Kids, Ragnar, travel, and life in general
Blah blah blah. Usual preface about it being forever, apologizing for this being long (or am I at the point where I deliberately don't apologize, saying this is largely for me? I don't remember). Anyway.
Juniper is now over 3 months. She's over 14 lbs, not that that means much to pretty much anyone, but it's big. She's still virtually bald. Or perhaps she's going for the military crewcut look. Her eyes are still blue. Her sleep is still amazing, increasingly so. Last night was a "bad" night, where she woke at 3, was actually unhappy instead of trying to console herself with her thumb (which is what she usually does if she wakes up), ate, then continued to be unhappy. Geoff walked her for a bit, then lay down and basically just let her fuss herself to sleep. Which apparently worked, as next thing I knew the alarm was going off at 7. Good nights involve her sleeping from 11 till 7. And then falling back asleep for another several hours after a big meal.
Juniper's also generally getting easier and easier, more willing to just entertain herself, not needing to be held (though she gets her fair share of cuddles, of course). She's strangely willing to go long stretches without food during the day, when life gets in the way of feeding her, and not taking it out on us at night. I don't know how that works. Anyway, Geoff and I have both wondered how we managed to get such a compliant baby. Not that she's always wonderful and easy, of course, but so often she is, and I'm deeply grateful.
I've just started back work, as of July 6th, which means Juniper's been going to daycare. Apparently she can be fussy in the morning, and doesn't seem to want to eat, but is great in the afternoon. Perhaps the biggest problem is her popularity with the other kids - they sometimes won't let her sleep, due to the attention they pay her. Kael has been known to climb into her crib... Anyway, it's going as well as we could hope, I think. She could afford to eat more at daycare, but I expect as she gets more used to the bottle and the unfamiliar environment, that will come.
Juniper is working on learning to roll over. I think she's seen Kaz do it and is jealous :-) Back to front is where she's made the most progress, but that's probably because we don't give her enough tummy time (aka Torture Time).
Kael is coming up on 3, meaning he won't be 2 for much longer, and it's starting to show. Geoff and I have both noticed lately that Kael is getting better. He still throws temper tantrums, of course, and still is mischievous, but we just had a weekend where he took a nap both days without a major fiasco, and it's been probably weeks since he tried to hit me or bite me with glee. Honestly, it's been a while since he's tried to hit me or bite me even in anger. He has his ways of being frustrating, but they tend to be more playful than willful. Annoying, but playful. Like closing his mouth on the toothbrush when I'm brushing his teeth, when he knows I want him to keep his mouth open. Anyway, I've really been enjoying the new Kael.
We've started having weird conversations that spring from the more complicated questions he's been asking lately. Well, the questions themselves aren't necessarily complicated, but their answers often are. We haven't hit the "why" phase yet, but his favorite questions include "what's x?" and "what does x do?". Sometimes "where's x?" when a book uses a metaphor that references x, but x is of course nowhere on the page. Death has come up, as has blood (strangely often). Conversations can start simple and next thing you know, I've pulled out my laptop to show Kael a picture of a human skeleton. I swear it made sense in context!
One weird conversational chain has sprung from potty training. We've continued to have ups and downs on that front, but this past week, and the weekend in particular, have been pretty encouraging. I finally bought some underwear for him, which we let him wear after showing he could avoid peeing in his diaper for a while and using the potty instead. Of course both times we let him wear underwear, he wound up peeing in it an hour later or so... but I figure it may help him further determine what needing to pee feels like when he gets that immediate feedback (he seemed genuinely surprised by the "mess", as he dubbed it, the first time). Also with the incentive of getting to wear Spiderman underwear or (when it arrives) Dora panties (they don't make boys' Dora underwear, but that's what he wants, so that's what he gets) may encourage him to be more cognizant of his need to pee etc. Anyway, I digress. Weird conversations! So in the process of talking about using the potty, Geoff's wound up bringing up bladders ("blisters", as Kael sometimes call them), and more recently stomachs. I think at the moment Kael things everything he's ever eaten currently resides in his stomach. We'll need to work on that. As a result of these conversations is that Kael will occasionally tell you about the state of his stomach and bladder "I ate the milk in my mouth and it went down into my stomach. And it will go into my bladder and then I can use the potty and get (insert current incentive here)!".
