St. Patrick's Weekend and Day

(above) Christopher at the St. Patrick's Parade Post Party...this is his posed "smile"...interesting, no? (below) Rose wearing a funny hat that was previously adorned by a young man that I can only describe by saying "Deliverance?"..."Dueling Banjos?"...(I mean, come on, he's wearing a camoflage safari hat for Christ's sake!) do I really need to go on with that? He was a frighteningly interesting young, man...more frightening than interesting...as you might be able to tell from Rose's face in the photo. The guy in the background to the right of Rose is Patrick (no relation to the saint...that is without question, but very much related to Colleen...her little brother. He's a very funny man.)

I wish I had a better excuse for this mishap, but I forgot to bring my camera to the St. Patrick's Day Parade which occurred on Saturday. The only excuse I have is that I had to take the Praxis test that morning and bringing the camera to the parade was the last thing on my mind when I was getting ready in the morning. I do remember making sure the battery was charged and reloaded into the camera...and I remember taking the small camera bag out of the big camera bag (the bag I use for the video camera and the photo camera + accessories for both...it usually only makese the big trips) and putting the camera in the bag...but then leaving the camera on the kitchen table. We were able to get home to get the camera after we left the parade and regathered at the post St. Patrick's Parade Party...so it wasn't a complete loss of a day without decent photo ops. Oh well, I traveled the road with good intentions and came up a bit short of the highway. I was able to save face enough to get the camera before the post-parade party and weekend party that took place....but I promised not to get too picture-happy. So, as it stands, these are the only photos I got of Christopher over the weekend through St. Patrick's Day proper.

(above Left to Right) Helen and her sister posing (yes, those are beer goggles), Christopher and his "new" bordering on not-very-cute smile, and Colleen and Christopher at the Post St. Patrick's Parade Party.

(below: Clockwise from Upper Left) Helen again in a different St. Patrick's day outfit...although I'm admittedly not sure what she's supposed to be...a Leprechaun maybe(?)...Shrek(?)...I'm not sure. Christopher Sunday morning donning his new baseball cap...backwards like we do in the suburbs. Christopher in his new St. Patrick's Day t-shirt given to him by his Godmother on the morning of St. Patrick's Day proper.

Another Milestone or Two

It is official, Christopher has learned the method and application process required to get his leg over the seat of his dump truck (see post marked " ") and put himself into a position where his rudimentary understanding of kinesics could be enacted appropriately....

1.) Leg up...

Christopher successfully over and planted appropriately on the seat....

All is good on the Western (Eastern, rather) Front...


He has yet, though, to learn the method and application of reoving himself from the dump truck...aside from his falling off of it (referece, again, the aforementioned previous post). We'll have to let him learn how to do it on his own and hope for the best...


He also started trying to stand on his own by letting go of his "rock," if you will (and by "rock" I mean anything he use to pull himself to a standing position). He was up in this position for about 5-7 seconds before he butt-planted...but it was pretty cool nonetheless...

Day At the Park

We took Christopher to the park on Saturday afternoon. It was a fabulous day here in Levittown, 72 degrees, nice breeze, mostly sunny....crazy especially since the Sunday before we got blistered with the Nor-Easter where the entire Northeast United States was pretty much shut down for a day-and-a-half. Regardless, we thought we'd give it a shot...

The picture above was actually the last picture we took at the park before we left. He actually enjoyed that a bit, but it was something that was completely motionless...so I guess it was a given.

The actually first playground equipment he spent time in was the swing. He didn't really know what to think of the swing. All he probably knew was that there were dozens of children and parents all running around or sitting around the park and that neither of his parents were holding him during this utter craziness....to make this already too long story short, he wasn't feeling it.

So we tried the slide...and, we'll just keep this brief....he wanted absolutely nothing to do with this whole situation. The minute we put him on the slide, he began to get a bit weepy, whiney, and irritated. I guess I can hardly blame him. There were some other factors as well...he was long overdue for some grub and very, very overdue for a nap.

