day twosixtythree and day one

Things are going splendid. Made it through my first Christmas without an inordinate number of pictures taken of me. Right now I'm hanging out at my grandparents' house up Virginia way, waiting eagerly for cousin Connor to get here via the Birmingham redeye. Mind you, that's Birmingham, AL, not UK. Then again, the teeth are equally bad in both places, and it takes an equal amount of time to get here from each place.

So 'day one?' you must be asking. Well, it was Sam Barber's day one just a couple of days ago. (see above) Big brother James is taking it in stride, albeit with a sad face. I don't know if he is just tired with the new baby around, or upset because no one really adheres to the law of primogeniture anymore. I think he'll be OK in the long run.

Lots to look forward to in the coming days.
- First shared bath. I'm thinking this will be with Connor, but I haven't asked yet. Am I being presumptuous?
- First night-time wedding. 2nd cousin Natalie is tying the knot on the eve of Y2K+6.
- First time staying at a hotel named after the head of an animal.
- First time staying at a hotel.
- Getting over my first bout of Montezuma's Revenge a.k.a. the Delhi Belly a.k.a the 'Shoot'n'Toot'. That's the last time I eat at a roadside taco stand in Boone's Mill, VA.

day twosixty - figgy pudding

twas the day before Christmas, and I was wearing my first Christmas sweater. I can't remember any of the other verses to that story. Regardless, Merry Christmas from all of us, but especially from me. You only get one first Christmas you know.

day twofiftyseven - almost famous

I have a few minutes to get in an entry while dad is mesmerized by the Baby Einstein DVD. But anyway, you folks wouldn't believe where people are visiting me from. We just figured out how to track the hits to the world's second greatest website. (you have to admit that Google is slightly more useful than the Barritt Blog).

So, here's just a sample of who has visited us in the past week.

One of you works at Booz Allen in No.VA
Somebody is in Seattle.
One person in Plano, TX.
Buena Vista, CO.
Lots of Atlanta action.
NYC - Uncle P has nothing to do but read the blog since he's trapped at work during the subway strike.
New Jersey. Hopefully this was Bruce Springsteen.
Portsmouth, NH.
Harrisonburg, Roanoke, and Richmond,VA
Somewhere in Kansas. Who is that? Leave a comment if you know who you are.
Raliegh, Charlotte, Winston-Salem, and Durham, N.C.
Greenville, S.C. (What up Cam!)
Birmingham, AL (and they are checking from home and work - chief residents can be slackers from what I hear - Connor, you need to talk to your folks about this).
San Jose, CA
Evanston, IL. (There's going to be even more hits when Baby Barber Deux shows up in the coming weeks).

And there is one hit from the Philippines.

OK. The DVD is over. Have to go tend to dad. But in the meanwhile, help keep the gospel of Barritt spreading to all the nations.

day twofiftyfive

Cam was showing me how you have to use the hips and the arms when you are boxing out for a rebound. 

day twofifty

I'm back and on the attack. Scroll down for live action.

day twofortyseven

been getting some slack for not posting. but you remember what I said, my fingers are tired from rubbing dad's shoulders. this is exacerbated by the fact that I already have soft fingers due to them constantly being inside my mouth. it's a baby version of dishpan hands.

anyway, dad only has one more exam. then he will get back to the things he's been missing, like taking pictures of me, talking to my mom, etc.

last week we went on a walk here in the Classic City. We peeked into the room where dad was taking his torts exam. i took a picture. dad is the one in the green tie.

day twothirtythree

Apparently I was the only one who had anything green on my plate at Thanksgiving. 

day twotwentyfive

just got back from seeing my grandad. He just turned sixty, but he doesn't look a day over 58. We had a good time, and I always enjoy being fussed over. Then again, I had to sleep in a pack and play for the past week, which is the modern-day equivalent of sleeping in a manger. I'm looking forward to being back in my own bed tonight and being lulled to sleep by the gentle sound of acorns falling on the roof over my bedroom, as they are want to do this time of year.

You guys should know I might be taking a low profile for the next couple weeks. Dad is getting ready to take exams, and he makes me rub his shoulders to mitigate the stress. Accordingly, my hands get so tired that I can't type.

Then again, maybe we'll take some pictures of me over Thanksgiving. Maybe mom and dad will dress me as a turkey and then fill my crib with stuffing. They are looking for the 'perfect' Christmas card, but we all know those just happen, and can't be planned. If anything good comes out of it, we'll put 'em up.