I appreciate that Kael is trying to learn more about the world, and I often enjoy our conversations. They're frequently pretty challenging, though, when I find myself trying to explain a concept using other concepts that themselves need explaining. Trying to explain what it is to be sick is one example (Geoff's settled on saying it's like having an owie on the inside; I'll reference the symptoms you feel). Sometimes I want to just say "never mind, we'll talk about it later" when it's a sufficiently complicated thing. But he's hard to derail.
Kael's a cutie. I'm glad I'm able to appreciate that more these days :-)
This is not exactly an exhaustive list of what we've done lately, but some highlights. Most exciting was the 4th of July weekend. Nate and his girlfriend Kacey were in town for a couple weddings, and stayed at our place. It was great seeing Nate, and meeting Kacey - more people who need to move to Seattle :-) We wound up hosting a 2nd of July party (Nate and Kacey were leaving on the 4th, and Saturday was generally more convenient), where we got to introduce Kaz and Juniper to Morelle, and see a bunch of people we don't get to see enough of, including my friend Christine who was visiting from out of town. It was a little hectic, but a lot of fun! For the 4th of July itself, we decided to risk keeping Kael up for fireworks, since we thought he'd enjoy them. The risk wasn't keeping him up that late - he's a night owl and would stay up as late as he can get away with. But we did risk having a demon on our hands the following morning. We drove to one of the Kirkland beaches on Lake Washington, got a seat on the dock, then enjoyed the unofficial fireworks all around the lake while waiting for the official ones to start (at 10:15). Kael was super wound up, exclaiming "FIREWORKS!" repeatedly, often while bouncing up and down. He was pretty cute :-) But eventually he got bored waiting for the actual show, and drug me out to the park's playground to goof off for a while. He didn't want to leave it when it was time for the actual show, but I promised him we could come back later if he wanted. He patiently (mostly) sat through the show, then made a mad dash back to the playground before we convinced him it was time to leave. I honestly don't remember the following day, so either it was so awful I blanked it out, or he was okay. I think probably the latter ;-) I think it was worth it, especially given Kael's enthusiasm over the outing.
We've been trying to be more conscientious about doing things for Kael's enjoyment and give him opportunities to burn off his copious energy. So the Thursday before the 4th of July, we went to a park I used to go to when I was a kid - Enchanted Village/Wild Waves. It's been purchased by 6 Flags in the intervening years, and I guess they think the water park aspect is more exciting, so it's been mostly branded Wild Waves at this point. But the larger area is still Enchanted Village, now with some 6 Flags-esque big roller coasters. Anyway, that Thursday happened to be the last day Geoff and I were both home on a weekday, using our assorted parental leaves, and I thought it would be fun to take Kael to Enchanted Village when it was likely to be uncrowded. It definitely was uncrowded, almost creepily so; for many of the rides, Kael wound up riding on all by himself. But he seemed to have a good time, shrieking with enthusiasm for some of the rides (notably, the Paratroopers one, which is kind of like a fast Merry-Go-Round, but in the air, and on a kind of tilt). He was up for a ride on the kid roller coaster, but though it was pretty small-scale, it was still fast and involved a corkscrew and some turns that would send Kael careening across the seat into me or vice versa. He didn't cry, but he was clearly unnerved by it. Later, when I begged the opportunity to ride some of the adult roller coasters while Geoff watched the kids (Geoff does not like roller coasters), Kael was apparently jealous and wanted to go with me :-( However, he managed to find some enjoyment in watching me go upside down on one of the rides, so I guess it was okay.
One noteworthy experience: Kael very much wanted to go to the water portion of the park, and as we'd brought swimsuits, it seemed a shame to deny him this. So we dutifully trudged over to the water area, noting that basically the only thing open to kids as young as Kael was a sort of water playground: lots of slides and things to climb, water guns, some water falls, all standing in a foot or so of water. Cold water, we discovered to our dismay. Both mine and Kael's. I volunteered to be the sucker to wander around in it with Kael. Kael got cold feet (sorry... couldn't help it), and very nearly threw in the towel (sorry... again...). But having gotten on a swim suit for this, I was inclined to force him to get some enjoyment out of it, so I pointed out a small, innocent-looking slide. Kael indicated interest, but it soon became clear he was not going to go down it without me. So, grudgingly, I walked through the (cold!) water to the maybe 5 foot high, foam-coated slide. It looked like you'd go about an inch a minute down it due to friction, and it ended in a padded mat a couple inches above the level of the water. I figured we'd inch our way down the slide, get to the mat, and largely avoid getting wet. I didn't have a problem with Kael getting himself soaked if he was so inclined, but I was hoping to just put my shorts and shirt back on over my swimsuit when I was done. Anyway, we climbed all 3 steps or whatever it was to the top of the slide, I sat down and put Kael in front of me, and pushed off. About a split second later, having flown down the slide at ludicrous speed, we hit the mat, kept on flying right off the mat and into the (did I mention cold?) water, at which point Kael unintentionally launched out of my lap and face-first into the water. He came up spluttering and crying, which drew a panicked lifeguard over (I assured her he was fine, just shocked). That was the end of the water park for Kael. But later, on our way home, we asked Kael what his favorite part of the park was. He said "the slide". Incredulous, we questioned him on this point, but he maintained that the slide was his favorite. Maybe our kid is a masochist.
