Negligent Daddy

Daddy has failed. He has failed his son and he has failed himself. The world has been deprived of photos and videos and tales of Dashiell Benjamin's conquests and adventures. Here he is close to crawling, practically doing cartwheels across rooms, becoming a gourmand, terrorizing cats, charming women and cashiers everywhere, even playing classical piano (Row, Row, Row Your Boat is classical, right?, and pushing one key to hear the song is technically "playing," right?), and you probably thought he just sits around being cute.

You know what this means, don't you? No, I guess you don't. What this means is it's time for the photo equivalent of an 80's Movie Requisite Montage Scene. Here are some pics of Diaper Dash from the past few weeks.

Riding in an upside down drum with classmate Saskya (to the song Merry-Go-Round) at Music Together:

Checking to see if those bottom teeth started coming in yet: (They haven't.)

A visit by Aunt Cori and Cousin Ronan, who, at almost two years old, is a junior skyscraper:

Handsome, ain't he?

Dash in attack mode:

Java the Cat awaits further love/abuse from Dash:

Daddy takes Dash on a tour of Bob's Red Mill (a Portland institution, the makers of all sorts of whole grain products and the like) after breakfast with a couple other Portland Dads and their progeny:

At home, Dash being Dash:

Two-thirds of Dash's grandmothers (Granny Pokey & Granny Nanny) come for a visit, stripping Daddy of cooking & cleaning duties (yes, he went without a fight):

To the swings!

Why, the two grannies even lugged their 2,000 lb. power washer down from Seattle. Daddy went to work on the mold-encrusted patio and stairs. Here are some "after" photos, showing the red brick. Suffice is to say the only red in any "before" photos would have been Daddy's face in embarrassment that he let his little biological experiment go too far.

Not to get side-tracked. After all, this ain't The Daily Chore. Here are Dash 'n' Daddy at Portland's famous International Rose Test Garden, where they're apparently testing really, really late-blooming roses, 'cause nothing was in bloom.

Has Daddy mentioned what a deep sleeper Dash is? No? Well, this should lay it (and him) to rest. Twice in the last few weeks, our house has been along the parade route of the local elementary school's drum corp rehearsal. They sound amazingly similar to a fusillade of unsyncopated bombs flattening our neighborhood. Somehow, their crescendo of crap has failed to stir the napping prince. Here is the march madness, just begging for my first-ever "Get the hell off my lawn":

Here's Dash at his final infant Music Together class. As you can see, he's developing impressive musical taste:

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the teething continues.

"Hmmm...what else can I teethe on?"

This past Saturday, Daddy walked Dash down to watch the Rose Festival Parade. We were, oh, a bit late. We caught exactly the last minute and a half of the parade. With interest like this, it's probably best we didn't sit there for two hours.

On Sunday, we met friends Sarah and Don, their 4-year-old, Ava, and new pup, Vida, at the park.

All photos ©2011 Garrito

And that brings us up-to-date. More Dash coming real soon. Maybe almost daily!