i know i just did one of these but i've gotta tell the stories as they come. isabella recently learned how to throw clothes down the laundry chute. last night as i was emptying the bin in the basement i found the following items in addition to our soiled clothing.

a toothbrush
the cover from a magazine
a credit card
a floppy disk
a cup (which i think was half-full when deposited)
and a pair of my boxers that i'd only worn twice last week.

i have so much to teach little bella. everyone knows underwear doesn't get thrown down until the third wearing. sheesh.

take 9 bran muffins sitting in a basket on the counter.

take 1 isabella playing on the counter.

take 2 newish parents occupied in other matters.

do you know what you get?

10 partially eaten bran muffins. don't ask me where the extra one came from. i was hoping you'd know.

twice a year the people in my neighborhood have a parade and picnic. the two anointed dates are fourth of july and halloween. the parade caters to the kids and the picnic to the adults. now the parade isn't exactly what one typically thinks of when they think parade. ours is unique in the sense that everyone, yes everyone, participates in the parade. participation entails walking with all the others through the streets of our neighborhood, starting and ending at the same point. the main oddity is that since everyone involved is actually walking in the parade, there isn't really anyone left to watch the spectacle. of course a few people, a scant few merciful people, sit in front of their homes in lawn chairs, drinking lemonade and cheering us on as we go by. but, truth told the wavers are outnumbered about fifty to one.


the parade troop is comprised of a comprehensive mix. first a fire engine rolls slowly occasionally blasting its horn and swirling the sirens. directly behind this red engine which has the words "let's roll" emblazoned on the side comes our own local marching band where one instrument is a garden hose with a funnel on the end, painted silver. this ambitious group gathers at eight in the morning and practice yankee doodle dandy until show time. the kids ride in or on decorated bikes, scooters and strollers. everyone else walks. and talks. and points and laughs as they see how sophie is dressed or how much alex is sweating. a police car trails the collective crawling at the pace of the slowest tricycle attempting to keep an appropriate and unobtrusive distance behind. i'm not sure if this is to keep us in control or to protect us from outsiders who may see the crazed ritual and take action against us given our obvious imbalance. either way there is a cop car at the rear.


marty and i have lived in the neighborhood almost three years but this is the first year we have been in town for the july parade. we've already deemed all future outings as mandatory. my favorite moment of the day happened as marty and bella approached where i was sitting taking pictures of the scene, bella spotted me and yelled as loud as her tiny vocal cords could stretch "my mommy! MY mommie! MY MOMMIE" and elatedly stretched her arm towards me.

THE PLAN
07:00-07:30 eat breakfast
07:30-08:00 install compost bin and mulch surrounding ground
08:00-11:30 install upstairs quarter round
11:30-12:00 pick up house and shower
12:00-01:30 go to darkman's 30th birthday party
01:30-03:30 tennis with e-love
03:30-04:00 shower and snack
04:00-07:00 hang out with bella, marty & peggy (returned from chicago)
07:00-09:00 go to a ron jeremy lecture w/ man who screams like woman (MWSLW)
09:00-11:00 watch the ron jeremy documentary P*rn Star
11:30-11:31 fall asleep

THE DAY
08:00-08:15 wake up an hour and fifteen minutes late
08:15-08:20 eat granola bar & drink thai coffee (#1)
08:20-09:00 install compost bin and mulch surrounding area
09:00-09:50 install upstairs quarter round
09:50-09:51 brake a pane of glass from a french door on my lap
09:51-09:52 step on drill bit with bare foot while backing away from broken glass
09:52-09:55 turn vacuum on so i can scream and cuss very, very audibly
09:55-10:15 clean up glass and apply band-aids to legs and feet
10:15-12:00 finish installing upstairs quarter round
12:00-12:45 pick up house and shower. oh yeah, and thai coffee (#2)
12:45-01:35 go to darkman's party
01:35-01:40 kindly request that conner the chimp be removed from my lap so i can depart
01:40-04:00 tennis with e-love
04:00-05:00 hang out with bella, marty and peggy until they leave for some family thing
05:00-06:00 sleep. thank god for sleep.
06:00-06:03 read sign stating the ron jeremy appearance has been canceled.
06:04-06:20 resist pummeling the ticket whelp who hung the evil sign.
06:20-06:30 win debate with MWSLW regarding best possible question to ask the hedgehog
06:30-08:00 eat at lemon grass - have thai coffee (#3)
08:00-09:00 go to ted drewes for custard - suck-up to marty via an oreo concrete
09:00-11:00 geek with MWSLW
11:00-11:45 repeatedly listen to the freshly downloaded beasty boys? song GIRLS
11:45-12:00 lay in bed unable to sleep, thinking how good a thai coffee (#4) would be

things found in bella's diaper this weekend during changes: urine, feces, a jenga block and one domino.

so if you ever play dominos at my house, handle the double-six at your own risk.

a year ago i wrote about how i did not know how to write about the birth of my first child. now i sit here struggling for some bit or piece from the last year in attempt to define the experience in some well constructed and better presented paragraph. this exercise of reflection is nearing the two week mark and i think i need to capitulate the matter accepting that a pithy comment encapsulating be...

in two days we celebrate bella's one-year birthday and in honor of this milestone, i will be reenacting the weekly rockefeller center updates for the month of march. and, in case it has been too long for any of you, that means that a new bella pic will be waiting for you each and every monday morning. i hope you enjoy them.