I know other things have happened, but I'm kind of blanking. We've been to the zoo and aquarium, and are members of both now. We haven't seen much of people other than those who live in our house, save for the 2nd of July party. I've done a lot of running. I've not felt terribly motivated about running lately, for various reasons, and am looking less forward to Ragnar this year than usual, also for various reasons (yay pumping milk in a van full of men I don't know). Hopefully I will be pleasantly surprised by how fun it winds up being.
Life is pretty crazy at the moment. In 4 days, I'll be running in Ragnar, as I do every year (that I'm not 6 months pregnant, anyway). I'll get home Saturday evening and then spend the next couple days recovering and packing like crazy for our trip to Europe. Have I not mentioned this? Basically, I'm crazy and Geoff's a sucker. Or too compliant, maybe. I came up with this hare-brained scheme to visit some friends who are living in Zurich for the year, even though we have an infant and a 2 year-old (almost 3!). And Geoff agreed. We're leaving on Tuesday (in a little over a week), staying in Zurich for a few days, then road-tripping through Italy to a Croatian island, where we'll stay for the better part of a week, then back through Italy (hitting some Slovenian caves on the way), and a few more days in Zurich before heading home. Our friends have 3 kids of their own, the youngest Kael's age, so they're experienced child wranglers. I think it will be a lot of fun. Assuming we survive the 12 hour flight there. I've done nothing to learn key phrases in any of the languages we'll be around. I'm sure I'll start panicking about that soon.
There's also the matter of starting up work again. I've decided to find a new project, for various reasons, so this past week and a bit back have been spent project-hunting. I settled on one last week, and will move offices tomorrow. Just in time to be preoccupied with Ragnar and Europe for a few days, then leave for 3 weeks.
Juniper is now over 3 months. She's over 14 lbs, not that that means much to pretty much anyone, but it's big. She's still virtually bald. Or perhaps she's going for the military crewcut look. Her eyes are still blue. Her sleep is still amazing, increasingly so. Last night was a "bad" night, where she woke at 3, was actually unhappy instead of trying to console herself with her thumb (which is what she usually does if she wakes up), ate, then continued to be unhappy. Geoff walked her for a bit, then lay down and basically just let her fuss herself to sleep. Which apparently worked, as next thing I knew the alarm was going off at 7. Good nights involve her sleeping from 11 till 7. And then falling back asleep for another several hours after a big meal.
Juniper's also generally getting easier and easier, more willing to just entertain herself, not needing to be held (though she gets her fair share of cuddles, of course). She's strangely willing to go long stretches without food during the day, when life gets in the way of feeding her, and not taking it out on us at night. I don't know how that works. Anyway, Geoff and I have both wondered how we managed to get such a compliant baby. Not that she's always wonderful and easy, of course, but so often she is, and I'm deeply grateful.
I've just started back work, as of July 6th, which means Juniper's been going to daycare. Apparently she can be fussy in the morning, and doesn't seem to want to eat, but is great in the afternoon. Perhaps the biggest problem is her popularity with the other kids - they sometimes won't let her sleep, due to the attention they pay her. Kael has been known to climb into her crib... Anyway, it's going as well as we could hope, I think. She could afford to eat more at daycare, but I expect as she gets more used to the bottle and the unfamiliar environment, that will come.
Juniper is working on learning to roll over. I think she's seen Kaz do it and is jealous :-) Back to front is where she's made the most progress, but that's probably because we don't give her enough tummy time (aka Torture Time).
Kael is coming up on 3, meaning he won't be 2 for much longer, and it's starting to show. Geoff and I have both noticed lately that Kael is getting better. He still throws temper tantrums, of course, and still is mischievous, but we just had a weekend where he took a nap both days without a major fiasco, and it's been probably weeks since he tried to hit me or bite me with glee. Honestly, it's been a while since he's tried to hit me or bite me even in anger. He has his ways of being frustrating, but they tend to be more playful than willful. Annoying, but playful. Like closing his mouth on the toothbrush when I'm brushing his teeth, when he knows I want him to keep his mouth open. Anyway, I've really been enjoying the new Kael.
