What a difference six months makes! The above pictures are of Fraser at two weeks and at six months and two and half weeks. It's almost hard to believe he's really the same little guy! The past few weeks have been very busy in the McBeth household, hence my complete lack of blogging though we have not experienced any shortage of material to blog about.

On Saturday December 9th Andy and I left Fraser with a babysitter for the very first time. (This doesn't count leaving Fraser with family members or close friends whose "babysitting" is free and therefore more "hanging out with Fraser" than "babysitting" in my mind. They may disagree and believe that (a) it is "babysitting" and (b) they really should be getting paid, but since I've never asked and have no intention of doing so, this will have to remain one of life's great mysteries) We hired the babysitter so we could attend Andy's company Christmas party. She came very highly recommended by one of our neighbors and she had come by the weekend before to meet Fraser, so I was relatively comfortable as we prepared to leave even though Fraser was being a little fussy.

When we pulled back in the driveway at 10:30 the light in the nursery wasn't on, which I took as a good sign. When we walked into the house all was quite, another good sign. When I walked into the nursery our poor babysitter was walking Fraser back and forth, and it was a tough call who was looking more upset and haggard. Apparently Fraser had been so hysterical after we left that our babysitter decided to call her mother to come over. Together it took them until 10:00 to get Fraser to sleep and he had just woken up again before we walked in the door. I apologized profusely for the fact that we had obviously duped this poor trusting soul into caring for baby Satan for an evening and said "I really hope this experience won't dissuade you to coming to sit for us again!" She assured me it wouldn't, and Andy drove home, what I can only imagine, was a teenager with a new found respect for birth control.

I really did believe that our babysitter hadn't really been permanently scarred by her first experience with Fraser until I called her last weekend to see if she could come by one day this week to watch Fraser while Andy and painted the family room. She interrupted me before I even got through assuring her that we would both be on the premises the entire time in case Fraser decided to show his horns and tail again. "Oh no" She said, "I won't be around." "Oh," I said, "Are you going away?" "Yes." The relief in her voice was too evident for even a mother to miss. This, I believe, does not bode well either for that babysitter returning or for us to con some other unsuspecting soul into watching our lovely son. Looks like our parents will be doing a lot more "hanging out" with Fraser.

The weekend of December 16th and 17th we had "de Barros" Christmas at our house with my parents, my brother and his fiance. Fraser thoroughly enjoyed opening his presents and trying to eat as much wrapping paper as possible, though obviously he found the whole ordeal somewhat exhausting. All things considered, the kid made out like a bandit on his first Christmas. He received, among other things, a Christmas tree of organic baby food (so far he loves the pears, apples with plums, and carrots but is less than thrilled with the green beans), a vibrating elephant which he adores (and which hopefully will not lead to any strange fetishes and years upon years of therapy), many books in English and Spanish (all of which he finds very tasty), and a train with animals that plays music and moves (ever his father's child Fraser has shown minimal interest in the animals, but thinks the train is very cool.)

On December 19th Fraser received a visit from his Aunt Ann-Marie (who will someday be his godmother if Andy and I ever actually get around to Christening the little heathen.) My parents were particularly kind and agreed to "hang out" with Fraser after he had a particularly evil afternoon so that much-abused mommy could go out to dinner with Ann-Marie and have an actual adult conversation which was not punctuated by exclamations of "Get that out of your mouth," "Fraser, leave your diaper alone" or "I swear you are driving mommy to drink."

And finally, on December 24th Fraser made his first trip to New Hampshire where he attended Church for the first time and almost made it through the entire Christmas Eve service (sort of). He enjoyed the singing and liked to watch the people, but by far he was most impressed with the ceiling fans. On Christmas he was awake for almost all of the present opening, during which he again did very very well for himself. Here he is in his holiday suit looking pretty damn cute if I do say so myself. Maybe I'll send the babysitter a copy of this picture with a little note saying, "Could anyone this adorable really be that bad???"

I don't know, maybe I should include fifty bucks too....