Warning: Epic number of pictures below.

Not so much.

It’s incredibly unfortunate that the son of a Navy Chief and the grandson of a Coast Guard Officer (official motto: Semper Paratus, which is Latin for “why aren’t you wearing your life jacket????”) would hate the water. And yet Baby Evan has gone from perfectly happy to be placed in large, questionable bodies of water to refusing to even stand near a sprinkler. It’s also unfortunate that his parents wasted an enormous amount of money on a boat they can’t really afford thinking it would be a fantastic way to spend time as a family. Now “spending time as a family” consists of alternately clutching a thrashing screaming child and shoving a boob in his mouth to try and calm him down. (That last one is mostly me.)

I seem to have accidentally stumbled upon a solution to our problem though. Or at least, found a cause/effect relationship…

Shorts + shirt + infant life jacket = WTF is wrong with you people??

Swim trunks + rash guard + boat = SRSLY GUYS GET ME OUT OF HERE.

At the lake, this combo is still unpopular.

This was a major breakthrough, accomplished with LOTS of coaxing.

Look Evan! LOOK! DUCKS! Quack quack quack quack!!!! Duckies!!! Isn't that EXCITING? Don't you want to SWIM like the DUCKIES?!?!

Haven't you give up yet woman?

OK. I touched it. Almost. Good enough. And now I am DONE.

Phew, finally part of this water park thing I can get on board with.

Have you seen the trend yet? The one thing all these pictures have in common and the one thing we could change to try and make the baby happier?

Can you see it now?

How about now?

So I guess our current choices are join a nudist colony or just invest in LOTS of sunscreen.

This weekend has been like some sort of terrible research project into the nocturnal habits of juvenile humans when exposed to large amounts of sunlight, food and fun. Code Name: tire the crap out of the baby even though it doesn’t guarantee anything.

On Saturday we met our friends Brandon and Amanda and their daughter Madison down in Essex, CT (Motto: The Best Small Town in America)(My New Proposed Motto: Where To Go If You Want To Feel Really Bad About Your Economic Status). We took the kids to a rather child-inappropriate museum on the history of the Connecticut River and let Baby Evan do his best hobo impression, running in shoeless circles for an hour before we tracked down one of the most delicious fried clam po’ boys I’ve ever had at the Black Seal Restaurant. It was so good even Baby Evan liked it, chomping down part of the giant hoagie roll it came on, an adult-sized handful of clam strips, and dozens of french fries. Did I mention he also ate half the grilled cheese we ordered for him? (Our first time ever ordering off the kid’s menu! THAT is the kind of milestone they should put in baby books.) We didn’t get home until after 3, but by thanks to some crazy magical time warp he was perfectly happy to run around in more shoeless circles yelling at the dog until bedtime, when he collapsed in a heap of exhausted cuteness and slept for TWELVE. STRAIGHT. HOURS.

On Sunday we ran last minute errands (including letting Hobo Baby Evan run up and down the aisles at Stop & Shop – you guessed it – shoeless) before Brandon and Amanda and Madison came over and we all headed out for our first boat ride of the season. The weather was perfect, the traffic on the river was incredibly light and the kids behaved (at least for the first half of the day) especially after stuffing them with Goldfish and Twizzlers. We spent four hours enjoying our horrible financial decision boat and the sun and the water, with everyone but Baby Evan jumping in (water temp: 72 degrees) for some splashy fun.  After forcing one overly tired child into an afternoon nap, we went over to Brandon and Amanda’s (can you believe they weren’t tired of us yet?! What I am going to do when they move to Virginia???) for grilled chicken pineapple quesadillas and a few rounds of the marble game.* For dinner, Baby Evan ate several pieces of bread with goat cheese dip and some plain cheese quesadillas plus a whole sippy cup of watered down lemonade. Instead of the quite, easy bedtime we were expecting when we got home, E and I had to take turns rocking/patting/nursing one INCREDIBLY ANGRY SCREAMING CHILD for two hours before he would go to sleep and stay asleep. Eventually a dose of (generic, non-recalled) baby tylenol was what did the trick and Baby Evan slept from 11 pm to 6 am this morning. Which, well, just isn’t good enough anymore. He needs at least 10 hours of sleep to keep him from turning into a monster and in my fetus-growing state I need at least 8 hours.

WHAT THE HELL, BABY EVAN? What was the one factor on Saturday that led to a good night that we somehow missed on Sunday? French fries? No afternoon nap? Less sunshine? More hobo shoelessness? Is it teething? Diaper rash? A broken leg? Demon possession? Please tell me so I can solve the problem with food/shade/medicine/holy water and start getting those wonderful 12-hour nights on a regular basis. Sandy and I thank you.

* The marble game: best card/board game ever. Requires 4-6 people and a special wooden board, unless you are REALLY addicted in which case I’ve heard you can make a board with cardboard and little hole-punch circles. Sometimes called “Social Security” in Ohio, but the rules are less stupid complicated.

When life leaves your blog lacking, that’s what God invented bullet points for.

– Baby Evan officially knows both the word and the sign for dog and will do them both independently and on command. So those 12 weeks of signing class ended up being (almost) effective after all.

– I added threading to the comments section, so you can use the “reply” option if someone has said something SO BRILLIANT or SO AWFUL that you just must speak to them directly. Expect to see a lot more of me in my own comments.

– If you have a discussion with a coworker about fun things to do over the weekend, make sure you’re on the same page regarding whether you are going to do said things TOGETHER or are just hearing about HIS plans. Otherwise you risk his wife and your wife misinterpreting your polite interest as complicit agreement and you will spend your whole weekend visiting museums and quaint seaside villages full of antique stores.

– That last one was totally hypothetical of course.

– Although MAYBE if you took a second out of your busy iPhone-game-playing schedule to, oh, I don’t know, ASK YOUR PREGNANT WIFE HOW SHE’S FEELING she wouldn’t feel the need to drag you all over New England to get some time together.

– No really, these are just generalizations.

– I’m going to have to go bathing suit shopping AGAIN, since last year’s one piece is not a maternity suit and the maternity suit I do have is incredibly uncomfortable and ugly. I seem to remember buying it because it was the only option though, so I may not have any luck.

– In an incredibly strange and somewhat evil twist of fate, this pregnancy has improved my skin quality an enormous amount already (which, according to tradition, means I’m having another boy) and last year’s stretch marks have faded to almost invisible. I suppose this is just in preparation for new, angry, violently purple stretch marks in my 3rd trimester, but I may make it through the summer without looking like I’ve been attacked by wild badgers.

– I think I’m going to go to Target today. Just thought you should know.

– A warning to all new parents: TAKE LOTS OF PICTURES OF YOUR BABY NOW, because before too long they’re going to be running through your kitchen naked and refusing to hold still long enough to focus the camera. And if you DO manage to get them to hold still, it will only be sitting in your lap on the floor and they will somehow still manage to ruin your photo.

At least he's still pretty cute.

For some reason, the first half of my photos were totally overexposed. Some were so washed out they were practically blank. The ones that were salvageable with a photo program ended up looking pretty cool though.