After The Tenth..... When The Fun Really Begins

Yesterday, I "celebrated" another anniversary of my birth. Acknowledged is probably a better description. After a relatively easy day at the office, I got to go out to dinner with Annie and a bunch of close friends, which is always nice. I haven't laughed that much in a long time, so thank you guys.

Today is a relaxing day at our house, which has allowed for some reflection time. As I sit here watching my alma mater's football team pull off another surprise victory, I can't help but smile as I think about what a charmed life I've lead in recent times. Both my beautiful wife and daughter are down the hall taking well deserved naps and I'm hanging out on the couch with my faithful dog.

It's hard to believe that Macy is already 10 months old but at the same time it seems like life without her was ages and ages ago. It no longer seems strange to plan weekend events around naps and feeding schedules. I always knew I wanted to get married some day and I usually felt like I wanted to have kids, but there were definitely times when neither seem likely. It is certainly funny how life often takes you in directions that you never expected. Neither Annie nor I ever had plans to live in Florida, yet that's exactly what happened, and was the only reason we ever met.

After a number of wonderful years together, this one has really been the best and I can tell it is only going to get better. In a few weeks the Sznitken's will bundle up and head north to see the family again and attend Adam's wedding. I'm really looking forward to seeing everyone and to be standing next to my brother as he enters into the next phase of his life.

Until we can all be together, Macy uses video calls and the internet to stay in touch with family. Grandma happened to call this morning right after Macy's morning nap and she was in a typical mood, which means she was laughing, smiling and making me do the same. (I told you I was charmed)

Near the tale end of the call, I grabbed the video recorder and caught a cute moment of Macy and Grandma interacting. Being a father is even more enjoyable than I ever imagined and I've now gone 10 days without locking my daughter in the house alone, so everything is looking up!

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I almost forgot to mention that this is the 100th posting on "After The Tenth" -- When I started this, I wasn't really sure I would be able to follow through with posting updates on a (semi) regular basis and I was even less sure that anyone would ever read them, but I've heard from a number of you on how much you enjoy the updates and the pictures, so I'll do my best to keep them coming. Thanks for continuing to visit our little corner of the internet!!!!
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"I will survive"

Actually, I have survived my first week back to work...just barely. After Macy's arrival, I was lucky enough to be able to take just over two weeks off, to assist Annie and to get to know my daughter. Unfortunately, that two week reprieve from the real world has ended and now I'm back at work and back to my responsibilities. To make matters even more fun, the parent company of our consulting firm has merged with a national CPA firm, so my return to work hasn't been gentle.

Since this week has been so hectic, there is no real point in trying to organize my thoughts and this will just be a random, hectic posting.

1) We are hoping Grandpa Kupper continues to feel better and will be able to arrive on Monday!

2) Since all of Macy's grandparents are non-Floridians, we have used video phone calls to keep them involved in her development. The two images below are a pretty common occurrence in our house:

3) I'm tired

4) Annie's tired

5) Binky's (pacifiers) are like crack for kids. We initially thought of the Binky as evil and we didn't want our daughter getting too used to one, but Macy will be screaming and shaking with her bottom lip quivering and you drop in that binky and the wails instantly stop and are replaced with this very humorous sucking sound. Here's my tip for new parents or future parents..ALWAYS have a binky handy.

5) It's very cool that every night when I come home from work, Macy seems to have progressed in some area or another. Yesterday she started assisting in the holding of the binky in her mouth. She can now grab the side of it while she sucks on it.

6) Macy doesn't realize it, but she's living through a record breaking Florida day...its supposed to hit 32 tonight....OUCH.

 7) My daughter does not flinch at bright lights or flashes. I'm thinking that this un-staged photo from two weeks ago might have something to do with it.

I'm going to break from our normal happy go-lucky tone for just a moment here because I'm now on a personal mission against Toy R Us and Babies R Us due to their very frustrating return policy.

Imagine this scenario: You have friends that decide to get you baby gifts. It turns out that two of your friends have the same taste and you wind up with a duplicate item or outfit. No problem right? Just exchange one of them for another item that you haven't received. If they shopped at Babies R Us, then the answer is NO, it is a problem.

It seems that their official policy is to "reserve the right to decline returns without a receipt", which actually means they will never let you return your items, even if you are a pregnant woman in her 9th month and you have asked very politely at multiple store locations. Not only won't they let you return the items, but you cannot exchange them either. We aren't registered at either of these stores, but we confirmed that even if we were, they still wouldn't take back the items without a receipt. This policy is probably fiscally smart, but is definitely not customer service smart.

What was really helpful though, was that Babies R Us store manager provided two alternative suggestions to him allowing the product exchange:

1) We should call the people who bought us the item and ask them to give us their sales reciept so we could return their gift. Wouldn't that be a CLASSY move?

2) We should take the product back to a specific competitor of theirs, because they aren't a national chain and "they take anything back." He came up with this brilliant strategy even after Annie informed him that we researched the product and his store was the only one to sell this brand....no luck.

So now I'm using my little forum to kick off my "Babies R Us Ain't For Us" campaign. I'm asking all of you to avoid registering or even shopping at Babies R Us/Toy R US as they are very difficult to deal with.

The silver lining in this whole experience is that we have a gift card or two from these stores and when we go and buy diapers with them, we won't have to worry about duplicates being an issue. I've heard a rumor that you can never had too many diapers.