This Saturday Emma turned three months old. Like all excited parents we started the morning off by singing "Happy Birthday" to her. Even though it wasn't her Birthday we wanted to commemorate this important milestone in a festive way. We're goofy that way. Normally Elena starts Emma's day with the "Good Morning Song" which goes like this:

Good morning, good morning, good morning to you
Good morning, good morning, good morning to you
Our day is beginning--there's so much to do!
Good morning, good morning, good morning to you!

Now that Gymbo has entered our lives he usually sings this song to Emma. It's all about routines. Slowly but surely we are establishing them.

Emma now weighs 15 lbs 8 oz and is 24.25" long. In the next week or two Emma will have doubled her birth weight. She has pretty good control over her head, of course it helps that she doesn't have a neck. We determined that she inherited that trait from her Grandpa Arnaldo. She is crying less when I hold her and has resigned to the fact that I am going to plant a bunch of wet ones on her chubby little cheeks every time I get her. Before she would cry and complain if I kissed her too much and even go as far as to stiff arm me. Now I think she knows that it's just gonna happen like it or not so she is learning to deal.

Emma's ability to grab and hold is improving, and she is capable of sitting through a short story and looks at the pictures when being read to. We learned that she loves mylar balloons and "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" finger play. Emma will track ahead of the spider crawling up the water spout to the imaginary location where the spider ends up before the spider has even started his ascent. Elena gets a kick out of that.

Emma 's Godfather Robert and Aunt Lissette came to our house to visit us. It's a long drive, one we had been meaning to make ourselves, but they beat us to it. Robert and Lissette got to meet Emma for the first time and we got to meet our Godson Matthew. It was nice to get together and catch-up. It has been a long time since we last saw each other. Back in the day, when Rob and Lissette would come to our house, Rob would be toting his desktop computer and we would retreat to my office where we would geek-out playing computer games while the girls chatted away down stairs. Now it's a whole different ball game. Now we are holding babies, or building trains, or playing with Legos with his older son Bobby. Your free time is so much more precious when you have kids because you really don't get a lot of it, and when you do, it's borrowed time at that.

I watched "Naughty Marietta", my first Nelson Eddie and Jeanette MacDonald movie, with Emma Saturday. My Mother used to love their movies and during the 1970's would take me and my older sister Diana to watch them at a theatre in New York called "The Regency". "The Regency" only played classic black and white films with legendary actors like Humphrey Bogart, Spencer Tracy, James Cagney, Joan Crawford, Betty Davis, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, etc. She loved the theatre, and for the first eleven years of my life her love was my own. On November 5th of 1980, at the age of 51, my Mother died of Colon Cancer. I was 11 years old. Since her passing my exposure to the arts was greatly diminished. I still love plays and classic movies, but they are not often aired on the basic cable channels I receive. I do however own every Nelson Eddie and Jeanette McDonald movie ever made, and look forward to watching them all with Emma. In doing so, I hope that she may come to know my Mom, and in some way, Me.

Emma slept through the night this week. I know I keep saying that but she broke all sorts of records this time. She went to bed at 11:00PM and woke up at 7:00AM. That is truly an all time record for her. She has not repeated this and the following day was back to her normal four to five hour sleep schedule, but the hope is that if she was able to do it once, she can do it again.

Emma's Baptism is scheduled for February 5th in the Church where Elena and I got married. Also, in two days, Emma gets her ears pierced. Wish me, I mean Emma luck.

Oh yeah, one last thing. I showed this little music video to Elena this week and she didn't seem to think it was too funny. I think it is hilarious because it is so me. Make sure your speakers are enabled and your volume is up. Click here to watch the video. Enjoy!