in the past 16 months, i've taken over 2500 palmpix of alli......and i'm not planning on stopping....but, as time progresses, and alli progresses, i find myself taking pictures less often and, in turn, posting here less often....and, for the forseeable future, i don't see that trend reversing...work has recently become more stressful, and my time with alli means that much more to me...she's a little person now...with a personality, an amazing sense of humor, a smile big enough to light up a room, and a spunk and spirit that warms my heart....and, sometimes i forget to take that picture of her doing something goofy or cute, cuz 10 seconds later she's doing something goofier and cuter...and i'm captivated...she's my drug. i'm addicted. i can't get enough....and i don't think that the way i've been "documenting" her life to date is appropriate anymore for who and what she's become.....julie captures everything from the day to day to the goofy so much better than i ever could in her motherhood journal and alli's new photo gallery....so i'm gonna let her......

right now all i really want to do is *make* pictures with alli....not *take* them....

sometimes all it takes is a bottle of mustard to remind me how much i love julie.....(hey...that sounds kinda kinky...)

friday night, after work, i met julie and alli at a restaurant near the train stop....there was some sort of kitchen shebazzle which caused our order to be delayed....alli, these days, is a restaurant time bomb....she's fine for a while, but she's bound to explode eventually....so, with the food delay taking its toll on the munchkin psyche, the mommy sprung into action....

mommy to a bored, fidgety, grumpy alli: "you want to try mustard?"

alli, despite my quick nudge under the table, seeemed agreeable...so the mommy poured some mustard on her placemat...and alli stuck her finger in...and licked it...and, surprisingly, she repeated...for some reason, the concept of alli liking straight mustard highly amused julie and i.....probably a little more than it should have...

julie, with a devlish smile, then proceeds to pour cheerios and raisins into the mustard...alli, unfazed, picks up a mustardy cheerio, and eats it....she then quickly repeats with a mustardy raisin...and the daddy is amused.....and the mommy is just about to pee her pants laughing....and the daddy starts to worry about what *really* goes on all day long when he's at work....

alli, always a very good "sharer", proceeds to offer mustard covered cheerios to the mommy when the daddy asks her if she can give some to the mommy....the mommy proceeds to break her vow to never feed the goose something she herself isn't at least willing to try.....and the daddy is now just about to pee his pants laughing....

i had a grand vision for father's day #2...the goose and i would wake up early, and we'd let the mommy sleep in, and we'd get dressed (alli in my current favorite alli outfit that the mommy says she likes to take off all the time...) and stuff and head on over to the local bagel place for an early morning breakfast, like we used to do (i don't know why we stopped...) and just kind of hang and bond and stuff...alli would happily eat her muffin and play and talk to me while i got a long delayed chance to read a significant part of the sunday paper on an actual sunday morning and, while, i was dreaming, i envisioned her picking up the tab....it was a perfectly grand, perfectly simple father's day morning wish....

the reality was that we all slept in...alli till 9am?!?! and the mommy and i woke up all stuffy and achy, while i assume, the goose was still getting over whatever she'd infected us with and was a bit on the grumpy side...the mommy was glad to be rid of us for the morning so that she could rest up for a nice family afternoon and i got alli dressed and ready to go....as we sat down to eat the goose started kicking me (normally she kicks the mommy, laughs and shakes her head "no" when asked if she's kicking the mommy....) instead of the mommy....she refused to eat her yogurt...demanded to play with my spoon, yet whined whenever i got up to get a new one....was briefly occupied by reading an advertisement in the sunday paper while i read the sports section....proceeded to continually whip newspaper (as pictured above!) on the floor in an obvious attempt to keep me from reading some article in the woman news section about how to rid the demon from your baby.....and as i saw my "perfect" morning dream fly out the window....i didn't care...cuz she was smiling at me...she was laughing...she was having a good time...and that is what being a father is all about....i don't need a day to feel special...she makes me feel special every day...everywhere....

we spent the rest of the morning strolling around downtown evanston...stopping to pet a dog here...to watch the train go by there...we went home...ran some errands with the mommy....ate lunch..played at a park (and the mommy took one of my favorite pictures ever..i assume coming soon to her web page) and came home...alli was a giant pain in my booty in the evening...and as i lay on her floor, annoyed that she would not go to sleep so i could collapse on the couch in between loads of laundry, i got one of her hugs and kisses...and i realized that i am the luckiest man alive...

and, as i hung my new fingerpainting from alli (father's day gift...her first painting!) in my cube this morning, and people asked me how my father's day was, i found myself wanting to say that is was "perfect".....

