Ellie's Daddy

Happy Father's Day, everyone! A special shout-out to our own dads and grandfathers - we can't be with you today, but we're thinking of you! And of course, a big Happy Father's Day to my husband!

That is one handsome man holding one cute baby.

Today is Eric's first time being honored as a dad on Father's Day, and I'm so excited to do that for him. There is just nothing like seeing the person you love falling so easily into the role of "parent." Watching Eric care for our daughter, playing with her, bonding with her - it's the coolest thing to see. Eric and I met when we were only 15 years old, and it is really incredible to see how that smokin' hot, football-playing, Yankees-loving young boy that I stalked around the neighborhood (hey, I told you he was hot) has now grown into such a good man, the head of our household, a loving husband to me and an adoring father to our daughter. It has been a flawless and seemingly effortless transition and I'm so lucky to have this man in my life.

For Eric's birthday, I usually post things I love about him as a person. Today, I thought I would do something similar, but with things I love about him as a father. Without further ado...

Things I Love About Eric: Dad Edition

I love what a great support he was to me during labor and Ellie's birth. I don't know how I would have gotten through it without him.

Admiring our baby girl

I love that you could see his overwhelming love for his baby girl in his face the very moment he held her for the first time.

This picture melts my heart.

(Eric actually made a similar face when he saw me coming down the aisle on our wedding day - I loved it then, I love it now.)

Likewise, I love that you can see how much Ellie adores her daddy by the way she looks at him.

Precious.

I love how hard he worked without a second thought to take care of both me and Ellie as I recovered after her birth. The way he handled everything was nothing short of saintly.

Bonding time in our early days at home

I love that he is so excited to share his passions with Ellie and introduce her to the things he enjoys most in life.

Baseball baby!

I love that he reads whatever he happens to be reading personally to her, be it C.S. Lewis, Animal Farm, or the Bible. Even more, I love that she just hangs on his every word.

She can't get enough!

I love their peaceful moments together.

Sleepy morning

I love the way he looks with a baby carrier on.

I'm not sure which part I love the most - the fists? The feet? The man holding it all? It's too much!

I love that he can always make her smile and she "talks" to him more than anybody.

Loving look for her daddy last weekend

I love that last night, he even made her laugh for the first time! Her first real baby belly laugh. It was the greatest sound ever.

Sadly, this is not actually a picture of last night's laugh. But, Operation: Get A Video of Baby Laughing is now in full force. Stay tuned!

I love how proud he is of her already. I know he wants nothing but the best for her in life and is so excited to see what she will accomplish.

After the Hoboken Baby Parade

I love and appreciate that he also handles most of Achilles' needs now without complaint so I don't have to worry about taking the dog outside when I'm trying to feed the baby, etc. It's an enormous help.

He really takes great care of ALL of us, dog included!

I love that he gets down on the floor and plays with her when he gets home from work.

Playtime for Ellie and Daddy

I love that you can just tell that Ellie feels safe in her Daddy's arms.

It kills me.

Most of all, I love how much he obviously loves his family. That is something Ellie and I will always be able to say, without a doubt.

Love.

There is already so much to love about Eric as a father, and we're not even 12 weeks in yet. I'm so excited to watch him grow as a parent as the years go by. At each stage of our life together, I have thought it was not possible to be any more in love with this man than I already was - but so far, nothing has surpassed how much I love him as Ellie's Daddy.

Happy Father's Day, Eric Ryan. Ellie and I are so lucky to have you and we love you so, so much.

Rockin' Out

All this girl needs is an actual microphone clutched in that little fist, and she just may be YOUR next American Idol! (Please read the latter half of that sentence in your very best Ryan Seacrest voice.)

Happy weekend, friends! Seacrest, OUT!

Growing and Changing

I haven't been around here much in the last week or so because little Miss Ellie has been needing just about every last ounce of my attention and energy since mid-last week. She will be 11 weeks old on Thursday, and I think she has been going through some kind of growth spurt. Last week my usually super-happy baby was Fuss Central. For one thing, she refused to nap for any real length of time (unless she was cuddled up against me or in my arms, which is sweet and nice, but mama's gotta do some laundry and take a shower from time to time, you know? Actually, she's napping against me right now as I type this very sentence.)