Dawgs

 

day twohundredandsomething

Update. Our camera is in a box somewhere. Mom and dad just gave me a new room. I'm pretty sure that we might be living in a new house. I used to be able to roll all over the place in our living room, which was carpeted, and I'd never get hurt. Now, just when I'm learning to sit up, we seem to have hardwood floors. This creates two problems.

I. A lot of times I wear footie pajamas. I can't get any traction when I try to crawl or sit up.

II. When I do sit up, I will inevitably soon thereafter tip over. Hardwood floors hurt my head more than carpet did.

Nonetheless, Mom and Dad seem a lot happier. I don't have to get in the car very often. We can walk to the grocery store. I don't speak English yet, but that's OK, because neither do the people in that grocery store. El Mercado Central is their chosen nomenclature. It's beside a restaurant featuring Mexican food, which is beside another featuring Peruvian food, which is beside a wheelchair store, which is beside yet another restaurant called Cafe Cuba. It's across the street from an Italian restaurant called "Pizza Hut."

day oneninetyeight

Mom just asked if I needed to put up more than one laundry basket picture. That is not really even a valid question. The one below is a laundry basket picture, but this one is the only extant picture that shows both of my teeth. And tooth number 3 looks like it is coming in on the top deck right now, but you'd need an x-ray machine to get a good picture of that one.

day oneeightythree (half birthday is tomorrow!)

took my first bath last night. before you call the department of family services, let me make clear that i've been washed before, just not in a big boy bathtub. you can tell i'm not quite sure how to feel about it.

ah, speaking of being clean, notice the strategically placed suds to keep this blog from being declared obscene by right wingers.

all politics aside, little Caroline Elizabeth Murfee was born this morning. once they got her washed up, she came in at 7 lbs, 7 oz - six more than me. rest assured that there won't be any blog competition coming from her dad. his fingers are too big to type efficiently.

dad's a Dawg now and all, but I refuse to wear the red and black.

day oneseventyseven

here is the deal. I know, we are getting way behind with the pictures, etc.. But I figure my reaction time needs to be a little slower, and I need to be passive, rather than aggressive, if I ever want to be the kind of guy who gets a job, say, running FEMA.

nonetheless, there have been some significant changes. i officially got my first tooth. it's pretty short, but it is sharp enough to cut through the rice cereal and oatmeal I've just started eating. next weekend I hear I'm getting some sweet potatoes and pears mom made. that will be my first colored food, given that white and beige aren't really colors.

i'm also pseudo-crawling these days. put something I want in front of me and I'll go get it, even if it is six feet away. but I'm not crawling like the kids do on commercials, legs and arms coordinated as if I were some appaloosa. No, my crawling is much more primative and caterpillaresque.

more pictures will come, I promise. but I don't look that different from the other ones on this page, so just keep looking at them in the meanwhile.

mmmmmmmm....

five months, 8 days

I look threatening, I know. But it was after all labor day (my first) and I was having a debate with another baby at the park about the recent demise of the AFL-CIO and the decline of union jobs in general in America. I ended up not punching the guy, but it was close.

day onehundredummmm . . . I knew I would eventually lose count

Me, uncle Jim, and Sweet B. James. There are a lot of people with the first name James in that picture. Anyway, we had a blast last week when they came to visit. They swung down from Chicago to see the Dirty South, in August of all months.

Jim hasn't changed that much, though he has lost a little weight. But James was way different from the picture on our fridge. Could not have picked him out in a line up. Nonetheless, he has a lot of experience being a baby, and gave me a good idea of what I'll be in for in the next ten months.

If you notice the shine on my lips, you can thank the fact that I am drooling like a high-schooler sleeping through Algebra II. Looks like tooth #1 is about to break through.

More to come in the weeks ahead. We haven't forgotten our adoring public, but we've been quite busy here on the family farm. Once the harvest is in we'll be able to kick back and get you all the updates you need to know.

day onethirty

Blast from the past people. This was recently found in the archives of my granparents' camera. I was a hottie even 60 days ago.

That's all for now. I have to go get ready for Property I, um, I mean, I have to go nurse and take a nap.

day onetwentytwo

Last week I heard dad come home from work and say: "I had to tell two people that I couldn't fix their laptops. I had to be the one to tell them that their computers were fatally flawed at the hardware level, way beyond the OS, and that they would need to get new ones. I feel like a doctor who lost two patients today." What a drama queen.

