If you don’t want to watch SJ working on her alphabet, skip ahead to 4:12 for the meat of this thing.
I really like this exchange.
SJ: “She has tissue around her like a ghost.”
M: “Why does she have tissue around her.”
SJ: “Because she’s a ghost.”
But the real heart-melter is this bit.
M: “Will you say hi to Uncle Joe?”
SJ: “I can’t see him.”
M: “Just say, ‘Hi, Uncle Joe!'”
SJ: “I want to see his face.”
I am a big fan of her gibberish song, too.
I recently sent SJ a postcard that looked like this:
It said something like:
Dear SJ, how are you? I saw this postcard and I thought of you. Isn’t it funny AND pretty? Roosters aren’t supposed to be pink! Ha ha ha ha ha! Anyway, that’s all for now! Is this your first postcard? Love, Uncle Joe.
Sure, it’s not the most gripping postcard ever written, but she’s 3. Play to your audience. I thought it was fun.
I hadn’t heard about it from my brother, so I asked him. This was his response.
YES. And then he sent me this.
Some days you just miss the shit out of your family, you know?
Last weekend I went to California for the wedding of my dear old friend Sean to a woman I had never met but who seems quite lovely. The wedding was beautiful. It took place outside at a bed & breakfast in Fort Bragg, CA, a little town along the coast about 3 hours north of San Francisco. They had llamas and dancing and vegetarian food and lights and the whole thing was really nice.
I didn’t take a single fucking photo of that bullshit.
Instead, I took a bunch of photos of my brother’s young family at their house in San Rafael (which any person from the Bay Area will know is pronounced “san ra-fell”). Take a look!
[flickrset id=”72157627794973319″ thumbnail=”square” photos=”” overlay=”true” size=”large”]
I think the photos are nice. Nothing crazy special about them. I am totally in love with my niece Sienna though. My favorite moments of the trip where when she’d come in and wake me up on the sofa. “Hi, uncle Joe.” “Hi, SJ.” “Did you see my doll?” “I do now, SJ.”
Here’s a good example.
And then I got this e-mail from Leah.
Subject: Sienna misses joe.
When I just put sienna down she asked me to tuck her in like a baby burrito and call her SJ.’ Then she said ‘why did uncle joe have to go back to new York?’
Reference: the first night there I read her a bedtime story and then tucked her in and told her I was wrapping her up like a baby burrito. God damn, don’t you just want to smother her?
Yesterday my lovely sister in law Leah gave birth to her second daughter, named Corinne Katherine Dillingham. Originally due on my birthday (6/17), she decided she was sick of being cooped up in Leah’s womb and thought that yesterday was a good time to emerge in San Francisco. My sort-of sister in law Beata works at the same hospital as a nurse and excitedly came online to IM me that Leah was going into labor and that she was SOOOOO EXCITED and had to share since Cha was still at work.
Well, then I got all excited and texted my brother and Leah wishing them “Good luck with the hatching!!”
He replied, “The alien will come out through the ribcage.”
To which I replied, “Catch it before it burns a hole in the floor and kills everyone else, Ripley.” Then I requested photos. Which he sent! Do you want to see?! Of course you do!
What a lovely family.
Welcome to planet earth, you crazy little shit. You’re in for a wild ride.
How quickly babies grow. Remember this adorable little peanut?
Of course you do. She’s adorable. How could you not? Well, just look at this photo sent to me this morning by my brother.
What, is she dressed up for a night on the town? Gonna take the Beemer out for a spin, are ya kid? Where the hell have I been? Although the growth of babies has got to be one of the most mundane things in life, consider my mind blown.
Welcome to the clan, baby Sienna Jo.
Look at the baby! Now look at the coffee/soda/mysterious dark liquid stain on Mike’s shirt. I love that she has dark hair like her devastatingly handsome, talented uncle Joe.
Congrats, Mikey and Leah. Way to start the new generation of Dillinghams off with a bang. We’re not a family of whimperers, regardless of what T.S. Eliot said about the world ending.