bus we all headed back downstairs. I thought we'd made it clear to Lily that she couldn't just have some whipped cream to eat, but she kept on asking. Eventually my nice, rational responses turned into semi-annoyed "No, will you stop bugging me!" I yelled at her to put it back in the fridge, and her response looked almost exactly like this:


I say almost, because when the camera comes out she tries to put on a smile through the tears. Before the camera, however, it was nothing but snot bubbles and alligator tears. Poor thing, she got spoiled at Meema's and now it's back to the harsh realities of home.

I Surrender

Whether you choose to believe me or not, I do put some thought and effort into dressing my children. Sometimes, however, it's just hopeless.

Lily's affinity for dresses and skirts has not lessened. If anything, it's even harder now than it's ever been to convince her to wear shorts or, God forbid, pants. The curious thing is that now, seemingly overnight, her preferred choice of footwear has changed. My dainty little girl, who for so long insisted on only wearing sandals or "tappin' shoes", has suddenly developed an taste for tennis shoes.

The resulting ensemble is downright ghastly in appearance, especially when fancy socks are brought in to the equation. This, I'm convinced, is ingrained in Lily's DNA . . passed down from her mommy, who's most favorite simple pleasure is wearing interesting socks to work and having a stranger compliment her on them. I'm not even kidding a little bit, feel free to confirm this nugget with Mandi if you'd like.

So this morning, as I was getting lily dressed, I strapped up her Velcro tennis shoes and attempted to push her socks down around her ankles. She would have absolutely no part in that nonsense, proclaiming "No Daddy, I want them to be big!", meaning she wanted them pulled up over her calves Steve Erkle-style. Whatevs. This is the result.


To make matters worse, after her nap was over she decided that she was going to raid her sock drawer and use the others to accessorize her outfit. I can't say for sure that she got this behavior from her mommy, but I also can't directly rule it out. Anything's possible, and we'll just leave it at that. I apologize about the quality of this picture, I had forgotten to take the camera out of "close-up" mode and it was struggling to decide on a focal point.

The New Babies

Our third (and presumably final) brood of Eastern Bluebirds hatched this weekend . . right on schedule. 14 days after the last egg was laid, 4 little naked chicks emerged from their shells to the strange new world that is my side yard.

I've made 5 official visits to the nest so far, at least for the purpose of making recordings. For the sake of reporting the data to Nestwatch, I will make one or two more visits to note the date the birds fledge the nest and the overall success of the brood. So far, so good I'd say, as on this their third day of life there are still 4 living birds in the nest. For those of you who just can't get enough pictures of new babies, here you go! The first photo clearly shows the 4 open mouths, while the second is in a bit better focus.