Then on Sunday night he came home and said: "Man, after this weekend of filming, I know just how James Gandolfini must feel." I assume this is without the hookers and the cocaine. And while I was falling asleep that night I heard him muttering about what it will be like to accept an emmy for most creative food show from Mariska Hargatay.

While he might be overestimating his own importance in these things, you can have a look at the weekend's doings. http://crucifixins.blogspot.com

Dad starts law school on Friday. Soon mom and I have to start fielding dad's self-directed encomia and panegyrics comparing himself to Johnny Cochrane, Fred Thompson, Alan Dershowitz and F. Lee Bailey. Good Lord.

day onetwentytwo

Today was my first day in a TV studio environment. I'm hooked. All the lights, all the cameras, all the action. People say a lot about Hollywood folks being shallow and glib, but I did not find that to be the case with all of these guys. I especially enjoyed the fact that Gianni the camerman would say 'Belissimo!' every time he looked at me.

OK. No more blogging tonight. Dolly Parton is in concert with Melissa Etheridge on CMT. For some reason I am really thirsty right now . . .

day onetwentyone

let's face it. you just want to see pictures. you don't really need the fluff, now matter how socially piercing and witty it is.

Tonight on OLN: when moms attack

day onetwelve

Twasn't too long ago that there was a day twelve entry. 100 days to be exact. Well, time flies when you drink your meals and sleep all the time. Just ask any Beta from UNC or Zete from UVa. But anyway, the promised pictures.


As mentioned earlier, last weekend I went to see Cam, otherwise known as the Squintmeister General. We had a great time, especially bouncing this ball off of his forehead. But lest I laugh too hard, he always crawled over to my place of respite to place a hand in my face to remind me who's boss. He'd just stare at me and say "Who's the boss, Little Man?" and I'd say "Tony Danza" and then we'd fall down laughing.

Sometimes his dad wanted to play with the ball. Note the look of resignation on Jay's face as he once again loses control of it to Cam.





This is a picture from the first wedding I went to. Hard to know where my seersucker ends and dad's begins. Earlier in the day we had one of those moments, just like in a Hugh Grant movie. I come out of the nursery wearing my seersucker and dad walks out of his nursery wearing his seersucker, and we just have a big laugh and say 'oh my gosh, I can't believe you are wearing that, I'm wearing the same thing!' and so on and so forth. But we were already late for the wedding and mom already had the car running in the garage and she just kept honking and we knew we just had to make the best of it. In case you were wondering, the little sailboat on my seersucker suit (seen above) is exactly like the one embroidered on the back of dad's seersucker jacket.

day oneten

I would be posting pictures, but the fact is that it is so hot that little heat waves appear in front of every person I take a picture of. I've got some good ones to put up of my man Cam from our visit to the other Carolina this past weekend. It was the first time I'd ever stayed in the 'Upstate,' but it pretty much seemed the same as where we live because the Tour de France was always on.

Dad seems different, and frankly a bit dispondent since the Tour wrapped up. Maybe it's the heat. Maybe it's his love/hate relationship with Lance. But it's probably because he once again realizes that the Boss was right when he said '57 channels and nothin's on.'

Uggh. The keyboard's getting sweaty. If you need me, I'll be in the kitchen, in my diaper, trying to find a cool spot on the linoleum. Mom will be doing the same.

day one-oh-four

Above is a scene from the dream I had last night, the one right before I rolled over in my sleep and woke myself up. In any case, I don't know what the dream means, but I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that dad is about to start law school?

And for those of you looking for a little something interesting to do, check out;

http://www.wordsmith.org/anagram/index.html#1

You can find out all the anagrams for your name there. Mine, for example, comes up with

St. Rabbit Charmer

Awesome.

day one-oh-one redux

Hand-holding is the ultimate sign of masculinity in modern-day Baghdad.

day one-oh-one

OK folks, I know you are eager to hear of my doings. Tomorrow I anticipate there will be new pictures of me with my partner in crime, the aforementioned Bilcon. On Saturday we drove to visit Connor and his parents in the land of the Crimson Tide and the state that I hope will soon be governed by Sir Charles Barkley. There and back in one day, and for those of you who have ever driven that strip of I-20 from Oxford to Birmingham, you know that the ride between Croatia and Serbia in the mid-90's was likely smoother than that cursed strip of blacktop. Nonetheless, the jostling made my senses sharper and gave me the opportunity to think about the trouble Connor and I will get in during various holiday vacations in the decade between 2010 and 2019, and to consider whether or not George Hincapie should be the leader of the Discovery Channel Team next year.

