After finishing my day shift at the hospital I came home to begin the packing that we had put off until the last minute. We decided that we will never try to do this again because it is much more difficult trying to pack for not only yourselves, but for your 1 month old daughter, while she is fussy the whole time and just wants to be held. It made for an interesting hour of running around the house and praying during the drive that we didn't forget anything of vital importance (We actually didn't forget anything, lucky for us). We grabbed a bite to eat and headed out on the 3 hour drive. Thankfully Brinley took a full bottle before leaving the house and she slept the whole trip. We arrived around midnight to the house that I spent the majority of my childhood in and waiting at the door with a big grin on her face was my mother, but at the moment I think she was a happier grandma. I emptied the car and put together Brinley's pack-n-play so that Brinley would have somewhere to sleep. We fed Brinley a little snack and then called it a night.
Brinley got up at 6:30 so we decided to give her a little bath so that she would be nice and clean for church that morning. During the bath time, Jennifer asked me if I noticed anything during the night. I of course didn't because I had been up all day the day before. She said that grandma had come in during the night with a flashlight to check on Brinley. I thought this was probably going to happen during our stay because my mother had told me on many occasions that she would wake up during the night and come watch us in our cribs. She said that she just couldn't go back to sleep until she saw for herself that we were OK. Before getting dressed we decided to weigh her. She weighed in at 8 pounds and 12 ounces, which is 2 pounds more than her birth weight. The scale was vintage, being that it was the same scale that my mother was weighed on when she was a baby. After breakfast we decided to give grandpa our gift that we got him. Brinley and Jennifer then gave me my first Father's day present and it was great. I got a new book to read Brinley that is called "My Dad Loves Me!" and Jennifer made me a picture frame that had the first picture that was taken of me holding Brinley and it had the words to the song by Stevie Wonder "Isn't She Lovely". I also got a card that Brinley signed with some help from her mother.
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| My gifts from Brinley and Jennifer |
We then headed to Buck Creek Baptist Church, which is where I grew up attending my entire life. Some of the members are like family to us and we always enjoy getting to see them. The most excitement came as we were entering the doors of the church. I was surveying the crowd to find somewhere to sit when Jennifer said in a very frantic voice that she had seen a spider in Brinley's car seat. I quickly put the car seat down and unbuckled Brinley and began the search for the spider. I was unable to find it until I got Brinley out and then I spotted it run out from under a cushion. I quickly grabbed it and threw it out. Jennifer was frantically brushing off Brinley's clothes and I asked her what she was doing. She said she couldn't see it. I informed her that the spider was found and I got rid of it. The spider search had now completely woken Brinley up, which didn't look good for her cooperation during the service. (The last 2 times we attempted to attend church Brinley decided that after the music she wanted to do anything but listen to the preacher. So, we had decided that we would try watching services on TV until we felt comfortable sending her to the nursery or if we thought she could be calm during the services.) When telling the story later to some family, I found out that Jennifer had felt something on her neck and had went to scratch her neck, when she felt something move, she flicked it off and the spider went right onto Brinley. For any of you that don't know, Jennifer is petrified of spiders which made this even more scary for Jennifer.
So instead of putting her back in the car seat, I decided that I would just hold her because I figured that she would get fussy and we would have to step out into the hallway. During the service they gave all the dads a little gift for Father's Day. Then they said that they were going to recognize a few extra dads. They gave away an extra little gift for the dad with the oldest child, most children and youngest child. I was lucky enough to win the award for having the youngest child. We then listened to the sermon and Brinley didn't even make a single noise. She slept soundly through the whole service. Afterwards a lot of people stopped by to see our little girl and tell us congratulations. We even stopped in a few classrooms to see the people that weren't in the first service. We decided to not press our luck with trying to stay any longer, so we headed back to the house to rest up before heading out to lunch.
We ate lunch at Applebee's and of course we saw many people that we knew. We finished lunch with desert at Orange Leaf because they were giving 5 ounces free for just being a dad. Next we headed out to my cousin Tricia's house to spend some time with family that hadn't gotten to see Brinley yet. Brinley met many new people today which included Tricia, Rossy, Amanda, Rickie, Mary Ruth, Hugh, Bernie, Luke, Keegan, Michelle, Whitney, Morgan, Taylor, Gretchen, Kevin, Owen, Abby, and Sarah. Everyone enjoy seeing her and they all enjoyed passing her around so that everyone could get a chance to hold her. We spent the majority of the afternoon just talking and catching up on everything that had been happening lately. Brinley really enjoyed getting to meet some of her cousins and Great Aunt and Uncles.
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| Cousin Tricia |
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| Cousin Rossy |
Before heading home for the night we stopped by to see Aunt Sarah and her boyfriend Chris. Sarah tried her hand at feeding Brinley, but she might need just a little more practice with burping. We talked for a while and then made plans for dinner the next night. We called it a night and headed back to my parents house to finish up my 1st Father's Day. I can't wait to spend many more Father's Days with my little girl. Thanks for reading and God Bless!
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