My Daughter, The Biological Terrorist

This year, my aunt hosted Thanksgiving, so we packed up the baby, a few pairs of clean underwear and drove 300 miles through darkness and boredom to my mother's house outside of Philadelphia. The trip was uneventful with two notable exceptions.

The first being a vomiting episode on the part of the baby when we were about 2/3 of the way through the trip.

The second being the discovery that we had neglected to pack diapers on our trip, aside from the 4 in the travel bag.

Since we were more than halfway to our destination, we decided that it would be in our best interest to soldier on and make it to the home of two babysitters who would happily clean up any further vomit and essentially do everything that we normally do and allow us to sleep. (Thanks!!)

Thursday morning rolls around and there has been no further incidents of gastric distress, so we pack up and head to dinner. Harper lets us know how excited she is by running in circles through the house and trying to pull everything on to the floor. When it was indicated that it was time to get dressed and go, she seemed confused. She was under the impression that she would simply be scampering in circles for 4 days.

You want me to do what now?

Needless to day, her displeasure was not disguised. It did, however, take a more sadistic turn. She did spend much of the first few hours in blatant refusal to nap. All attempts to pacify her with the effigy of small, red creatures who refer to themselves only in the third person remained ineffective.



At some point, she succumbed to the inevitable brought on by sleep-deprivation and crankiness. She did not, however, go down without a fight.

"You want me to nap, of father of mine, I will require two things of you! First, I demand to be held and rocked in no fewer than six positions over a period of no less than twenty five minutes. This time-frame must take place during the discussion that illicits the most laughs and cheers from the participants downstairs, thus ensuring that you miss all of the inside jokes!

"Secondly, I demand to punch you about the head no less than ten times during said rocking, in areas that include, but will not be limited to the ears, eyes, nose, jaw and any pimples that may have sprouted on your head. I will also be entitled to attempt to reach your brain through your nostrils with the one fingernail I have that remains uncut."

After a lengthy discussion with her attorney, I signed the papers and the rocking commenced.

I knew that I had very limited time, so I went back downstairs and selected the food that I intended to eat. Knowing my daughter as I do, I decided it would be a better plan to simply throw the stuffing, turkey, potatoes, at least two other items that I can't recall at the moment, into a blender and hook them directly to my veins.

I assume the food was tasty.


Upon returning downstairs in a much better mood, Harper decided it was time for her to thank whomever it is that she thanks for her food. (Certainly not her parents.)





During the course of her nap, she had come to a conclusion. She had decided that since she was not able to walk home by herself to sleep in her own bed, she was going to embrace the spirit of Thanksgiving as best she can.

My daughter, the student of history, in the spirit of the early pilgrims, came to a foreign land, ate the food, enjoyed herself, affected friendship with the natives, and spread her horrid diseases.

She infected at least have of my family with small-pox.

Or, a stomach virus.

What? You wanna fight about it?

My Daughter, The One-Year-Old

Seriously, how the hell did that happen?

It was just last week that we were bringing her home from the hospital. How could that have actually been a year ago??

This has been an unbelievable year. In the past 12 months. We bought a house, had a baby, managed not to have to file for bankruptcy and still actually like each other.

At least, I still like Sara. I hope she still likes me.

Harper is walking, running, trying to open cabinets, able to identify exactly what we don't want her playing with, and is well on her way to getting approval for her doctoral thesis which she has titled "Why I Hate Boys And Will Never Be Involved With Them." I have high hopes that her committee will approve it and I look forward to helping her with the research and data analysis.

How can she be a year already? She's so tiny, but she she's so much bigger than she was. Sara is often commenting about how, when she's giving Harper her bottle, her body know wraps completely around Sara, where before she was almost too small to hold.

I keep getting flashes of what she'll look like in 15 years, which, my very helpful coworkers assure me is right around the corner. (Thanks, jerks)

I want to write more about this, but I'm just so shocked that I'm having trouble forming my thoughts into semi-coherent words.


Suffice to say, Happy Birthday, daughter of mine. You are wonderful and cute and frustrating and adorable and funny and loud and perfect.

You are so great, that as a birthday gift, mommy and I are going to make you a big sister. That present, however, is still cooking and won't arrive until March. I hope you can wait.