after bella was born a lot of people asked if i felt like parent. while you may think that the birthing event would slap one into the mood, it doesn't, or at least it didn't for me. the best way i can think to describe it is a sort of blissful stupor. i can be up at 3am cradling my screaming child, standing in my underwear and blinking clumsily in a dark room in attempt to stay upright and if someone asked me at that moment if i felt like a parent, i would cleanly answer No. i have caught myself wiping feces from the back of my hand onto my favorite college sweatshirt while bracing the phone in my neck as i talk to a nurse about the consistency of said brown matter and the color/hue of the phlegm that's adorning my other sleeve and if you were to ask me how parenthood was i'd suggest you locate someone who looks like they'd have experience in the subject.

recently I was brought out of a saturday slumber by a sensation i have never before encountered. upon opening my eyes and localizing the touch i found that my daughter was smashing her tiny face into my chest in attempt to breast feed off my miniscule man nipple.

i sat bolt upright holding her in my arms and looked straight ahead. at this moment, on this day if you, if anyone, asked me if i felt like a parent i would have responded "what the hell do you think, i got a little human trying to suck fluid out of my left nipple?"

and for the record, i had a little human trying to suck milk out of my left nipple on the following wednesday as well.

having this holiday week off, i've been able to enjoy having all of my showers policed by the ever diligent bathroom inspector, isabella. she does not let the minor detail of getting drenched deter her from pulling the curtain to the side so she can heckle and jeer your every move while blinking and shaking her head through the falling water. and whether she's standing at the rear of the shower getting a solid PG-13 rating or at the head by the knobs for the full frontal NC-17 vantage point, she's banging a toothbrush against the side of the tub before launching it into the porcelain chasm. she then politely waits for a bare foot to slide it up the side for her to grab onto so she can resume her bang and chuck routine.

i've been told that this shower humor is finite. when i asked one person why, i was given an account of my personality-ridden niece emma and how her aquatic privileges came to be revoked after a few modest observations. the first strike occurred when she commented to her mother on her "furry bagina", the mom's that is. strike two came after she, emma, complimented her father on his "very handsome penis". there was no third strike. it seems the second one carried enough import for her to be called out swinging. game. set. and match.

personally, i think i can admit that i am not one to chase off flattery and/or compliments, no matter the source or intent.

The other day Marty asked me to watch Bella while she attended to some household matters. She popped in this video called Baby Mozart which she said Bella liked to watch. This tape is nothing but a bunch of close-ups of moving images, like clocks and electric trains, to Mozart music. So Bella and I sprawled out on the floor in front of the tube and started watching the colorful antics. About thirty minutes later I hear my name barked in a fairly authoritative tone and turned to see Marty standing by her desk in the next room. When I looked at her she motioned down towards her feet where I saw Bella sitting under marty's desk gnawing on one of the computer power cords which were now in a tangle about bellas legs and waist.

So what I'm saying is Baby Mozart is a pretty good view and Bella's attention span doesn't yet seem to match her father's.

Happy six-month birthday to Bella. Happy six month parenting badge for Marty and I. For any of you who predominately get advice and opinion from the omni-present nay-sayers club of America, I'm here to tell you little human watching equals big human fun. But, in accordance with my nature, allow me to be hypocritcal for a moment and share a retrospective on my five most evil moments in this first half year behind the wheel of the daddy-mobile.

[non-parents and non-kid people: commit time to this at your own risk.]

Today Bella takes her first plane flight and I'm extremely nervous. Nervous because I'm hyper-aware of the effects a screaming child has on non-parents in that I was one a mere six months ago. One of the first traits you acquire as the keeper of a tiny human is an auditory numbness towards shrill screaming. It kind of becomes simple white noise. But, that is not to say that I don't remember being seated next to a wailing kid in my pre-parent days on the way back from a business trip and debating whether my ears or their vocal chords should be removed. So, in the event the trip does not go well, I apologize in advance to any people sitting near seat 13A on the 11:15 to Cleveland. I know your pain and feel for your misery.

While I once thought the human body was built this way, I now believe we are conditioned to dislike ejecting things in unnatural directions. I've seen bella pour a pint of milk out a single nostril smiling the whole way. I once choked on a good and plenty, shot it out my mouth six feet before it hit the wall and Marty had to buy me an ice cream to get me to stop philosophizing on my near death experience.

Isabella Walter DeArmitt

Tuesday, March 6, 6:51pm, St. Louis, Mo. (age: 10 minutes)

Exit Rockefeller; enter (name to be announced at future date). Mom, baby Rock and father are well. Greatly spent and overwhelmed, but well all the same. I regret to say that I am unable to parlay Rockefeller's post-utero name because both Marty and I were convinced that Rock would be male and were shocked to hear the words 'It'...

Between having a constant in-house photo-op and an out-of-state mother, you hopefully knew that it was just a matter of time before a special section was devoted to the newest member of dearmitt.com, miss isabella. well that time is here and going forward if you are so inclined you may check on bella's progress and kodak moments at the recently erected Rockefeller Center.

As an update, Rockefeller has been re-dubbed in honor of his herness. The birth certificate shall read Isabella Walter DeArmitt, or Isabel to Marty, and Bella to Troy. So allow me to introduce Isabella as Isabella.

Rockefeller. Finally after 8 months in the cooker we can now answer everyone's question of "What is it?" It definitely appears to be human. Furthermore, after several embarrassing instances of commenting on a certain body part only to have the sonogram tech correct us by pointing out that the alleged item is in fact the placenta we can now confidently discern this from that. Please have a look for yourself.