Tuesday, September 29, 2009

#2

as you know (or as you may have noticed from our photos, if we have been bad about keeping in touch - sorry!), we are expecting our second baby in january!! everything has been going smoothly so far and, i'm happy to report, easier than they did with bryn. according to certain old wives' tales, this may because we are expecting a boy this time around! we're very excited and keeping our fingers crossed that he will wait until 2010 to make his official appearance into the world.

of course, that doesn't we mean we can't give you some sneak peeks of our adorable little boy. this picture is from about 6 weeks ago.


as of our last visit, he is nearing 1.5 lbs and starting to fill out a little. we both think he looks a little like adam, although not nearly as much as bryn did. anyway, mom and baby are both doing fine, and dad's doing a great job taking care of us all. bryn seems to understand that there is a "baby in mommy's belly." she will even give him kisses from time to time and loves looking at pictures of other babies and playing with baby dolls. then again, she also sometimes flings her dolls to the ground and then says, "you ok?" all innocent-like before telling me, "mama, baby cry."

Monday, September 28, 2009

foot week

two weeks ago, bryn let me paint her toenails for the first time... one of the many perks of having a daughter!


a few days later, we went to the park. bryn has been enjoying her kiddie slides at home, so we decided to go on the bigger slides at the park. since i was alone with her and not feeling particularly agile, i decided to climb up and go down the slide with bryn, instead of letting her go alone. that way, i figured, i wouldn't have to catch her awkwardly at the bottom, or try to prevent her from jumping off the big toy altogether, or help her climb down the rock wall the wrong way (which i saw a younger kid try to do, just seconds earlier). so we went down the slide twice, without event, and both had a great time. the third time, bryn's foot, shod in a knock-off croc, got caught between my leg and the wall of the slide on the last turn, about 3 feet from the bottom. her shoe popped off, and she immediately started crying. i could see a nasty scrape caused by her shoe, but this did not seem like her typical cry.

long story short, we got to children's urgent care about half an hour later, and they determined that bryn had a sprained left ankle but, thankfully, no fractures (she did NOT like the x-ray, especially since i had to leave her and stand behind a partition... very sad). so they wrapped her foot up and sent us on her way. i felt terrible and even confessed to the nurse that i thought i probably should have just let bryn go down the slide by herself. she immediately said, "oh that would have been worse!" which i appreciated, even if she was just being comforting. of course, this article appeared in the news the *next* day (!), so it turns out both she and i were dead wrong.



anyway, the next several days were full of motrin and movie-watching, which was actually quite fun for me. bryn was content to just snuggle with me on the couch and also not mobile enough to create her usual path of destruction throughout the house. and, gradually, bryn started scooting around on her butt, then crawling and now she is back up and walking again. and i have to say that a limping 22-month old is about the cutest thing ever, although i still feel guilty every time i see it. *sigh*

Friday, September 11, 2009

first family camping trip

over labor day weekend, we went camping in the hocking hills with some friends and their kids, who are also bryn's friends... camping is a lot different with kids than when you are childless and carefree in your 20s. for one, three minivans were barely enough to haul all our stuff, which seems ridiculous even by car camping standards. for two, there are about a million things kids shouldn't do at a campsite (we also had a riverfront site, which was lovely and lots of fun, but further required that we ensure no children tumble down the 15' cliff onto the rocks below), even once you accept the fact that they are going to get filthy and general hygiene is going to be severely limited. of course, these are related because #2 means that you have to bring a bunch of toys from home, which causes #1. third, one parent in each family has to stay sober at all times, should anything happen. and finally, kids do NOT sleep well in tents in the woods.

that said, we had a great time. we went canoeing down the hocking river and had big campfires and lots of s'mores. bryn did pretty well in the canoe, and even managed to get in a 10-minute power nap. we think she had fun, although on the last morning she did keep asking to go home...


Thursday, September 10, 2009

operation clean baby

as you may recall, bryn has been absolutely terrified of the bath for about six months now. i know lots of kids cry in the bath, but this has been full-on screaming, clutching at my neck hysterics. so we've been making do with infrequent sponge baths on the bathroom counter and trying all kinds of tactics: new toys, new tubs, showers, swimsuits, dolls/parents/friends in the bath/shower, bubbles, outdoor water toys, wading in lake chelan, you name it, but nothing worked. UNTIL...


we finally got bryn to a real swimming pool with all her little friends. she started off in the kiddie pool with her best bud and about two inches of water. then, after about an hour of watching the adults and other kids scoop water out of the big pool to put in the kiddie pool, bryn decided to venture over and give that a try. another half hour of that, and she was finally ready to get into the big pool. we went gradually, and by the end, she was in up to her chest and loving it!!

to keep up the momentum, we started offering "bubble play time" in our big bathtub, which actually turns out to be really handy when i am in the shower because they are next to each other, which makes for both easy supervision and mess containment. we let her do that for about a week, gradually increasing the amount of water and decreasing the amount of clothing, until we finally tried a bath at the end of play time. the bath was better than most, and she still wanted to play in the tub the next day. so, we're keeping up this routine and seeing baths get better little by little. here's hoping that continues!