Conor Turns 30

Conor celebrated a momentous occasion this month--his 30th birthday. We got to celebrate him, our spring break, and ACC basketball during a family trip to Topsail Island. The weather was pretty lousy, although that didn't stop the guys from going surfing. The rest of us spent our time inside watching the ACC tournament and admiring little miss Beatrice.

For Conor's birthday, we threw him a surprise fiesta complete with streamers, party hats, and pin the tail on the donkey. Katie, Maeve, Clair, and I got him a collection of lovely gifts from Wings. (For those of you unfamilir with this great establishment, Wings is a monstrosity of a beach store filled to the brim with tacky tourist gifts and hermit crabs). Conor received the lovely tank top he is wearing, and Beatrice bought him a "Happy 30th Birthday" shot glass.

Beatrice was so excited by the festivities that she then fell asleep sitting upright in nameste yoga pose. (See below.)

Happy St. Patricks Day!

Our little red-headed leprachaun wishes everyone Happy St. Patrick's Day! As you can see from the photos, Beatrice continues to be a very serious, intellectually-minded baby. Here she is contemplating the Northern Ireland peace process and trying to figure out how to pour a perfect pint of Guiness. A second after we snapped these, she got quite angry because she realized she is not going to be allowed to have any green beer tonight--only milk for now. Sorry Bea!

"Take Bea Out to the Ballgame"

Beatrice attended her first official sporting event on Tuesday, an ECU baseball game. As you can see from the second picture, she was very excited about the whole event. Actually, she slept through all nine innings (no surprise there).

Baldness

I have recently become very concerned with something involving Beatrice's hair, although it is something that Sayward has assured me is perfectly natural. As some of you may know, I am very proud of the quantity of my hair, although the rest leaves a bit to be desired.

Beatrice appears to be exhibiting some characteristics of male pattern baldness. See above for an early picture and a more recent one. This kind of troubling.

Here some more recent pictures, for people who claim they have never seen her eyes.

A great thing, and something of concern

I recently cracked the code on being able to make Beatrice stop crying at any time within 20-30 seconds. It involves laying her across my thighs and bouncing my feet up and down ever so slightly very, very fast. No matter how hard she was crying it is like she just sat down in one of those vibrating chairs like they have at the mall or Sharper Image (RIP).

Here is Bea in mid vibrate:

My one concern about this is that it makes my legs tired, and that at some point when she weighs about 45 pounds this isn't going to be so fun.

- Conor

Sleeping Beauties...and Nala

This afternoon I was doing some work and noticed that all of my girls were sound asleep:

Sayward, with baby blanket over face:

Beatrice, wearing a nice Star Trek-esque outfit:And last but not least, Nala, sound asleep (as usual) in her new bed:

I was able to savor a few minutes of calm and take a nap myself.