Got any friends in Dallas?

Then send 'em to this:

http://www.dallastheatrecenter.org/Page.aspx?WP_ID=1340

I'll report on my first week away from baby when I get back, and maybe I'll convince Carl to do a "what baby and Dad did while Mom was away" post.

That would be most excellent and a touch frightening, n'est pas?

On the playwriting front, this same play is getting a reading at Ars Nova in NYC on March 10, so mark your calendars friends! Would love to see you there. Should be a good time. This play is, by far, the funniest and dirtiest thing I've ever written.

Nine Months

Sweet baby Sophie,

At nine months, you are an avid oral explorer, expertly grasping any new object within reach to insert in your mouth and inspect its contours with your tongue. You love round balls, paper tags, wooden puzzle pieces, small blocks and plastic cups. You covet Mommy's cell phone and coffee mug, but more than anything, you want to give the screen of Mommy's laptop a sloppy wet kiss and tap on the keyboard with your thumbs.

You're a little more cautious when it comes to crawling. You're happy to lunge for objects just out of reach, but you're a little hesitant to walk on all fours. You get in position, then scoot backwards till you're back on your bottom and sitting on the floor once more.

Your moods are like clockwork: all smiles in the morning but a little bit fussy before naps and at night. You're eating solid foods now and love cheerios more than anything else. You really want to feed yourself, even though you can't get the spoon in your mouth with much precision.

You're not one for cuddles unless you're very, very tired or sick. You like new places and new faces; you don't cling to Mom and Dad even a bit. You'll sit still in your car seat or a high chair, although you won't in sit still in our laps. But even though you're stretching your independence, you like for us to stay near and watch.

And so we do.

The Loot

Sophie's relatives in Georgia and North Carolina sure know how to spoil a girl:

Two piggy banks
One toy dog
Two teddy bears
One blue stuffed reindeer
One bunting
Seventeen books
One stuffed octopus
One jogging suit
One red corduroy jumper
One Christmas stocking with sundries inside
Two hats
One pair of mittens
One yellow scarf
and

One red convertible

So Donno says the red convertible is for ALL the grandchildren, but let's be honest: Anna Catherine's gonna wear it out before Sophie and Lulu turn two. Note: observe how frightened James is of his sister's driving. This is called foreshadowing for all you Biology majors.

We also got to digest the rewards of Donno's cooking marathon all season long: crabcakes with a red pepper sauce and homemade, deep fried hush-puppies; standing prime rib roast with Yorkshire pudding and French onion soup; pork tenderloin with a yummy cranberry chutney; black-eyed peas with Great Grandmother Maud's chili relish; some egg and creamed spinach breakfast concoction that I don't have a name for but is soooooo good on Christmas morning with sausage and biscuits and sliced citrus fruits. Ah, culinary heaven. Thanks Mom!

Oh yes, I forgot. One pair of fur trimmed boots.
My baby is far more stylish than I will ever be.

Christmas in North Carolina

We arrived in Salisbury a week before Christmas at four a.m. with a sick, crying baby in tow. Her grandma Sallie immediately picked her up and rocked her back to sleep. How's that for quick service?

Sophie really enjoyed spending time with her cousin, Brenna who loved to pat, kiss and hug her, as well as continuing to try and touch her eyeballs. Here they are together at the Miller/Green annual eggnog Christmas party.

I suppose Christmas morning was like any other for baby Sophie, except her Mom forced her into a greater number of outfits, and she got to eat a lot more paper than usual.

The picture above is my favorite from our NC Christmas. That's Brenna and Sophie with their grandparents on Christmas morning. We all think Sophie looks a little like her Sallie. And below, that's us at Granny's in the afternoon. Why on earth we neglected to take a picture of Sophie with her 88 year old great-granny is beyond me, but at least we will always have a record of how I dressed Sophie as a pilgrim on her first Christmas.

Thanks to Sallie, Carl, Joe, Kristin and Granny for making Sophie's first Christmas so memorable, even though she'll never remember a bit of it!

Baby, you can sleep while we drive

Let's take a jaunt across the Southeast to visit some friends, shall we?

First stop: Marley Kate Windley in Cary, North Carolina.
Marley is daughter of Melissa and Chris Windley. Melissa is an old "friend" of Carl's on whom he had a huge crush for the longest time before he met me. I guess I'm going to have to stop referring to her as "the ho" now that she's a Mom and successful entrepreneur (in fact, I think I have a crush on her now).


Second stop: Leo Cole Rainey in Chapel Hill, NC.
It was a joy to meet little Leo who recently moved to Chapel Hill from Brooklyn. His parents are Dave Rainey and Claire Campbell, two of the most creative and talented folks around. Claire has made a fantastic montage of Leo and Sophie that I hope to post later.


Third stop: Holly-Bell and D-Naughty in Greensboro, NC: BFF!!!

Fourth stop: Eli Craig Hubler in Huntsville, AL
One word comes to mind when I think of Eli Craig: adorable-precocious-looksjustlikehismama-into everything rascal! Son of Mike and Ivy Hubler, the two people who kept Carl from falling off the planet earth during his graduate school years. We love them so much and after avidly comparing notes with supermom Ivy over the past year and a half, were so happy to finally meet this young prince.

(Yes, that's a terrible picture of me!)

Fifth stop: Zachary James Lucia in Memphis, TN

Okay, so that's not two year old Zachary James. But we were foolish and didn't take any pictures with the Lucias, our dear friends from Washington D.C. who recently moved to Memphis, where Elizabeth teaches French at Rhodes College. Kevin is one of the very few people Carl befriended at law school, and when Kevin first invited us to dinner at their townhouse in Georgetown and asked us if we liked to sail, I was convinced Carl had hit the jackpot and befriended millionaires. Unfortunately, we soon learned that the Lucias are just as poor as the rest of us academic types but decided they were friends worth holding onto anyway! Kevin, send a picture of Zachary for the blog!

Crawl Baby Crawl

Since my last report, many miles have been driven, mediocre pictures taken, presents unwrapped, dose upon dose of children's tylenol forced down a certain someone's throat, but before I get to all that, let's see Sophie do her new crawl, lunge, capture sequence, shall we?