Baby vs. Food

Something even more rare than a bigfoot or UFO sighting: Marilee without some sort of nipple in her mouth.

Marie and I love watching the Travel Channel. One of their weekly features is a show called "Man vs. Food." The premise is as follows: the host travels the country visiting several restaurants, taking on food eating challenges. One episode had him taking on an 7 egg breakfast burrito (he lost).

I bring this up because we've already discovered that Marilee seems well suited for a future career in the field of competitive eating.

Takeru Kobayashi, 7 time winner of the annual Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Championship. Enjoy your reign while you can Takeru, you've got an up-and-comer named Marilee hot on your heels.

Her transition from 4 ounce bottle to 8 ounce has been quick and seamless. A couple nights ago, at 3:30 am, she knocked back a 8 ouncer in record time. This was followed by a late morning feast of ANOTHER entire 8 ounce bottle a few hours later at 10 a.m.

I hear you saying, "Who gives a rat's ass?" But I want to put this in perspective: Within a period of 6 1/2 hours, Marilee consumed 1/14th of her body weight. In other words, it would equal me eating 7 pounds of food for lunch, then another 7 pounds at dinner, a feat which is obviously unrealistic. (Unless I happen to be on a cruise.)

Marilee could eat this whole thing in about 10 minutes. (I'm talking about the bottle. The baby would take a few minutes longer.)

On the bright side, baby sure is smiling a lot more. Especially when Mamma gets all up in her grill with a big grin. She also smiles when Daddy sings to her. (The only human being to ever do so.) So far, her favorite songs seem to be the ABC song, "Back in Baby's Arms," and Bob Marley's "One Love." Granted, these are the only three songs I sing to her, but still.

She's also developed a favorite new toy: the TV remote control. I put it in front of her face and use a high-pitched voice to act like the remote is actually talking to her. Not sure if this is going to cause her future psychological damage. What I DO know is that in the eyes of a 2 month old, I have mad ventriloquism skills.

A couple of parting shots from today:

"Somebody help me. I'm being held hostage in a shoe store in Grand Junction by two complete psychos. Call for help. Call for help now!"

"Stupid parents. What kind of shoe store owner doesn't carry size 1/2? Geessh."

2 Months

"Just because I'm only 60 days old doesn't mean I can't cop a mean attitude."

Well, we made it past the 8 week mark. Marilee's acne is clearing up and some hair is starting to grow back, so we've decided that she's attractive enough now to take out in public.

For example, on St. Patrick's Day we all went to the Rockslide, where Marie at this:

And Mommy and Daddy drank this:




We just wish someone would have told us that green food coloring can be transmitted through breastmilk:

At least our baby now has Al Gore's blessing.

Marie also took baby to the pediatrician or podiatrist or whatever (I always get those two confused), for her 2 month check-up. Other than suffering from an extraordinary case of obesity, baby is perfectly healthy. She weighed in at 14 pounds.

Other than being overweight, it appears that Marilee is a normal happy baby. The bedtime routine now is to put her in the crib at 9 pm. She'll proceed to sleep to about 1 a.m., whereupon she'll scream as if being tortured lovingly make cute noises signaling us to feed her.

So since I have the first shift, I'll get up and feed her while watching World Series of Poker re-runs on ESPN Classic. If the feeding goes on past 3 a.m., I'm forced to watch the re-runs of Bull Riding Championships from the 90's, seeing as how it's hard to feed and burp a baby while operating a television remote. I'm not particularly into watching the rodeo, but I'm REALLY not into having 4 ounces of regurgitated formula spit up into my face.

What happens to me when I pull the bottle out of Marilee's mouth to reach for the remote.

We continue to bring her down to the store during work, where she's usually pretty good so long as there is either a boob or bottle nearby. Changing her is more of a hassle, because for some reason that is not entirely clear, the landlord at our shoe store did not construct a large, durable, stainless steel baby-changing table in the back office.

Daddy shows Marilee how we help Mommy out at work.