So we decided to abort the mission to the park (after only a few minutes...maybe 15...and also after our last picture, which was the picture leading off this post) to get the boy home for some warm food and some nappage...and all was well with the world when he arose from his 3 hour slumber.

Christopher's New ND Jerseys

For those who know me and Colleen well, it is well-known that she and the rest of her family are all huge "Dome-Heads." (as I call them...I think it should be said that it is probably more appropriate if I called them "Notre Dame Fans", but it just doesn't have the same ring to it, you know?) That being said, I thought it would be a nice gift to Colleen if I surprised her by getting Christopher some Notre Dame football jerseys. Short story behind this is that I got a Lid's gift card for my birthday from Patrick, Colleen's brother, and I used it to buy a few hats online at greatly discounted prices (I'm frugal if nothing else). Well, I didn't find a lot of hats that fit my 2 primary criteria for hat buying which are 1.) it must be something I like...sports team, whatever, and 2.) it has to comfortably fit my huge dome of a head. After I bought the 3 hats I found on sale that fit those criteria, I decided to purchase some infant Notre Dame jerseys at an immensely discounted prices ($5/jersey). So I got him 2 that fit him now and 2 that will fit him later....hopefully. So he wore two of them this weekend and this is a small homage to the Tierney family members who are all Notre Dame fans...

Christopher and His Playdate with his Dump Truck and Some Much Needed Tickle-Time

Christopher has been playing with his Christmas present from his Uncle Patrick a couple of times. He doesn't really understand the kinesics of the whole "I can walk with this?" concept. The dump truck is a fascinating toy and concept. It actually has some moving parts and can be used in 3 different ways. 1.) Kid can walk in front of it, thus, pushing it backwards, 2.) lifting the "dump" mechanism of the toy to straddle the seat. This gives the child the option of movin foward OR backwards, and 3.) the "dump" mechanism remains lifted...has a handle...and the child can walk behind the truck and push it forward.

The truck doesn't have any safety switches or gizmos to aid Christopher, who is just now learning that he can actually move forward if he moves his feet in an appropriate manner which, due to his "just learning" concept, doesn't really help him walk behind or in front of the truck as of yet because of his lack of control while moving upright. Colleen or myself will usually restrain the movement of the truck so that he can actually "walk" with it without falling on his rump.

The point of all this, however, is that he learned today that he can move forward when straddling the truck...and also realized that he could make the truck move funny when he makes jumping motions....a landmark event for the lad, as you can imagine.

After the success of his new adventures, we all figured he should revieve his reward...some well-deserved tickle-time!

Daddy and Christopher on the Snow-Day off

Colleen and I had the day off from work and really enjoyed it...well, except for the shovelling the driveway and sidewalk that I mentioned in the previous post...but, aside from that, it was a pretty good day. We chilled with Christopher a bit...wrestled a bit (as you can tell, he couldn't get out of the scissor-lock that I had him in...he'd better toughen up if he's gonna make it in this world). I would have got a picture of Colleen, but I had strict instructions not to involve her in any photo ops or it would be my ___ [insert colorful metaphor here]. Regardless, we had a great day with Christopher

And we also got a call from Colleen's cousins, Jacqueline and Emily, to go sledding. We decided that we might as well go...not knowing how blistery cold it was outside. We had already committed though, so we took him down the hill 2 times...which was enough for all involved...and got a couple of nice pictures of Christopher and Ben (Col's cousin, Jacqueline's almost 3-year-old)

The Nor-Easter Snow-Day

March...

comes in like a lion...

goes out like a lamb...

I didn't think to take a picture of anything until after I had already spent the time to shovel my drive-way and side-walk....DUH!! There was about 5" of snow on the ground when I woke up this morning. But I was a good suburban citizen and neighbor and shovelled my walk-ways just after the snow stopped early this afternoon. I don't ever want to be known as THAT neighbor...you know what I'm sayin'?