Father's Days

Tilly made it to her second Twins game Sunday, for Father's Day. Emma treated me to a day with my girls at the Dome, so that couldn't have been a nicer first Father's Day. We were one row and one seat from catching Michael Cuddyer's home run in the second inning, but that turned out to be the only highlight of the game.

Tilly was again a big hit with the pink earphones--I took her up to change her diaper and literally heard a non-stop chorus of giggles and cooing all the way up the stairs--but she didn't make it up on the scoreboard this time. I think, however, we've figured out the secret of where to sit to get circled by Bert on the TV telecast.

(Emma's got some great pics on her Facebook page too, including one where Tilly looks like a fat-cheeked pink Martian.)

I didn't make it to my second Twins game until April 7-ish, 1981, when I was 10 years old. The Twins lost that game in thoroughly boring fashion to the Oakland A's, something like 4-2. I think John Castino hit a triple, and that was the only highlight of that game.

That was the last year at the old Twins ballpark, and as I recall, that was also the only game my sisters Grace and Colleen and brother Jim saw in that stadium. So, Tilly continues the next generation of fan-dom, and like her dad--come next year--will at least be able to say that she was at two ballgames in the old stadium.

This evening, friends John and Laura brought Luke over for dinner. He hadn't seen his sweetheart Tilly for several weeks. They got to catch up and so did we. We installed a few window air conditioners in our main floor, and the whole house felt like it has central air. We're pretty lucky. There's still real potential for Luke and Tilly, but we're not going to pressure them into anything.

That's what I've got for today. I have seven weddings to photograph in June all totaled--5 down, 2 to go. So I apologize for being a bit lax on the blog, but that's why.

Puppet Show

Some friends of ours--Beth and Marty--hosted a backyard neighborhood puppet show last week. Tilly made the rounds. It was great to see a huge chunk of our circle of friends and acquaintances turn out. Living in this neighborhood (again...) is like living in a small town. I have a bunch more pics from this event posted at my www.pcp.smugmug.com/Matilda gallery.

The puppeteers were masters at double entendre, in the same way that the major studios can craft a movie like Shrek to amuse adults as much as kids. Or as Emma said when interviewed by Minnesota Public Radio: "I like anything that's a little bit dirty."

(For real...go to this link, her moment of fame is near the end of the piece.)

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/06/19/drivewaytour/

These pics of Tilly--now that she's started to smile, at this time of year when the sun's blessing us fully in the northern hemisphere--just sum up how purely beautiful she is. And the whole community can see her growing.

I Am a Bad Parent

I haven't updated this blog for forever, and I apologize. Tilly is growing. Her 2 month pediatrician appointment is this afternoon. I think she's quite steadily grown about 1 ounce per day since she got home from the hospital, and I think she's grown about 4 inches in length, so we'll see.


She's smiling at me intentionally, which will be very dangerous for me once she really figures out what power she has. For now, I am stealing images that her grandma Madeleine took.


She is just pure love. She's just such a purely wonderful sweet awesome little sweetheart. She's always seemingly quite content out and about and on the go. She likes the Twins games, the coffee shop, being out with her mom, neighborhood friends and visitors. She seems to take everything in stride. We just can't imagine loving anyone more than this. It literally feels like my heart gets bigger inside my chest when I think about her.