We've started having weird conversations that spring from the more complicated questions he's been asking lately. Well, the questions themselves aren't necessarily complicated, but their answers often are. We haven't hit the "why" phase yet, but his favorite questions include "what's x?" and "what does x do?". Sometimes "where's x?" when a book uses a metaphor that references x, but x is of course nowhere on the page. Death has come up, as has blood (strangely often). Conversations can start simple and next thing you know, I've pulled out my laptop to show Kael a picture of a human skeleton. I swear it made sense in context!
One weird conversational chain has sprung from potty training. We've continued to have ups and downs on that front, but this past week, and the weekend in particular, have been pretty encouraging. I finally bought some underwear for him, which we let him wear after showing he could avoid peeing in his diaper for a while and using the potty instead. Of course both times we let him wear underwear, he wound up peeing in it an hour later or so... but I figure it may help him further determine what needing to pee feels like when he gets that immediate feedback (he seemed genuinely surprised by the "mess", as he dubbed it, the first time). Also with the incentive of getting to wear Spiderman underwear or (when it arrives) Dora panties (they don't make boys' Dora underwear, but that's what he wants, so that's what he gets) may encourage him to be more cognizant of his need to pee etc. Anyway, I digress. Weird conversations! So in the process of talking about using the potty, Geoff's wound up bringing up bladders ("blisters", as Kael sometimes call them), and more recently stomachs. I think at the moment Kael things everything he's ever eaten currently resides in his stomach. We'll need to work on that. As a result of these conversations is that Kael will occasionally tell you about the state of his stomach and bladder "I ate the milk in my mouth and it went down into my stomach. And it will go into my bladder and then I can use the potty and get (insert current incentive here)!".
I appreciate that Kael is trying to learn more about the world, and I often enjoy our conversations. They're frequently pretty challenging, though, when I find myself trying to explain a concept using other concepts that themselves need explaining. Trying to explain what it is to be sick is one example (Geoff's settled on saying it's like having an owie on the inside; I'll reference the symptoms you feel). Sometimes I want to just say "never mind, we'll talk about it later" when it's a sufficiently complicated thing. But he's hard to derail.
Kael's a cutie. I'm glad I'm able to appreciate that more these days :-)
This is not exactly an exhaustive list of what we've done lately, but some highlights. Most exciting was the 4th of July weekend. Nate and his girlfriend Kacey were in town for a couple weddings, and stayed at our place. It was great seeing Nate, and meeting Kacey - more people who need to move to Seattle :-) We wound up hosting a 2nd of July party (Nate and Kacey were leaving on the 4th, and Saturday was generally more convenient), where we got to introduce Kaz and Juniper to Morelle, and see a bunch of people we don't get to see enough of, including my friend Christine who was visiting from out of town. It was a little hectic, but a lot of fun! For the 4th of July itself, we decided to risk keeping Kael up for fireworks, since we thought he'd enjoy them. The risk wasn't keeping him up that late - he's a night owl and would stay up as late as he can get away with. But we did risk having a demon on our hands the following morning. We drove to one of the Kirkland beaches on Lake Washington, got a seat on the dock, then enjoyed the unofficial fireworks all around the lake while waiting for the official ones to start (at 10:15). Kael was super wound up, exclaiming "FIREWORKS!" repeatedly, often while bouncing up and down. He was pretty cute :-) But eventually he got bored waiting for the actual show, and drug me out to the park's playground to goof off for a while. He didn't want to leave it when it was time for the actual show, but I promised him we could come back later if he wanted. He patiently (mostly) sat through the show, then made a mad dash back to the playground before we convinced him it was time to leave. I honestly don't remember the following day, so either it was so awful I blanked it out, or he was okay. I think probably the latter ;-) I think it was worth it, especially given Kael's enthusiasm over the outing.