ever since the first appearance of "devil baby", and the ensuing verbal attacks and abuse from the grandparents claiming that sweet little alli could not, ever, be an entity known as "devil baby", i have been seeking out proof...seeking out some sort of evidence that i could post here to show once and for all that julie and i were not making stuff up....

here you see the sick little munchkin, circa monday night, eating her chicken noodle soup....it all seemed to be going fine until about halfway through dinner an insane thunderstorm struck the area.....lightning...and thunder....and screaming munchkin...and soup flying everywhere...and i could swear that i saw those cute little eyes flash red and then her head spin completely around a few times.....and then i spent the rest of the night trying to calm the devil-baby...trying to coax her to sleep...to coax out the sweet loving alli....

well...i finally got her to sleep...but from the "state of the alli" address when i got home tuesday evening, i learned that the demonic side was still lurking....clearly, her current cold has weakened her demonic immune system...either that, or she's watched charmed with me one too many times....not even an overdose of "the wiggles" could save us from the moody devil-child....

so, on the train today, i diligently worked on how to convert my palmpix into something that could capture the acutal evidence of the "devil baby"....using complex calculations, string cheese, red cellophane paper, the blood of a hairless rooster and three strands of alli's hair, i had finally thought that i was ready to attempt to gather the proof...and, as you can see from the SHOCKING! (click pictures to enlarge...if you dare....muwahahahahaha) photographic evidence above, it is clear that ali is clearly currently posessed by some crazed demonic force...or, at least her left shoulder is....

i guess i have my work cut out for me on the train ride tomorrow...better add another 'to-do' to my list..."figure out way to rid child of evil demon that likes to hang out over her left shoulder and take over sick munchkin body in order to torture loving parents"....and if that doesn't work...well, i hear that julie ordered another pesky wiggles video today....if captain feathersword can't save us, well, i fear nobody can....

at the park on saturday i learned that alli will smile by request....

even a cold can't hold back that goofy grin.....after i discovered the mega-on-demand-smile on saturday, and showed it to the mommy, we must have uttered the words "alli, can you smile?" about a thousand times this weekend....each time we were greeted with something like this smile....sometimes less, often more ....and occasionaly, when we were lucky, it was accompanied by the bonus giggle....i could just freaking eat her sometimes....if she didn't have so many damn boogers that is....

this past weekend was nearly perfect...the weather was beautiful, i was beautiful, and we had some quality family (and mommy and daddy alone) time....
..on saturday, a family breakfast at our favorite breakfast joint was followed by a few errands, a goose-nap in the car and then a trip to the store to pick up some lunchtime picnic stuff....we set off for the local lakefront, and enjoyed our lunch in the near 90 degree weather under a large shade tree

......and then we set off to the park....alli thought that the slides were too hot to go down, so we hit the swings...due the modern miracle of me still being able to lie down on the ground and successfully get up again, i am able to share this amazing bit of palmpixery with the world.....i am, however, still trying to get the wood chips out of my pants....

the park was directly followed by a leisurely stroll over to the beach...at first alli was frightened of the water and was clinging to julie's leg....and, then she was brave enough to stand holding the mommy's hand...and then she decided to sit her little booty down in the lake and proceed to make a giant mess of herself....she was crawling rabidly in and out of the water..up and donw the beach...so much so that one passerby remarked to me that she was like a baby turtle running out to sea....a sentiment echoed by the mommy just a few minutes later during muchkin-lake-sand-watch shift change.....

after the beach, a hot and tired mommy and daddy were accompanied on the walk back to the car by one happy little munchkin.....clearly she didn't realize the fact that we were pretending not to know her.....afterall, who wants to be seen with a little white-trash lookin' baby wearing only a diaper and hanging her wet pants out to dry on the stroller for the whole world to see?....julie and i do have some fancy reputations to uphold...

sunday was cooler and a little overcast....perfect for our first family bike ride of the season (really, summer will come at some point, no?).....we started out easy, riding the trail at a local sculpture park....armed with a gaggle of toys, a bag of snacks and a bottle of water, alli had plenty to look at (including my booty) from her little trailer and even if she didn't quite grasp that i couldn't see what she was pointing to (and saying "dat?"), she seemed to enjoy herself (despite the fact that i think she'd rather have her entire head chopped off and reattached to a vacuum cleaner than wear a bike helmet, even a bike helmet covered in ducks!)....i know that julie and i did.....pregnancy-summer and newborn-baby-summer had made it about 2 years since we had *really* ridden our bikes, and we were happy to share one of our favorite pasttimes with the goose...