Anyway, I digress.

Last Monday, Amanda and I found ourselves with some free time and decided to head over to Marcus North Shore to see the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. The theater was packed, the concession lines weren’t moving and to top things off there were some punks sitting in our seats. As a side note, if the concession lines moved that slow when I worked there, we would have gotten lit up (not to mention we specifically asked for no butter topping, but were given it anyway). We found an usher, who promptly got us into our correct seats just as the trailers were wrapping up.

The movie ran just over two and a half hours which may seem long, but Fincher has a way of keeping you enthralled the entire time. Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara were phenomenal and the score by Trent Reznor was just as good if not better than what he did for the Social Network.

I did feel as if the last 30 minutes or so of the movie weren’t needed, as the main plot had already concluded, but nevertheless, it was still a good way to resolve certain character subplots.

If you haven’t read the book and don’t know what the movie is about, it’s pretty dark and there were a few scenes that made Amanda rather uncomfortable, but with that said, she still thought the movie was good.

All in all, I really enjoyed the movie and definitely want to see it again. Hey, maybe I’ll even read the book.

I think a big part of it has been the fact that it’s been unseasonably warm this year. However, it could also be because we’re staying at my parents house, or because I’m now playing the dad roll. Either way, everything just felt different.

Amanda gave me a coffee mug decorated with pictures of our first two years of marriage and the most comfortable pair of pajama pants I have ever owned. The coffee mug is ridiculously awesome and I think I’ve only taken the pajama pants off twice to shower. Neither gift was a video game or concert ticket, but yet I didn’t care. I even wore the pajama pants when we went to see the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo last night and let me tell you, I’m ALWAYS going scrubby to the movies from now on.

Growing up has made me realize a lot of things, but most importantly, I feel like I’m able to recognize and be thankful for the little things.

Long story short, it rocks. It was only $15 and Fisher Price has three free apps available for download on the App Store. If you want something to protect your iPhone while your kid makes you realize how primitive your toys were, buy it now.

Toys, if you can even call the iPhone a toy, like these enable kids to take in so much more information while getting them accustomed to current technology. What’s going to happen five years from now when Ellie starts kindergarten? Are kids still going to have books for every subject? With the way things are going, I can see schools switching completely to something along the lines of a Kindle Fire. It’s only $199 and does everything a school would need it to do (and probably more).

In grade school, I can remember having so much homework, I would have to put practically every book into my over sized backpack and lug that thing home. I have a feeling those days will soon be over and I’m sure our kids will reap the benefits.

Remember to be thankful for everything you have and to ALWAYS get your children vaccinated.

Amanda and I were looking back at pictures of her when she was just a month or two old the other day. Her dark hair has almost all fallen out and changed to a more strawberry blonde. She’s gotten taller and is definitely packing on the pounds. She loves eating bananas, but doesn’t like peas. Her muscles are getting strong too. She sits up all by herself and crawls all over the place.

A word to the wise, don’t leave your cell phone laying around because she’ll stop sucking on her toes just long enough to give your phone a nice coat of baby saliva.

Amanda and I feel extremely blessed to have such a healthy baby and couldn’t be more proud of our little girl.

Song of the day: Till the World Ends by Britney Spears

I wrote this blog post almost exactly two months ago and never got around to posting it. Instead of deleting it, I decided I’m still going to post it because it is about Ellie’s first three months of life. Enjoy.

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It’s February 12th and it takes Amanda yelling at me in a Caribou coffee shop to write a blog post to realize how fast time flies. Ellie’s officially three months old and I haven’t had much time to reflect on much of anything since she was born.

Thinking back on it now, the past three months haven’t been bad at all. Everyone tells you before having a baby that everything is going to change. That’s not true. While some things do change (you’re now holding a small human in your arms 99% of the time) some things don’t. Having a baby shouldn’t keep you from doing the things you want to do or need to do to make you, you. Rather, after having a baby it’s more of finding a way to reprioritizing your time to fit everything into a 24 hour day. It’s tough at first, but gets better with practice.

Now, about Ellie.

Ellie isn’t much of a crier. Her cry is more of a whiney, show me some attention, sound than a hold your breath till your face turns red scream. When she’s sad she’ll stick her bottom lip way out and make her sad face as her eyes fill up with tears. I’ll pick her up and fly her around like an airplane and she’ll turn her frown into the biggest grin you’ve ever seen.

It’s the little things I find most enjoyable being a parent. Her smile. Her giggle. The noise she makes when she’s trying to talk, but can’t make out the words yet. The accomplished look in her eyes when she grabs a rattle and shakes it. It’s definitely the little things.

She’s sleeping over eight hours a night now which is nice. I want to start transitioning her to the crib, but Amanda’s fighting me on that one (mainly because she lets me sleep at night if she has to get up with the baby). So, I don’t fight her too hard on that issue. At lease we have her taking naps in her room and not ours.

At three months old, Ellie is growing like a weed. She fits perfectly into six month clothes which means it’s probably time to start packing up the three month clothes. Speaking of clothes, if there’s one thing I didn’t expect being a parent, it’s that baby poop gets on everything. It leaks out of their diapers. It runs down their legs. It spreads up their back. It goes everywhere. Seriously this is 2011, can’t someone make a baby diaper that doesn’t leak shit everywhere?

Overall, having a baby has been a great experience. Hopefully, it won’t take me another three months to write another post.

Comment below and share your baby stories!

Song of the day: E.T. by Katy Perry: