Baby's First Outing

Well, this is much in delay, but Jamey had his first outing last weekend. In the morning, we headed over to Target and Babies R Us for a few returns and purchases. Jamey slept right through.

But then, the bigger adventure came that evening. I had gotten a call from Monica and when I called her back, she invited us over for dinner. Although my initial instinct was that it would be so much for Jamey in one day, we decided, "Why not?" In addition, in the parking lot of the high school where I teach, there was a children's fair. Sure, Jamey would be oblivious to it, but the hope was that Monica and Chris' 18 month old (Christopher) would find some things to enjoy.

So we headed over to their place that evening, with Jamey asleep of course. He stayed in his carrier through the whole dinner. Perhaps the best part about the visit was when Christopher met Jamey for the first time. You may remember that I have mentioned Christopher before in my blog. He is the little boy who would put his hand on my belly and declare "Baby" when I was still pregnant. I was anxious to see how he would react when I didn't have my giant belly.

When we first came in, he was overwhelmed to see Glenn and I, and danced around. After about five minutes, he noticed this carrier sitting on the floor. Looking up at his dad, he squatted down and gasped. "What's that?" he asked, in his little Christopher voice. As quickly as possible, I whipped out the video camera. He was very good with the baby, though. He didn't dare touch him. He just squatted right in front of his character and stared at Jamey and then he would swivel his head to one of the adults with a big grin, as though he had made this amazing discovery. At various times throughout the dinner, he would remember that the baby was there, squeal and point at the carrier, screaming "Baby!" It was a cool site to see.

After dinner and a quick feeding, we went to the fair. As may be predicted, Jamey slept through the entire field trip. Nothing bothered his slumber-- not the lights, nor the sounds. It turned out that the rides were all too big for Christopher, but he seemed just as happy to point, stare, and oooh and ahhh them. He also played a game where you pull a duck out of the water and get a prize. He wanted to keep the duck more than the prize that he won, however. Monica also ended up winning them a hermit crab.

We had a very interesting interaction with an extremely well dressed carnie-boy. Glenn had pulled out the video camera to tape a sleeping Jamey in front of the ferris wheel. Just then an 8 year old came over and said, "May I look?" I said looking was fine. He stared, and as he started to talk, I began to wonder if he was somehow a 30 year old trapped in an 8 year old body. "How old is the little guy?" the boy asked. Other statements made by him, "I have two brothers and they are 6 and 7. Where do the babies go to, I tell you?" "Is he your first?" So now, for the rest of time, we will be wondering who this strange little boy on the video is. We noticed later that he was going around offering to help out the various game workers, which is what led us to realize that he must be one of the carnival people.

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Other James tidbits:
-His favorite place to sit is in his bouncing chair. He loves to sit and face looking out the glass door in the living room, taking in all the light that is outside there.
-Just like all other babies, he makes lots of little noises. In fact, when he is sleeping, and is stirring, he sounds a bit like a little chicken. He makes little peeps as he struggles to come out of his sleep. To accompany that, his little arms will flail around with the startle reflex and punch at whatever is around. I could watch it forever!

Speaking of Jamey, he seems to be stirring, so that is all for me at this point!