We've been trying to be more conscientious about doing things for Kael's enjoyment and give him opportunities to burn off his copious energy. So the Thursday before the 4th of July, we went to a park I used to go to when I was a kid - Enchanted Village/Wild Waves. It's been purchased by 6 Flags in the intervening years, and I guess they think the water park aspect is more exciting, so it's been mostly branded Wild Waves at this point. But the larger area is still Enchanted Village, now with some 6 Flags-esque big roller coasters. Anyway, that Thursday happened to be the last day Geoff and I were both home on a weekday, using our assorted parental leaves, and I thought it would be fun to take Kael to Enchanted Village when it was likely to be uncrowded. It definitely was uncrowded, almost creepily so; for many of the rides, Kael wound up riding on all by himself. But he seemed to have a good time, shrieking with enthusiasm for some of the rides (notably, the Paratroopers one, which is kind of like a fast Merry-Go-Round, but in the air, and on a kind of tilt). He was up for a ride on the kid roller coaster, but though it was pretty small-scale, it was still fast and involved a corkscrew and some turns that would send Kael careening across the seat into me or vice versa. He didn't cry, but he was clearly unnerved by it. Later, when I begged the opportunity to ride some of the adult roller coasters while Geoff watched the kids (Geoff does not like roller coasters), Kael was apparently jealous and wanted to go with me :-( However, he managed to find some enjoyment in watching me go upside down on one of the rides, so I guess it was okay.
One noteworthy experience: Kael very much wanted to go to the water portion of the park, and as we'd brought swimsuits, it seemed a shame to deny him this. So we dutifully trudged over to the water area, noting that basically the only thing open to kids as young as Kael was a sort of water playground: lots of slides and things to climb, water guns, some water falls, all standing in a foot or so of water. Cold water, we discovered to our dismay. Both mine and Kael's. I volunteered to be the sucker to wander around in it with Kael. Kael got cold feet (sorry... couldn't help it), and very nearly threw in the towel (sorry... again...). But having gotten on a swim suit for this, I was inclined to force him to get some enjoyment out of it, so I pointed out a small, innocent-looking slide. Kael indicated interest, but it soon became clear he was not going to go down it without me. So, grudgingly, I walked through the (cold!) water to the maybe 5 foot high, foam-coated slide. It looked like you'd go about an inch a minute down it due to friction, and it ended in a padded mat a couple inches above the level of the water. I figured we'd inch our way down the slide, get to the mat, and largely avoid getting wet. I didn't have a problem with Kael getting himself soaked if he was so inclined, but I was hoping to just put my shorts and shirt back on over my swimsuit when I was done. Anyway, we climbed all 3 steps or whatever it was to the top of the slide, I sat down and put Kael in front of me, and pushed off. About a split second later, having flown down the slide at ludicrous speed, we hit the mat, kept on flying right off the mat and into the (did I mention cold?) water, at which point Kael unintentionally launched out of my lap and face-first into the water. He came up spluttering and crying, which drew a panicked lifeguard over (I assured her he was fine, just shocked). That was the end of the water park for Kael. But later, on our way home, we asked Kael what his favorite part of the park was. He said "the slide". Incredulous, we questioned him on this point, but he maintained that the slide was his favorite. Maybe our kid is a masochist.
I know other things have happened, but I'm kind of blanking. We've been to the zoo and aquarium, and are members of both now. We haven't seen much of people other than those who live in our house, save for the 2nd of July party. I've done a lot of running. I've not felt terribly motivated about running lately, for various reasons, and am looking less forward to Ragnar this year than usual, also for various reasons (yay pumping milk in a van full of men I don't know). Hopefully I will be pleasantly surprised by how fun it winds up being.
Life is pretty crazy at the moment. In 4 days, I'll be running in Ragnar, as I do every year (that I'm not 6 months pregnant, anyway). I'll get home Saturday evening and then spend the next couple days recovering and packing like crazy for our trip to Europe. Have I not mentioned this? Basically, I'm crazy and Geoff's a sucker. Or too compliant, maybe. I came up with this hare-brained scheme to visit some friends who are living in Zurich for the year, even though we have an infant and a 2 year-old (almost 3!). And Geoff agreed. We're leaving on Tuesday (in a little over a week), staying in Zurich for a few days, then road-tripping through Italy to a Croatian island, where we'll stay for the better part of a week, then back through Italy (hitting some Slovenian caves on the way), and a few more days in Zurich before heading home. Our friends have 3 kids of their own, the youngest Kael's age, so they're experienced child wranglers. I think it will be a lot of fun. Assuming we survive the 12 hour flight there. I've done nothing to learn key phrases in any of the languages we'll be around. I'm sure I'll start panicking about that soon.
There's also the matter of starting up work again. I've decided to find a new project, for various reasons, so this past week and a bit back have been spent project-hunting. I settled on one last week, and will move offices tomorrow. Just in time to be preoccupied with Ragnar and Europe for a few days, then leave for 3 weeks.