Time makes you bolder, even children get older

The last few weeks have been a blur. Wednesday marked the halfway point of my maternity leave, meaning the glass is now half empty. Annabel's feelings about this can best be summed up in the photo to the left. This is the ridiculous cry she does that sounds like a cartoon -- she just goes "wah!" all long and drawn out. It makes me laugh every time, which is good because I've also been doing some crying. Last week, Annabel grew out of all her newborn footie pajamas. She could no longer straighten her legs in them, and as much as I wanted to keep her in the only clothes she's ever worn, the ones she's wearing in all my memories of her, I had to wash them, fold them up in a box, and put them in the closet. And cry. She's growing up so fast. She feels heavy now, and I'm thinking forward to when she won't want me to hold her. She'll want to scoot and run around. Then she'll start telling me "no." Then she'll tell me I'm mean. Then she'll tell me I'm embarrassing her. It goes on and on. And I never thought I'd be like this. Babies grow up, they get more interesting and funny. I just didn't expect her to be such a rad baby. It's going to be hard.

Uncle Bill came to visit all the way from Denver at the end of February. He and Fox took Annabel to her first restaurant -- Sweet Melissa's in Decatur. We also took Annabel to her first movie, the very age-appropriate Black Swan. Even though we went to the art theater by our house in Midtown, we got some seriously disapproving looks from some Judgy McJudgersons. Annabel was an angel -- she spent the whole movie eating and napping under the nursing cover, not making a peep. I think she was on her best behavior to impress Uncle Bill so he'll teach her to ski when she's big enough.

We went to Tennessee the first weekend in March to visit my grandmother, Annabel's great-grandmother, who we call Goose. This was a very exciting visit for many reasons. Annabel is Goose's first great-grandchild, and Goose turns 89 this year. Also, my mom's sister Ann came to visit Goose, so she got to meet her first great-niece. And finally, Annabel executed the greatest baby photo of all time. We lined up for a very serious four generation photo, dressing Annabel in one of my baby dresses. As soon as my dad said "three" in the photo countdown, Annabel unleashed a torrent of spit-up. We had not yet realized what had transpired, so we are all smiling the very serious "this is a very important photo" smiles as the barf rains down upon Goose. I don't do it justice with words, so here it is:

Like I said, Annabel is a pretty rad baby. We laughed until we cried. After the visit to Goose's, we spent some time at my parents' house. It was great -- I was well-fed with mom's delicious home cooking, she did my laundry, and they entertained Annabel while I enjoyed luxuries such as baths. Mom got the crib that Bill and I slept in out of the attic for Annabel to play in during the day. She figured out how to make it rock and had a blast in it.

I also could not resist taking Annabel's picture on the antique doll bed that my great-grandmother had made for my mom. I know it is coming close to the heinous territory of too-cute baby photos occupied by Anne Geddes, but I think we stayed on the safe side of that thin line.

In other, nonphotographed news, Saturday before last, Fox's band played an acoustic show at the Red Light Cafe, which is one block behind our house. It was an all-ages show, so we were able to attend and sit in the back room, where we could hear the show at a reasonable level. Annabel had fun, though she did sleep through part of the show. She's probably the first person to ever sleep through one of Fox's performances, but I don't think he was offended.

On Saturday, Annabel turned two months old. To celebrate, we went to the roller derby. Atlanta has a great roller derby scene. Once a month, there are two bouts (that's what you call roller derby matches), one between two of the Atlanta Roller Derby teams and one between the Atlanta all-star team and a visiting team. This takes place, I kid you not, at the Shriner Temple that looks like the Taj Mahal. It's always a big event and sells out if you wait too long to get tickets. We only went to the first bout, which was won by the Apocalypstix by a mere ten points. We were afraid that two bouts would be pushing it for Annabel's first time. She was a total champ, giving everyone smiles. We want Annabel to see that girls can do pretty much whatever they want, be tough, fearless, and have fun (now watch her grow up to become the next Ann Coulter as the ultimate rebellion [sheds tear]). Unfortunately I forgot our camera, so I took a couple of pictures of her at the derby with my phone, but have no idea how to get them from the phone to the computer. It probably involves some type of texting, which totally eludes me. Just imagine her smiling as girls on skates go by in the background.

Here's a parting shot for you of her current activity, which affords me the ability to blog.