Napping in her mommy's arms

Her "turtle" sleeping face as she naps in my lap

For a day or two, she didn't even want to nurse without a fight, which NEVER happens. This is a child who loves to eat. Of course, this quickly reversed course and now she wants to eat every two hours like clockwork, and for very long stretches of time. She also woke up a couple of times in the middle of the night, which she hasn't done since the beginning (and we count our blessings for that, don't you worry).

Basically, she was just out of sorts. I saw an awful lot of this:

That is one unhappy baby in a hat.

And not nearly enough of this:

Now that face just warms the heart, doesn't it?

(Note to Ellie: notice you are in your crib and are waking up after a nice long nap in this oh-so-happy picture, HINT HINT)

Of course, she did always have smiles for her daddy and the mobile on her Pack 'N Play, which has some sort of dog-bear hybrid animal on it that she apparently finds hilarious.

Those Dog-Bears get her every time.

Fun times with Daddy on her activity mat

So Daddy and Dog-Bears were set with baby smiles, but Mommy had to work for it. I feel like I spent four straight days sitting in the glider in my bedroom trying to rock my unhappy baby to sleep. I felt terrible - I hate to see her having a hard time. It's a rough life being a baby, and I just wanted to fix it for her.

When we weren't rocking and praying for sleep, we took lots of walks because being in the stroller always calms this little girl down. If she won't nap at home, she almost always will doze off for at least 30-45 minutes in the stroller. So this mama got lots of exercise last week, pretty much just pacing the Hoboken waterfront.

Ellie is unimpressed with the view of downtown. But, praise the Lord, she's sleeping!

I have read that sometimes babies sort of get themselves out of whack when they're working on a new skill, and I can't help but wonder if that might be what has been happening here. Ellie seems to be figuring out her hands, for one thing - she loves to suck on her fists, and even found herself a thumb the other day.

Oh, boy.

Her little kicking legs have been going to town too, and she has started pushing off with her feet to propel herself backwards. She scoots all over the place if you lay her down on her back, be it in her crib, on her play mat, wherever. The child is working hard to make herself mobile. Get ready, Achilles! Your days of peaceful slumber are numbered! Be on the lookout!

Sizing each other up

And now, the latest development is that it looks like she might be working on rolling over. I had her on her play mat the other day and looked away for one minute, and when I looked back I saw this:

She's all, "uh, MOM, something is happening here! Is this normal?!"

She has started pushing off with her feet and arching her back and turning sideways, which results in her ending up on her side. If she can just get that pesky arm out of the way, she'll roll herself right over. Of course, she'll be downright livid when she actually succeeds, only to discover that she just put herself into tummy time. Yes, she still hates tummy time.

Such torture.

So maybe her disgruntledness for the last week or so is due to all these changes. I mean, that's an awful lot to have going on in your life, you know? And at least her sad faces can still be cute:

Epic pout!

Even so, I am glad that we seem to be turning a corner and the smiles are back!

Happy girl!

Catching Up With the Celebs

Although I have pretty much stayed west of the Hudson River since giving birth (with only two exceptions), Eric still goes into the city every day for work, which enables him to keep up our celebrity-sighting pace. Without even really straying from his normal workday path and routine, Eric has been able to spot a number of celebs in the last month or so.

First, on his walk to work one day, he happened to catch a few at the E! Upfronts (preview of upcoming shows to entice advertisers to buy commercial time) at the Haier Building, including Bill and Guiliana Rancic, Joan and Melissa Rivers and Kelly Osbourne. He also caught Mario Lopez filming Extra on the street one day.

The Rancics

Kelly Osbourne, Melissa and Joan Rivers

Mario Lopez

Eric also stumbled upon the NBC Upfronts at Radio City. There he saw Matthew Perry, Blake Shelton, Howie Mandel, Nick Cannon, NeNe Leakes, Donald Trump, Dax Shepard and Peter Krause (from Parenthood). 