At any rate, kudos to Big George for winning his first stage of Le Grand Tour, a feat not unlike me rolling over 3 times in as many minutes this morning.

day ninetyseven

I thought I'd go ahead and get all the potty humour out of the way within a few posts. Nonetheless, I could not deny this picture that grandad C magically caught a few weeks ago. I mean, this happens 8 times a day, and it apparently isn't funny when there is no camera around. The lens changes everything though, as Annie Liebowitz has taught us so well.

I suppose there is some divine ironic reciprocity with all of this though. The day that dad plans to post this picture, so full of jocular self-righteousness, I spitup pretty much all over him. He thinks he gets it off, until he goes to work and finds that the links of his watch smell redolent of what I like to call 'baby yogurt.' Ha! Just like Haman, hung on his own gallows.

Come on, you know, Haman, from the book of Esther. Sheesh!

day ninetythree - graphic details from the front

Monday, July 11, 2005
Mom - Staff Reporter

Unconfirmed reports circulated late this morning that the world's largest poop had been expelled by  local 3 month old, Barritt.

"Mom told me I had one job to do today, so I figured I better go ahead and get busy," Barritt told reporters.

"It was a complete surprise," Mom says.  "Well, I mean, not a complete surprise...it had been two and a half days since the last poopy diaper, so I figured there was a big one coming."

But nothing could have prepared her for what happened at approximately
10:45 this morning.  Barritt had recently woken from his morning nap
and enjoyed his regular snack of warm milk.

"I couldn't figure out where he was putting it all.  He was nursing as
much as he always does, and yet there were no poops.  Toots, yes, but
no poops."

The first hints came after Barritt became uncharacteristically fussy
during a stint in the bouncy chair.  Calming Vibrations were not
calming, the pacifier not pacifying.  Mom even tried dangling the
octopus and the Whoozit in front of him and singing made-up songs, to
no avail.

"I saw the tell-tale signs around the edges of his diaper and I was
glad he'd finally gone.  But when I actually opened the diaper and saw
the massive mustard-colored mess, I didn't know whether to laugh or
cry."

It took 5 minutes and as many wipes to contain the outpouring, the
fallout extending from Barritt's belly to his foot, where he'd kicked
at the messy diaper during the clean up.  Barritt calmly looked on as
Mom frantically tried to contain the poop and avoid leakage onto the
rug.  Fortunately, Huggies' Gigglastic and Mom's swift action kept the
damage to a minimum.

"I can't say this won't happen again, especially if Mom keeps up with
the all Mexican and ruffage diet," Barritt warned, then promptly fell
asleep.

day eightysix

Apparently, cleanliness is next to, um, the paper towel holder.

day eighty

Dad came back home from his trip yesterday. He was shocked when he saw me for the first time in 7 days. He tried not to stare, but it was inevitable, just like when he couldn't stop watching the two midgets throwing rocks at each other at the beach in Gloucester, MA last week. That's another story though. Anyway, he was staring at me because I seemingly went bald in the week he was gone. I mean, I don't look like Kojak or Moby; it's not slick, it's just thinning.

At any rate, I had trouble sleeping through the night whilst I was in NC and VA this past week, but things were good back in GA last night. Seven hours. I get to have some pretty deep dreams when I sleep that long. Last night I had the dream where I was naked in public. The thing is though that while you may think that is a nightmare, it couldn't be more normal for me.

day seventy

Going to be away from the blog for a while, and wanted to leave you with a vision of the epiphanic baby that I am. Evidently my glory hath increased since I started sleeping through the night.

Here I am taking a nap in my favorite spot. When I first started sleeping here it wasn't such a cozy fit. 

Day sixtyeight - the beach pictures are in

We all know skateboarding is not a crime, but apparantly biking is, at least on Kiawah Island. Nevertheless, dad and I managed to get some furtive trips around Bufflehead Road whilst we were there, careful to avoid the Kiawah Kops. We usually wore helmets, but the day was just too nice to miss out on the rays.