Long weekend and real Winter weather

On Friday Elise, Maly and I went out for fried catfish at the Manchaca Fire Hall Kitchen. The atmosphere was a lot of fun and Maly was able to watch a live Bluegrass band. The food: good but not as good as the catfish at Crossroads in Cat Spring, but still a fun family place we might find ourselves at on Friday nights in the future.

On Saturday Elise went to our neighbors house to work on Maly’s baby book. Maly and I we able to spend some quality time together. One of those quality moments involved her falling and whacking her cheek on the corner of my filing cabinet. That rendered a lot of tears and a nice purple bruise on her cheek. Later in the day she decided to try a backflip off of my office chair. That rendered me pacing about the house while clutching my daughter in my arms and repeating, “I’m sorry, baby. Daddy didn’t meant to drop you on your head.” Luckily both incidents were very minor.

On Sunday we finally bought chairs for our kitchen table. For three years we had been using Elise’s old director chairs from her college days and two lawn chairs. It was one of my goals after I found gainful employment to buy chairs for our kitchen table as sort of a way to honor my Dad. Our kitchen table was my Dad’s before he and Mom met. So the table is going on 40 years old and I obviously wanted to keep it and hopefully pass it down.

Monday was MLK Day and we did just what the late Reverend would have wanted us to do: we went to Home Depot. The weather started getting bad outside. Many roads and bridges were iced over and the temperature was dropping. While at the HoPot we picked out tile for Maly’s bathroom and shopped light fixtures for the breakfast nook. We drove across the street to World Market for wine, kitchen seat cushions and those really friggin’ good rosemary, olive oil and sea salt potato chips.

This morning we woke up to freezing temperatures outside, frozen roads and sleet. And then there was a thud. And then there was crying. I learned something very interesting this morning. My wife can run REALLY fast.

Maly fell out of her crib. It was a heartbreaking moment. The silver lining: she was sitting up on the floor when Elise ran in to pick her up. Proportionately speaking, I would venture to guess that Maly falling out of her crib would be like me toppling from 12 feet. We don’t know how or on what she landed, but she was sitting when we got to her room. She cried a very distinct “I’m really hurt” cry - one that we’d never heard before. We were really scared but, again, she was okay.

So we all watched to news to see what was happening with the weather and if I could go to work. The weather became worse as they day progress. Freezing temperatures, rain, freezing rain, sleet and snow!

I’m really thankful to have had the extra time to spend with Maly.  We’ve had a lot of fun (sans all of the head injuries).

The weather is still nasty outside so we’ll just stay in and play.