Also down at the store, Princess Livia casually browses through this month's VOGUE.

Moving on. In honor of the Jay Cutler controversy brewing, (note to Broncos: KEEP HIM. Chris Simms has thrown 2 passes in two years.) Sorry, we're getting off track. In honor of all the recent Broncos news, I thought I'd drop in some photos of Marilee's first Broncos game, although since the game occurred during the 7 month of pregnancy, her view from Marie's uterus was just slightly worse than that of the people in the end zone's upper deck. Momma and Dadda are shown here from this past November, when Daddy won 2 tickets from KKCO. For what it's worth, the Broncos got their asses handed to them narrowly lost to the Raiders.

It takes a special woman to sit in the cold for three hours while 7 months pregnant, watching a sport she doesn't even like. Fortunately Invesco Field at Mile High has lots of food stands. Not that I'm implying anything.

Club Level Seats to a Broncos/Raiders game, just about the most precious thing in the whole world. My daughter, of course, is more valuable, but it's a close call.

"Today's official attendance: 75,321 - not including people currently inside Marie's uterus."

Random shots:

Here Marie shows baby how a lady properly passes out drunk.

"See you all next time!"

7 Hours

We've set a new record: Marilee slept for 7 straight hours the other night. Unfortunately, I was awake for all 7 hours, but it's a start. She visited Mr. Sandman from 9 a.m. to about 4 a.m, after which she visited Mr. Boob.

"Yes I may have a acne, a double chin and receding hairline, but don't hate me cause I'm beautiful."

As you can see, Marilee continues to get really fat put on healthy weight. At the latest weigh-in last week, she hit the 13 pound mark. Then we changed her diaper and the scale read 8 pounds. (Rimshot)



In other bodily fluid emission related news: we're still dealing with massive spit-ups after every feeding. And sometimes during feedings. And before feedings too. Basically, what I'm saying is that the spit-ups are non-stop and to the point where we no longer care about cleaning spilt breastmilk off of the furniture. (Especially since we're getting new couches from Pat and Allison via Mom and Dad tomorrow.)


An action shot of one of Marilee's spit-ups:

Okay, to be honest, Marilee's spit-ups are in NO WAY like Old Faithful. Old Faithful only erupts once every 15 minutes.

I've forgotten to mention that we've started giving Marilee baths. We weren't sure if she was going to like it or not, so Daddy showed her how it's done:

"May I offer you a Skittle?"

Now a drumroll please......Marilee's very first bath and her first chance to experience the relaxation of warm, soothing water:

We only bathe her in freezing cold water. Sure, it may cause her to scream alot, but you should see how much we save on our energy bill.

This is totally unrelated to Marilee, but since I've already downloaded the photo, we'll now play a game we like to call: Before and After.

Before:

After:

"How was I supposed to know consuming an endangered species was a federal offense?"

Meanwhile, we ask the rhetorical question: is there anything more natural, nay, more beautiful, than the site of a loving mother nursing her young child?

A good mom knows how to multi-task.

(Disclaimer: One of the people photographed in the photo above demanded kindly asked that I let everyone know she was posing, and not actually drinking out of the whiskey bottle.)

This gratuitous shot of Marilee is visual proof that we are using the baby chair that Grandma and Grandpa Beauregard bought for her. (We removed her from the chair immediately after. the photo was taken.)






"Help! I have some strange 200 pound man falling on me!"

And here's one taken today, March 7th, just in case there are any people at the Casa Grande R.V. park near Phoenix, Arizona who happen to be logging in after a cutthroat game of cards.

"Hi Grandma and Grandpa Beauregard. Hope you're enjoying your retirement and having your fun on a palm tree-lined golf course under 80 degree Arizona skies. Me? I'm having just as much fun. It snowed in Grand Junction today, and it's cold and dreary outside. So I'm just going to spend the day here bored, hungry and tired, laying on the floor of a drafty shore store in my own excrement. See you soon!"