Nick Cannon

NeNe

That hair is hard to miss.

Dax Shepard

(For pictures of the others, check out the NYC Celebrity Sightings page.)

If television stars aren't really your thing, Eric also caught a couple of athletes at the SportsNation Madden NFL '13 Cover Reveal in Times Square: Calvin Johnson and Cam Newton.

Calvin Johnson and Cam Newton

If you prefer movie stars, Eric also stumbled upon Kristen Wiig and Ben Stiller filming The Secret Life of Walter Bitty, right in front of his office building.

Ben and Kristen

All of these celebrity encounters occurred just by chance, which is the very cool thing about NYC. However, there was one event that Eric stopped by intentionally, although he only had to walk about a half block from his office to do so: the Men in Black 3 Premiere at the Ziegfeld Theater, where he saw Will Smith and his kids Willow and Jaden, Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin, Nicole Scherzinger (who didn't even turn around to wave at the fans - rude!), Alice Eve, Pitbull, Donald Trump (he's everywhere!), Kristen Schaal and One Direction.

Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones

Josh Brolin and Alice Eve

(Again, for more pics, check out the Celebrity Sightings page!)

The MIB3 Premiere after party was held at the USS Intrepid, complete with fireworks that we were just barely able to see from Hoboken:

Fireworks in the distance

Now one of these days, we just have to get Ellie out to a red carpet for her first celebrity sighting experience! Ha!

Toes in the Sand

First of all, I wanted to say congratulations to my dear cousin Molly and her husband Arturo (you may remember when we attended their awesome wedding in Mexico) on the birth of their sweet baby boy last week! We're so excited to have this new addition to our family and we can't wait to meet him at our family reunion this summer!

And now my slacking self can finally tell you about our Memorial Day, which was lovely. Eric got to golf that Saturday, and we spent Sunday running errands. Monday we hit the mall for a bit on a mission to find the baby a white sun hat, but apparently that is a ridiculous request and we were unsuccessful. (I should have known better than to turn my back on my beloved Amazon and try to buy something in an actual store. Amazon, I'm sorry. I have returned and will not stray again. My white hat is in the mail as we speak!)

After the mall, we went to Newport Green, a new park that just opened up this spring. It is along the Hudson River between Hoboken (our apartment) and Newport (Target/the mall) and it is quite a park! They have great play areas for kids, including a big water feature with tons of fountains to play in (and I will totally be taking Ellie through that water on hot days this summer, almost entirely for my own benefit, with no shame). They have lots of seating on nice boardwalks and huge grassy areas to relax in. The coolest part, in my opinion, is the "beach" - a sandy area with beach chairs and umbrellas right up along the riverfront. We decided that we should spend our Memorial Day at the "beach," so we dressed Ellie in her patriotic bathing suit and off we went.

It was very crowded, but we were lucky enough to get a couple of chairs under an umbrella. It was there that Ellie got to put her toes in the sand for the very first time, which I think is a significant milestone in the life of a girl with Floridian blood. She didn't seem particularly impressed, but she certainly wasn't offended, either. And she was obscenely cute.

Left: Ready for some beach fun, with her rockin' shades she got from Aunt Molly at my baby shower!

Right: Here we go - it's toes in sand time!

This is a beach bum in the making.

Showing off her sandy feet!

Beach-going is hard work for a little baby, so she sought out the comfort of her daddy's arms and quickly fell asleep.

Family shot

There's no place like Daddy's arms.

While she slept, Eric finished up his Taco Bell lunch he brought from the mall, but not without dropping taco stuffs all over the poor baby's leg. She was so embarrassed.

Left: Eat carefully, Dad...

Right: Eric ready to eat his dropped cheese and lettuce off the baby's leg. She already doesn't want to be seen in public with us, it seems.

It was pretty hot out so we didn't last too long, but it sure was fun while it lasted. I can't wait to take Ellie to the REAL beach in Florida this summer! I think she'll love it!

Happy beach baby!